Wikipedia Surgery

This proposal is based on recent discussions on the mailing list, and elsewhere, regarding the difficulty non-Wikipedians can face navigating the Wikimedia family of sites (especially English Wikipedia) when they spot a problem needing to be addressed.

Feel free to edit this page with suggestions & modifications.

The Issue

Wikipedia is a difficult environment to navigate if you have never entered it before. Both in terms of understanding community norms, and the ideology of the free knowledge movement.

To make this easier the Foundation operates OTRS; email support staffed by volunteers.

This does not solve the problem entirely; either the correspondent does not find their way to OTRS, or they misunderstand what we can do as volunteers, or even sometimes the OTRS volunteer is less than optimal in their reply.

The Solution

This proposal centres around Wikimedia UK expanding its outreach to provide a real life, OTRS-like service - Wikipedia Surgery.

The surgery would be a regular single day event consisting of an (optional) introductory session followed by a surgery where individuals (or companies) with issues on Wikipedia could spend time with an Editor who would work them through solutions.

The session would be free to attend.

Introductory session

In the initial session - of around an hour - a speaker would cover the basic concepts of Wikipedia. Discussing the ideas of neutrality and reliable sources, etc. This would not be tailored as an editor recruitment exercise (the attendees would explicitly be people unwilling, incapable or disinterested in editing Wikipedia themselves) but instead as an explanation to facilitate a basic understanding of Wikipedia - to make the next step easier.

Surgery

The surgery would consist of a number of editors in the room able to work through issues with individuals. The editors would be expected to operate in a similar way to OTRS volunteers - in particular to edit articles only with non-contentious or policy compliant fixes. Substantive edits or changes could be proposed on talk pages etc. (or a separate project could be established to facilitate the scheme).

Rather than the slow-drip email conversations of OTRS many issues could be resolved in a short space of time. Editors could also work with individuals to collect relevant source material to place on the talk page as suggested edits (one area that OTRS struggles with, sometimes).

Attendance pack

Prior to attendance, the attendees would be sent a short introduction to the session making clear that nothing is guaranteed, and that major rewrites will not be allowed on the day.

Venue and attendance

Preferably three times per year in different locations around the country.

Advertising the service would be key; it would be important to make sure it isn't seen as a place for companies to come to do PR work, but as a venue for genuine grievances to be resolved. The session should be entirely open to attendance, but we should try to confirm at least a minimum level of attendance prior to running each day.

Editor attendance would need to be discussed. One option is to run it as a volunteer-led day. However, it would need substantial numbers of editors to make it work. One issue with OTRS and other forms of support is the volunteers are only motivated by what interests them, which is unlikely to be this! At least, Wikimedia UK would need to pay travel costs for editors to the event. In addition WMUK could look at various ideas to motivate attendance, such as:

• Paying minimum wage for a days attendance (see below)
• Buying them an evening meal somewhere reasonably nice (as a thanks)
• Non-monetary gift as an incentive.

Paying a wage will be controversial. However, as they are being paid merely for a days work without any required performance, or expectation of editing on behalf of a particular person, I think the Wikipedia community would find it acceptable (i.e. if they refuse to do an action, then it won't affect their payment). A code of practice could be established. The idea is to offset the motivation of having to do a day or tedious (and it is tedious!) work, without providing an incentive to make POV or otherwise problematic edits.

Training

Attending editors should be trained in how to work with non-Wikipedians. In particular reminders about the use of "native" terminology, and education in how to work as a "support agent".

The training need not be hardcore, and could be published as a remote educational package (I'd still recommend one face-to-face session). This has the added advantage of being applicable to OTRS and we could look to partner with OTRS in developing "Working in Wikipedia Support" training for both OTRS and Surgery.

Open model

The surgery model should be properly documented and a guide produced to setting one up *anywhere*

Problems

• Could see resistance from the community, but if handled carefully I think it could be seen (fairly) as well as OTRS is.
• An awkward topic, but, Wikipedians can sometimes be quite strong headed :) This is unsuited to dealing with people who are upset or have a grievance. We might not be doing anything wrong, but that doesn't mean it is right to argue with them. Sympathy is the order of the day!
• Need to take care to work with OTRS, rather than be a competitor (i.e. propose this as a value offering)