Grants:IdeaLab/Wikipedia Editor Boot Camps

Inspire campaign

Wikipedia Editor Boot Camps

Virtual boot camps withvideo tutorials. An easy-to-use live-chat should be made available where those interested in editing can receiving one-on-one assistance by volunteers, either as part of this initiative, or apart from one. Physical camps could visit sites (such as universities) worldwide.

idea creator• SecretName101

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created on04:45, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Project idea

What is the problem you're trying to solve?

Difficulties all parties have in understanding how to properly edit Wikipedia. This is definitely a barrier for women, as well as men, when it comes to contributing to Wikipedia and its related projects.

What is your solution?

Video tutorials and live-chats will help individuals understand editing. The help pages can often be rather unhelpful, often frustrating and confusing Wikipedia newbees. Physical boot camps will help recruit potential contributors. These also will potentially foster mentor relationships between experienced users and new contributors, as can the live-chat platform.

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Endorsements

• I particularly like the video idea. While there isn't substantial evidence that we don't have more trouble with tech women tend to be more critical of ourselves and can suffer from stereotype threat (fear of failure, because of associations with stereotypes) in technical areas. I wasn't remotely comfortable with computers, until I learned several programming languages. It's not like I was incompetent before, but it took more for me to feel competent and that's pretty normal.
• Endorse. It's so difficult to navigate around WP. The title I would give a subject is not what it's named by others. Some much that I find are old dregs that still clog the WP arteries. Mentorship groups and new user info exists, but unless it's compiled at the Teahouse, it's difficult and time consuming to root them out. A formal Boot Camp program could incubator successful and dedicated Wikiers who do not spend their time lost in a maze of self-referential instructions. New editors and administrative candidates can have their own paths through the camp depending on their goals. They can name the goals and follow step by step guidance to reach them. Graduates can be recognized on their user pages and in the The Signpost newsletter and anywhere else a sense of pride and accomplishment can be fostered. AND clean up all those dead and extraneous instruction pages. Merge! Archive! Delete! Thank you for bringing this up, Wordreader (talk) 20:02, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
• Wikipedia is a good project. I want to see more people benefit from it. By organizing boot camps, more is shared and gained. Ruftas (talk) 10:19, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

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