WiserEarth Editors
Collaboration in serving the greater WiserEarth community
As active community members, we would like to make this group into a gathering point where we can work together to transform WiserEarth.org into an effective platform of support for the global community of concerned citizens and organizations who are working to create a more just and sustainable world. ...learn more
GROUP DETAILS
Created: Nov 20, 2007
Updated: Nov 27, 2009
Membership: Invitation Only
Semi-Private
Topic: Together Growing WiserEarth's Database and Userbase
Posts (1 - 19 of 19)
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this is a great idea. I wonder how we could track all those edits so editors can be rewarded by their weekly or monthly activity?
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Hmm... there doesn't seem to be a way to track edits in such manner. What I suggest we use is the standard Members module in the group to showcase who (over time) is most active (via the green activity bar under the avatars).If only we can have a comprehensive group statistics (this member edited / added / commented this much this week / month / year / over time).
I would also like to invite anyone interested in preparing this group. I have a sandbox group set up to do just this (apply to join if you're interested, it's still blank at the moment). We can play around with what group modules to use, the layout, what to write, etc. Once we agree on how it will look like and how the editing process/flow will be, we can then set up the real group ready for action. Why prepare on a separate group? This is to avoid group creators to dominate the green activity bar during group setup phase (which happens with our editors group here).
In the mean time, feel free to scrutinize the idea further. Does this make sense? How can we engage users (not just editors) to participate? How should we make contact with organization representatives? What else is needed to make this thing work? etc... |
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Hello everyone. Just finished customizing my sandbox group to illustrate this idea. If you're interested to help setting up the group, please join. Once you're in, it would help if you can try out the workflow and give your feedback in the discussion forum. Thanks. |
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This looks like a great idea. Maybe this is something that the Directory Editors can take the lead on once everyone picks a role? This is an excellent way to organize the editing process and ensure that articles get updated.
Maybe this question has already been answered but: how can we verify the accuracy of the edits after they have been made? We don't yet have a critical mass of people like Wikipedia to monitor accuracy... If we're actively inviting users to make mass edits to organization profiles, it seems like we might have to create some directions, and set up a system of double-checking the work. They may all be great people, but among 17,000 users, there's bound to be a few whose research goes awry. Maybe some of the editors can be tasked with scanning the most recently updated pages. This is something Wikipedia users do to fact-check and it seems to work well. (Seems like we often referencing them, but they have set a high standard for the anyone-can-edit model :))
Is this something important enough that it could be posted on the main WiserEarth page? If we want all users to participate and find out about it, then it has to be prominent. Or a little link that could show up on the profile pages? Maybe normal users who participate in the development could get little profile "badges", something like really active Yelp.com users get? |
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Bowo, I love this idea! I think that we should be spending a good portion of our technical resources on facilitating ideas like this because it strengthens WE's core differentiator, our data, and it engages the community. If there are functionality enhancements that you think would help in this effort, then you should write them up and send them to Honore so that we can prioritize them accordingly. Keep up the great ideas.
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Would say we need to create a queue where editors (or any user) take on a specific org profile to refresh. I would suggest that the queue focus on organizations where:
Given the number of orgs it seems sensible to narrow the target list down. This would require a technical solution but shouldn't be too hard - its just a list and an editor / member would simply be removing orgs from it when they decide to edit it. |
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I agree on this initiative. Many of the entries are more than 2 years old which makes the data look very outdated (and is therefore also more likely to be inaccurate) |
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Jumping in a bit late ... but I am a newbie editor, so please forgive me :))
First I fully agree with the notion of systematic review and cleaning of data, and starting by the oldest ones.That said, I take the opportunity to add some orthogonal suggestions related to organisations, which could be tested in the process. If there is feedback enough on this, let's start a separate discussion.
Thoughts welcome! |
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I will certainly leap in to the sandbox to help!
Making sure there is as much member participation in the maintenance of pages is a top priority given the scope of WE. That said, I am also in agreement that leaving updates entirely to the user community without some sort of check is asking for problems. The accuracy of content is a key feature/strong point and that accuracy should be upheld.
I very much like the idea of some added classification, if possible. I am familiar with at least a two tier system of "member org" where someone from the org acts as org representative and "listed org" where the ORG is in the system but is only maintained periodically. Member orgs are responsible for their own updates, the others are on a rotating update. Finer tuning to the extent described above would be even better!
