Help talk:Will Wikis Work?

Discussion
Obviously its a lot more complicated than this... please improve this model as much as you can. I think the basic point about people skilled enough, interested enough and Aware of the project is pretty much right though. Mostly Zen 15:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I think your breakdown of Confidence, Interest and Awareness is very interesting. I agree that more attention should be paid to increasing the confidence of potential contributors. I think a general how-to that encourages contributors would be really helpful; I've talked to people who read Wikipedia and various Wikia, but who feel intimidated by the idea of jumping in and contributing themselves.


 * It's also important to think not just about how many people contribute, but how they're treated once they take that first step into the pool. As you say, the first step is attracting readers, and the second step is turning readers into contributors. The third step, in my opinion, is to give those new contributors the kind of experience that encourages them to stay and help build the wiki.


 * I've written some stuff on my talk page about how to build a wiki community. I think my "article" is sort of a companion piece to this article, so maybe people will look at that too. -- Danny (talk ) 20:24, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Skill
Note: The Original version of this article referred to "Skill" rather than "Confidence"

Actually, almost anyone who can browse the internet have the basic skills to edit wikis. Of course, not everybody can do advanced editing, but the basic stuff just involves making a few clicks and using the simple textbox, which anyone can do intuitively. The problem is not to reach the skilled people, or increase the skills of the not skilled, but rather to show them how they alredy have those skills, to clarifie that although it may look complicated at a first glance, it's really very simple.--Rataube 17:30, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I completely agree with you that almost anyone has the basic skills needed to edit a wiki. Perhaps Skilled Internet User is a bad term.  What I meant was the distinction between those people, in their many millions, who just browse wikis and those people, in their many thousands, who contribute.  Can you think of a better term to make that distinction?  If so please change it in the article, because i think 'skilled' is wrong. Mostly Zen  What about Confidence?


 * Also, although you are right that the reality of editing is quite simple, getting that message across to people isn't as simple as I'd expected it to be. We have about 500 hits a day on our Wiki (the Psychology Wiki) but have only 5 main contributors and about 30 people that have done a few things.  How can we increase this ratio? Mostly Zen 18:26, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Confident as u suggested in my talkpage sounds good to me. About how to market your wiki? Maybe be through bloggs of psycology students?
 * There's another issue that concernes the article's question: overlaping wikipedia. I have came across wikis about topics that interest me and I might be able to contribute, such as judaism wiki. Wikipedia's material on judaism is incredibly good and comprehensive. So I wondered why should I contribute to the small judaism wikia instead of the large and well organized judaism portal in wikipedia. I asked that to one of their admins, they told me that I could add family stories and stuff that wouldn't be accepted on WP couse of notability issues, NPOV, etc. The idea didn't quite attracted me personally, but it might attract others. The thing is, that besides all the things you said, a wiki must also have a interesting and attractive approach not covered by the well-known WP, couse competing with WP would be pointless. So you must also find a good reason why someone interested in psychology should contribute in your wiki rather than in (or in adition to) the psychology portal at WP (I guess they may have one), or at WP psychology related pages in general. Two good examples of wikia that manage to that are the new political-campaigns wikia and the chess wikia.--Rataube 01:06, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Easy guides for beginners
No need for Wikia staff to do it all again. Help:Tutorial_2 and Help:Tutorial_3 have most of what any new user should need. But for a possibly simpler one-page version for real beginners, anyone's welcome to copy and adapt what I think I first wrote on mi.wikipedia.org and have since added and modified on a few Wikia, eg the first part of http://cities.wikia.com/wiki/Help:Editing. Robin Patterson 01:04, 24 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi Robin, yes you are right, we don't need to write more Tutorials, as the existing one is fantastic. The only thing was, I didn't find it for quite a while, as I was reading help pages on the Psychology Wiki.  Sannse made a suggestion about copying the Tutorial to ALL new Wikis, and I think she is 100% correct, it would really help beginners.  I've already copied it to our Wiki. Mostly Zen  [[Image:Baby_tao.jpg]] (talk ) 10:48, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Critical Mass
I think this is an interesting question. For more discussion of the critical number of participants (or pages, or activity) necessary to keep a Wikia going, see the Forum:Optimal Wikia Size. --CocoaZen 19:52, 26 July 2006 (UTC)