Research:Successful Newcomers Survey 2025

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Wikimedia Foundation

Duration: 2025-07 – 2025-10

This page documents a research project in progress.
Information may be incomplete and change as the project progresses.
Please contact the project lead before formally citing or reusing results from this page.

This project seeks to survey "successful" newcomer editors on English Wikipedia to better understand which tools and community spaces they discover early in their editing trajectories and which might need more attention directed towards them. It likewise aims to gather high-level data on interactions with other editors, interest in advanced activities, tool needs, sentiments around early editing, as well as basic demographics of newcomers.

The project aims to inform Growth team features like the Newcomer Homepage, as well as gathering data to broadly understand new contributors under the Wikimedia Foundation's 2025 Annual Plan for Contributor Experience.

The analyses of the survey results will be shared here so that they are accessible to the broader Wikimedia movement.

Methods

Note: This section will expand as the methods details are finalized.

This research on "Successful Newcomers" will be conducted on English Wikipedia using survey methods, aiming for a representative sample of the population using simple random sampling. A QuickSurvey invitation to take a longer survey (using LimeSurvey) will be displayed to a proportion of editors who registered their accounts in the past 6 months and have made at least 25 edits (named "Successful Newcomers").

The survey questions are available here.

There is also a Resources page with links to the tools and spaces we ask about in the survey.

Why "Successful Newcomers?"

We aim to ask a series of questions about tool knowledge and use (e.g. editing components such as talk pages, page histories, watchlists, and the newcomer homepage), experiences (e.g. interactions with other users, reversion), and sentiments (e.g. intent to contribute in the future). These questions and experiences may be somewhat technical and we expect that it takes some time to get to the point of knowing the concepts or having experienced certain events; it would thus be more effective to survey editors with some editing experience. While these newcomers may be unique compared to the broader group of newer editors who haven't yet managed to make more than 25 edits, successful newcomers' experiences and barriers with tools and discovery can tell us what is likely even more difficult for the broader newcomer group.

Why only English Wikipedia?

To our knowledge, no broader survey specifically of newcomers has ever been conducted by the Foundation, and we'd like to start somewhere. English Wikipedia has the largest newcomer population, which makes it the most viable project for the survey to obtain representative data. This survey can help to build the foundations for conducting newcomer research in more languages, while giving us some data about one group of newcomers to start with.

Timeline

2025-07: Scoping of project, population viability
2025-08: Develop draft of survey in consultation with stakeholders
2025-09: Deploy survey on English Wikipedia for 2 weeks; data cleaning and analysis following survey closure.
2025-12: Report findings on this page.

Policy, Ethics and Human Subjects Research

This survey is governed by the Newcomers Survey privacy statement from the Wikimedia Foundation.

Results

Methodological notes and limitations

As you read these results, note that the respondents to this survey were new editors (defined as those who registered from 1 March 2025 until the last date of the fielding of the survey, 22 September 2025) on English Wikipedia who had made at least 25 edits on the project. Per the Methods section of this page, this means that respondents are likely not representative of the entire newcomer population, but instead represent a unique subset who make it to 25 edits. The difficulties they face in becoming editors are thus likely compounded among those who do not make it to 25 edits.

The results below are presented by section and question of the survey questionnaire. Questions were analyzed for differences by edit range, between those who had made 25-99 edits, and those who had made 100 or more edits. When differences were statistically significant at the p<.05 level, the results are reported as text below the chart.

Background

The majority of successful newcomers edit on Desktop, though about one third edit on mobile, and one tenth edit using the mobile app.

A quarter of successful newcomers had edited previously as IP editors. Almost half had some previous experience with editing.

About one third signed up for an account to learn how to edit 'in general'. One in five signed up to read Wikipedia.

Almost 3 in 4 successful newcomers read Wikipedia at least weekly before they started editing.

About half did not know about the Wikipedia App, though 22% figured one exists.

Tools and Features

General tool use

Contributions history and Article Revision history were most often used by successful newcomers. About one in three did not know about their Watchlist or Sandbox. Newcomers with more than 100 edits were more likely to use their Watchlist regularly: 52% with more than 100 edits said they use their watchlist regularly, compared to 22% of those with less than 100 edits.

The majority stated they have made their user page. However, those with less than 100 edits were more likely to not know they have a user page (14%) compared to those with more than 100 edits (3%).