I personally think that ORG contacting / notification should be done by WE editors (or some designated group) and not users. It makes the contact more *legitimate* in the sense that editors have a more vested interest in communicating the interests of WE and the community as a whole. To have a "plain old" user contact an ORG and say they were updating content may not go over too well with the org. Not to be disparaging of plain old users, but that has been my experience. Having a smaller, designated group to do contacting is also easier on the reporting end.
Except for the largest organization listings, 12 months is a long time for directories to run out of date content - I would suggest, if possible, having orgs that show no activity for 8 months be put into "update" mode. This does increase the workload, but the return on this work is accuracy/reliability.
A bonus/reward for the member ORGs with point people who maintain the listing would be inclusion in the spotlight/feature? If the ORG is jsut listed and not maintained then they are not part of any higlighting or bonus showcasing.....just a thought!
best, heather |
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Another connected thought
Updating data and reconnecting organisations through their members is one thing, bringing registered users to activity is another important aspect. Many (most?) WE members have no activity further than registering themselves and/or organization(s). How do WE give new (and old) members the opportunity and motivation to collaborate and be involved further than that? I've discovered today, and it made me really uneasy for the first time since I've been in WE, that many contributors, singularly from India, who added thousands of entries to the original WE data base, are neither active any more, nor connected to anybody or anything in WE. I feel rather uneasy about this, and actually posted a discussion about it on India group, because it ooks to me like an important gap between WiserEarth declared principles of community building and reality. If WE are indeed a community, every member should be proposed a useful task, and the work of every member should be acknowledged.
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Hello everyone,
Glad that the idea is picking up steam. I've modified a bit further the layout and content of the sandbox group. Feel free to jump in anytime. Some of the things needed: Group URL, group name, group tagline, group About section, and probably a short and engaging Welcome section.
I'm thinking that we can create the public group once we have several committed editors (at least 5) with Directory Editor role to attend to it. Other editors and the wider community can of course participate (editors with other roles should be obligated to edit at least one organization profile a week). From the amount of work needed and the time commitment required of an editor (at least an hour a week or four hours a month), realistically, we should probably start with daily editing of 5 oldest organization entries, then hope things accelerate from there as we grow the number of committed volunteer editors.
@Kerry: I like the idea of setting up double checking mechanism. Directory Editors would definitely be the ones devising the mechanism and ensuring it works as intended. Featuring the group on the prominent places like the homepage or user profiles also sounds like a good idea. The badge idea is definitely something we need to revisit somewhere in the near future (check this suggestion page on similar idea if you haven't seen it before).
@Arash: Thanks! I like the way you describe it as something that "strengthens WE's core differentiator, our data, and engages the community". I think we can just start the group without added functionalities. But if there's any, what Angus suggested seems like a good idea, especially when we've completed the editing cycle for the entire organization currently in the database.
Other features that would help (as mentioned): - a more comprehensive group activity statistics (this member edited / added / commented this much this week / month / year / over time) which is open to all group members. This feature should also extend to the wider platform and can be fine tuned to show editors-only statistics. - the reward system mentioned by Kerry and in the suggestion page above.
Would be great if we have at least the first one up and running prior to public launch of the group (perhaps early next year). Let me get in touch with Honore on this.
@Angus: I like the idea, which definitely can help the work done in the public group. However, it appears to make things a bit more complex to manage and as I've mentioned, seems more appropriate as a follow up mechanism once the public group served it's purpose (edited all organizations in the directory in the manner described). Another option would be to turn it into a tightly integrated group module, available only to this public group from the first day the group goes 'live'. What do others think?
@Bernard: Thanks for jumping right in! I really like your idea of bringing those semantics to the organizations directory, not to mention on how it can build a stronger sense of WE as a community as opposed to WE as a database. I like how level 3 can help with spreading the WiserEarth word.
My feedback would be to merge level 1 and level 2 as 'monitored organization'. The 'represented' part can be merged to level 3 'member organization'. This will make for three levels implying that an organization is either 'listed', 'edited', or 'active'.
Two problems: - How do we verify that a user is indeed a person working for an organization and is a legitimate representative to that organization in WE? - How do we certify that an organization is a WE member? Who will do this 'certification'?
Looks like we'll need a separate suggestion page for this. In the WE Suggestions group perhaps?
@Heather: Thank you for also jumping right in! and for your help with the sandbox group.
