Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2019/Programme/Submissions/"Better Fewer, But Better" rule in Wikimedia communities

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Title of the submission

"Better Fewer, But Better" rule in Wikimedia communities

Type of submission (lecture, panel, workshop, lightning talk, roundtable, poster)
  • roundtable
Author(s) of the submission
Username(s)
Affiliation
  • Wikimedia Ukraine
Topic(s)
  • Community Engagement, Partnerships
Abstract (up to 100 words)
  • Probably, every Wikimedia community, either small or large, over time finds itself at a crossroads of development paths due to its limited resources. The philosophical or strategic question "Better more or fewer but better?" can be answered in different ways, it depends on opportunities in a given case or general level of community development.
How will this session be beneficial for the communities in the region of Central and Eastern Europe?
  • The roundtable is intended to discuss and share experience on how different Wikimedia communities or individuals effectively (or ineffectively) use its resources and do they follow "Better Fewer, But Better" rule.
Special requirements
Slides or further information
Documentation

Interested attendees[edit]

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  1. W (talk) 10:50, 18 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Bonvol (talk) 17:12, 11 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Notes[edit]

  • How to manage resources in a not so huge community?
    • problem with volunteers. Employed people do the task that no one wants and the volunteers do the rest.
    • lack of resources, technical issues
    • The longer you are in the community the more you feel that fewer is better. That means that in the future fewer new articles will be done.
    • projects are more focused on bringing new volunteers. Due to a lack of resources sometimes it is not possible to have many different projects at the same time. So they concentrate that the projects are smaller but successful.
    • Volunteers can make their own proposal and the chapter can encourage that and give them resources
    • Committee members need to be willing to help and support the volunteers (show that they are motivated and know how to motivate others)
    • We need to take advantage of elderly people (they have time and the experience)
    • Priorities ( we need volunteers as they are our resources)
    • More initiative users (someone can start a project and others can help out any way they can)
    • We need to be careful in dividing the task between the employed people and the volunteers
    • Volunteers do interesting stuff, employees do bureaucratic and boring stuff
    • If the tasks are not correctly divided, volunteers can forget why they are there
    • Possibility to give them to do boring things as that will make them learn more and collect experience (organizational skills, managing skills, potential project leadership)
  • How you organize your projects when there are not enough resources?
    • How we can distribute resources across different projects
    • Successful project can attract new people (fresh volunteers)
    • New volunteers can bring new and creative ideas
    • Doing the already known project is an easier way rather than starting a completely new one
    • Difference between a completely new project and a variation of an old project
    • Question of expertise
    • Involving librarians that are experts in research
    • Writing competitions
    • New project should not be done every year (maybe every other year would be better)
    • Difference between internal and external projects
    • Need to set expectations
  • How do you specify the success of your project?
    • Writing contests that were made in a short time (strict rules)
    • Something easy that can be easily changed and it is appealing to people
    • The number of participants it is not that important, it is better that you have little work done continuously rather than a lot in one go
    • enthusiasm is important
    • to have fun
    • Interesting contest even without the prizes
    • Motivation, fun
    • Contests made from sheer volunteering
    • Projects that are not just pure translations from other Wikipedias
    • Researches made manually (make it fun) (in Belarus about Orsha battle)
    • Cooperation among volunteers (it will make them bond and they will feel like they belong)
    • Not reachable goal can be a good motivation for people to write articles (it may not be completed but can be very helpful and successful) (experience in Estonia with the goal to reach a million of articles)
    • Not everyone can write at the same time but they can still contribute enough
    • You need to know your volunteers in order to motivate them better
    • We need to make sure that we point out to our volunteers that they can engage and what they can engage with (thus we need to know what they like or what they can do or know how to do it)
    • Volunteers need to know that they're part of something bigger
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