On 26 Sep 2014, at 11:02 am, Luca de Alfaro
<luca(a)dealfaro.com> wrote:
You are right about conflicts with fast-updated pages. Not sure it would be worse than
the current situation though.
For many low traffic articles, drafts only visible to the user would not have many
conflicts -- basically, for all pages with fewer than a couple of edits per day this would
be true, and there are many such pages.
I think a more annoying issue would be how to clean up these drafts; a policy would be
required (one week?), cron jobs, etc, otherwise these drafts could grow uncontrollably in
size due to abandoned edits. But this should be solvable, if with some pain.
I tend to think that with a bit of UI tweaking, Wikipedia could be made more friendly....
On Thu, Sep 25, 2014 at 5:58 PM, Scott Hale
<computermacgyver(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Yes, drafts visible only to the user are different. I was thinking of flagged revisions
in reference to your idea that edits would first go live only after a set period of time.
This is basically flagged revisions with a trivial extension that the flagged revision
always be the latest revision that is at least X minutes old.
We could also allow a time window (even 30
minutes) before edits went live after one is done editing (using above Ajax mechanism to
track when editor open), experienced editors would not need to swoop in quite so fast on
the work of new users, and the whole editing atmosphere would be more relaxed and
welcoming.
I think the challenge with drafts visible only to the user is that they are very likely
to have a conflict and have to merge changes if they wait too long between starting the
draft and later committing it.
> On Fri, Sep 26, 2014 at 9:20 AM, Luca de Alfaro <luca(a)dealfaro.com> wrote:
> Flagged revisions is different though, as it requires "trusted" editors to
flag things as approved. I am simply advocating the ability to save drafts visible only
to oneself before "publishing" a change. WordPress, Blogger, etc have it. And
so newcomers could edit to their heart content, without triggering the interest of editors
and the consequent conflicts, then save their changes.
>
> Luca
>
>
>
>> On Thu, Sep 25, 2014 at 5:15 PM, Scott Hale <computermacgyver(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
>>> On Fri, Sep 26, 2014 at 5:14 AM, Luca de Alfaro <luca(a)dealfaro.com>
wrote:
>>> Better merging would be welcome. But also less aggressive editing/policing.
>>>
>>> When I edit openstreetmap I have a better overall experience: the edits may
or may not go live immediately, but I don't have the impression that there is someone
aggressively vetting/refining my edits while I am still doing them. I feel welcome there.
>>>
>>> To make Wikipedia more welcoming, we could do a few things.
>>>
>>> We could allow users to save drafts. In this way, people could work for a
while at their own pace, and then publish the changes. Currently, saving is the only way
to avoid risking losing changes, but it has the very undesired effect of inviting
editors/vetters to the page before one is really done.
>>>
>>
We could also allow a time window (even
30 minutes) before edits went live after one is done editing (using above Ajax mechanism
to track when editor open), experienced editors would not need to swoop in quite so fast
on the work of new users, and the whole editing atmosphere would be more relaxed and
welcoming.
>>>
>>> The fact is that the Wikipedia editor, with its lack of ability to save
drafts, poor merging, and swooping editors, feels incredibly outdated and unwelcoming -
downright aggressive - to anyone used to WordPress / Google Docs / Blogger / ...
>>>
>>> Luca
>>
>>
>> The technology exists to do this---[[:en:Wikipedia:Flagged_revisions]]. The
challenge is that many existing users don't want flagged revisions on by default.
>>
>> And that is the fundamental flaw with this whole email thread. The question
needing to be answered isn't "what increases new user retention". The real
question is "what increases new user retention and is acceptable to the most
active/helpful existing users". The second question is much harder than the first.
--
Scott Hale
Oxford Internet Institute
University of Oxford
http://www.scotthale.net/
scott.hale(a)oii.ox.ac.uk
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