How to stimulate User Growth of TW?

#125

As someone who has given birth (and who may or may not answer to “woman” depending on who’s calling and what they seem to think it means), I felt stopped in my tracks here. After I gave birth, I was DONE, so done. Totally worth it, yes. And… never gonna do it again. :slight_smile:

And I do wonder whether I would put myself through a learning-curve like TiddlyWiki if I were somehow starting again. I was lucky enough to grab it at a time when it was simpler (TW Classic, 2005), when browsers saved more readily, and when there was a free multi-user host (objectis) whose void has not really been filled in the time since its demise.

If we collectively had the resources to fund a Tiddlyhost-like site, such that tiddlywiki.com could offer a one-click “start here now” link for all curious visitors, that would be the easiest way to reduce friction, in my view.

Tell people that a local html is the old-fashioned way, and put node.js / server instructions within reach, but get them hooked on actually using the platform with ease, rather than squinting at their downloads directory.

Then, offer a bunch of example purpose-driven solutions to browse, from which folks can reverse-engineer most of what they need, and get a feel for what’s possible.

-Springer

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#126

I’ve been using Tiddlywiki for my entire adult life, and the thing that keeps me looking for and trying other options is the difficulty in getting Tiddlywiki to sync seamlessly between both my phone and laptop.

Have you tried serving your wiki with WebDAV? I used to have the same issue until I tried that. I installed RCX from the Google Play store and just serve it over LAN. Then you can access it from any device in your home with an internet connection. There’s an option to only allow your local device to access it as well, for when you’re not at home.

3 Likes
#127

Hey all! @linonetwo @TW_Tones @boris

1. Background
  1. If TiddlyWiki is working only as a Google Chrome extension or any browser, it would be possible to estimate the amount of users per download as Timimi or plugins TiddlyWiki.
  2. If TiddlyWiki is working as an android application it would be possible to estimate the amount of users per download as Tiddloid
  3. If TiddlyWiki users are registered in Discourse, it would be possible to estimate the number of users who are in the community.
  4. If TiddlyWiki users are registered on GitHub it would be possible to estimate the number of users (possibly developers or interested in programming) in the community
  5. If TiddlyWiki users are registered on TiddlyHost Hub it would be possible to estimate the number of users.
2. Formula
  1. My variables would be: GitHub with forks/stars(public) in TiddlyHost, TiddlyWiki5, Tiddloid and Tiddlyhost Hub - public hosts with TiddlyWiki.
  2. Taking into account… we have number of devs and users:
  • a) number of forks(GitHub): devs
  • b) number of stars(GitHub): users
  • c) number of Tiddlyhost Hub: users
3. Data
4. Estimated user growth
  1. 1.111 “devs” in project in GitHub as TiddlWiki5.
  2. 1.127 “devs” in all projects in GitHub as TiddlWiki5, Tiddloid, Tiddlyhost.
  3. 6.790 “users” in all projects in GitHub as Tiddlyhost, Tiddloid, TiddlWiki5 and Tiddlyhost Hub.
5. Possible conclusions
  1. We have more users than developers.
  2. Perhaps partially solving the problem of the lack of developers of the TiddlyWiki community project is one of the ways for the TiddlyWiki community to grow in number of users - given that there are more users needing resources than developers developing some resource. And in that sense, maybe user experience is developers making features that users can use.
6. Problems in the analysis
  1. May have users and developers who are in the same people group as the count. Taking into account that whoever gave the star did not fork or TiddlyHost Hub.
  2. Noteself Community Discourse and NoteSelf GitHub was not taken into account.
  3. The number of people of the Timimi extension and any plugins was not taken into account.
  4. Play store AndTidWiki was not taken into account.
  5. The number of people in the official TiddlyWiki Discourse here was not taken into account.
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#128

I am sure these groups overlap and lots dont get counted but the changes over time will tell us a lot.

Nice work

#129

Time and Effort required for this one but…

When hitting download have an optional sign up. Then bombard in boxes once a week with tips and tutorials.

