Editor campaigns

This is a nascent Wikimedia Engineering project, kicking off in mid-February 2014.

Background and goals
Our goal is to test hypotheses about how to acquire new users through inviting users to join a campaign, event, or group on Wikipedia. We view this work as fitting within the framework of new editor acquisition and activation by the Growth team in 2013-14, i.e. how we get potential new editors to sign up and make their first edits to Wikipedia. This also intersects with related projects by Mobile, Analytics, and other teams, as well as future work on structured profiles and Affiliations (i.e. an interest graph and WikiProject support).

Project members

 * Andrew Russell Green, Software Engineer
 * Steven Walling, Product Manager
 * Sage Ross, from the Global Education Program

User experience
A campaign is an organized action to achieve a goal. An editor campaign is when one group of users invites others to participate in editing a particular topic on Wikipedia or another Wikimedia project. People already run many types of editor campaigns on Wikipedia, though not all of them target new users per se. Examples include edit-a-thons, writing contests, editing workshops, college courses through the Global Education Program, and WikiProject collaborations such as backlog drives, collaboration of the month or week, etc.

All the examples above involve a few basic elements, such as choosing a list of things to do, creating a place for people to join and these find things to do, inviting people, providing them instructions and help, and reporting on the progress of the group. Most of these campaign types are also conducted within a limited time period, though they may happen on a recurring basis as well.

User stories
There are essentially only two types of users that relate to an editor campaign. First, people who want to start and organize a campaign, aka campaign organizers. There are also people who want to join a campaign or who are invited to do so, aka campaign participants.

Campaign organizers need to be able to...
 * Create the campaign, including potentially:
 * Creating a description/introduction
 * Setting a location, start/end date, or other applicable logistics
 * Deciding on a subject (e.g. art and feminism or copyediting)
 * Providing a suggested list of things to do
 * Invite others
 * View the group's activity and track progress toward campaign goals
 * Talk to the people who have joined a campaign

Campaign participants need to be able to... Participants may also like to...
 * Add or remove participants
 * Be invited or hear about a campaign somehow
 * Create an account or log in
 * Join the campaign they're interested in
 * Find a list of things to do
 * Talk to other people in the campaign
 * Get an introduction to Wikipedia basics (if they're new)
 * Introduce themselves to the group
 * Claim an article or set of articles, so others can help them or pick something else to do
 * View the group's activity and track progress toward goals
 * Leave a campaign, if they lose interest or for other reasons

Learn more

 * Campaigns, which is a disambiguation page with related links
 * Check out our planning board on Trello