As you may know, we launched the Article Feedback tool a few weeks
ago as part of the Public Policy Initiative. (See
http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2010/09/22/article-feedback-pilot-goes-live/
and
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback/Public_Policy_Pilot/FAQs
for information about our motivation for building this tool.) The
feature has been well received, with over 12,000 ratings submitted since
the feature was launched on Sep 22. We've also received positive
feedback from users, which is encouraging. Please see
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback/Public_Policy_Pilot/Early_Da…
for some data from the project.
To increase our understanding of the value of these types of ratings,
we'd like to find out whether the ratings (in aggregate or segmented)
reflect actual changes in the quality of an article.
The first part of this is to identify articles that are being worked on
as part of the Public Policy Initiative and map the ratings against the
revision history. Additionally, we want to observe ratings on a set of
selected articles that are likely to undergo substantial revision in the
near future.
While the 2010 United States mid-term elections are behind us, there are
many other types of articles that may fit the bill (e.g., upcoming
movies, other elections, etc.). Right now we're targeting approximately
50 articles:
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback/Public_Policy_Pilot/Addition…
We'd appreciate your additions and thoughts regarding articles that
would make good test cases. And if you'd like to be part of the Article
Feedback workgroup, please sign up on here:
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback/Public_Policy_Pilot/Workgroup
Howie