Mem keeps doing this to me and this is then only reason i have remembered it’s exisitance. (still haven’t logged back into it though :slight_smile:)

1 Like
#130

Besides quantitative approaches to user growth, I would add qualitative ones, which could take the form of use cases bridging TW variants and communities/persons around them, which also provides a better entry point to new user that the kind “TiddlyWiki in the wild” / “choose your own adventure” we have so far (at least we can be inspired by the adventures/paths of others).

For example:

  • recently a member of our community shared his use of TW as a hypertextual memory for indigenous communities in Colombia and we have a similar project in my University (more details will be provided as the projects advance),
  • we use it for civic tech projects regarding past Colombian presidential elections, for publishing data activism visualizations and storytelling.
  • It is our wiki for the Grafoscopio community, collecting the real time performative documentation that starts usually as HedgeDoc Markdown documents.
  • It is used to migrate web sites from static site generators and complex CMS to what we call “pocket infrastructures”.
  • It is our wiki for our table top RPG group and collects/publish RPG open data from other repositories (using the same tools for site migration described in the previous point).
  • It is our intranet micro/personal/small business.
  • It is used for personal blikis.
  • It is used as an academic CMS to:
    • Draft and formulate research projects, optimized to the particular requirements and structures of the academic institutions (guides, words limits by section and so on).
    • Create students agile public digital learning portfolios of their classes, via the excellent TiddlyHost.
    • Publish syllabus and class memories for several courses (including one on learning TiddlyWiki).
    • Manage thesis advances and notes (as a thesis tutor and/or writer).
  • It is used by the Cuban recycling community to map the plastics recycling points (using social cartography), overcoming the embargo that doesn’t allow them to use Google Maps (or any US tech provider, which also means more community autonomy).
  • It is used by a food sovereignty and solidarity economy collective for memories of their edible fungi growing practices and knowledge and maybe in the no so distant future for their internal finances.
  • It is used to index metadata of the offline media catalog El Paquete Semanal (The Weekly Package) in Cuba (reaching almost 11 million people in the island).
  • It will be used in an upcoming celebration of the “wiki cultures and tools” in September (more details in its own thread).

Those are the ones I can mention for our reencounter with TW from almost a year ago and what we have done in small scale with local communities/people that I think “vertical growth” (more users) doesn’t capture pretty well and that’s why I advocate for “horizontal growth” as the main advantage/rarity of TW is its flexibility and how it serves diverse people and communities and plain quantitative approaches don’t even make this visible and despite of its relative importance, not being the main indicators of the kind of valuable growth that is already happening.

TiddlyWiki has been and important bootstrapper and amplifier of several community/(inter)personal dynamics over a action PhD research started in 2010 and I’m happy to find it again with new eyes and to be able to connect it with other meta systems, like Pharo/GT. Hopefully in our concern for growth, we could escape the big numbers narrative (so important in the Global North, particularly US) and capture the growth in diversity value that TW is already embodying and hopefuly our infrastructures and tools give a better account of it. Of course, detailed and constructive forum discussion is an important part, but casual navigators of the web site should have a glimpse of such present TW unique value proposal.

8 Likes
#131

I support this idea of horizontal over vertical but also suggest it depends on which dimensions you use to decide which is which.

For example I like the idea of promoting tiddlywiki as digital democracy giving anyone the power of software, by definition if this grows vertically it also grows horizontally because its about addressing diverse even individual needs.

Lets go for wide and deep :nerd_face:

I am very impressed, and have said before, about the examples you give as examples of digital democracy through software meeting diverse needs.

#132

… etc.

Right. Interesting post!

I’m not so tech clever but the examples are good.

Indicating probable need for…

1 - Presentation of Diverse Use Cases
… likely best via …
2 - A Dedicated, Curated TW Showcase Site?

With the cases presented through one site via iframed TWs with some notes for each curated example TW?

Just a thought
TT

#133

Perhaps in addition to showcases actual live sites that people are happy to be promoted, it may help their link ratings as well.

In the early days of the internet we used to link sites together in a loop with one promoting/linking to the next “example” so if anyone arrived at anyone site they may get to see every other site.

#134

Right.

I kinda meant it would include that.
Feature TW sites/apps who want promoting.

