Wikipedia:New users group

Group goal: Coordinating / combining the various newbie-related projects.

How about a general Wikipedia:New users group? Something they could join and become a part of, not just a place to come, ask a question, and leave. Right now we have the user log, which seems like a neat idea and kind of fun when you first hear about / use it, but then you realize there is no followup... +sj + 18:58, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to see a single project page that tracks welcoming users, new user introductions, clueless newbies and how to help them, and tutorials and boot-camp sessions to quickly bring interested users up to speed with intensive training. Many of these groups could have their own set of icons that they leave on user pages once they are done; so that another Wikipedian, on stumbling across their userpage, will know how well they have been introduced to the community. +sj +

Group of welcomers

Bringing together the current welcoming committee list (huge, dating back years), and those working on bootcamp and newbie help and other projects.

• Developing principles (there's some great history here; the old fire brigade pages might be a place to look)
• Helping newbs avoid being bitten
• Inviting newbies to join us
• Making WP a more welcoming place at many levels

New user initiation

Welcoming new users

1. Style: How many users should send welcomes? How long is the ideal welcome message? How much information should be directly on user talk pages, and how much on a single widely-linked to "useful links" page?
2. Timing: When should new users be welcomed? We have the new user log now; should someone who has never edited be welcomed? Someone who's made a single edit?
3. Committee: What should a good WC do? Examples from H2G2, E2, other big community sites... What tools can we build for welcoming -- templates, images/icons, regularly updated todo lists (opentask, more specialized lists)?

Reviewing new users

Many new users will never edit; some are here only to troll or sockpuppet or vandalize. The WC is often the first group to encounter a user and look at his/her contribs; another potential community safeguard. Are there any specific ways they can usefully review new users?

New user introductions

1. The New user log is a place to put shared introductions. How should it be structured? Should it ask questions beyond "introduce yourself to the world"?
2. Questionnaire : There are many efforts to send out surveys to Wikipedians. Usually academic studies have focused on mid- to long-time contributors, but there are questions that the community would love to know about its newest users.
   • What should we ask newcomers to help guide them and work with them better?
   • What should we ask to find out more about our own community makeup?
   • Where should we put such questions / how can we take in this info? (MW doesn't support forms or polls, for instance.)
3. Pairing new users : An ideal pairing might be a chained big sibling system where new users are paired with 1-3 month old users; and older users with even older ones.

User help & training

This isn't only for new users, but focuses on them.

'Clueless newbies' and specific help

Somewhere to nominate a new user as needing help; or having trouble with a certain problem, process, topic.

• Merge WP:CN with part of WP:BC, WP:SAND, and WP:VP?
• Offer other kinds of help? Direct people to tutorials as appropriate.

Tutorials & bootcamps

Focused training in specific areas. Potentially carried out with the help of on-wiki instructors who watch your progress.

A tutorial can be stand-alone (help pages), in-person (chatting on irc or debating unclear points while reading via user-talk pgs, or reviewed (output: a few dozen edits by the 'student'; reviewed by an 'intsructor', perhaps resulting in a nice user-page badge).

Examples : Bootcamp subpages? WP:SAND, Help:Editing, Wikipedia:Introduction, ...

IRC help

#wikipedia-bootcamp exists on irc.freenode.net, and is full of people waiting to help the helpless or lost.

• There is an irc bot that checks to see who has {{helpme}} on their user-talk page and tries to help them.
• There have historically been topically-focused tutorial sessions on IRC for people to come learn about difficult themes (writing a good intro; structure of a good article; using templates, merging page histories, using categories, using bots for spelling-correction and dab fixing, how to properly delete/undelete or protect a page...)