Submissions:2025/You must be this neurodivergent to ride (overhauling the edit-a-thon model)

This submission has been noted and is pending review for WikiConference North America 2025.

Etherpad

Title:

You must be this neurodivergent to ride (overhauling the edit-a-thon model)

Type of session:

Lecture (15-30 min)

Session theme(s):

Missing pieces, Future of Wikipedia

Abstract:

Last year, I gave a talk about how one thing affiliate groups could do where WikiProjects have struggled is to coordinate groups of experienced content editors who can collaborate on projects bigger than any one of them could accomplish alone. That came from a recognition that affiliate groups were struggling at their own task: advancing the movement by attracting and retaining new community members.

This year, I want to dissect why affiliate groups are struggling – and how we change the model to get not just editors, but people who are a part of the actual community. That requires dissecting who *is* in the community and who's on the periphery, and why.

Enwiki might have 100,000+ active editors, but it doesn't have nearly that many active members of the backroom community – the center of hard and soft power on the project – and we want to attract people into that structure of power. Being a member of the community is deeply fulfilling and rewarding, and it draws you into doing maintenance work (needs to be done), setting the direction of the project (we need a more diverse editor base), and getting really, really good at writing articles (the entire goal). So, what we should be looking at is what the core community self-selects for in its members, and what you find is that core community members, quality article writers, are motivated by a burning desire to research and share a special interest they could talk about until they're blue in the face. That correlates strongly with – arguably is inherently – a certain kind of neurodivergence. Other people have the kinds of neurodivergence that make them good editors, but they don't necessarily adapt to the community well.

So my contention is that we've been doing this wrong. Attracting people to Wikipedia shouldn't be about doing a public service or vaguely engaging something related to your college major. We offer an irreplaceable and deeply valuable service: a way for people to research and share their burning passions and find a community of people exactly like them. We should be targeting the people who need that service. This talk elaborates on this premise and dives into how we can do this targeting better.

Author name(s):

theleekycauldron

Wikimedia username(s):

Affiliated organization(s):

Wikimedians of Los Angeles

Estimated length of session

30

Will you be presenting remotely?

I will present in-person

Okay to livestream?

Livestreaming is okay

Previously presented?

last year, WCNA 2024

Special requests: