Tea and sympathy

We present the Teahouse, a pilot project for supporting and socializing new Wikipedia editors. Open collaboration systems like Wikipedia must continually recruit and retain new members in order to sustain themselves. Wikipedia's editor decline presents unique exigency for evaluating novel strategies to support newcomers and increase new user retention in such systems, particularly among demographics that are currently underrepresented in the user community. In this paper, we describe the design and deployment of Teahouse, and present preliminary findings. Our findings highlight the importance of intervening early in the editor lifecycle, providing user-friendly tools, creating safe spaces for newcomers, and facilitating positive interactions between newcomers and established community members.