I agree that organization contacting should be done by editors, those with outreach role seems most appropriate. But if users is motivated enough to participate in our public group, I assume they have a good understanding of WE's mission and should be a good ambassador to help with organization contacting. On the flip side, if we see that a user is repeatedly contacting organizations listed in the open group, why not recruit that user as an editor? (with Directory Editor and Outreach roles). Yes, we can think of a working group for editors with each role. In this case, for outreach. As an example, the WiserEarth in Diferent Languages group is a working group of the editors group, which can be managed by editors with Language Support role in the future.
Also liked the idea that a well-edited and well-networked organization page should be featured in appropriate places (homepage and AoF portals).
@Bernard again:
This is indeed THE question: Many (most?) WE members have no activity further than registering themselves and/or organization(s). How do WE give new (and old) members the opportunity and motivation to collaborate and be involved further than that?
On early contributors from India: Peggy, Angus or Camilla should be able to provide the complete answer, but one of which I suspect, would be the fact that when they contributed, WE don't have social networking features just yet, as WE really started out as a directory. Not sure whether the "Network" feature was avalable at the time or not. On recognition, they're properly recognized in NCI's website: http://www.naturalcapital.org/ourteam.htm
Hope this help explain things a bit.
@Everyone again: To go back to the main topic of the public group to grow the database and userbase:
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This is a SANDBOX issue and a response to some of the above. If there is a guideline on when to jump to a new discussion, I am wanting to hear it!
The sandbox test that bowo set up makes me think about what an "entity" is. Is it in WE editor capacity to connect an ORG with a person? I did not feel comfortable doing this, so I sent an invite to people within WE to join in the org I updated. Also, I am still trying to figure out how to help network two orgs and the interface - suggestions and how to's also appreciated here! This was an invitation to participate in WE, which made me think more about what is discussed above.
I don't think endless rounds of unanswered emails are doable, but I think that having part of the updating be contacting the org and contacting people and asking them to participate is easy enough with possibly high return. I believe this is so becuase WE can be a great resource. In terms of enticements, or proposals of useful tasks, I am fairly certain that despite the community aspect and the energetic drive, many people will not do much more than join. And for those that do more than join, WE is in a position to be truly collaborative. We can reiterate the organizing aspect of the community, and we can reiterate the increased reach to a listening community. Do we have any ideas of non-virtual projects that WE can participate in / foster? Again, I am still catching up on all that has gone before, so I will take all the info I can get.
So when Bernard asks "How do we give new (and old) members the opportunity and motivation to collaborate and be involved further than that?" I think that the first thing we might be able to establish is the power of existing, active, WE network. Can we or have we put a call out to organizations and asked them if they need some defined help? CAn we or have we then put a call out to the network as a whole and see if they can get matched up.Is this possible? It is one thing to say that you can find resources, community, and such if you join and another to actually do so and hold it up as an example. A shorter way to this is to ask for success stories from this community or like communities ... I know that WE should be more than an event roster and job announce, and this is the thing that first came to mind about communities: they often form/strengthen in times of need.
I believe that the "doubters" in the margin of activity and nothing might just tip into activity if they saw this. How do we advertise the inherent potential benefit of networking and our own goals if we cannot test the very thing WE is!
best, heather |
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I have been brainstorming on some small group work and I had a lightbulb moment. Is it okay to tell people with small groups that are listed in WE that they could use the forum functions and repository of WE to augment their own sites? Most of the time little groups have little sites and don't run forums and such, so the opportunity to have a [moderated] area for people to discuss might be nice for them?
I am obviously the hyper active type who has no problem contacting groups and saying "hey! look at this thingy that may get your community talking more!", but that may not be a good idea....
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Heather!... Happy to see that your happily 'hyper active'!!! :)
Is it in WE editor capacity to connect an ORG with a person? I did not feel comfortable doing this, so I sent an invite to people within WE to join in the org I updated.
This is also something I personally feel 'a bit off' too. Never actually connect an organization with a person, but probably the impetus for doing so would be:
In this context, I personally think any community member can, or even should, step in to help connect the two. We're all about making meaningful and useful connection here in WiserEarth.
Also, I am still trying to figure out how to help network two orgs and the interface - suggestions and how to's also appreciated here!
A FAQ page and a tutorial page for the organization directory will be released hopefully by end of this week. Should help you with this issue.
