Are New User Pages Enough

There's a lot to learn about WardsWiki - how to use the technology, the generally accepted social norms, the more controversial social norms... let's not even get into the personal histories.

As of late, we've been dealing with a lot of newcomers, and the acculturation process has been proceeding with a lot of noise and mixed results. Some of us are doing great work in trying to organize pages about community norms - see WikiSocialNorms, or NewUserPages, for example. But are static pages enough? Do we need to take a more active role?

Imagine you show up for your first day of work at a big software company - a company that's been around for five years and has a few hundred employees. What if your boss handed you a 500-page document detailing everything about the company - its social norms, how its code-base is organized, what sorts of technologies you'll have to use - and tells you "Don't write any code, don't talk to anybody else, don't even leave your cubicle until you've read the whole thing." How much would you be able to learn that way?

At most organizations, of course, they don't do it that way. Somebody (usually your boss) is given formal or informal responsibility over helping you get used to your new job. She shows you around the office, introduces you to some of your coworkers, shows you where the breakroom is. If the soda machine's iffy about taking Sacajawea dollars, she'll warn you.

Perhaps most significantly, she won't try to fill your head with reams of information all at once. Instead, she'll do you the favor of being available for more questions as they come up. And maybe she'll check up on your work once in a while, and gently suggest ways you could be more effective.

Is there a lesson from this that we can apply here?

Unless some people are going to volunteer to serve as guides/mentors for all new users, I think some initial set of pages will have to be "enough". But the question is "Enough for what?"

The mechanics of wiki is pretty easy to pick up. I think it should be possible to have a single page that concisely explains how to edit/create/delete/link pages. OneMinuteWiki comes pretty close, but one minute is not really enough. As of now, we have too many pages explaining how to create links and how to create new pages. We should boil it down to one page, and not be too concerned if it takes more than one minute for a new user to read.

The WikiSocialNorms are another matter. It's important for new users to know that norms do exist, but they are not going to pick them up by reading a few introductory pages. (I've been around for over a year, and I don't understand the rules myself.)

We do need to be more helpful to new users, but it is difficult. If you point a new user to RealNamesPlease or try to explain what is OnTopic or OffTopic, you are just going to get an argument. If you try to point out that someone has written something that is insulting or not consistent with the expected tone, you'll just generate more negative feelings. We all need to be patient with newcomers, and find indirect ways to let them know what they are doing wrong.

Some indirect ways:

Ignore them. Don't participate in inappropriate threads or write on off-topic pages. Don't fight back when attacked. Eventually, they will either give up and leave or they will make an effort to figure out how to join the crowd.
Revise WikiSocialNorms and related pages frequently. This keeps them in RecentChanges, making it more likely that new users (and old users) will read them, and keeps them up to date with changes to the norms.
Lead by example. Write the words and pages that need to be written. Delete the words and pages that don't belong (while giving proper respect to the original writer). Don't write any words or pages without putting the same thought and care into them that you expect of others.
Be especially nice and helpful to people who are neither nice nor helpful.

When you do need to give direct advice to someone new, be nice. It's also a good idea to sign such contributions with a real name. It reminds the newbies that this place has real people in it who are trying to help, and that it's not some impersonal legal authority that is commanding them to change their ways or face expulsion.

I think the NewUserPages should be drastically downsized, containing WelcomeVisitors, a single page about editing/adding/deleting/linking pages, a pointer to StartingPoints, and a pointer to WikiSocialNorms. That's enough to let a new user start exploring and testing the waters. All the links to wiki philosophy, wiki mechanics, wiki history, starting your own wiki, and so on are not really going to be of interest to most newcomers. The people who do care about those topics will find them soon enough.

Finally, we all need to remember that the NewUserPages encourage users to edit things, to explore, and generally do whatever they want to do. We shouldn't club them over the head when they do that. Nor should we redefine or enforce the "rules" so much that they eliminate the freedom of new users to do things that surprise and even shock us. Remember that TheyreJustRules, and their purpose is to encourage the exchange of ideas. Maybe we need some OldUserPages? also, to remind the old hands of why they were drawn to wiki and the faux pas they made when they started.

-- KrisJohnson

Whenever I start a job at a new company I've always found that having some supportive structure for asking stupid questions was always very useful. The idea is that there's at least one person who won't laugh when you ask "what time do people usually get in" or "where do people generally go for lunch." How about a page for NewUserQuestions? That way new users who have questions have a page for asking questions and older users have an acculturation pipeline in place. Of course it only works if people make an effort to answer the questions supportively and resist the temptation to tell people their question is illegitimate.

WikiHelpDesk is getting some use, and may be helping a little.

Being relatively new, I am still very aware of feeling overwhelmed by this community. In the excitement of 'first contact', I made a few posts that (in retrospect) did not contribute enough 'Signal' and may have actually added to the 'Noise' part of the ratio.

Perhaps 'mentoring' a newcommer, rather than just greeting them would help? This might even quality as a suggestion for CrazyThingsThatMightSaveWiki.

-- HansWobbe

I note that only a very few newcomers become regular contributors, let alone regular clumsy contributors.