Background

As part of the Growth team’s initiatives to help increase the number of new account creations that convert to editors (editor activation) and to become regular editors (retention), some experienced editors on our target wikis have volunteered to be assigned as “mentors” to answer newcomer questions on the mentor’s Talk page.
In addition, newcomers who edit are shown a “Help panel” in the edit context where they may choose to ask a question that is directly posted on the help desk talk page, where experienced editors can again provide guidance.

Purpose of interviews

Putting our current way of connecting newcomers to more experienced editors aside, these interviews are to find out how experienced editors would ideally want to engage with newcomers. What motivations do experienced editors have to “mentor” newcomers? What is missing to help them connect with newcomers in the way they would like?

Ideally the interviews will help us make recommendations to continue to improve the mentorship experience.
Potentially, these interviews can form the basis of more design research to develop mentor personae.

Timeframe

Ideally, conducting interviews with Wikipedia contributors during Wikimania Hackathon and in breakout sessions throughout the main Wikimania conference.

Interview script (WIP)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RDbsA7QtbX8W8r9hl01QUZiUSNnAb-ZBjzxvjyB-OuM/