How would people feel about a "Submit review" tab that is only shown to unregistered users, and that would result in a page showing
a) A brief excerpt (~1000 characters) of the article from which the user clicked "Submit review", and a link to open the whole article in a separate window
b) A note that we encourage people to directly correct errors, with further links on how to get started
c) A form with the following elements
Reviewer's name Reviewer's e-mail address Reviewer's professional background / affiliation (if any) Review text [ ] You agree that text of your review may be quoted, copied and otherwise used under the terms of the GNU FDL
The reviews would be sent to a to-be-created mailing list, e.g. reviews-l@wikipedia.org. Besides the form information, the messages would include an exact revision ID of the article that was being reviewed.
Might such a strategy be a way to bridge the gap between experts and the larger wiki world? One reason why experts may not want to participate directly is that they simply do not want to waste their time arguing with Wikipedians about what is right and wrong -- instead, they feel that their expertise should carry some weight. We could even put out a press release: "Wikipedia solicits experts reviews."
With a mailing list, volunteers could look at each submission, and act upon the ones which are legitimate (perhaps posting excerpts to the talk page etc.). At the same time, such a system would not undermine the regular community processes. It would also be easier to use than talk pages, and encourage providing credentials.
Another advantage of such a solution is that it's almost trivial to code -- in fact Angela wrote a "Contact us" extension that could be used as a basis for such a form.
To prevent spam and abuse, e-mail confirmation could be required before a review is processed. But perhaps it should be tried first without that.
Thoughts?
Erik
On 7/30/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:
The reviews would be sent to a to-be-created mailing list, e.g. reviews-l@wikipedia.org. Besides the form information, the messages would include an exact revision ID of the article that was being reviewed.
I don't think an email list is the right place for reviews to go. They should end up more tightly integrated in the wiki process.
Steve
On 7/30/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/30/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:
The reviews would be sent to a to-be-created mailing list, e.g. reviews-l@wikipedia.org. Besides the form information, the messages would include an exact revision ID of the article that was being reviewed.
I don't think an email list is the right place for reviews to go. They should end up more tightly integrated in the wiki process.
It could be an option: ( ) Append my review to the wiki "discussion page", where Wikipedia users may respond to it ( ) Send my review by e-mail to a select group of volunteers, who will look at it and who may respond by e-mail
I for one would prefer to use only e-mail to begin with. Reviewers may not be comfortable with their personal information being published on the web, and the point is exactly to take away some of the complexity of the wiki process and to build a simpler, safer social environment where they will not have to deal with immature teenagers shouting at them. Friendly volunteers can instead take care of the incoming reviews, carefully build a social relationship with the reviewer, and try to bring them into the wiki proper if it makes sense. People from .edu domains can be treated with respect, and get the feeling that they have a special status that elevates them above the unwashed masses -- when in reality they have no special rights to the content whatsoever.
Many of the people who we should solicit input from are very familiar with e-mail. They are not familiar with "talk pages" and "wiki", and in fact intimidated by it. We should encourage use of the "right way of doing things", but I think we should also offer an "alternative way of doing things."
Erik
On 7/29/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:
a) A brief excerpt (~1000 characters) of the article from which the user clicked "Submit review", and a link to open the whole article in a separate window
Why the excerpt? And how would the length be determined? Including the lead might be good, but there's huge variability in size there. I'd say just include the article title.
c) A form with the following elements
Reviewer's name Reviewer's e-mail address Reviewer's professional background / affiliation (if any) Review text [ ] You agree that text of your review may be quoted, copied andotherwise used under the terms of the GNU FDL
Would we require that they check the last box? Obviously if they don't we can't copy it to the talk page, but it might be useful anyway (forward the email to the article's primary editor, etc.)
The reviews would be sent to a to-be-created mailing list, e.g.
reviews-l@wikipedia.org. Besides the form information, the messages would include an exact revision ID of the article that was being reviewed.
Might such a strategy be a way to bridge the gap between experts and the larger wiki world? One reason why experts may not want to participate directly is that they simply do not want to waste their time arguing with Wikipedians about what is right and wrong -- instead, they feel that their expertise should carry some weight. We could even put out a press release: "Wikipedia solicits experts reviews."
I like the email list idea. Easy to use, somewhat private, less "scary". We need to accomodate these people as much as possible, and soliciting reviews via email seems like a good way to go. We would have to make sure that we take action quickly, however--asking for feedback and then failing to act on it wouldn't do much for our image. We'd need enough volunteers to keep this running smoothly.
