Hi.
I just spent a few minutes catching up on this mailing list. I noticed
that Nirzar recently joined the design team. That thread seemed very
strange to me. It didn't answer the most basic question: does he actively
edit wikis? And if not, when will he be starting?
This got me thinking about the larger issue. Are people actively editing
the projects? I mean making new pages, fixing typos, updating templates,
etc. on Wikipedia or Wikisource or Commons or another wiki? To me, it
seems like it would be nearly impossible to design well for these projects
without immersing yourself in them. There's so much left to be done, even
on our largest projects such as the English Wikipedia, and I think we're
failing at communicating this. I talk to people who feel Wikipedia is vast
and finished(!), but they're completely wrong.
I think good design is a key component to growing the projects, but I
worry that more and more people are involved in name only. People should
be actively editing and I'm not sure that they are. So I'm left wondering:
are people actively editing? Do people try to reserve a day a week to
editing? An edit a day? How do people get involved so that they can
understand, protect, and enhance the projects?
I should be in San Francisco in late January and I'm hoping to meet with
some of you. Be assured that editing will be a topic of discussion. :-)
MZMcBride