User talk:Siko (WMF)/Archive 1

Hi

Hi,

Thanks for the ping - Im now in my last month of my fellowship. Cheers Around The Globe^{सत्यमेव जयते} 05:48, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Seasons greetings

ϢereSpielChequers is wishing you Seasons Greetings! Whether you celebrate your hemisphere's Solstice or Xmas, Eid, Diwali, Hogmanay, Hanukkah, Lenaia, Festivus or even the Saturnalia, this is a special time of year for almost everyone!

Spread the holiday cheer by adding {{subst:User:WereSpielChequers/Dec11}} to your friends' talk pages.

Hi Siko, hope all is well with you and yours. ϢereSpielChequers 23:30, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi

Hi Siko, it was nice to meet you today and talk about wiki and mom stuff. Keep in touch! --Stacey Doljack Borsody (talk) 07:05, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for strawberries!

Hi Siko! It was great to meet you at the meet-up as well. Thanks for the strawberries, and let me know if I can be of any help with your projects of future Wikipedia meet-ups. ~Zina~ (talk) 00:37, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Teahouse updates

Hi Siko! A few updates for you about Wikipedia:Teahouse, since you're one of our awesome Teahouse hosts!:

• The host lounge is open! Please take time to review the materials in the space and start contributing to the how-to pages. Your input is valuable. Not only is it great practice to get our minds thinking like hosts, but, you can also provide easy to understand instructions and sound bites for fellow hosts!
• Join the conversation by participating on the host lounge talk pages[1][2]. We also have an IRC channel now for hosts to get to know one another, develop your skills, and eventually the channel will serve as an additional help space for new editors!

• To visit the IRC channel: #wikipedia-teahouse ^connect (Feel free to ask me for help if you're having trouble connecting!)

• Let new editors get to know you by creating your Teahouse profile. Contribute your profile on the host page at the Teahouse! This serves as a fun way for new editors to get to know the people behind the usernames. You can post a photograph of yourself or an avatar, add a quote about yourself or something you enjoy, and share projects and activities you participate on wiki (with wikilinks).

Very exciting things are taking place, and we'll be opening the Teahouse no later than Monday. Feel free to ping me on or off wiki, and I can't wait to work with you to welcome new editors with a warm cup of tea :) SarahStierch (talk) 03:40, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

The Tea Leaf - Issue One - Recent news from the Teahouse

Hi! Welcome to the first edition of The Tea Leaf, the official newsletter of the Teahouse!

Spring has sprung! Stop by the Teahouse for a cup of tea under the cherry blossoms.

• Metrics are out from week one. Week one showed that the need for Teahouse hosts to invite new editors to the Teahouse is urgent for this pilot period. It also showed that emailing new users invitations is a powerful tool, with new editors responding more to emails than to talk page templates. We also learned that the customized database reports created for the Teahouse have the highest return rate of participation by invitees. Check out the metrics here and see how you can help with inviting in our Invitation Guide.
• A refreshed "Your hosts" page encourages experienced Wikipedians to learn about the Teahouse and participate. With community input, the Teahouse has updated the Your hosts page which details the host roles within the Teahouse pilot and the importance that hosts play in providing a friendly, special experience not always found on other welcome/help spaces on Wikipedia. It also explains how Teahouse hosts are important regarding metrics reporting during this pilot. Are you an experienced editor who wants to help out? Take a look at the new page today and start learning about the hosts tasks and how you can participate!
• Introduce yourself and meet new guests at the Teahouse. Take the time to welcome and get to know the latest guests at the Teahouse. New & experienced editors to Wikipedia can add a brief infobox about themselves and get to know one another with direct links to userpages. Drop off some wikilove to these editors today, they'll surely be happy to feel the wikilove!

