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Feedback Loops
Problem
Good behaviours and useful forms of contribution need to be reinforced.
Context
The community of contributors is diverse, and will be participating at different times and have different skill levels. Contributors may not be sure whether a contribution they make is useful or correct. Opportunities for face-to-face feedback and training are likely to be limited.
Solution
Build feedback loops into your project workflow to enable positive reinforcement for contributors.
It is important to acknowledge the work contributors do when they participate in the project by adding new records, fixing mistakes or reviewing the work of others.
Providing positive feedback as part of the workflow can help to reinforce positive behaviours in the community, help contributors to feel valued and help them be more confident in their work.
Feedback loops can be built into the editing and reviewing tools by adding appropriate messaging to your application.
These messages might include:
- Thanking users for contributing new data or fixing errors
- Recognising significant contributions, eg making a number of edits over the course of the day
- Suggested Edits to indicate to users how they can improve a record they have added to the database
- Prompting for missing information, for example by asking users to Submit Evidence
In addition, ad hoc feedback might be given through Changeset Discussions that happen during Moderation workflows, or through community events and discussions.
