Talk:Abstract Wikipedia/Updates/2022-05-05

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Hi there,

From my point of view, there are 3 issues:

• What people already know and what is the knowledge gap to fill in order to contribute;
• What resources to provide to make (current or future) contributor comfortable and confident with Abstract Wikipedia and then Wikifunctions;
• What are the channels to provide these resources;

I hope not to be off-topic, otherwise I apologize :).

For the first point, it is probably worth to mention that lots of people have learnt what functions and variables are in math (they have learnt what is a linear function, etc.). I am even confident that's the majority of people, but maybe we should include a question in a survey to wikipedia contributors and readers? Also about the gap, I distinguish the learning of the porcelain and the learning of the plumbing (terms taken from the git project). Letting people know how to write a sentence on Abstract Wikipedia like "San Francisco is the 4th most populous city of California" will probably only require a tiny subset of all the knowledge of wikifunctions (what I name here the porcelain, or learning using wikifunctions through contributions to Abstract Wikipedia).

My guess is that we have to ensure most of the people can start writing sentences using the porcelain, and can ask help with their use. When an idea cannot be phrased conveniently, it can be a good opportunity to dive into the plumbing smoothly (and probably with some guidance), with contributions to renderers (which help to localize if I understand correctly) in between. I can detail a bit more about things I have in mind with this, but I'd like to ensure I am not off-topic first before going further :).

So my main point is this can be done in 3 steps: if we want to ensure that people understand what functions are, how they can be useful, I guess we have to stress our efforts on the contributions to Abstract Wikipedia first, show them how the content has been translated in different languages, so it can award their effort with few knowledge. Then we can let them discover renderers and contribute to them through localization. When they get confidence and need to go further, I guess at this moment we have to let them dive into Wikifunctions (as said before).

And to end with the first point, I have no idea yet if types (numbers, strings, booleans, ...) are worth to be learnt to deal with the porcelain or not.

For the second point, if most people have learnt what functions and variables are in math, we can probably start with a reminder about all of this. That can make them comfortable that these concepts are affordable, and progressively leave the math for a bit of programming and then how to use wikifunctions. These can be made through a tutorial (like a tour on wikidata) and/or videos.

I felt that the tour on wikidata was very practical and helped understand how to use the UI, but maybe not the deep concepts of wikidata. Probably using both (using videos and tours)?

For the third point, the channel, I see three things:

• indeed, a video on a streaming platform which can easily remind what the functions are, how useful they can be, and finally redirect to the Abstract Wikipedia project (maybe sponsoring a video maker like Kurtzgesagt/In a nutshell);
• MOOC sessions, like Wikimedia France does for Wikipedia and Wikidata (and contact them for advice), these can at least help Wikipedia contributors to take the plunge;
• work with teachers in university, some of them are glad to let their student to contribute to free software and free knowledge, probably some of them want their students to learn wikifunctions and work with them;

With the hope this can help and wasn't too long to read :) -- Teleosteen (talk) 15:20, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

I am sorry I never answered here, but just to make sure: your answer has been read, and appreciated. We have thought about this, and indeed agree with a lot you say. And we will take your suggestions to heart. Interactive sessions, videos, etc. have all made it to our task list.

Thank you for your thoughts! This will be indeed even more interesting as we dive further into the Abstract Wikipedia side of things.

For now, with Wikifunctions alone, I think that the "plumbing" is indeed more interesting (one person's plumbing is another one's porcelain? I guess the metaphor breaks here...)

Thanks! --DVrandecic (WMF) (talk) 19:04, 14 July 2023 (UTC)