You are receiving The Tea Leaf after expressing interest or participating in the Teahouse! To remove yourself from receiving future newsletters, please remove your username here. Sarah (talk) 16:08, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

HighBeam

• I am sending this message to editors who signed up for the Women's History Month Edit-a-thon.Please help spread the word. HighBeam Research--an online, pay-for-use search engine for newspapers, magazines, academic journals, newswires, trade magazines and encyclopedias has agreed to give free, full-access, 1-year accounts for up to 1000 Wikipedia editors to use. HighBeam has access to over 80 million articles from 6,500 publications, most of which are not available for free elsewhere on the internet. Aside from a free 7-day trial (credit card required), access to HighBeam would cost $30 per month or $200 per year for the first year and $300 for subsequent years, so this is a wonderful, free, no-strings-attached opportunity. To qualify, editors must have at least a 1 year-old account with 1000 edits. Please add your name to the WP:HighBeam/Applications account sign-up page if you are interested. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 18:30, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Real Life Barnstar
	For the WikiWomen's Edit-a-thon :) Well done! Sarah (talk) 17:14, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

The Tea Leaf - Issue Two

Hi! Welcome to the second edition of The Tea Leaf, the official newsletter of the Teahouse!

• Teahouse celebrates one month of being open! This first month has drawn a lot of community interest to the Teahouse. Hosts & community members have been working with the project team to improve the project in many ways including creating scripts to make inviting easier, exploring mediation processes for troubling guests, and best practices regarding mentoring for new editors who visit the Teahouse.

Springtime means fresh tea leaves...

• First month metrics report an average of 30 new editors visiting the Teahouse each week. Approximately 30 new editors participate in the Teahouse each week, by way of asking questions and making guest profiles. An average of six new questions and four new profiles are made each day. We'd love to hear your ideas about how we can spread the word about the Teahouse to more new editors.
• Teahouse has many regulars. Like any great teahouse, our Teahouse has a 61% return rate of guests, who come back to ask additional questions and to also help answer others' questions. Return guests cite the speedy response rate of hosts and the friendly, easy to understand responses by the hosts and other participants as the main reasons for coming back for another cup o' tea!
• Early metrics on retention. It's still too early to draw conclusions about the Teahouse's impact on new editor retention, but, early data shows that 38% of new editors who participate at the Teahouse are still actively editing Wikipedia 2-4 weeks later, this is compared with 7% from a control group of uninvited new editors who showed similar first day editing activity. Additional metrics can be found on the Teahouse metrics page.
• Nine new hosts welcomed to the Teahouse. Nine new hosts have been welcomed to the Teahouse during month one: Chicocvenancio, Cullen328, Hallows AG, Jeffwang, Mono, Tony1, Worm That Turned, Writ Keeper, and Nathan2055. Welcome to the Teahouse gang, folks!
• Say hello to the new guests at the Teahouse. Take the time to welcome and get to know the latest guests at the Teahouse. Drop off some wikilove to these editors today, as being welcomed by experienced editors is a really nice way to make new editors feel welcome.

You are receiving The Tea Leaf after expressing interest or participating in the Teahouse! To remove yourself from receiving future newsletters, please remove your username here. -- Sarah (talk) 21:47, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

A beer for you!

Cheers! Thought you could use one of these. Sarah (talk) 23:25, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Userbox vandalism

Hi Siko,

FYI: I just reverted some userbox vandalism on your user page. - J-Mo ^{Talk to Me} _{Email Me} 04:49, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

You're invited: San Francisco WikiWomen's Edit-a-Thon 2!

San Francisco WikiWomen's Edit-a-Thon 2! You are invited!

The San Francisco WikiWomen's Edit-a-Thon 2 will be held on Saturday, June 16, 2012 at the Wikimedia Foundation offices in San Francisco. Wikipedians of all experience levels are welcome to join us! This event will be specifically geared around encouraging women to learn how to edit and contribute to Wikipedia. Workshops on copy-editing, article creation, and sourcing will be hosted. Bring a friend! Come one, come all! EdwardsBot (talk) 23:32, 22 May 2012 (UTC) · Unsubscribe

San Francisco Wiknic 2012

	San Francisco Wiknic at Golden Gate Park
	You are invited to the second Great American Wikinic taking place in Golden Gate Park, in San Francisco, on Saturday, June 23, 2012. We're still looking for input on planning activities, and thematic overtones. List your add yourself to the attendees list, and edit the picnic as you like. —Max Klein {chat} 18:35, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
	If you would not like to receive future messages about meetups, please remove your name from Wikipedia:Meetup/San Francisco/Invite.

