Growth/Communities/How to configure the mentors' list

The following procedure is only applicable to wikis where the Growth tools are available.

You're interested in becoming a mentor? Thank you!

The Growth team offers a mentorship system to all Wikipedia communities. The goal is to assign newcomers to a mentor, on-wiki.

Mentors are experienced users who are ready to help new users. They are a key factor in order to onboard and encourage new users to edit the wikis.

Newcomers are made aware of their mentor at the Newcomer's homepage.

Mentors know who they mentor at the mentor dashboard.

Please check our resources on how to interact with newcomers and then introduce yourself as a mentor.

In short,: In order to become a mentor, please add your name to the list of mentors. It is possible at wikis where a list of mentors exists.; If the list doesn't exist, you have to set up the list of mentors at your wiki.

Presentation of mentors on the Homepage

The Newcomer Homepage is designed to help newcomers in their first steps on Wikipedia. Newcomers have direct access to their homepage. There, they see the name of an experienced user who is ready to help them if needed: their mentor.

Mentors are randomly assigned to multiple newcomers, but not all of them contact their mentor. On average, a mentor receives between 0 to 6 questions each week from newcomers.

How to add yourself to the mentor list

Thank you for volunteering to be a mentor! It is a rewarding experience.

Visit the Mentor Dashboard

Some wikis have created a specific page with the mentor list, but also rules or best practices to follow. You may find your community's page on Wikidata. This list will tell you what are the conditions to be a mentor, if any condition apply. By default, the signup process is opened to editors who have 500 edits and 90 days of presence.

By default, the mentor list for your wiki is located at Special:ManageMentors. There, you can see who is a mentor.

If your wiki has setup the mentorship program, and if you qualify to be a mentor according the local rules, please visit Special:MentorDashboard to signup.

Add your description

You will be asked to describe yourself as a mentor. This short description is displayed on the newcomer's homepage. By default, the presentation is: "This experienced user knows you're new and can help you with editing.".

The description's length is 240 characters maximum. If it is longer, the system will cut the description. Do not add wikitext (no links, no templates), HTML, or CSS to the description: it will not be accepted.

Admins can edit your description using Special:ManageMentors.

Descriptions examples

(Due to translations, the examples below may exceed the 240 characters limit.)

You can introduce yourself with something very neutral:

"I am here to help you navigate Wikipedia, please feel free to ask!"

If you edit Wikipedia and participate to the life of your community, you have enough experience to reply to any question. But don't let people think you can only help them with something specific.

Don't write "I edit articles about football." Newcomers may think that they can't ask you about anything else than football.
Instead, write: "I'm mostly contributing to football-related topics, but I can help you with any other topic, as far as I can."

You can invite people to contact you:

"I can help you with your questions about editing Wikipedia. I'm mostly contributing to football-related topics. What would be your area of contributions?"
"I was as confused as you are now. But asking questions to experienced users helped me. Please feel free to ask me any question!"

Please briefly introduce yourself: 240 characters max. That limitation is set to avoid lengthy text that would overload the information already visible on the Homepage. Wikitext will not be rendered for the same reason. To learn more about you, newcomers can visit your user page, that is linked from their Homepage.

Your username will already be displayed on newcomers' Homepage, along with a link to your user page. No need to remind newcomers who you are in your presentation.

Welcome templates

Communities can create or edit their own welcome templates.

There might be welcome templates specifically designed for mentors to give to their mentees to help with the mentor introduction and newcomer on-boarding process. For example, the English Wikipedia has {{Mentor welcome}} and {{Welcome mentee}}; French Wikipedia has {{Bienvenue nouveau}}.

Welcome templates are not mandatory, but recommended: some newcomers don't look at their Homepage, while others don't look at their talk page. An automatic distribution of a welcome template to all new accounts can increase the number of interactions with an experienced mentor.

The magic word {{#mentor}} is available for templating, and {{#mentor:NewcomerName}} displays the mentor of the given newcomer.

It is up to each community to decide if the mentor's name should be substituted. Each solution has pros and cons:

If the name is substituted: The message will permanently display the name of the mentor who was assigned to the newcomers at the time when the message was left.; This is usage is relevant if the welcome message is distributed manually by the mentor, as the history will list who distributed the message. However, if the newcomer tries to contact that mentor, and that mentor has left mentorship or the wiki, it can create some frustration.
If the name is not substituted: When the mentor changes, then the magic word picks the new mentor's name. This way, a newcomer who hasn't read their welcome message, or forgot about their previous mentor, will see the name as the active mentor listed on the Homepage. This decreases confusion for newcomers.; This can relevant for cases where the message is distributed by a bot or through NewUserMessage, or in cases when history of a mentor/mentee relationship matters less (the log keeps it tracked).

You are ready

After you signed-up, the system will start assigning you new mentees. Regularly visit Special:MentorDashboard to keep an eye on the newcomers assigned to you.

Newcomers will also start contacting you directly on your talk page. Don't forget to mention them when you reply to their messages. Please also check our documentation on how to interact with newcomers.

How to create a list of mentors

1. Agree on having mentorship

First, you need to check if the Growth tools are deployed at your wiki. If it is not yet the case, please see how to get the features.

Then, you have to find some other mentors to volunteer.

We encourage you to start a conversation at the relevant places at your wiki, in order to decide if this mentor list should be created. This is also a good way to recruit mentors. The Growth mentorship system can replace or complement an existing mentoring system.

Based on our observations, we advise having one mentor for each group of 500 new users your wiki gets per month. For instance, if your wiki has 2,500 new accounts per month, your should have at least 5 mentors. We recommend to have at least 3 mentors. Mentors can sign up before the mentorship system is activated, at Special:EnrollAsMentor.

2. Activate mentorship

At your wiki, an admin has to turn on the mentorship system, using the configuration page (Special:CommunityConfiguration).

3. List of mentors

The list of mentors will be displayed on Special:ManageMentors.

You can transclude the list of mentors anywhere with the following syntax: {{Special:ManageMentors}}.

If you decide to create a page where you transclude the list of mentors, please list it on Wikidata.

At the configuration page, you add some criteria to define who can be a mentor. By default, the requirements are more than 500 edits made and an account that is at least 90 days old.

Your community can also define some specific rules on who can be a mentor (age of the account, how many edits made, number of edits made on main space, having a specific role, etc.), and then give the mentor role to any account. If you want to use this process, please contact us.

4. Mentors can now signup

In order to become a mentor, please add your name to the list of mentors.

Options

Mentors can manage their account:

The system provides options to manage mentors: