VIP Portraits/Talk

This page is for discussing the contents of VIP Portraits.

I've been testing a new welcome message:

''This editor can edit this entry and tell us a bit about themselves by clicking the Edit icon.''

[[Comments]]

''2009-07-26 18:10:59'' [[nbsp]]  ["Welcome to the Wiki"]. You can establish ["identity"] here in a variety of ways.
Doing so will give more weight to your comment on the ["VIP Portraits"] page. You've already chosen your
["Importance of using your RealName" username], so the next step would be to introduce yourself and make
some positive contributions like adding business reviews, ["Photo Requests" uploading photos], or adding to
["Seed Pages List" pages that need more information]. --["Users/JasonAller"]

But based on the following statistics it doesn't seem that message does anything to encourage additional editing, either that, or none of these people bothered to come back to the wiki after leaving a review about this business. Any suggestions?

c.mac's Statistics

mumble's Statistics

neweaver's Statistics

EricandPaula's Statistics

Lianne's Statistics

loontune's Statistics

D.Csech's Statistics

Comments:

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2009-07-27 08:23:07   I think the problem is that most of these people don't come back and log in, so they don't see the messages left for them. It may be more effective to reach out to the business owners who are encouraging these people to create accounts in order to review their business - asking business owners to revise how they are wording their request (instead of saying "Join DavisWiki so you can leave a review on my entry, please" it's "Have you heard of DavisWiki? It's a great local resource that everyone can add to; also we have an entry where people can leave comments.") —ElleWeber

2009-07-27 11:49:03   Your new welcome message is the best yet. I like it a lot and think the emphasis is in the right places. Elle is right in that it ends up being out of anyones hands when people don't come back - or they come back without logging in. It's quite a thing to tackle though because many business owners themselves don't really get it at first, or more likely it can be difficult to try to explain it in a store. How to try to get that implemented? For most owners and customers, the "Join DavisWiki so you can leave a review on my entry, please" is far simpler to say, and far more likely to happen. "Awareness" is most critical to the issue. Tabling at the Farmers Market doesn't reach even nearly enough people, even if it were done twice weekly. I think the best solution to both problems is targeted flyers/minibrochures a business can hand out.

Either a stock flier that can be made and passed out to businesses to keep on their counters or near a front window or something, or a customizable flier a business can print on their own. The customizable option could let them put their own business specific info on it, such as the specific url for their store on the front for example The flier template could explain what the DavisWiki is what it's about briefly, and the type of stuff that's on there, as well as mention identity and how it's community driven, etc. This would hopefully entice people to browse a little and see what else is up there.

Rather than asking people to leave a comment, they could simply toss them the flyer. It's simpler for them to explain less, and it's better for us in terms of info actually being given, and it serves to promote advertising for both the daviswiki and the business itself. IMO, it's a two step process. Approach business owners and give them a stack of 50 to 100, which they hopefully pass out. The more "good" reviews a business gets on the daviswiki, the more likely they'll also be to promote it via the flyer. Step two is then just telling them about the pseudo-customizable template, so that they can take over printing and passing out on their own.

It's not the most elegant plan, but I think it's more likely to work than word of mouth, even if it's much harder to get the ball rolling. -ES