Talk:Africa Growth Pilot/Live Tutorials on Core Policies/Module1

We want your feedback: The first module is about how newcomers can psychologically prepare to participate in Wikimedia projects. Leave us a comment about the general conception of this course outline and the core concepts to be taught. We will do our best to respond or incorporate your feedback into the course outline.

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Emphasize more on the two notification bars

Dear organizers,

In Module 1, I suggest that more emphasis should be made on the notification bars for thee newbies. Recalling from experience, a newbie might have edited wrongly and triggered an warning from an Admin which the newbie may not have noticed due to lack of experience. Therefore, I suggest the module should also incorporate the subtle but often reminder on the two notification bars.

Thank you

Iwuala Lucy (talk) 18:00, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

@Iwuala Lucy, thank you for this submission. We will keep it in mind as we develop introductory resources. In this module we will spend some time on notifications, what they mean and how to handle them! -- DNdubane (WMF) (talk) 08:21, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Thank you Iwuala Lucy (talk) 06:58, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Communication

Without communication there is no cooperation. One of the problems between new editors and established editors can be the difficulty in getting the new editor to notice and acknowledge that someone is trying to communicate with them. When this happens, the established editors tend to get frustrated because their time is being wasted, and it often turns out badly for everyone involved. It would be helpful to all to emphasize the standard and accepted methods of communication, and that while no-one is obliged to respond, the projects are also not obliged to tolerate the continued presence of people who will not communicate. It can be unpleasant to have to block someone to attract their attention and get a response, but it can be necessary. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 09:14, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes, indeed, this is a frequent mode of failure in integrating newbies on the project. Module 1 is very much aimed at preparing people for the kind of massive (and somewhat impersonal) collaboration we practice on Wikimedia projects, that is, to teach and promote constructive attitudes and psychological preparation for the communication norms on-wiki, before trying to teach any of the actual policies etc. Asaf (WMF) (talk) 14:24, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

On losing

I don't know how forthright this module is intending to be, but one issue we see frequently is when people are unable to give up a line of argument. Discussion is always a great start (and some mention of how to navigate to Talk: pages from the Visual Editor is probably indicated). But there is a subset of good faith contributors who interpret "discuss calmly" as "discuss calmly, and never stop, no matter how many times you have to repeat yourself or how few people agree with you". It's important to understand that sometimes consensus is against us, and, shockingly to some, consensus is not always correct on the merits or necessarily the best outcome for the encyclopaedia. The appropriate response is to give up the argument and focus your energy somewhere else, and it really hurts to lose contributors who make good edits and are genuinely trying to build an encyclopaedia, but argue themselves into a block for en:WP:TIMESINK or the like. No one is required to answer every one of someone's arguments, and knowing how to read the room and let go when consensus is against us is a critical survival skill for some personalities. Folly Mox (talk) 01:32, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, very much agreed. This, too, will be covered in this module, entirely devoted to cultivating appropriate expectations and attitudes before diving into teaching actual policies and procedures. Asaf (WMF) (talk) 15:01, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Wiki rabbit holes

Apologies for the second thread, but I think "plan out carefully what you want to work on and avoid getting overwhelmed by Wiki rabbit holes" is only going to appeal to some neurotypes. Judging from our population, Wikipedia is more attractive to neurodivergent types (like me), who might enjoy getting sucked into unplanned tasks. Also some people are just bad at planning (like me), and the perceived overhead of having to plan out how I was going to contribute during a session or a day would likely put me off entirely. Probably the best guidance here is for people to do work they enjoy doing, however they enjoy doing it, as long as it's policy compliant. You already had them find their "why", and module 2 addresses finding their "what", but they'll need to find their "how" as well. Folly Mox (talk) 02:38, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, @Folly Mox, a very good point! We will amend this advice to be more inclusive and to emphasize that different strokes would work for different folks, as long as core compliance is maintained. Asaf (WMF) (talk) 14:26, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Exercises

In other to curb the issues of jumping into rabbit holes on wiki, I think we should come with the idea of an organised simple exercise for every newbie to participate on. This will be like a learning processes through exercising, you are learning the basics at the same time you are guided by the policies.

For instance as a newbie it's good for you to start editing and expanding articles not creating new once.

So there will be an exercise where by a selected articles based on your interested will be assigned to you to edit at your convenient with the stated policies and guides forward. Musa Vacho77 (talk) 07:01, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Thank you Musa Vacho77 for sharing this point, we agree finding smaller tasks are meaningful ways to develop the skills of newbies and a good way to build their confidence before venturing into bigger tasks such as article writing, etc. Module 2 of the curriculum focuses on achieving this and suggests an array of contribution opportunities for newbies to consider. FNartey (WMF) (talk) 07:39, 18 July 2023 (UTC)