On Wed, Jul 27, 2011 at 9:08 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/07/15/%e2%80%9crate-this-page%e2%80%9d-is-com...
<snip>
"While these initial results are certainly encouraging, we need to assess whether these editors are, in fact, improving Wikipedia. We need to measure their level of activity, the quality of their contributions, their longevity, and other characteristics."
There is little point assessing the "level of activity, the quality of their contributions, their longevity, and other characteristics" for editors that start editing after using the 'Article Feedback tool' if there is no corresponding effort made to assess the *same* characteristics for editors who start editing for other reasons.
In particular, I'm referring to other motivations for editing Wikipedia (advertising, pushing an agenda) and editors whose contributions are of poor quality and don't improve over time even when this is pointed out. In other words, are the editors that Wikipedia currently has "improving Wikipedia"? It is quite conceivable that different sorts of editors are needed at different stages, or are expending their efforts in the wrong places.
Carcharoth