Wikipedia talk:Invitation to edit

Trial over
I have pulled the template from the trial articles, and will commence gathering the stats soon. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 13:24, 20 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Look forwards to hearing about the results. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 14:49, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * How is the result-gathering going? Anything we can do to help? Am interested to see if it worked.--Physics is all gnomes (talk) 20:58, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Ditto. Where has Anthony disappeared to? &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:14, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry. No excuse but indolence. Soon. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 02:45, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Music articles
I have added the template to the article for the metal band The Word Alive. I feel a trial should be in order for music articles as well. -- GunMetal Angel  21:19, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The invitation is currently geared towards medical articles only; indeed you will notice that the instructions relate directly to providing citations to medical articles, etc. So it is not yet ready for implementing on non-medical articles (although this is something which could be considered in the future). Furthermore, this process has attracted some amount of controversy and we have given assurances that greater input will be requested before starting another trial. So I have removed the template from that article for the moment. You are very welcome to join in the discussion here and help analyse the results of the first trial. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:51, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Speaking of statistics... any day now. :) --Anthonyhcole (talk) 10:13, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Instructions
I am not sure if "The easiest way to edit is to go to the article's discussion ("talk") page and ask the regulars to add the content for you, but doing it yourself is not that hard." is the best way to start. We want people who edit the main space rather than post to the talk page. Already there is too much work for regulars too do... Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:39, 6 April 2011 (UTC)


 * So I would like to make a plug for being concise again. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 13:40, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Additional improvements
Ideally we need to run this trial with the same effort put into the fundraiser. We need professional looking banners we significant data crunching behind them determining what works and what doesn't. I imagine something like: Wikipedia does not need your money but your expertise.
 * Than when you click

A screen giving you topic areas for potential edits/areas that need grammar improvement
 * Than when you click

A screen that outlines the basics of editing depending on what kind of editing you wish to do
 * Number one being "references are required" and these are some places to get them
 * Number two being "this is a community of editors interested in your topic area, drop them a note if you are interested in getting involved"

An invitation to register will be needed in there as well. The banner could also be subject area specific where we could test if having a medical student request someone joins us is more effective than having someone with a significant medical condition etc. -- Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:17, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Status of these trials
Hi! I was curious to know what the status of these trials is, and if there is a report on results anywhere? During the fundraiser this year, we found that adding a "help improve this translation" link on translated appeals brought in a lot of anonymous editors to help with translations. Basically, a call to action other than an edit button was helpful to increase volume of good-faith editors, though it also increased the flow of vandals and new editors in need of help with markup, etc :-) So, I'm wondering what else you learned from these trials that might help guide future projects like this.  Also, the Wikimedia Fellowships program is intended to support editor engagement projects that community members want to lead with WMF's help, so I just thought I'd mention that some of the project participants here could consider submitting a fellowship project idea or application if you're interested in pursuing something further. Sbouterse (WMF) (talk) 00:36, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes Anthony would be excellent to have you do a fellowship on this project.-- Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:27, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I'll follow this up in the next few days, James. This looks like exactly what's needed. Thanks for the info' Sbouterse. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 01:31, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes would be interested in being involved. But do not able to direct things. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:50, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Cool. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 01:53, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Results?
I see Invitation to edit is not used on any mainspace pages any more. What were the results of the trial? Did we learn anything? John Vandenberg (chat) 11:17, 14 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I didn't follow through with the analysis because it became clear to me that our sample was too small to mean anything, I didn't have confidence that anyone involved (including me) knew enough about scientific statistical inference to make a good job of a larger trial, and I didn't have the will to go through the whining and arguments that would be necessary to ramp it up to the (I guess) necessary thousands of pages. Feel free to take it on, though, if you have (or think you can attract someone to the trial that has) expertise in this kind of thing. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 11:29, 14 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the offer, but I think this is something that needs WMF support to be effective and measurable. But I like to be proven wrong... John Vandenberg (chat) 12:56, 14 January 2014 (UTC)