Talk:WMUK membership survey - 2013 report

Many thanks to Katherine and Thryduulf for your work on this. :-) There's quite a lot to digest here - can I suggest highlighting the key points/learnings in bold? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 21:28, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

I've highlighted some of the key findings in bold as you suggest. There are a couple of other important ones the phrasing of which means they don't lend themselves to highlighting in this manner, and I'm not awake enough at the moment to do anything about that. Do remember though that this is just highlighting the headlines in what is already an executive summary. I feel it best left to a member of staff (therefore probably Katherine) to highlight which improvements they regard as the most important. Thryduulf (talk: local | en.wp | en.wikt) 22:39, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

As I would genuinely encourage people to read Thryduulf's full report, and this on-wiki document *is* the highlights report. I'm not sure a third condensing does it justice :/ Katherine Bavage (WMUK) (talk) 12:02, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

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Members do not see their role as being one of recruiting new members. This is a problem as the responses elsewhere indicate that most people sign up because of interpersonal contact. The Chapter needs to explore ways to promote recruitment as something members feel happy to do! It would seem that this proposal moves away from focusing on Wikimedia itself to promoting WMUK, including modifying the behaviour of members. I am not sure I feel happy with this.Leutha (talk) 08:15, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment Leutha. I didn't work on the survey but I'm going to be bold and respond to this. Staff are frequently told by volunteers / members that increasing membership is a priority. All this statement does in my view is suggest a way in which this can be done. It's not really about promoting Wikimedia UK as an entity but encouraging more people to get involved in the work of the chapter. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 10:37, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

I think what I meant is; if you look at the early parts of the survey report it's clear most respondents felt positive about the movement and chapter, and joined up in the first place, because they came to an event and met cool people. So, recruitment isn't a hard sell, but I wonder how much we miss out signing up people because in-person chats with people who attend events don't include the sentence; 'I'm a member, have you thought about joining?' That is probably the most powerful way of recruiting people who are likely to be engaged and informed members, and just can't really be artificially recreated by chapter staff promoting membership - though we'll have a good go of course :)

Also Leutha, I think the difference between 'promoting Wikimedia' and 'promoting WMUK' is a bit divisive; in an ideal world they would more or less overlap surely? If not lets explore that :) I agree 100% its more important to support people to be contributors than company members, but hopefully the latter supports the former, especially if people are new to the movement and want to feel like part of the community IRL as well as online? Katherine Bavage (WMUK) (talk) 12:01, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Well, I wasn't trying to be devisive, but rather reflecting on the relatiuons between different structures. Yes I agree they overlap, but my immediate response when people enquire how to get more involved is to suggest they come to meet up. In fact it was good to meet a new enthusiast yesterday at the meet up, who had got involved from one of the WMUK. I think she is following a path way which might well lead to her becoming a WMUK member, even if that is a little down the road. However, I do not feel it my role to advocate WMUK membership except as something arising from active involvement in the community. I must admit that I see the face-to-face interactions of meet-up as fitting the concept of "real life" much more than whether they have taken out formal membership of WMUK, which I see as more liminal step to committed engagement. Leutha (talk) 21:17, 10 March 2014 (UTC)