A bird’s eye view of editor activationDario Taraborelli

Wikimedia Research and Data showcaseMay 2014

Activation

m:Research:Editor_activationm:Research:New_editor

Why does it matter

The vast majority of newly registered users never edit.

Help estimate the ceiling of new editor engagement.

Help discover highly engaged populations of new users.

1. longitudinal data

2. mobile vs desktop activation

24h activation rates for newly registered users (desktop vs mobile registrations) [source]

30-day activation rates for newly registered users (desktop vs mobile registrations) [source]

3. segmenting newly registered users

internal referral

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Schema:ServerSideAccountCreation

30-day desktop account activation by referral type (source - data)

30-day mobile account activation by referral type (source - data)

What’s missing

Qualitative analysis on the type of contributions made by different subpopulations of new users.

Better understanding of drop-off rates at specific steps in the edit funnel.

Takeaways

New users are not created equal

Some projects have higher activation rates than English Wikipedia.

Some projects show an upward trend in net new editors, compared to English Wikipedia.

We should target specific populations of new users, the majority of new users coming from generic referrals are significantly less engaged.

Questions?

dario@wikimedia.org

Read more

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Metrics_standardization

Image credits

Kristina Alexanderson, On top of my headhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/kalexanderson/6140989346