A 121 Training Model for Learning to Edit Wikimedia Projects

A case study from the Mixed Museum and Wikimedia UK’s Connected Heritage Project

Overview

This case study outlines how a museum director was trained to edit Wikipedia and upload to Wikimedia Commons. Instead of a usual route of attending a Wikithon to get trained or to learn to edit through self-study, a new user was paired up with a Wikimedian in Residence for 5 sessions over the course of 5 weeks to learn wiki basics and to start making her first edits.

Though this model is time and resource intensive, the new editor feels the training has truly embedded open knowledge working into her professional and personal life. She considers herself an advocate in her own space who will be requiring interns, staff and volunteers to edit Wikimedia projects in future. She will encourage others in her networks to edit Wikimedia projects in future.

As an academic and museum director for a small museum, she is time poor. She had been motivated for years to edit Wikipedia in particular and was utterly convinced it was the right thing to do. Yet she had never taken the time to learn how. The model of multiple short trainings over the course of five weeks, scheduled on an afternoon that was generally free for her, appealed to her more than a traditional half day training, even though the total amount of time she would spend on training would be roughly the same. She knew she would struggle with self-study.

Structure and overview of the training:

5 x 45 minute sessions on Zoom

Sessions took place weekly on a Wednesday afternoon at a mutually convenient time

Sessions were recorded and shared

Session 1: Creating an account and a user page
Session 2: Creating a sandbox, adding headings, citations, references, an image and infobox
Session 3: First live edit to a Wikipedia page
Session 4: What does and does not belong on Wikipedia
Session 5: Supported significant edits to an existing page and adding an image to Wikimedia Commons and embedding it into the article.

Advantages

Contextualisation

This model of training offered a weekly opportunity for in-depth and nuanced conversations about things such as systemic bias on the platforms and also about the relevance of Wikimedia project editing for the individual and her communities. The conversations, over the course of 5 weeks, built upon themselves and circled back to familiar themes. This process allowed the new editor’s ideas to mature and for misconceptions to be corrected. It also allowed for some frank discussions of the barriers that other new editors might face, and for the new editor to feel as though she could be an advocate for Wikimedia projects in a fair and balanced way.

Personalised troubleshooting

New editors often experience issues, such as account blocks, articles being nominated for deletion or declined for publication, and Conflict of Interest concerns from the Wikimedia community. This new editor encountered some of these issues and, had she been on her own, she might not have had the confidence to continue editing after a negative experience. With an in-person mentorship appointment, she knew she could raise this with a person she could trust and get help. We then troubleshot and solved the issues together. Because of this, she was able to see her questions asked at the Village Pump on Commons, as well as using Talk pages. This personalised approach to troubleshooting is time-intensive, but in this case shows how it can enable more sustained and long term engagement. She also has a nuanced understanding of some of the barriers her community might face were she to invite them to begin editing Wikimedia projects, and also some of the tools to overcome them.

Further advocacy

This new editor is of mixed race heritage who has deep and broad networks into Black and mixed race communities in the UK. The fact that she feels willing and able to advocate knowledgeably for others to edit Wikimedia projects is significant for Wikimedia UK, where a current strategic goal is to diversify its “community of contributors, community leaders and knowledge activists and community leaders”.

What is of interest for this case, as well, is that she said if she had had to navigate the initial issues and glitches on her own, she would have given up. And particularly given the brusque tone of the messages she received, she may have felt insulted enough to discourage others from engaging.

The patient, considered and thoughtful approach of her in-person mentor helped counterbalance the impersonal experience she was having on-wiki. It ultimately helped her find the confidence to overcome the barriers, understand how the community works more fully, and move to a place where she could be an advocate again.

Reinforcing skills

It is a bit obvious to state, but returning to a platform week after week reinforced skills and improved familiarity. If a participant does not have the capacity to prioritise doing this on their own, they may quickly forget what they learned on a single day.

Convenience and personalization

Again, it seems obvious to state but a new editor might prefer to have training appointments scheduled for a time that suits them, particularly if they are time poor. They might also appreciate the undivided attention of their trainer/mentor and to be able to participate in learning (and making mistakes) in a private online space.

Resource Commitments

In this case, the training was designed and delivered by a paid Wikimedian in Residence but there is nothing stopping one volunteer being buddied up to train and mentor a new editor with a time commitment of 5-10 hours total over the course of 2-3 months.

Other contexts in which this might work

This model might work for training new editors who could be important advocates for Wikimedia projects in communities where existing editorship is low.

This model might also be most fruitful where a new editor has management or strategic responsibilities and who might like to have personalised, in-depth conversations about areas of Wiki projects which are most relevant to their context.