Research:Portuguese Wikipedia trends and behavior/New Editor Experience

The new user experience is something of great relevance to the Portuguese Wikipedia community given that 40% of edits every month are done by new users.

Opportunities for new users

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Help pages

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Any one may monitor the help pages and answer questions. A list of the editors who edit in the page the most frequently is given in the page of stats. The stats page for Speak to Wikipedia is [1]

A new editor can go a few different places to get help:

  1. Fale com a Wikipédia
  2. Wikipédia Café dos novatos
Fale com a Wikipédia
 
Number of edits on "Fale com a Wikipédia" over time
 
Number of edits on "Fale com a Wikipédia" and "Informe um erro" over time.

Begun in 2006, this is a place to ask questions to experienced Wikipedians. It is the equivalent of the "Help Desk" for English Wikipedia. In the past, it has been used heavily, but this year (2011), usage has been really low (in terms of number of edits). The low usage of the page this year might be explained by the creation of the page pt:Wikipédia:Informe um erro (report an error) in February (which uses the interface "bug in article" and has been edited about 400 times per month since inception). Nevertheless even if we look at the of the number of edits on these two pages, the usage was very low in September and October 2011.

The page used to be called "Linha direta", the name was changed in April 2010 in order to avoid mistakes with the a well know tv show.

Café dos novatos
 
Edits on "Wikipédia Café dos novatos" over time

Begun in 2006, this is a place for new comers to Wikipedians. Usage rose for the first two years of existence, but began falling in 2008. It appears that 2011 will see a slight increase in edits, suggesting that new comers are increasingly using this option. Since the creation in 2006-06-10, the page was edited by 2380 different editors, which makes a rate of about 35 people per month. [2]

Mentorship

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There is a mentorship program availabe. Only users with right to vote and more than 1000 editos on main namespace can be a mentor. User who have been blocked in the previous 3 months or who made anything that could have provoked a block are not allowed to be mentors.

Controls of new users

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CAPTCHA test

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Since January 25, 2008 non autoconfirmed user must pass the CAPTCHA test at any edit. The system was activated after a massive attack of vandals starting in the end of December 2007. CAPTCHA was initially meant to be a temporary solution but it lasts until now. In March 2011 there was a proposal to desactivate it, but community opposed it fearing an increase in vandalism.

Edit filter

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The edit filter (formerly abuse filter) is a tool created on April, 2009 which allow to implement specific control's rules on the editions on wiki.pt and automatic decisions in some situations. The extension allows automatic filters/heuristics to be applied to all edits. Specific rules can be developed, such as "users with fewer than 500 edits are blocked from moving pages to titles which match this regular expression: /poop/". Of course, the rules can get quite a bit more complicated.Log entries are viewable by all users, and while filters are by default publicly viewable, others are set to be private. For all filters, including those hidden from public view, a brief, general summary of what the rule targets will be available, and displayed in the log, the list of active filters, and in any error messages generated by the filter.


Welcome templates

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There are a few different templates which are semi-automatic which you may receive as a new user. There is no formal procedure considering to decide if an edition is valid or not. Although the policy defines a valid edition as one which is not reverterted nor deleted. In general it is at description of editors who send messages.

Findings

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Newly created user talk pages.

Looking at the newly created user talk pages on wiki.pt (5000 last new pages on nov/02/2011), we find that 43% of the total pages were created by bots (Aleph bot and Salebot), 28% using huggle and at least more 15% of page were created with simple warning templates.

New registered user

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Obs: The welcome template starts by saying "Be Bold!", explains nobody should be afraid of making mistakes and that experience users watch everything that is done on wikipedia and correct errors, it says to follow the advice of these experienced users and not to hesitate to improve wikipedia. In the second paragraph it explains that wikipedia works by discussion and consensus, that it is an encyclopedia based on NPOV and verifiability. It also explains the free license (still GFDL). It says the mentorship program may be helpful to adapt to the project and met other editors. The user is invited to write his user-page. In the last paragraph the template explains what a user talk page is. So there is a table with eight links called recommended readings and finally, bellow the template there is phrase inviting the user to read an editing guide before starting editing and wishes a good stay on wikipedia.


Bem-vindo(a) à Wikipédia, name of the user!

A pt:Wikipédia é uma enciclopédia em mais de 250 línguas que surgiu em 2001 e é fruto do trabalho voluntário de milhares de colaboradores como você.

 

Seja audaz! Não tenha receio de cometer erros: isso é normal. Todas as modificações que fizer serão assistidas pelos usuários mais experientes que poderão corrigir seus eventuais erros. Não se ofenda com essas intervenções, nem com as chamadas de atenção que receber. Destinam-se apenas a ajudá-lo(a) a compreender o modo de funcionamento da Wikipédia. Siga o conselho dos editores mais experientes e, sempre que não entender alguma coisa, não hesite em perguntar. Ainda que a Wikipédia seja produto de um trabalho complexo, feito por milhares de usuários, sua filosofia pode ser resumida em poucas palavras: "Não hesite em melhorá-la!"

 

Os editores trabalham em harmonia, respeitando as diferenças e administrando divergências por meio do diálogo construtivo. Nas suas edições, tenha em mente que a Wikipédia é uma enciclopédia, pelo que é necessário manter um ponto de vista neutro e fornecer informação que possa ser verificada e confirmada. Para além disso, todo o conteúdo deve estar em conformidade com a nossa licença de utilização livre (GFDL). O nosso programa de tutoria poderá ajudá-lo a ambientar-se e a conhecer os editores mais experientes. Dê particular atenção à construção da sua página de usuário, falando um pouco sobre si e sobre os seus interesses particulares.

 

Esta é sua página de discussão. Para deixar uma mensagem a um wikipedista, escreva na página de discussão dele. No decorrer de uma discussão, assine no fim de suas mensagens, usando quatro tiles (~~~~) ou o botão   presente no alto da janela de edição. No entanto, não assine nos artigos quando os editar, já que todas as modificações são registradas no histórico dele com indicação do autor.
Leituras recomendadas
  Tutorial
Aprenda a editar passo-a-passo
  Políticas da Wikipédia
Regulamentos gerais a saber
  Coisas a não fazer
Resumo dos erros a evitar
  Livro de estilo
Definições de formatação usuais
  Ajuda
Manual geral da Wikipédia
  FAQ
O que toda a gente pergunta
  Café dos novatos
Onde tirar suas dúvidas
  Página de testes
Para fazer suas experiências
Welcome to the Portuguese edition of Wikipedia. If you have trouble understanding Portuguese, please consider using Babel so we are aware of your difficulties.
Todo o indispensável... para começar a editar: não deixe de ler. Desejo-lhe uma boa estada na Wikipédia! Daniela Feijó 11:50, 22 October 2011 (UTC)


Anonymous

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Obs: The main concern of the anonymous template is inviting the user to create an account. It emphasizes the advantages of having an account. One of the advantages listed is "possibility to take part on votes, discussions and other decisions of the community".



Todo o indispensável... para começar a editar: não deixe de ler. Daniela Feijó 11:52, 22 October 2011 (UTC)


Users whose first edits are vandalism

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Obs: This template used to be made out of two parts: welcome message similar to the one given by the welcome template and a warn message. Now it is basically a warn, the word "welcome" is not present in this template.




See also

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‎*Page in Portuguese

‎*Research on the impact of message templates on editor retention