On inviting people from organization into WE
Yes, to do so simultaneously with updating the organization profile is the main elemnt of the idea originally posted here (and developed in the sandbox group). Let's hope we can find a good way to combine this with the mass email we sent out to organizations on an annual basis.
Do we have any ideas of non-virtual projects that WE can participate in / foster?
There are plenty of them. Here are some examples:
So when Bernard asks "How do we give new (and old) members the opportunity and motivation to collaborate and be involved further than that?" I think that the first thing we might be able to establish is the power of existing, active, WE network.
Couldn't agree more. Not that much yet, but here are some success stories we want to have more of in the near and farther future. Hopefully the last two in the above list can be added there. Other than that we (the editors group) should definitely strive to be a prime example.
...the thing that first came to mind about communities: they often form/strengthen in times of need.
I like this. Can only hope the WE community will have plenty of chances to test this and succeed.
I believe that the "doubters" in the margin of activity and nothing might just tip into activity if they saw this. How do we advertise the inherent potential benefit of networking and our own goals if we cannot test the very thing WE is!
Agreed!
Is it okay to tell people with small groups that are listed in WE that they could use the forum functions and repository of WE to augment their own sites? Most of the time little groups have little sites and don't run forums and such, so the opportunity to have a [moderated] area for people to discuss might be nice for them?
Definitely! We will even soon launch a feature that will easily enable organizations to embed WE groups and content on their site a la Eco April website (mentioned above). The details is still in the works and will be published in due time.
Again, I am still catching up on all that has gone before, so I will take all the info I can get.
Here's something I did back in the early days of volunteering as a WE Editor: Streamlining WiserEarth-Related Wikipages and WiserEarth Related Groups (there's a lot there, so I suggest taking them in one at a time. Note: they're likely to be outdated here and there).
As always, fire away with more questions, observations, suggestions, ideas, anything!
Cheers, Bowo |
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Thanks Bowo, Heather, Bernard, Kerry, Peggy, Arash, Angus. Here are my thoughts:
I like the sandbox where we can test out ideas. When I reviewed the template that Bowo kindly set up in this group, the work felt a bit too complex and a bit too lengthy to carry out each time I update an org profile as I have to fill in the detailed chart which is fine if we have 100 entries, but not 110,000 entries. (I spent 6 months as a volunteer just doing data entry for the WE directory - it does take time to do, so anything to speed things up is great). I wonder if we can simplify this process further by providing an automated updated email message that gets sent to the editors group so everyone can see which editors updated what (and as Angus suggested, a queue for orgs that need updating based on their 'ancientness'). An updated email with updates just focused on the Directory updates would provide editors who are working in this area with visibility for the important work they are doing and encourage other editors to join in this work.
Secondly, I think it is critical that the yearly email that is sent out is done particularly well so that organizations can easily update the information and also create a connection to that organization on WE. They should have a very simple sign up process (maybe one that doesn't require that they fill in their Aofs) and once the info is updated, they can easily request to get alerts if any information on org changes. We need to think of any other ways that we can encourage orgs to do the updates themselves. Maybe WE needs to have a global 'draw' where 10 organizations who have updated their information could enter a draw to win a special prize. (a computer? funding? 1 month feature on the home page? )
How about... WE Directory Editors Mapping and connecting the organizations, people and content that are helping to create a more just and sustainable world.
I don't think any one should be 'obligated' but that we should have an outline of what could be expected of an editor - I think one organization a week is probably minimal - probably 5 is ideal. 10 is superbe!
I think it depends on how much time a directory editor has. For example, some days I can help out more hours and other days I can't help out at all. I think it would be better to aggregate this into a week in terms of 'expecations' ...i.e. if you could update 10-20 orgs in a week that would be fab.
I would put in live sooner rather than later. I found that when you put groups out there, you get lots of ideas coming in that you wouldn't have thought about before.
It could be linked to from the About page, the org listing page and the editors group. I don't think it needs to go on the homepage or user profiles though as I don't think every user is interested in helping to update the directory. However, WE editors have already self-identified ourselves as wanting to help, so that's different.
I like the way that Yelp does it - http://www.yelp.com/elite - they also have a YELP elite squad which is worth reading about.
See Yelp example http://www.yelp.com/faq
That would be fab and make things a lot easier.
