On Wed, Jul 27, 2011 at 9:08 AM, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
<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