Wikipedia talk:Newbie Recruitment Initiative

Limited the number of edits one is allowed to make, and making that number depend on how many newbies you can recruit? It may work, but I suspect it'd disgust people away more than anything. I'm not very fond of pyramid schemes :P Plus, it would require members to waste a lot of time checking for cheating. Would it be a net benefit? Maybe

Something for attracting newbies would be good, but this proposal doesn't sound good to me. How about just praising those who succeed at attracting newbies? Or inteviewing new members, asking them what encouraged them to go edit? Or organize "recruitment raids" on forums dedicated to under-represented topics on wikipedia? (Like "Today's newbie recruitement drive is ... reptiles!" -> emails to biologists specialised in that area, posts on bulletin boards dedicated to people who have reptiles as pets, etc.).

Or, writing to professors asking them if they can ask their students to edit wikipedia. Stuff like that. Heck, this should go on the article page :) Flammifer 08:30, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I very much like the emails idea of picking an under-represented topic and actively recruiting scholars or encouraging them to let their students know about it (as long as we don't call it newbie recruitment drive, which sounds a little condescending).--ragesoss 13:23, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

OK, Wikipedia:Building Wikipedia membership already exists and covers most of that ... Flammifer 09:08, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Excellent idea - other benefits

I think this idea of a referral program for Wikipedia is excellent.

It also offers another benefit: that the newbie is likely to be educated by the referrer. I joined Wikipedia after enjoying many computer-related articles here. After joining, I was on my own. I had to find everything I needed to write my first article, get help, participate in discussions like this, etc. I think I have learnt everything pretty fast and well, but I still have the occasional difficulty with the wiki format, getting help, etc.

If I participate in this referral program, I will make sure I equip any newbies I refer to Wikipedia with all the important information and skills they need to get started, and answer any questions about Wikipedia they throw at me (if I can't answer, I'll refer them to the right place). If everyone who participates in the referral program is willing to help those whom they refer to Wikipedia, this will result in Wikipedia "newbies" being much more educated and intelligent with regards to using and editing Wikipedia.

In addition, could Wikipedia possibly introduce a "referral URL" feature like many websites who offer referral programs? In this way, when someone signs up using URL (for example) http://en.wikipedia.org/refer/hildanknight, I am recognized as the referrer and am automatically given credit.

--J.L.W.S. The Special One 10:32, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Ooh, right, the Wikipedia:Welcoming committee should also be considered a "related project"! Flammifer 11:17, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I do not think a formalized referral system is a good idea; it brings Wikipedia another step closer to a social networking site, and that is a bad thing. Informal mentorship happens all the time, and that of course should be encouraged. But this proposal will create hierarchies of users and perhaps an artificial sense of obligation of referee to referrer.--ragesoss 13:15, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Rather than restrictions, newbies need help

(I wrote this on Village Pump (misc), but it may be useful here.)

Biting the newbies, or why there's a fundamental problem with new users

It's well-recognized that most new user articles aren't very good, and most have to be fixed or deleted. This is an inherent result of the way Wikipedia is set up. It looks like a blog; anyone can create a new article, which gets them a blank text box to fill in.

Constructing a Wikipedia article is a complex task, requiring knowledge of about ten pages worth of Wikipedia policies, the formatting syntax, at least a few of the templates, and the ability to write to Wikipedia's house style. Yet all we give new users is an empty box. So, of course, the new users don't get it right.

Then the RC patrollers dump on them. Some of the new users get annoyed, and we have to go through the whole AfD process. The whole system is almost designed to bite new users and to be labor intensive.

I've suggested a form-based system for new articles in common categories (bands, movies, albums, TV, etc.), so that new uses would get the format and basic info correct on the first try. Bands and albums are a good place to start, because those articles have rather similar format, there are a lot of them, new users like to add them, and they can be validated against external databases.

Anyone else have a better idea? Something like Microsoft's Clippy, maybe? ("You seem to be writing an article about a Pokemon. Would you like assistance"). That would be cool, although much harder to do. --John Nagle 16:59, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Just to echo what I wrote in response to this at The Pump, I think the idea of forms that are flexible enough to allow a new user to plug in a sentence per section but also allow other users (or the same user later) to pump it up would be an excellent idea. Obviously, the forums wouldn't be mandatory, but automatically introduced to help those who are not quite ready to break with convention and try radical new forms of article-design. Bobak 17:54, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

A Gentle Welcome

Many IPs are given {{welcome-anon}} or alike. Here's an idea; for every unregistered edit made a message is sent by a bot to welcome the IP? Computerjoe's talk 20:20, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

How about this: "Welcome to Wikipedia. Since you're editing as an anonymous user, you're probably either a vandal, promoting something of your own, or using Wikipedia as a fanzine. That's OK; your junk will be removed, and if you persist, you will be blocked. On the off chance you're actually adding useful content to our encyclopedia, please consider signing up for a user name of your own. It's free, and you get to start new articles and receive messages from other users. It also indicates you have a clue. Thanks."

why is a system/policy needed

Why is a counter for users welcomed needed?--Urthogie 13:34, 26 April 2006 (UTC)