I think the idea of creating different categories of 'org entries' would be great. I agree that I feel uncomfortable when I look at the entries as I don't know whether they are the result of the employees of the org updating them (which would make them correct) or a person who just added any information they could get hold of. Hopefully this solution could be carried out so that it wouldn't be too cumbersome on the tech team to implement.
Basically I think this would work well if we could create some sort of visual icon (or label) to show what level an org entry is at (which would indicate the likely level of accuracy). This could be added as a small icon an entry near to the 'Page Views' box which would give a category + explanation link) based on whether this entry has been 'Verified' (a la 'Verified by Visa). 'Non verified' then it means that it has not been checked by a registered user or an employee of the organization for more than 12 months. Any entry that has been verified by a registerd user in the last 12 months would receive a 'Verified by WE member'. (I think 8 mths would be hard to do) If it has an icon which has 'Verified by employee' then that shows that entry is even more likely to be correct.
I like the fact that this job is done by WiserEarth editors as it provides the organization who has been 'updated' with the assurance that the update has been carried out to certain standards. However, I think it would be difficult to limit the updates to the editors since the directory is so large. Perhaps there should also be a label for 'Verified by WE editor' to show that the entry has been properly updated.
I think that there are not enough reasons for users to return to WiserEarth at the moment as the site requires users to be good at pulling information (users have to search out and find the info they want) rather than on a 'push' basis (users tell the site what info they want and it gets pushed to them). I think that in the future WE needs to become better at enabling users to tell the site what information they would like to be 'pushed' to them. This could be in the form of RSS feeds for specific topics, areas of the site, information about events or groups or content being added by their friends or colleagues which could be updated on their own customized home page (e.g. friend feed) and information about communities that could be of interest to them (suggested groups based on your Area of interest/geographic location). Any other thoughts? |
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There are lots of good suggestions here on how to update the profiles. I have noticed that if I "adopt" the profiles related to the work we are involved in it improves everyone's experience of WiserEarth that we are dealing with. It is also been nice to show and offer to someone we are working with their profile as up to date as we could take it. It is also a benefit that so many organizations have been in WiserEarth for a long time. You can show the organization when the profile was created and when it was last updated.
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I really like the idea of breaking down this task into a more manageable commitment as suggested by bvatant. I would suggest that we can do this by simply responding to demand of our users. The idea goes like this:
This would be a manageable commitment on our collective part. We would be responding to user needs. Our content would appear very up to date - since the majority of visits by users occur on a small faction of the organizations I'm betting we would have the biggest impact approaching it this way. And there is the added benefit that an organization that suddenly gets a lot of views would jump to the top of the list. Any ideas / comments? |
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Thanks Camilla for the detailed response. Good and spot-on observations. We've implemented your suggestion on simplifying the co-editing process in the sandbox group. Might need to be simplified further.
Also agree with Angus'es idea. This btw, is already getting a slot for near future implementation.
Question: should we focus solely on most viewed, less-edited organization profiles? Or should we also spend some time editing least-viewed, least-edited organization profiles (smaller, more-local, less-popular organizations)?
The first obviously serve current needs of the community, while the latter would serve the longer-term needs. As WE go international and more-local at the same time, the latter will/should automatically get into the 500 most-viewed, least-edited organizations list (though not all of them I imagine). Thus, the question. Thoughts anyone? |
Dear all,
Just came up with this simple idea to engage group members and the wider community to help with expanding WE's database and userbase by making good use of the extensive organizations entries. Would love to hear your thoughts.
Here's the idea: we create an open group with the purpose of co-editing 10 of the oldest organization entries each day while expanding WE's database, enriching network connections, and inviting organization staff to join WE along the way.
This involves visiting each organization's website (if applicable) or googling for it, getting all the latest info, adding relevant resources, events and jobs into WE, connecting them all with the Network tools, and then inviting organization representatives (via contact email) to join WE and perhaps use WE's groupware for their organization's needs.
WE now has 110,119 organizations, 17,654 people, 4,728 resources, 215 events, 221 jobs. If we can do this co-editing consistently, the end target would be to have at least 100,000 people, 100,000 resources, 50,000 events, and 25,000 jobs. All meaningfully connected.
Here's the editing we're aiming for in visuals (click image to go to organization page):
BEFORE
Members of WE Editors group will be the ones most responsible to maintain the editing pace, while other WiserEarthlings are free to jump in and participate anytime. If things go well, we can increase the pace to 15, 20 or more organizations a day.
What are the incentives?
Thoughts?