Saturday - and we need your help!

San Francisco WikiWomen's Edit-a-Thon 2! See you there
	The San Francisco WikiWomen's Edit-a-Thon 2 is this Saturday at the Wikimedia Foundation! We look forward to hosting you! If you'd like to bring a family member or friend, please sign them up on the event page or Eventbrite! Also, don't forget to bring your laptop! And we also need your help! Check out the Etherpad to learn more! Please arrive as close 1 PM as you can. We'll see you Saturday!

The Tea Leaf - Issue Four

Hi! Welcome to the fourth issue of The Tea Leaf, the official newsletter for the Teahouse!

• Teahouse pilot wraps up after 13 weeks After being piloted on English Wikipedia starting in February, the Teahouse wrapped up its pilot period on May 27, 2012. We expect this is just the beginning for the Teahouse and hope the project will continue to grow in the months to come!

Thank you and congratulations to all of the community members who participated - and continue to participate!

• What you've all been waiting for: Teahouse Pilot Report is released! We look forward to your feedback on the methodology and outcomes of this pilot project.
• ....and if a pilot report wasn't enough, the Teahouse Pilot Metrics Report is out too! Dive into the numbers and survey results to learn about the impact the Teahouse has made on English Wikipedia.
• Teahouse shows positive impact on new editor retention and engagement

• 409 new editors participated during the entire pilot period, with about 40 new editors participating in the Teahouse per week.
• Two weeks after participating, 33% of Teahouse guests are still active on Wikipedia, as opposed to 11% of a similar control group.
• New editors who participated in the Teahouse edit 10x the number of articles, make 7x more global edits, and 2x as much of their content survives on Wikipedia compared to the control group.

• Women participate in the Teahouse 28% of Teahouse participants were women, up from 9% of editors on Wikipedia in general, good news for this project which aimed to have impact on the gender gap too - but still lots to be done here!
• New opportunities await for the Teahouse in phase two as the Teahouse team and Wikipedia community examine ways to improve, scale, and sustain the project. Opportunities for future work include:

• Automating or semi-automating systems such as invites, metrics and archiving
• Experimenting with more ways for new editors to discover the Teahouse
• Building out the social and peer-to-peer aspects further, including exploring ways to make answering questions easier, creating more ways for new editors to help each other and for all participants to acknowledge each other's efforts
• Growing volunteer capacity, continuing to transfer Teahouse administration tasks to volunteers whenever possible, and looking for new ways to make maintenance and participation easier for everyone.

• Want to know how you can lend a hand at the Teahouse? Become a host! Learn more about what makes the Teahouse different than other help spaces on Wikipedia and see how you can help new editors by visiting here.
• Say hello to the new guests at the Teahouse. Take the time to welcome and get to know the latest guests at the Teahouse. Drop off some wikilove to these editors today, as being welcomed by experienced editors is really encouraging to new Wikipedians.

You are receiving The Tea Leaf after expressing interest or participating in the Teahouse! To remove yourself from receiving future newsletters, please remove your username here. Sarah (talk) 17:06, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Help Project newsletter : Issue 2