Most knew they have a Talk page, though about 2 in 5 did not know of or had not visited their Talk page. Those with more than 100 edits were more likely to have responded to messages on their Talk pages (50%) compared to those with less than 100 edits (25%). Those with less than 100 edits were more likely to not know they have a Talk page (17%) compared to those with more than 100 edits (3%).

About half either did not know of the Preferences page (24%) or had not visited it (28%). Those with more than 100 edits were more likely to have visited or changed their Preferences (60%) compared to those with less than 100 edits (36%).

Homepage Use

Slightly more than half use the newcomers Homepage for article suggestions or to keep track of their edits. Those with more than 100 edits were more likely to use the Homepage (60%) compared to those with less than 100 edits (43%). One in five did not know about the Homepage, and this was more prevalent among those with less than 100 edits (25%) compared to those with more than 100 edits (11%).

Mentorship

Among Homepage users, 84% indicated they were assigned a mentor, 5% were not assigned a mentor, and 10% were unsure.

Among Homepage users with a mentor, nearly 2 in 5 indicated they have not had questions for their mentor yet, while one in three had asked their mentor a question. There were no statistically significant differences by edit bin in question asking.

Among Homepage users who had asked their mentor a question, about half found the mentor's response helpful, one in five indicated that they did not receive a response, and another fifth indicated that the response was not helpful, such as being too late or not answering the newcomer's question.

Contextualized within early research on mentorship and newcomer activation and retention, which found no substantive differences from mentorship on the first 14 days since account registration, the overall results of mentorship here are promising: about 1 in 6 successful newcomers who were assigned a mentor had a productive mentor interaction.

The large majority of successful newcomers understood their mentor is a human, and not a robot. Those with more than 100 edits were more likely to be sure their mentor is "definitely a human" (61%) compared to those with less than 100 edits (34%).

Suggested Edits

Among Homepage users who have used or seen the Suggested Edits feature, the majority of successful newcomers agreed they usually learn something interesting from the articles suggested, that they are able to find articles they want to edit, that the topic filters help them to find articles that they want to edit, and that they are usually able to find articles that are relevant to their interests.

There was less consensus about whether the suggested articles are too difficult to work on, and whether the topic filters are specific enough to match their interests. About 3 in 5 agreed they would like to be able to save articles to work on later.

Information sources for questions about editing

The most popular routes for getting questions about editing answered among successful newcomers were the use of on-wiki search or links (52%), using a search engine (37%), and looking at past responses on community spaces (28%). Notably, a quarter responded that they ask a Generative AI tool like ChatGPT or Deepseek (26%), suggesting that it's important to understand whether this emerging technology can be helpful to the Wikimedia communities for navigating basic questions about editing.

These four top routes for answer-seeking share one commonality: they are an independent route to get a question about editing answered rather than interacting with another editor or community space. We cannot know the reasons why newcomers use these independent routes for finding answers based off of this survey data; further research into this space could seek to understand whether this preference is about newcomers' reticence to ask questions publicly, the ability to gain an answer quickly, about the types of questions newcomers have (for example, questions that apply to all editors, such as "how do I add an image to an article", may be more easily answered independently, while a specific case such as "is this a reliable source for this article?" may benefit more from another editor's insight), or something else.

The most popular interactive way to get questions answered was by asking on Article Talk pages (20%); the lower prevalence of using other community spaces is potentially due to lack of awareness of these spaces among newcomers (see Knowledge of Community Spaces).

Write-in responses to this question most often mentioned their assigned mentors, as well as asking other users on their Talk pages, asking real-life friends who also edit, and looking to similar existing articles to imitate the style.

Mobile Editing

Among newcomers who regularly used a mobile phone for editing by either using mobile web or the Wikipedia app, navigating the interface, broadly, and making more complex edits (e.g. adding images, references, longer edits) were the most prominent points of difficulty.

The most prominent differences were among editors who were mobile-first (did not use desktop) compared to those who edited on desktop in addition to mobile. Mobile-first editors were more likely to agree it's easy to navigate the editing interface (56% vs. 24% among desktop+mobile editors), find the edit button (92% vs. 74%), preview edits (85% vs. 52%), save edits (95% vs. 75%), make longer edits (64% vs. 31%), add images (51% vs. 22%), add citations (64% vs. 26%), find edits that can be done on a phone (85% vs. 48%), and look at diffs (82% vs. 58%). These differences between types of editors can help us to better understand where to prioritize mobile design for mobile-first communities, and contextualize how editors understand the mobile interface based on other editing experiences.

