Recruit readers as writers/Reports

Recruit readers as writers

This session includes details of activities relating to this project, the central notice banner designs, the locations of participants, outcomes, what did not work well, What worked well and what we plan to do differently. This is a pilot project, and we hope to use the lesson learnt to improve this campaign.

Banner Design

The design of the central notice banner was quiet challenges because we needed to communicate the information to the readers as clear as possible while maintaning the independence of the English and Yoruba language Wikipedia.

The banner text reads :

Did you know that Wikipedia exists in Yorùbà language? If you speak Yorùbá language and write in Yoruba language, please help us improve it. Register for free Yoruba Wikipedia training using this form!
— CentralNotice/Request/Contribute to Wikipedia in your language campaign

We contacted the WMF to support us with access to Wikimedia Qualtrics survey as Google Survey are usually not acceptable for such campaign. The form was designed with input from the Yoruba Wikimedians User Group. In less than 24 hours a total of 1030 readers completed the form.

Mailing

In January 2022, we sent a MassMessage to all the people who have registered to be training using MTN Bulk SMS and email. Only 350 people responded to the email from which a total of 205 people were trained.

Trainings and outcomes

A total of 22 online trainings were organized for the participants and a total of 193 participants created an account, and more than 50 new editors made their first edits. The new editors created a total of 374 new articles and edited a total of 2,076 existing articles. The total number of bytes 1.79M See Yoruba Wikipedia Trainee dashboard for the metrics.

What worked well

The overall project idea worked well and could be replicated for other small language Wikipedia. The support we received from the WMF and the central notice admin Ciell helped us to successfully implement the project. The Wikimedia Foundation provided us with acess to the Wikimedia Qualtrics to design the form and provide rapid grant fund to run the training. This is a piliot project that run mainly online. No any offline activities or event was organized. The idea of having a mentorship program also worked as many of the new editors were mentored for a period of time. They received the necessary support from the Yoruba Wikimedians User Group and the Yoruba Wikipedia administrator, User:T Cells.

What worked well

This is a new experiment, and the learning from this pilot would be helpful. While we were designing the form, we ought to have requested that participants indicate if they prefer to be trained online or in-person. It makes it difficult for us to organize an in-person training for the participants as a request for that information over email was simply ignored by many participants.

We did not make any budget for offline event, so there was no way that could have been organized anyway. We also did not contact participants until after 1 month. A lot of the people who registered to be trained already forgot that they register, and convincing and try to get them trained was very difficult.

Lesson learned

This is a good initiative and our experiment did work successfully. Below are the lesson learnt.

This is a good project to recruit native speakers, and new editors for small language Wikipedia
Registered participants should be contacted with further information about training in not more than 48 hours after registration. In the past, it took us 1 month to contact registered participants, and that did not work well.
Depending on the response rate, banner should not be displayed for more than 72 hours. This is to enable the organizers manage the participants
The participants preferred training mode should be included in the registration form
Both online and offline training should be considered
Experinced members of the community should provide mentorship support for the new editors
Stipends should be provided for trainers and mentors

Metrics

Months	Total number of users reached	Total number of users trained	Total number of Wikipedia accounts created	Total number of active editors after 1 year
January 2022	1030	350	193	10

Contents contributions

Paramters measured	Total number of articles created	Total number of edits	Total number of edits	Total number of new editors	Total number of bytes added
5	374	984	2,076	193	1.79M

Total participants

number of organizers	Number of participants	Number of trainers	Number of mentors	Number of people supporters
6	205	3	3	15