The Help Project Newsletter Issue II - June 2012
Project news Progress on the help redesign fellowship continues apace. In-person usability testing is due to start next week, watch this space for results! A large survey about help pages was conducted. Responses are still coming in, but preliminary results are available. A new gadget has been proposed to make it easier for new- and non-editors to leave feedback about help pages. Please test it and leave your thoughts. In somewhat-related-project-news: the Teahouse has wrapped up its pilot phase with an extensive report. Planning and discussion is underway for phase 2. A discussion is taking place about the purpose and future of the venerable Community portal.	From the editor Hello from the Help Project, and welcome to the second issue of our newsletter! The biggest project I've been working on this month has been a large survey of users to find out what they think of our current help pages. Preliminary results from this are now available, although there are more responses trickling in from the lower edit count groups since a batch of email invitations were recently sent out. Finalised results and further analysis should be posted next week. Any comments or suggestions for future issues are welcome at Wikipedia:Help Project/Newsletter. If you don't wish to receive this newsletter on your talk page in future then just edit the participants page and add "no newsletter" next to your name. the wub "?!" 18:47, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
Tasks Calling all CSS and template gurus: Help:Diff and {{wiki diff}} need to be updated to match the new MediaWiki diff styles. Why not wander through the lower reaches of Wikipedia:Help Project/page statistics and see if there are pages that can be cleaned up or merged.

A barnstar for you!

	The Teamwork Barnstar
	To Teahouse team members for wonderful editor engagement work and research, including the Teahouse Pilot Report, the Teahouse Pilot Metrics Report, and the Phase 2 plan. Pine✉ 08:24, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Just FYI: user looking for you at SarahStierch's page

Hey, Siko, just wanted to let you know that I stumbled across this thread at Sarah's page, wherein someone is looking for you. Thanks! Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 15:04, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Got it, thanks Writ Keeper! Siko (talk) 17:29, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Help Project newsletter : Issue 3

The Help Project Newsletter Issue III - August 2012

Project news summary Final results and conclusions from the help pages survey were released. The wub gave a presentation at Wikimania 2012 about help pages, and the slides are now on Commons. A discussion is taking place about the purpose and future of the venerable Community portal. New designs for tutorial pages have been proposed, comment from project members is welcome.

From the editor Welcome to the (slightly delayed) third issue of the Help Project newsletter. The past month has once again been a busy one for my fellowship. The full results and conclusions from the extensive user survey on help pages are now available, and make interesting reading. These do confirm a number of our suspicions about Wikipedia help, and suggest that the current plan for the remainder of the fellowship is a sound approach. Also last month I was fortunate enough to attend Wikimania 2012 in Washington DC, where I gave a presentation about help pages and the aforementioned survey results. You can find the slides from this on Commons. Wikimania was also a great opportunity for many discussions with staff and community members, and these brought up some interesting ideas which I hope to follow up on. One of the things much discussed was the planned tutorial pages. I've been working on a new design for them which can be seen at User:The wub/sandbox/1, please let me know what you think (especially if you spot any bugs!). Any comments or suggestions for future issues are welcome at Wikipedia:Help Project/Newsletter. If you don't wish to receive this newsletter on your talk page in future then just edit the participants page and add "no newsletter" next to your name. the wub "?!" 13:25, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

The Tea Leaf - Issue Five

Stop by for a tasty glass of wiki-iced tea at the Teahouse, today!

Hi! Welcome to the fifth edition of The Tea Leaf, the official newsletter of the Teahouse!

• Guest activity increased in July. Questions are up from an average of 36 per week in June to 43 per week in July, and guest profile creation has also increased. This is likely a result of the automatic invite experiments we started near the end of month, which seeks to lessen the burden on hosts and other volunteers who manually invite editors. During the last week of July, questions doubled in the Teahouse! (But don't let that deter you from inviting editors to the Teahouse, please, there are still lots of new editors who haven't found Teahouse yet.)
• More Teahouse hosts than ever. We had 12 new hosts sign up to participate at the Teahouse! We now have 35 hosts volunteering at the Teahouse. Feel free to stop by and see them all here.
• Phase two update: Host sprint. In August, the Teahouse team plans to improve the host experience by developing a simpler new-host creation process, a better way of surfacing active hosts, and a host lounge renovation. Take a look at the plan and weigh in here.
• New Teahouse guest barnstar is awarded to first recipient: Charlie Inks. Using the Teahouse barnstar designed by Heatherawalls, hosts hajatvrc and Ryan Vesey created the new Teahouse Guest Barnstar. The first recipient is Charlie Inks, for her boldness in asking questions at the Teahouse. Check out the award in action here.
• Teahouse was a hot topic at Wikimania! The Teahouse was a hot topic at Wikimania this past month, where editor retention and interface design was heavily discussed. Sarah and Jonathan presented the Teahouse during the Wikimedia Fellowships panel. Slides can be viewed here. A lunch was also held at Wikimania for Teahouse hosts.