Knowledge of Community Spaces

Most had visited another user's user page, to either see who they are interacting with (60%) and/or to get ideas for their own page (39%). One respondent wrote in that they look at other users' pages as many have fun tools to try out! However, nearly a quarter had either never visited another user's page (17%) or did not know they exist (6%).

Most had also either visited (40%) or posted a question to (25%) another user's Talk page. A quarter had never visited any, and a tenth did not know other users have Talk pages.

The majority of respondents had either not heard of the Teahouse (44%) or had never visited it (26%). Those with less than 100 edits were more likely to have not heard of it (55%) compared to those with more than 100 edits (31%).

The majority also did not know about (46%) or hadn't visited any (29%) event or contest pages. Those with less than 100 edits were more likely to not know they exist (53%) compared to those with more than 100 edits (34%).

Likewise, the majority either did not know that WikiProjects exist (28%) or had never visited any (24%). Those with less than 100 edits were more likely to not know they exist (39%) compared to those with over 100 edits (13%). Similarly, those with over 100 edits were more likely to have used them to look for articles to edit without joining (16% vs. 6%), and to have joined a WikiProject (33% vs. 17%).

The least-known community space among newcomers was Wikimedia Affiliates. 71% indicated that they did not know Affiliates exist, and another 22% knew but hadn't seen much about them, with no statistically significant differences by edit bin. However, a total 5% indicated they joined an affiliate, started editing because of an affiliate-organized event, or visited an affiliate page.

Interacting with other editors

Thanking using the "Thanks" tool

2 in 5 indicated they had been thanked by another editor using the thanks feature, while 1 in 5 did not know this was possible.

Among those who knew about the thanks feature, 3 in 5 indicated they had thanked another editor using it.

Among those who knew about thanking but had never thanked someone else, the largest reasons selected for why they hadn't done so were that they hadn't seen edits they wanted to thank someone for (48%), and that it felt intimidating to do so (43%). One in five each selected not knowing what would happen if they sent thanks, what "Publicly send thanks" meant, or not knowing how to find the thanks tool.

Messages from other editors

Among those who had responded that they had received talk page messages from other editors, 75% indicated that a welcome message was one message they received, with the next most frequent category being a reversion notice (45%). A quarter noted they had received a thank you for their contribution, 19% had received a collaboration requestion, and 9% indicated they received a "Wikilove" message.

Reversion

The majority (57%) of successful newcomers indicated they have had an edit reverted either by another editor (50%) and/or by a bot (22%), with no statistically significant differences by edit bin.

Among those who were reverted, 7% were unsure if they received a message after reversion, and another 17% indicated that there was no message about their reversion on their Talk page or in the edit summary.

We also asked an open question to those who had been reverted: "In a few words, can you describe how being reverted felt?"

Among the approximately 100 respondents, we coded the responses into "generally positive" (26%), "generally negative" (45%), and "mixed" (22%). The remainder (7%) could not be coded as positive or negative.

