Wikipedia:Adopt-a-User/Adopter's Area/Experiences

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Welcome to the Adopt-a-User program!

This is the page where our Adopters can relate their own experiences with the Adopt-a-user program (or Wikipedia in general) and how they may have dealt with any problems or issues. Of particular interest is how to work best with your adoptee and how to improve the program in general. Feel free to comment and ask questions on each one, but remember this is not a talk page, so keep to the point. Also this page will be organised in a subject order, and may be formatted from time to time to allow for ease of reading.

For immediate or urgent problems – please leave a message at Wikipedia Talk:Adopt-a-User.

Contents 1 Adoption process 2 Inactive Adoptees 3 Sockpuppetry 4 Criteria for adoptees and potential forms of contact

[edit] Adoption process

How does adoption work? Do you keep an eye on them and offer advice when they make mistakes, or just wait until they come to you with questions, or what? How long does a typical adoption take? Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 11:42, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Well here is my opinion - other opinions would be really welcomed. Generally I let the adoptee ask me questions, and keep out of their hair. If an adoptee does not ask many questions or has been silent for a while, I drop by their talk page give a friendly hello and maybe check out their contributions to see what they have been up to. Only if they are having obvious problems e.g. blocks, vandalism tags, conflict with another user, or minor things like not signing talk pages or using edit summaries will I seek to offer obvious advice.

In terms of the process of adoption the standard way seems to be to drop by the category for users seeking adoption, asking up to a couple of these users if they want adoption (you will generally not get a 100% success rate when you offer adoption - but should be prepared for it if it happens), wait for them to confirm on your/their talk page, confirm adoption by updating adoption templates, and then ask them what they would like help with. The adoption then continues either until:

1. The adoptee becomes suitably experienced to graduate from the program (for an average user probably between 1-3months).
2. The adoptee becomes inactive or does not respond to your offers of help.
3. The adoptee is unhappy with their adopter and wishes a new one or wishes to leave the program.
4. The adopter becomes unhappy with their adoptee - e.g. in the rare case that an adoptee is using there adopter to hide behind when they get into conflict.

The length of adoption is interesting because I have found that I get lots of simple questions early on, and then as the adopotee becomes more comfortable with Wikipedia less questions, but when you do get them they tend to be of a more involved nature e.g. dealing with conflict, setting up templates, wikiprojects etc.. or reviewing their work.

Well I hope that helps, Cheers Lethaniol 13:08, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

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Hi there; I am gradually increasing the number of my adoptees. I tend to take the view, perhaps incorrectly, that when a newbie has applied for adoption and received an offer from someone, as nearly all those on the page have, that I should wait for a couple of days to see if they take up the offer. I have just sent offers to several editors not in receipt of offers, except for one who is asking for help with imaging, which I am not good at. Anthony.Bradbury

I do not see a particular problem with this, gives the new user choice. Normally I don't because I have plenty of Adoptees already, but when I go looking, if I see someone who particularly interests me, or I think would be a suitable challenge then I happy to offer adoption even if someone else has. Lethaniol

[edit] Inactive Adoptees

I have two adoptees (friends in real life, actually) and I want to help them but there never on. Should I "drop" them? —¡Randfan! 00:45, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there is any hard and fast rules as yet. Personally if I had 2 relatively inactive users, I would keep them on as Adoptees, and adopt others if I wanted. I don't think it is about how many adoptions you have, but about being able to help out the adoptee out appropriately. So if you take on a high-maintenance Adoptee it would be irresponsible and unfair to take on another until that one finds it feet. If you have x mature Adoptee who only need occasional help you may feel you can take on another. Hope that helps Lethaniol 15:01, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

If you've adopted users that are relatively inactive then there's nothing that should impair your 'adopting ability' (trying to think of a better term, hopefully you know what I mean) with more users. CattleGirl ^{talk | e@} 02:35, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

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I have adoptees who have asked for adoption, been adopted, asked one question and vanished. After I have sent them a message asking if they still want to be an adoptee, if they do not reply how long do you feel I should wait before removing their "adopted by" userbox? Anthony.Bradbury

The answer to your questions - or my opinions at least anyway :):)

I have had only had one so far - but when a user only asks one question and then stops contributing I see no problem with ending adoption - always by leaving a message on their talk page explaining why. Time involved - depends on user. If user not contributed for a week or so - then that is fine. If the user is still contributing occasionally maybe longer. As long as explained properly I would not be overly worried.