As always, thanks for supporting the Teahouse project! Stop by and visit us today!

You are receiving The Tea Leaf after expressing interest or participating in the Teahouse! To remove yourself from receiving future newsletters, please remove your username here. Sarah (talk) 08:37, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

The Tea Leaf - Issue Six

Hi! Welcome to the sixth edition of The Tea Leaf, the official newsletter of the Teahouse!

• Teahouse serves over 700 new editors in six months on Wikipedia! Since February 27, 741 new editors have participated at the Teahouse. The Q&A board and the guest intro pages are more active than ever.

A lovely little teahouse nestled in Germany from Wiki Loves Monuments

• Automatic invites are doing the trick: 50% more new editors visiting each week. Ever since HostBot's automated invite trial phase began we've seen a boost in new editor participation. Automating a baseline set of invitations also allows Teahouse hosts to focus on serving hot cups of help to guests, instead of spending countless hours inviting.
• Guests to the Teahouse continue to edit more & interact more with other community members than non-Teahouse guests according to six month metrics. Teahouse guests make more than twice the article edits and edit more talk pages than other new editors.
• New host process implemented which encourages anyone to get started as a Teahouse host in a few easy steps. Stop by the hosts page and become a Teahouse host today!
• Host lounge renovations nearing completion. Working closely with Teahouse hosts, we've made some major renovations to the Teahouse Host Lounge - the main hangout and resource space for hosts. Learn more about the improvements here.

As always, thanks for supporting the Teahouse project! Stop by and visit us today!

You are receiving The Tea Leaf after expressing interest or participating in the Teahouse! To remove yourself from receiving future newsletters, please remove your username here. EdwardsBot (talk) 00:11, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

You're invited! - Wiki Loves Monuments - San Francisco Events

Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco

Hi! As part of Wiki Loves Monuments, we're organizing two photo events in the San Francisco Bay Area and one in Yosemite National Park. We hope you can come out and participate! Feel free to contact User:Almonroth with questions or concerns.

There are three events planned:

• September 15, Saturday - A bike ride along San Francisco's waterfront
• September 22-23rd, Saturday-Sunday - Wiki Takes Yosemite
• September 29, Saturday - A sunset and harvest moon bridges, palace, boats and tower tour

We look forward to seeing you there!

You are receiving this message because you signed up on the SF Bay Area event listing, or have attended an event in the Bay Area. To remove yourself, please go here. EdwardsBot (talk) 00:46, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Help Project newsletter : Issue 4

The Help Project Newsletter Issue IV - September 2012

Project news summary The in-person usability tests from the wub's community fellowship have been written up. Three new introductory tutorials for new users have been created: referencing, uploading images and navigating Wikipedia. The Article Feedback Tool has been deployed to pages in the Help namespace, and can be added manually to help pages in other namespaces. Read more... Page statistics were updated for the month of August.

