On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 11:18 AM, Charles Matthews
<charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:
(I happen to think that starting by improving
existing articles is probably a better training,
and certainly an easier one. The question is how to motivate newcomers, to do that or
anything else.)
The difficulty I see for newcomers improving existing articles is
that, as newcomers, they don't know which things they can change and
which things they should leave alone.
For example, imagine a well-meaning newbie who sees that our article
"Logic" starts with "Logic is the study of reasoning." This newbie
might change that to "Logic is the art and science of correct
deduction", which is a priori reasonable. They would not know that
people have argued over the first sentence in detail and that the
present wording is a compromise between the many definitions of
"logic" available in reliable sources. And "Logic" is not at all a
controversial topic, nor rated as a featured article. If a new user
were to wade into a featured article on a religious or political
topic, they would have even less freedom to edit.
Right. Reading down an article and changing the first thing you happen
to disagree with is not an ideal way to work; it happens to suggest
itself to many newcomers, though. I suppose the three pillars of
improving an article are: fact-checking and referencing anything that
appears dubious to you; expanding in areas where coverage seems
obviously lacking; and restructuring. All these really matter more than
wording tweaks, or at least should be given priority. But they require
specific skills (in our terms).
Charles