As the title indicates, when working on articles, do you prefer making a bunch of small edits or one or a couple of big edits?
Personally, I started out making lots of small edits, but lately I've been the opposite of that.
-MuZemike
I prefer one giant edit. When I write new articles, I usually write everything in one edit - no matter if it's a stub or future good article. If after that one edit I have to re-edit the article (typos, categories, ect), I get annoyed with myself. Therefore I use preview button a million times. I also save drafts for big articles off-line. It's really bad for the edit count, but that's my personal preference.
Renata
On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 4:31 PM, MuZemike muzemike@gmail.com wrote:
As the title indicates, when working on articles, do you prefer making a bunch of small edits or one or a couple of big edits?
Personally, I started out making lots of small edits, but lately I've been the opposite of that.
-MuZemike
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When using hotcat or eradicating a particular typo I make small or minor edits. Otherwise I try to remember to save frequently, but a couple of times I've been caught out and lost the odd hour or two of work due to a computer problem.
I've also learned to save frequently when at newpage patrol or other places where edit conflicts are likely.
The only time when I'd recommend making a really big edit in mainspace is when creating a new article. The risk of incorrect speedy tags is so high that it is worth the risk of not saving for an hour or so.
WereSpielChequers
On 17 September 2010 22:14, Renata St renatawiki@gmail.com wrote:
I prefer one giant edit. When I write new articles, I usually write everything in one edit - no matter if it's a stub or future good article. If after that one edit I have to re-edit the article (typos, categories, ect), I get annoyed with myself. Therefore I use preview button a million times. I also save drafts for big articles off-line. It's really bad for the edit count, but that's my personal preference.
Renata
On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 4:31 PM, MuZemike muzemike@gmail.com wrote:
As the title indicates, when working on articles, do you prefer making a bunch of small edits or one or a couple of big edits?
Personally, I started out making lots of small edits, but lately I've been the opposite of that.
-MuZemike
On 17 September 2010 22:14, Renata St renatawiki@gmail.com wrote:
It's really bad for the edit count, but that's my personal preference.
Pfft, who cares about that? Literally, I mean: these days the focus (on enwiki at least) is on how many "featured credits" an editor has, or variants thereof like "good article credits". Which is a far better system IMO.
AGK
Having been on Wikipedia since 2006 but with most of my significant work being described by a handful of "read, read, read, write, write, write -- edit" overhauls or creating new pages, I'm always a little self-conscious when non-Wikipedians ask how many edits I've tallied. Hundreds! OK, probably a thousand but surely not thousands... this is why my user page contains the userbox:
*This user believes that a user's **edit counthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Editcountitis **does not necessarily reflect on the **value*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_theory * of their contributions to **Wikipedia*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia *.*
On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 7:58 PM, AGK wikiagk@gmail.com wrote:
On 17 September 2010 22:14, Renata St renatawiki@gmail.com wrote:
It's really bad for the edit count, but that's my personal preference.
Pfft, who cares about that? Literally, I mean: these days the focus (on enwiki at least) is on how many "featured credits" an editor has, or variants thereof like "good article credits". Which is a far better system IMO.
AGK
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I always mean to do less edits but end up doing more. I try to get a new article *just right* and invariably find several typos, each after I've corrected the previous one. Fixing typos in articles I'm casually reading works much the same way.
- d.
On Sat, Sep 18, 2010 at 1:05 AM, William Beutler williambeutler@gmail.com wrote:
I'm always a little self-conscious when non-Wikipedians ask how many edits I've tallied.
*Non* Wikipedians are asking you about your edit count?
I've never encountered nor heard of people outside the community talking about such a thing. I find your experience quite cheering; it seems to speak of Wikipedia seeping into the culture even more than I had presupposed.
It's like my grandmother asking me how many beats per minute characterise [[UK hard house]].
Heh, well, among friends and associates, I'm "the Wikipedia guy". (Notice the British / WP period-outside-the-sentence... never did that before Wikipedia.) I enjoy greatly trying to explain how Wikipedia works, but it can be a tall, tall task.
Some of you here might know of my (occasional) blog, "The Wikipedian", where the goal is to explain Wikipedia to outsiders. Not easy, I can tell you -- to get it "right" and also be concise enough to keep people interested. I do worry for the project that it requires such an intense commitment that few will ever get there. Few even know they can edit without logging in, frankly. More than one person, to me, on why they don't edit: "Oh, I don't want to get involved..."
I like John Broughton's "Missing Manual" and the "How Wikipedia Works" book, but I think there needs to be something shorter, for absolute beginners. I've had the notion to pitch a "Complete Idiot's Guide to Wikipedia" to someone (actually tried, once; got a friendly note from an agent that it "wasn't for [him]"). I do think there is one to be written, whether I get to it or someone else does...
