Admin Forum:What do you do to attract editors/turn new users into editors?

Forums: Admin Central Index → Watercooler → What do you do to attract editors/turn new users into editors?

Central's forums are a place for the community to help other members.
To contact staff directly or to report bugs, please use Special:Contact.

Note: This topic has been unedited for 4614 days. It is considered archived - the discussion is over. Do not add to unless it really needs a response.

One of the things we hear often from users is that they want to learn tricks to attract new editors, or ideas to convert visiting users to stay and edit. We created Founder & Admin Central to discuss these sorts of things and share ideas about attracting new users/editors.

In the thread Whose wiki needs editors? a convo started up about attracting editors -- I figured I'd start up a thread here asking: what do you do to attract editors and turn new visitors into editors?

Share with us below what you do on your wiki to attract editors, or even better: things that have motivated you to stay on a new wiki you have recently checked out. --Meighan (help forum | blog) 02:08, August 31, 2011 (UTC)

The main thing I have found that brings lots of visitors is having a poll on the main page. People love polls. Then have clear links to content by the poll. This will get those visitors to actually go to the pages. I find leaving a few spelling and grammar errors in articles also helps. Many people are only comfortable fixing these small errors at first and so you should focus on more content rather than fixing grammar. Other than that there is no real guaranteed way to get editors. You just need to keep working and hope someone drops by the wiki with as much passion for the subject as you.--GodPray  02:14,8/31/2011 

Godisme, I love that you leave little bread crumbs like spelling and grammar errors, that is really smart! Such a sneaky way to get people to edit! ;) I also agree about polls -- very interactive. --Meighan (help forum | blog) 02:24, August 31, 2011 (UTC)

One of the things I did to boost traffic and my Google search rating was to post a link to my wiki (The Dark Tower Wiki) on a relevant subreddit on Reddit.com. Unlike posting on other fan sites, you're not going to get backlash for promoting a competing site. The whole purpose of Reddit is to share interesting links. The moderator there was even kind enough to put a permanent link to my wiki in the sidebar. I didn't get any sustained editors from that, but at least more people know about it now.
--Rolliemoon "I will show you fear in a handful of dust" -T.S. Eliot 04:30, August 31, 2011 (UTC)

Rolliemoon, that's a great idea. I love Reddit and Metafilter for that very fact to find sites I have never heard of. Curious though, what was the 'relevant subreddit' -- for those not familiar with Reddit. Thanks! --Meighanhttp://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb32675/wikia/images/e/e9/WikiaStaff.png (help forum | blog) 15:46, August 31, 2011 (UTC

For those not familiar with Reddit, a subreddit is basically the equivalent of a single wiki. There are subreddits that cover a broad area like r/books and there are others that cover single books. I was lucky enough to find that there was an entire subreddit devoted to my subject (r/thedarktower). The people there also suggested I try places like r/scifi and r/fantasy, which have many more viewers. I didn't go to those places first because I wanted to focus on my target audience, the people who would be most likely to contribute and not bring spammers. For others, if your subject is fairly well known, it probably has its own subreddit too. In my experience at least, the people there will be very welcoming and receptive. --Rolliemoon

Digg.com is another site like Reddit.com that you can promote your site. I think you just register and submit your wiki link or link to a specific wiki article and categorize it. -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 31 Aug 2011 8:52 AM Pacific

@Godi (that is Godisme's nickname, right?): You can't put links in polls. At least not when I tried it last. The entire link didn't show up. Not even the coding. For example, "Visit the Main Page now!" with a link to the main page would be "Visit the now!"

^R_O^A_D^S! Roads! (Don't forget it!) 18:53, August 31, 2011 (UTC)

You could probably add links after the fact with JS. Each choice seems to have a unique CSS id like id="wpPollRadio007FC2CAD08C1B33AA4D667FC7CA3DC7". -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 31 Aug 2011 4:19 PM Pacific