Also if a user is still contributing but not responding to you, you can always offer end adoption, but state that they can always get another adopter instead. Cheers Lethaniol 10:42, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

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I said I would Adopt User:????? after they asked me to but since they have gone inactive. What do I do. Do I still adopt them or do I leave until they come back. Thanks Culverin? Talk 02:24, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

There is no right or wrong answer to your question - just general principles to be followed:

1. Always try contacting you Adoptee giving plenty of time for a reply
2. If you decide to end adoption due to inactivity then always explain to the user why and tell them they can always come back to you or try another adopter - i.e. be civil.

In practical terms I do not like to have inactive adoptees, to generally I end adoption explaining as above. You should see this not as your failure - but part of the system. You will likely find that 50% + of Adoptees never go on to be fully fledged long term Wikipedians - but that is the nature of the beast. Also another reason for deadopting inactive adoptees to try to make to Adoptee category make some sense of reality. I hope this answers your question - if not contact me again. Also it would be good if I could copy the Q and A to the experiences section of the Adopter's Area is that okay with you? Cheers Lethaniol 18:34, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. I think I might have to end my adoption, sadly. Culverin

[edit] Sockpuppetry

My first adoptee was blocked for being a sockpuppet of a user who was banned for issuing death threats , my third adoptee has recently been blocked for the same offence, but after a month of arguments that even went as far a Request for Comment. Dealing with such issues is not for the faint hearted and can require a lot of time - so beware.

From the beginning I knew there was a possibility that the adoptee was a sockpuppet of a banned user - but a CheckUser request was unfortunately not possible. So I had to take his word on the matter that he was not. Over the next month - arguments with other users got quite heated - leading to the Request for Comment and Admin involvement. Eventually concrete proof was found that the user was the the suspected sockpuppet and they were blocked..

Anyway, what I think people should take away from this, is that I approached it from a neutral standpoint, giving advice on how to act properly and in a civil manner to my adoptee without being biased. This meant that I had the respect of all users involved - and meant that the discussions were much less heated and uncivil than they could have been.

MY ADVICE - if you have an adoptee who is getting into "trouble", then advice them on the correct way to act, but do take their side in the argument. Better to have a balanced level head in the discussions, than another emotional one. Lethaniol 23:38, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Criteria for adoptees and potential forms of contact

So far we've only concrete criteria for adopters but no specific criteria for adoptees. The only criteria is that they're green - but how green? Less than 500 edits? Less than 1000? Less than 3 months of involvement? Or upon the adopters' decision?

The problem arises as old adoption requests get pended for a long time and by the time some potential adopters find them out the potential adoptee has reached quite a level of experience, say 600 edits in 2 months. Should adopters tell them to retract their adoption requests? There are no guidelines.

Moreover, it's raised in the adoptees' experience-sharing page that many newbies to Wikipedia are newbies to the mediawiki system (this is apparent) and even the internet in general (this is rare but significant). Combining the fact that we shouldn't use Wikipedia pages to chit-chat, should adopters actively provide means for the adoptees to contact them personally, say, giving GChat, MSNM or ICQ? One adoptee even suggested a dedicated IRC channel for AAU.

These are the concerns that I observed from my adoptee-seeking process. --Deryck C. 09:10, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Using talk page for chit-chat is bad, but helping adopees with learning isn't. I'd suggest adopters should be available on an IM client, but it's not required. If a little chit-chit helps the newbie feel welcome, then I'm all for it. But it should be explained that in general, chit-chat is frowned upon. We're human, after all, and the need to communicate is stronger than work. As for criteria for adoptees, I think I remember reading once that as long as they still feel they're new and need help, we'll take them. But typically they're new users, but if someone that's been around for 5 years and an admin with 20k edits wanted me to adopt them to help them learn about images, I certainly would. I think the IRC channel is an okay idea, perhaps just direct them to #wikipedia-bootcamp which is already setup for helping new users, and us adopters can just go there and helpout more. --MECU≈talk 13:31, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

It's just a pity that I'm not available to go onto IRC. --Deryck C. 04:24, 19 March 2007 (UTC)