On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 8:44 PM, Bod Notbod bodnotbod@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Sep 18, 2010 at 1:05 AM, William Beutler williambeutler@gmail.com wrote:
I'm always a little self-conscious when non-Wikipedians ask how many
edits I've tallied.
*Non* Wikipedians are asking you about your edit count?
I've never encountered nor heard of people outside the community talking about such a thing. I find your experience quite cheering; it seems to speak of Wikipedia seeping into the culture even more than I had presupposed.
It's like my grandmother asking me how many beats per minute characterise [[UK hard house]].
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On Sat, Sep 18, 2010 at 1:57 AM, William Beutler williambeutler@gmail.com wrote:
I've had the notion to pitch a "Complete Idiot's Guide to Wikipedia" to someone (actually tried, once; got a friendly note from an agent that it "wasn't for [him]"). I do think there is one to be written, whether I get to it or someone else does...
Have you seen this? Have a look at the PDF:
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Bookshelf
And there's plenty more proposed publications that need input for the same series:
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Overview_of_Deliverables_(Bookshelf)
Project home page:
Sure, I've seen those. Is it user-friendly enough? Probably not. Would any non-Wikipedian know where to find them? Not a chance...
I live in DC, work in social media, and most of my associates are tech-savvy professionals who look at Wikipedia and think "that's way too hard for me."
I like that video on the Bookshelf page, which reminds me a lot of CommonCraft's "Twitter in Plain Englishhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o" but they already usually know that. Where to begin making edits in an informed manner, that's another story.
On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 9:05 PM, Bod Notbod bodnotbod@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Sep 18, 2010 at 1:57 AM, William Beutler williambeutler@gmail.com wrote:
I've had the notion to pitch a "Complete Idiot's Guide to Wikipedia" to someone (actually tried, once; got a friendly note from an agent that it "wasn't for [him]"). I do think there is one to be written, whether I get
to
it or someone else does...
Have you seen this? Have a look at the PDF:
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Bookshelf
And there's plenty more proposed publications that need input for the same series:
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Overview_of_Deliverables_(Bookshelf)
Project home page:
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Bookshelf_Project
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
If it is a heavily edited article I prefer lots of small edits otherwise it's easier to do one big edit - all depends on likelihood of edit conflicts.
Sent from my iPod
On Sep 17, 2010, at 2:31 PM, MuZemike muzemike@gmail.com wrote:
As the title indicates, when working on articles, do you prefer making a bunch of small edits or one or a couple of big edits?
Personally, I started out making lots of small edits, but lately I've been the opposite of that.
-MuZemike
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 9:31 PM, MuZemike muzemike@gmail.com wrote:
As the title indicates, when working on articles, do you prefer making a bunch of small edits or one or a couple of big edits?
Well, I'm not sure my answer will be interesting to anyone other than your good self but...
When I'm starting a *new* article (which I don't do much) I tend to save every 10, 15 or no later than 20 minutes as I go along. It's fear of losing work. I know an answer to that is to edit in some other application but I've never really felt motivated to explore other working methods.
When *copy editing* an existing article I tend to do one edit per change (but it could be three or four changes if one short paragraph needs a lot of help). Various reasons; partly because I don't trust myself to remember necessary edits at the start of a section if I carry on and find issues at the end of a section; I like - increasingly - to write long edit summaries (I find writing something pithy about inserting a comma helps my morale, keeps me in good humour).
I confess I do still "keep score" with my edit count, though more for a little personal buzz I get when I get past each thousand mark than to compare myself to others (although I still take the occasional look at the league table to see if I've re-appeared on it: answer "no" ;o)
On high-traffic articles, or one where you are making complicated changes, it is often best to split things up and explain using edit summaries. It helps other editors follow what changes you have made. For new articles, or ones where you are the only editor or one of only a few editors, bigger changes and complete rewrites are less disconcerting. There may even be some readers who follow the edit summaries and step through the page history as well. Also, if you do things in stages, someone else, looking through the page history, can learn a lot about the different things that go into editing a Wikipedia article.
The two extremes are: (1) Writing an article offline that is close to featured status and saving that in one edit (but there will always be a need to get the article reviewed by others before putting it forward for formal review, as others will always see things that you miss, or have valid improvements to suggest); versus (2) Writing an entire article in stages (with or without others) and building it up *logically*, step-by-step from a stub to a featured article (and then turning that into some sort of video presentation or animated slideshow so others can learn from it). I wonder how many discrete "learnable" steps and edits a featured article, or various standard types of articles, can be broken down into?
Carcharoth
On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 9:31 PM, MuZemike muzemike@gmail.com wrote:
As the title indicates, when working on articles, do you prefer making a bunch of small edits or one or a couple of big edits?
Personally, I started out making lots of small edits, but lately I've been the opposite of that.
-MuZemike
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l