From the editor Hi, and welcome to the fourth issue of the Help Project newsletter. It's been another busy month in the world of Wikipedia help. The results from the in-person usability tests conducted as part of the help pages fellowship have been released. There are no great surprises here, the tests confirmed that people have trouble with the existing help system, and people looking for help on the same topic often end up at wildly different pages. Editors who experienced a tutorial and/or edited a sandbox as part of their learning were noticeably more confident when editing a real article. Drawing on that, three new "Introduction to" tutorials for new users have been created: referencing, uploading images and navigating Wikipedia. These join the popular existing introductions to policies and guidelines and talk pages. Feel free to edit them, but please do remember that the idea is to keep them simple and as free from extraneous details as possible. All three have been added to Help:Getting started, which is intended to be the new focal point for new editors, and will also be seeing a redesign soon. In other news, the Article Feedback Tool (AFT) can now be used to collect feedback on help pages. By default it has been deployed to all pages in the Help: namespace. It can be disabled on any page by adding Category:Article Feedback Blacklist, or enabled for pages in other namespaces by adding Category:Article Feedback 5 Additional Articles. Once a page has AFT applied, you can add feedback using the form which appears at the bottom of it. Feedback can be reviewed by clicking "View feedback" in the sidebar, or the "Feedback from my watched pages" link at the top of your watchlist. I'm now entering the final month of my fellowship, and will be focusing my efforts on making much needed improvements to Help:Contents, the main entrance point to our help system. It's been a pleasure working as a fellow, and I just want to thank all the people who have helped me or offered advice over the past months. That definitely won't be the end of my involvement in the Help Project though, I'll be sticking around as a volunteer and continuing to write this newsletter. Any comments or suggestions for future issues are welcome at Wikipedia:Help Project/Newsletter. If you don't wish to receive this newsletter on your talk page in future then just edit the participants page and add "no newsletter" next to your name. -- the wub "?!" 20:00, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Fun with badges

Wikipedia:BADGE/tech#WikiLove delivery prototype Ocaasi ^{t | c} 13:54, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

You're invited! Ada Lovelace Day San Francisco

October 16 - Ada Lovelace Day Celebration - You are invited!

Come celebrate Ada Lovelace Day at the Wikimedia Foundation offices in San Francisco on October 16! This event, hosted by the Ada Initiative, the Mozilla Foundation, and the Wikimedia Foundation. It'll be a meet up style event, though you are welcome to bring a laptop and edit about women in STEM if you wish. Come mix, mingle and celebrate the legacy of the world's first computer programmer. The event is October 16, 5:00 pm - 8:00 pm, everyone is welcome! You must RSVP here - see you there! SarahStierch (talk) 19:53, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Edit-a-thon tomorrow (Saturday) in Oakland

Hi, I hope you will be joining us tomorrow afternoon at the Edit-a-thon at Tech Liminal, in Oakland. We'll be working on articles relating to women and democracy (and anything else that interests you). It's sponsored by the California League of Women Voters, Tech Liminal, and me.

If this is the first you are hearing of this event, my apologies for the last-minute notice! I announced it on the San Francisco email list and by a banner on your watchlist, but I neglected to look at the San Francisco invitation list until this evening. If you can't make it this time, I hope to see you at a similar event soon! -Pete (talk) 04:53, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Help Project newsletter : Issue 5

The Help Project Newsletter Issue V - January 2013

Project news summary Help:Contents and Wikipedia:Contact us have seen a major revamp. Page statistics were updated. Alerts are now available for discussions related to Help Project pages Many more Help Project pages now have the Article Feedback Tool (v5) enabled. GettingStarted is an experimental feature to guide new users with their first edits.

From the editor Hello again from the Help Project! In the last newsletter (which was quite a while ago sorry!) I talked about my fellowship and the plans for improving the main portal page, Help:Contents. Well I'm sad to say that my fellowship is now over, but very happy to say that the proposed improvements to that page have been completed and implemented. Do check it out if you haven't already. Another important and frequently used help page, Wikipedia:Contact us, has also seen a significant revamp. You may recognise the design inspiration from the new tutorial pages. In project news, we now have a subscription to the "article alerts" service. Any deletion nominations, move discussions, or requests for comments on pages within the Help Project's scope will now show up at Wikipedia:Help Project/Article alerts. So that's definitely a page which project members might want to watch. Any comments or suggestions for future issues are welcome at Wikipedia:Help Project/Newsletter. If you don't wish to receive this newsletter on your talk page in future then just edit the participants page and add "no newsletter" next to your name. -- the wub "?!" 23:34, 13 January 2013 (UTC)