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- Context. Provide a short paragraph with some background context for your request, please include links to relevant material.
To support the goal of increasing constructive edits by new contributors, the Growth team is exploring a structured progression system designed to guide and motivate newcomers. Building on past work in Positive Reinforcement, this new feature will offer clear milestones, suggested next steps, and lightweight recognition to help newer editors (fewer than 100 edits) stay engaged and develop skills.
Primary hypothesis: If newcomers are provided with a structured progression system that includes easy first steps, motivational goals, and constructive feedback, supported by positive reinforcement such as recognition, encouragement, and visible progress, then they will be more likely to continue editing and make constructive contributions. This combination can help build confidence, support learning, and create a more motivating and rewarding editing experience over time.
Q1 focus: If we test a progression system via design prototypes with newcomers, then we can identify which types of milestones, guidance, and recognition are perceived as most motivating, and use these insights to finalize a design for future pilot wiki experimentation.
- Description.What is your request about?
There are a few research areas that we’d like to explore and learn from.
- Milestones appeal
- Which milestone types feel most meaningful to newcomers? Skills-based, community recognition, knowledge-based, quality indicator, something else?
- How might we make achievements feel credible and skill-validating?
- What intervals feel natural vs. overwhelming?
- Progression structure
- How granular should the initial steps be?
- Should the progression start pre-editing?
- How can visual design vary in “playfulness” across different cultural contexts?
- What makes achievements feel appropriate for Wikipedia?
- Quality vs quantity tension
- How to structure the progression to reward constructive vs. quick edits?
- How to incorporate “time-based elements” vs. pure edit counts?
- Which quality gates could guide newcomers?
- How to make “collaborative” achievements more appealing than individual ones?
- Human vs machine/automated recognition
- How does the progression system complete or compete with the mentor praise?
- What balances should there be between automated milestones and human recognition?
- How to encourage more community thanks/praise alongside the achievement system?
- Community aspects
- How to avoid competitive elements? Think of leaderboards or rankings…
- Opt-out mechanism?
- How might we make sure that milestones support newcomers rather than distracting them
- What makes the system feel genuine motivational
Key research questions
- Do we need more evidence on motivation vs. barrier removal?
- What did we learn about newcomers’ motivation that still applies?
- How do different communities view achievement-based systems?
- How does this build on existing features? Impact module, levelling up, personalized praise, …
- Expected Deliverable. What is the ideal outcome or result of your request?
- Desk research: Existing practices and pros, and cons around progression systems (badges, gamification, …)
- Design framework: Principles and guidelines for milestone selection, and progression structure that feel genuinely Wikipedia
- Newcomer insights: How different newcomer types respond to progression elements
- Community review: What feels appropriate to existing/experienced editors?
- Estimated Effort. Please provide an estimate of the amount of work needed to complete this task, if known.
- Priority Please indicate a priority of your task and a small description of what it would unlock for you. We ask you to leave this task as “needs triage” since your request will go through a Backlog refinement process where our team will prioritize the work.
What this research unlocks:
- Finalized progression system design for pilot testing
- Community-tested approach for broader rollout
- Evidence-based milestone selection for newcomer adoption/engagement/impact
I need this task resolved in:
- 1 month.
- 3 months.
- 6 months.
- Whenever you get to it :-)
- Other. Do you have any other questions or comments ?
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