Mentorship Program

(note: This is a sandbox page for a proposed new feature to the database, this is far from official)

Issue: (Primary) There is a steep learning curve when it comes to editing the database to get it display the correct data in the intended manner. Most experienced editors have no problem helping new editors with their edits; the issue comes from whether these new editors want and will use these editing suggestions. As an experienced editor I have often been frustrated spending lots of time creating detailed editing notes and then not knowing if the new editor even cares or will even read the note provided. This disconnect has caused myself (and many other experienced editors that I have spoken with) to not leave detailed explanation edit notes unless the new editor requests them first (ie responds to edit notes showing they want the suggestions/help).

Issue: (Secondary) Developing and maintaining supereditors. As we all know the majority of content in our database comes from the 1% of supereditors. This program should help us develop more of these supereditors which should help improve our database quality and quantity immensely.

Proposal: To address the above issues, I am suggesting an editing mentorship program for any new editors to the database. New editors should be able to press a button and submit their language of preference and request a mentor. A mentor in this sense of the word would be a specific assigned experienced editor with matching language, who would review the new editors edits and provide suggestions on how to improve those edits and also to be available to that new editor to answer various how to, or other questions.

Mentors: Mentors will be volunteers taken from the existing group of experienced editors. Mentors must have some previous experience with editing the database and a good attitude. I'm recommending Mentors have at least 1 year of editing experience as well as experience with voting and leaving edit notes also. Mentors will provide administration with the number of people they believe they can mentor at once as well as the language(s) they can mentor in. Admin will assign specific new users (mentees) to each mentor. In the event of any personality or other conflicts, mentors should always have the right to have a mentee reassigned to a new mentor.

Mentees: Mentees should be aware that in signing up for help, they will in fact receive help, so they should be prepared for that fact and be prepared for some possible friendly criticism. In the event of any personality or other conflicts, mentees should be able to request a new mentor. Length of mentorship should depend entirely on the requirements of the mentee. As soon as the mentee is comfortable in editing the database and does not require the mentors advice/help anymore then the mentorship should end at that time.

Administration: Administration will be required to manage the group of mentors and their skills/availabilities. Administration will be required to handle incoming mentorship requests and to assign mentors to these requests. To begin User:Drsaunde (that would be me) would handle the administration duties with User:Freso acting as backup/co-chair/staff liason.

Implementation: I will definitely need some help from a dev here on how to implement this system. In simplest terms I need a form somewhere on the main sight where requests for mentorship can be collected and sent to myself and the co-chair via email. Other than the actual form part there I don't anticipate any other coding changes would be required for this program.

Comments/Suggestions: This proposal in in the earliest planning stages. I you have any helpful comments and/or suggestions please provide them.