How friendly are we to Newbies? Update on the create an article as a newbie challenge - WikiEN-l

15 Oct 2009

Last week George Herbert requested that I update this list on the
progress of my test [[User:WereSpielChequers/Newbie treatment]] where
I and other volunteers create new accounts which submit new articles
to Wikipedia.

The results so far, with 5 editors creating 7 "newbies" who've
submitted 9 articles.

Firstly the guarantee that someone would tag your new article for
deletion within two minutes. Well six out of nine were tagged for
deletion, though with times ranging from one minute after creation to
almost an hour; so the good news is that most survived their first two
minutes untagged. The bad news is that yes we do have a problem with
overenthusiastic speedy tagging, there are various possible solutions
to this including
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:Speedy_deletion_-_24_hour_pause…

As for surviving seven days, three have gone, three had to be rescued,
and three have survived the week unscathed.  Again,  not as bad as our
critics may think, but yes we have a problem.

Of our newbies, one has received a template welcome, two "welcome
warnings" for their unloved offerings, and four have not been
welcomed. My own unloved alter ego whose unpatrolled article has yet
to be edited by anyone else, still has a redlinked talkpage as does
his article. Possible responses to this include
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:Welcome_all_useful_new_users,_i…

On the plus side one editor declined a speedy and rescued one of these
articles, so I gave them a Barnstar.

WereSpielChequers

...
  ------------------------------

 Message: 2
 Date: Thu, 8 Oct 2009 18:21:58 -0400
 From: Gwern Branwen &lt;gwern0(a)gmail.com&gt;
 Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Accepting the challenge to create a new
        article as a    newbie and see if it lasts 2 minutes - or 7 days
 To: English Wikipedia &lt;wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt;
 Message-ID:
        &lt;cbf55b100910081521v1923edd1k5682ed9e7ceb551a(a)mail.gmail.com&gt;
 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

 On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 4:55 PM, WereSpielChequers
 &lt;werespielchequers(a)googlemail.com&gt; wrote:
  Apologies for reviving a thread from three weeks
ago. But the idea
 that we had degenerated into a newbie biting place where one could
 "challenge a newbie to create an article on Wikipedia and have that
 article exist for an entire week. Guaranteed, your article will be
 marked for ?speedy deletion? within about two minutes of its
 creation." bugged me, so I thought I'd unscientifically test it.

 I made a suggestion at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/new_users#Lets_…

 Nobody including myself knows how many articles have so far been
 created as part of the test, and yes one has already been deleted
 under the novel speedy deletion criteria of "the wikilinks did not
 have the proper markup".

 But there are at least two other articles that have survived more than 24 hours.

 Anyone else who is interested in following the test is welcome to
 watch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WereSpielChequers/Newbie_treatment

 Two articles at least should be unveiled in the next few days.

 WereSpielChequers 
 I particularly enjoyed WilliKing's comment:

  My bad...I sincerely apologize. If I knew about
the "challenge", I would have kept the article. It did have, though, words
without proper wikilinks. Willking1979 (talk) 02:32, 6 October 2009 (UTC) 
 I sympathize with him entirely; if I had known about the cop around
 the corner, I wouldn't've casually shoved that woman off cliff. In my
 defense, though, she was ugly.

 --
 gwern

 ------------------------------

 Message: 3
 Date: Thu, 8 Oct 2009 16:04:17 -0700
 From: George Herbert &lt;george.herbert(a)gmail.com&gt;
 Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Accepting the challenge to create a new
        article as a    newbie and see if it lasts 2 minutes - or 7 days
 To: English Wikipedia &lt;wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt;
 Message-ID:
        &lt;38a7bf7c0910081604t551d26fbu2f7f0ea13d434999(a)mail.gmail.com&gt;
 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252

 This is very good data in the "how friendly are we to newbies" question.

 Thanks for running the test.

 Please send another update in a couple of more days at least, I am too
 busy to follow on-wiki but I want to see more of the results of this.

 -george

 On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 3:21 PM, Gwern Branwen &lt;gwern0(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 4:55 PM, WereSpielChequers
> &lt;werespielchequers(a)googlemail.com&gt; wrote:
>> Apologies for reviving a thread from three weeks ago. But the idea
>> that we had degenerated into a newbie biting place where one could
>> "challenge a newbie to create an article on Wikipedia and have that
>> article exist for an entire week. Guaranteed, your article will be
>> marked for ?speedy deletion? within about two minutes of its
>> creation." bugged me, so I thought I'd unscientifically test it.
>>
>> I made a suggestion at
>>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/new_users#Lets_…
>>
>> Nobody including myself knows how many articles have so far been
>> created as part of the test, and yes one has already been deleted
>> under the novel speedy deletion criteria of "the wikilinks did not
>> have the proper markup".
>>
>> But there are at least two other articles that have survived more than 24 hours.
>>
>> Anyone else who is interested in following the test is welcome to
>> watch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WereSpielChequers/Newbie_treatment
>>
>> Two articles at least should be unveiled in the next few days.
>>
>> WereSpielChequers
>
> I particularly enjoyed WilliKing's comment:
>
>  My bad...I sincerely apologize. If I knew
about the "challenge", I would have kept the article. It did have, though, words
without proper wikilinks. Willking1979 (talk) 02:32, 6 October 2009 (UTC) >
> I sympathize with him entirely; if I had known about the cop around
> the corner, I wouldn't've casually shoved that woman off cliff. In my
> defense, though, she was ugly.
>
> --
> gwern
>
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 --
 -george william herbert
 george.herbert(a)gmail.com