I, personally, think some kind of “centralised go-to” showcase of “end-use TWs” is likely gonna be very useful to promotion of both the documented use cases and TW in general.

Of course this is a thought experiment right now.
I may be wrong.

Best wishes, TT

#135

Footnote …

Much of the discussion has focused on better promoting TWs for use by the end user but
I’d suggest that a “Showcase” could be for both…

1 - TWs to USE/own and build upon (process)

2 - TWs to just READ! Because they are good :slight_smile: (content)

A comment, TT

#136

Totally, we should go in both dimensions. It’s just a constant, but friendly, reminder of not getting lost in (big) numbers and quantitative approaches, so used when measuring “tech impact”, when one of the main values of TW lays in its unique qualitative approaches (the qualia of its use experience, if I can borrow from philosophy).

I event would talk about digital “plurarquia” (plurarchy in English?). So, instead of the rule of the majority via voting, like in democracy, we have several decisions/options being deployed at the same time. As Michael Bauwens says, democracy and markets are ways to manage scarcity: when you can only take one collective decision, you vote; when only you can buy, you price tag. TW enables a plurarchy practice, which is showcased in the diverse vibrant ecosystem of plugins and variants accounting for several personal/community use cases.

There is a longer talk about enabling diverse markets, beyond the capital oriented one. And I think that TW has a role to play here. But that’s for another time.

Thanks, not only for your kind words, but also for the hard work that you put in your proactive/enlightening presence in this and other community spaces.

3 Likes
#137

I would create a showcase prominent section for TW personal/community use cases with:

  • An URL for the live site.
  • A short description of the use case.
  • An optional template of the variant/plugins involved to support such use case (without the specific contents of such use case). We call them “seeds” here, because:
    • There is no empty.html TW to start with, as any initial TW template is a curation of contents and plugins to customize further.
    • We like to play with the idea of digital gardens/oasis, as is an idea visible in the Global North but with several origin stories across the world, including earl practitioners in the Global South. Naming things differently accounts for such diversity of stories that may start a valuable conversation, and confront the dynamics where innovations and technology are only spread from North to South… but that’s also a long discussion for another time.
2 Likes
#138

Right. Right.

My thinking was also to embed them? Though that might be too much on tiddlywiki.com.

My thinking was towards a dedicated showcase site???

A thought
TT

#139

Maybe a dedicated site could work. I think that embedding is not necessary. A site screenshot, similar to the ones @jeremyruston uses for the TiddlyDesktop wiki templates could work and clicking on them could point to the external site for the use case. There are some headless browser tools that can create a screenshot for a given URL.

1 Like
#140

Something no one has suggested yet is a much used method in the agricultural industry.

Cover the landing page, and possible new users, in manure and fertiliser.

Watering may be problematic.

1 Like
#141

I moved this to a new thread:

2 Likes
#142

Some thought on how to stimulate tw user growth:

My mom is tech iliterate, the kind of person that can use microsoft word, gmail, whatsapp and few other software but does have anxiety when she has to use a new app or interface.

I had a major surprise when she showed me a Notion Database she did create on her own…. How come?
We are talking that an old person with a hate relation with tech changed her mind and put effort to build a database.

What happend is that the school where she does work as a teacher decided that Notion was the way to go and she was forced to use it. She eventually learned the basics and once confident she transfered this skills to her priveate life projects.

Point being, make TW a candidate for commercial use is IMO the best way to achieve user growth.

And what is holding TW back is no multiuser support, I can see some small companies giving TW an opportunity if this multiuser support was real.

#143

I think that we should be making peers learning more visible, like your mom and her coworkers and several of the examples I gave on grassroots communities making use of TW, after an initial facilitation process.

I have repeated this “TW collective bootstrapping” several times and my last successful and still running use case was my coworkers in a university lab, using what we call “interpersonal wikis”. In that use case, each of us has his/her own wiki and we synchronize back and forth between the wikis using a central wiki for coordination purposes and a Fossil back end to store the history of the wiki, mixing them with the help of some computational notebooks and TiddlyWikiPharo.

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#144

Both of these would be tremendously useful, and I don’t see any drawback. Is there a reason TiddlyWiki can’t work this way “out of the box”?