Grants:IEG/From large world to small communities

statusnot selected
Team discovery service
summaryFrom large world to small communities – guiding new comers to a small community with the same subjects of interests.
targetEnglish Wikipedia
strategic priorityincreasing participation
themetools
amount8000 USD
granteeeranrozRavid ziv
contact• eranroz89(_AT_)gmail.com
this project needs...
volunteer
advisor
join
endorse
created on11:30, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
2014 round 2



Project idea edit

What is the problem you're trying to solve? edit

when new comers to Wikipedia editing in their subject of interest, the first users that they tackle are mostly patrollers administrators, and not colleges with same subjects of interests. Actually, there is no standard and easy way to organize sub-community with shared Interests that can discuss, review and help each other with writing, editing and making a better communication.

What is your solution? edit

Our solution is to introduce editors and mainly new comers to specific groups of editors with similar interest. Such groups are similar to the concept of WikiProject, but with built-in social features; A smart system that help new users to join the groups and suggest them groups to join based on their interests and previous edits. A notification service for indicating new articles in specific topics.

Project goals edit

Create friendly ecosystem for users, and particular new users for sharing and watching edits and new articles in specific topics. Integrating Teahouse concepts into WikiProjects and actively connect new editors and experienced editors who edit in same topics.

Project plan edit

Activities edit

We can divide our project to several major tasks. In these tasks there are the business logic part and the user interface part:

  • Discovery system – we would like to build a smart system that suggests to new and advanced users relevant groups with similar subjects of interests. This system will be run on real time and will use machine learning techniques.
  • Notification system – We would like to wrap the discovery system with a friendly notifications system that would actively notify group’s members on: new editors in the group, trending articles that related to the group and related discussions. We hope that it will be possible to integrate the group system with the “Flow”, the new discussion system.

In parallel to these tasks we would integrate the new features to existing WikiProjects in on-going feedback and communication with the community. In the end we would extend these new system to the all WikiProjects.

Phases roadmap:

  1. Discovery system initial step- On the first phase, a periodically running bot (will run in wmflabs environment) will analyse recent edits of new editors, and will try to classify them based on categories of interests. The output of this classification would be a wiki page (in user namespace) with report of new editors grouped by topics, updated regularly (daily?). The goal is to to enable the community to find new editors based on topics for tea-house assistant, and to enable the community to give us feedback on the maturity of the discovery system (does it classify correctly editors to topics? are there enough/too many topics?)
  2. Improve the discovery system based on community feedback
  3. Notification system - Once the discovery system is mature enough we would like to publish its results as notifications to new editors: the bot will leave suggestions to new editors in their talk pages for joining and participating relevant WikiProjects. We will create a simple subscription option for experienced users/Wikiprojects to have notification on new editors in specific topics, so they can welcome the editors with similar interests and help them in their first steps in Wikipedia. This step requires the bot to be mature enough, so the community will approval it with bot status (en:Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval).

Budget edit

Total Budget: 8000 USD

Community engagement edit

We will first work on creating the discovery system, and then we will run it in pilot version, that doesn't directly notifies users. We will then publish it for review and feedback for some selected wikiprojects, to be sure the discovery system correctly identifies users interest. We will improve the system with continuous feedback from the community.

Sustainability edit

We expect that the service will keep working from the labs server and users will keep use it.

Measures of success edit

Need target-setting tips? Note: in addition to your project-specific measures of success, you will also be asked to report on some Global Metrics at the end of your final report. Please keep this in mind as you plan, and we'll support you as you begin your project.

  • Number of new editors editing more than 10 edits
  • Number of new editors involved in Wikiprojects
  • Wikiprojects activity

Get involved edit

Participants edit

Community Notification edit

Please paste links below to where relevant communities have been notified of your proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions. Need notification tips?


Endorsements edit

Do you think this project should be selected for an Individual Engagement Grant? Please add your name and rationale for endorsing this project in the list below. (Other constructive feedback is welcome on the talk page of this proposal).

  • Community member: add your name and rationale here.