	Generally positive	Mixed	Generally negative
Illustrative Quotes	They wanted to me to discuss a change in the talk page before making the edit. Once I explained my reasoning in the talk page the edit went back up. I felt supported. I take it as a learning and appreciate their time for correcting me. It felt like a learning opportunity reminder to review sources and follow Wikipedia’s guidelines more carefully. Being a newbie I was prepared for my early edits to be reverted sometimes due to mistakes. If there hadn't been an explanation it would have bothered me a lot more. I understood the explanation so I was not upset. Like "Ohhhhhh." It was fair. They were kind and let me know I didn't do anything really wrong.	First time felt shocking but now I understand it's normal and I myself revert some edits (e.g. cases of vandalism) My revert was for a valid reason so I just felt embarrassed I didn't thoroughly check things through before making my edit. I now take the extra time to make sure everything is right before capping edits off. The edit was helpful but it was also for one of my very first few edits which made me feel like I should have had more guidance before making those first few edits. Some of it was justified some of it not justified. Frustrated but I use it as an opportunity for improvement. It felt upsetting but as I read their comment I understood why my edit was reverted and apologized for putting it there. Slightly annoying but it’s probably for the best since they are likely more skilled than me. It was annoying but I researched the issue and felt that it was reasonable. Learning experience but made me afraid to edit again when the bot said I could be banned.	Annoying (others wrote “Weird” “Awkward” “Horrible”) It made me feel like I had done something very wrong. I was afraid of being banned. I felt so humiliated and felt discouraged. Because I edited with reliable sources but still targeted by senior editor with no neutrality in their stand. It's quite humiliating. A slight fight-or-flight feeling. I did not like it. It was my edit. Disappointing. Confused why they had to revert it (than just easily manually revert it). Annoying. Messed up. It did not feel nice as the edit summary felt a little hostile and on the other occasion the talk page message was confusing. Stings. I spent a lot of time editing and formatting and then suddenly everything's gone. It felt (and still feels like) gatekeeping. But I'm trying to have a positive outlook on it.
Themes	Support Learning Explained well Kindness Not being blamed Expecting to be reverted as newbie	Surprise Improvement Learning Taking extra time for the rules, being careful Others have more knowledge	Shock Confusion Frustration Humiliation Fear Like you did something wrong No or poor explanations Lost effort

Among those who knew about reversion, about half had never reverted another editor's edit, while 10% were unsure if they had. One in five stated they had reverted edits once or twice, while another 16% said they had reverted others more than that but don't do it regularly. A small group - 6% - said they revert other edits regularly, with 1% of those using Twinkle to do so.

Future Tools & Advanced Editing

Interest in advanced activities

The majority of respondents indicated they would be interested in (or are already engaging in) content moderation-style activities, such as improving articles at risk of deletion, finding and reverting vandalism, and helping to make decisions about which articles should be created.

A smaller but not insubstantial group (over one third) was interested in more community support-style activities such as giving feedback to other editors on articles or recent edits they've made, and mentoring new editors. These activities require advanced knowledge -- that is, not just knowing how to do these tasks, but mentor others to do so -- as well as more time commitment and coordination.

Overall, we can conclude that newcomers are at least interested in advanced activities, if we can show them how to do them.

Interest in potential features

The types of features most often indicated as "very" or "pretty" helpful included those which allow for individualized customization (e.g. suggested articles based on topics one usually edits about, or local topics), those which aid discovery about editing (e.g. a visual chart of edit types one can use to track their edits; or unlocked achievements for new edits or milestones), as well as the ability to give positive feedback and recognition to others.

A smaller proportion indicated more interactive features as being helpful (e.g. event suggestions, collaborative editing, trainings and workshops). However, interest in these types of features correlated with each other, indicating that this is a potentially unique group which would be served by a more interactive component to editing.

Editing sentiments

Sentiments statements about editing and community interaction indicate a few strengths: 88% agreed they learn new things from editing, 84% agreed that editing has felt rewarding, and 90% agreed they plan to continue editing in the next year with no respondents disagreeing. Spaces for improvement include editing rules and policies (44% agreed they are easy to understand), and feeling like other editors value newcomers' contributions (33% agreed they feel like other editors value their contributions).

Demographics

Methodological note: The method of data collection (off-wiki linking to an extended survey) and the length of the survey may have contributed to biasing the sample of respondents towards groups that have more time to answer questions (for example, younger people and students). Until further research and multiple methods of data collection can triangulate the data, these demographic results should thus be understood as a broad first-time picture of the successful newcomer population rather than precise population estimates.

Successful newcomers on English Wikipedia are much younger than English Wikipedia editors overall. 42% indicated they were aged 18-24, compared to 23% of English Wikipedia active editors in the 2024 Community Insights survey. Notably, about 21% of potential participants to the survey were filtered out at the beginning of the questionnaire, due to responding that they were under age 18.

Like more experienced editors, newcomers in this survey disproportionately identified as men.

Half of those who responded indicated that they are currently students.

Like experienced editors, newcomers are also relatively highly educated. The largest group of respondents were either current post-secondary students, or had already completed a post-secondary degree. One quarter were either pursuing (20%) or had already completed (6%) a postgraduate degree such as a Masters or Doctorate.

21% of respondents did not identify English as their first, native, or most fluent language.

Resources

References