Today we deployed a new feature to English Wikipedia -- a Draft namespace.[1] (For those not familiar, namespaces on our wiki are how we separate types of pages, like articles versus discussion pages.)
There isn't anything technically that exciting about this new namespace yet. One key feature is that it is not indexed, however, meaning drafts are hidden from readers using most search engines.
However, we think this idea show a lot of promise. In the future, we plan to experiment with additional software support for this namespace, providing tools to help create, review, and publish drafts with minimal headache. If encouraging new users to create their first articles in draft mode first really improves their retention and overall experience on Wikipedia, we do plan on rolling this out beyond English.
You can learn more about our evolving ideas on
mediawiki.org,[2] and help answer open questions we've put to community members on Wikipedia talk:Drafts on English Wikipedia. Please participate!
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Steven Walling,
Product Manager