Have you written that essay with this sort of advice in it yet? :-)
Carcharoth
On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 2:47 AM, David Goodman <dgoodmanny(a)gmail.com> wrote:
The important part of salvage work is not keeping the
articles, but
keeping the new contributors. This is done not just by refraining
from deleting their articles, but helping the new editors to improve
them.
What encourages me to patrol is when I get a talk page comment after
I've deleted (or drastically reworked) an article: "I see where I did
it wrong--now I know what to do better." or "Many people left
notices but you gave me specific advice. Maybe I'll stay here after
all." The reason for saving rather than deleting, not matter the
extra work it takes, is that a greater proportion of the people will
keep on trying. This applies not only to immature editors, but also to
people who wander in from the commercial or academic world where
expectations are different.
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 9:50 AM, Charles Matthews
<charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:
Carcharoth wrote:
On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 7:43 PM, Carcharoth
<carcharothwp(a)googlemail.com> wrote:
<snip>
I created a "journal" article in the end. Not part of this experiment,
but my point below (which may have got lost), is valid, I think:
To try and bring this post back on-topic, I
suppose my point is that
stub articles on obscure topics would probably fare even worse if a
new editor submitted them. Is that a valid point? That obscure topics
need experienced Wikipedians to start the articles going, as opposed
to new editors trying to do the same?
Anyone agree that the high-hanging fruit are more likely to get new
editors bitten?
If that's a way of saying that experience is helpful in knowing what
makes for a "good stub", I think that's uncontestable. If it's a way
of
saying that the patrolling that goes on is basically a filter by
notability of topic first, and excuse for deletion afterwards, then that
might be factually accurate, if something that also has its darker side
(judging the notability of a topic by what is written in a stub, or even
on the basis of quick googling, is obviously flawed). If it's an
encouragement to post more stubs that are clearly needed to develop the
site, then I'm in complete agreement, and would add that we need more
infrastructure directed towards "missing articles" and at least turning
the redlinks blue with adequate stubs. (To answer part of what David
Goodman has been arguing consistently, adding new articles prompted by
the needs of the site, rather than spending a corresponding amount of
time on salvage work, seems to me a defensible priority on content
grounds. Which is not the whole point, though.)
Charles
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