To prevent spam and abuse, e-mail confirmation could be required
before a review is processed. But perhaps it should be tried first without that.
With or without email confirmation, I wonder what the noise to signal ratio will be. Worse than just the normal spam, which is easy to identify, will be the cases where malicious folks write something that to the untrained eye might pass as expert opinion but in reality is complete bunk.
Nathaniel
On 7/30/06, Nathaniel Sheetz preparing@psu.edu wrote:
Why the excerpt? And how would the length be determined? Including the lead might be good, but there's huge variability in size there. I'd say just include the article title.
I think it would be useful as a reference point, just to make clear that people are not "reviewing Wikipedia", but a specific article, and to make it super-easy to load the article again. User interfaces that we take for granted (highlighted tabs etc.) are not nearly as intuitive to non-regular computer users.
Would we require that they check the last box?
Good point, we might actually make the FDL assignment optional and send the e-mail even if they do not click it.
I like the email list idea. Easy to use, somewhat private, less "scary". We need to accomodate these people as much as possible, and soliciting reviews via email seems like a good way to go. We would have to make sure that we take action quickly, however--asking for feedback and then failing to act on it wouldn't do much for our image. We'd need enough volunteers to keep this running smoothly.
Making a lot of noise about this on WP should do the trick, especially if Jimmy gets behind it. ;-)
With or without email confirmation, I wonder what the noise to signal ratio will be. Worse than just the normal spam, which is easy to identify, will be the cases where malicious folks write something that to the untrained eye might pass as expert opinion but in reality is complete bunk.
Well, it's not as bad as letting everyone edit the articles, is it? ;-) If it gets too bad e-mail confirmation should take care of a lot of junk.
Erik
On 7/29/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:
How would people feel about a "Submit review" tab that is only shown to unregistered users, and that would result in a page showing
a) A brief excerpt (~1000 characters) of the article from which the user clicked "Submit review", and a link to open the whole article in a separate window
b) A note that we encourage people to directly correct errors, with further links on how to get started
c) A form with the following elements
Reviewer's name Reviewer's e-mail address Reviewer's professional background / affiliation (if any) Review text [ ] You agree that text of your review may be quoted, copied and otherwise used under the terms of the GNU FDL
The reviews would be sent to a to-be-created mailing list, e.g. reviews-l@wikipedia.org. Besides the form information, the messages would include an exact revision ID of the article that was being reviewed.
Might such a strategy be a way to bridge the gap between experts and the larger wiki world? One reason why experts may not want to participate directly is that they simply do not want to waste their time arguing with Wikipedians about what is right and wrong -- instead, they feel that their expertise should carry some weight. We could even put out a press release: "Wikipedia solicits experts reviews."
With a mailing list, volunteers could look at each submission, and act upon the ones which are legitimate (perhaps posting excerpts to the talk page etc.). At the same time, such a system would not undermine the regular community processes. It would also be easier to use than talk pages, and encourage providing credentials.
Another advantage of such a solution is that it's almost trivial to code -- in fact Angela wrote a "Contact us" extension that could be used as a basis for such a form.
To prevent spam and abuse, e-mail confirmation could be required before a review is processed. But perhaps it should be tried first without that.
Thoughts?
Erik
An email list for this is a *horrible* idea. You're proposing that something that could receive hundreds and hundreds of emails a day (assuming even a extremely tiny fraction of the 1.25 million articles or whatever get reviewed), each one possibly lengthy, and each one possibly needing a subject area layman or expert to meaningfully deal with, be sent to an extremely obscure mailing list no one in their right mind would want to subscribe to or deal with. We tried something like this once; you remember that ML that was so dysfunctional that it had to be chucked and moved over to OTRS (which I hear *still* can't cope with the flood)? And there are other problems; people tend to mean reviews to last for a while, at least until all the issues are dealt with. Wanna bet how fast each review will be forgotten in the onrush? I'll give you a hint: look at how many people review old AFC pages which need reviewing.
What this should be is a nice and easy form for adding a section to a talk page. It is transparent, scalable, and might even get the review to the editors in a particular subject area who know what the deuce the anon is talking about and might do something about it. Any more is hopeless, and possible instruction creep.
~maru
On 7/30/06, maru dubshinki marudubshinki@gmail.com wrote:
An email list for this is a *horrible* idea. You're proposing that something that could receive hundreds and hundreds of emails a day
Well, that remains to be seen. In any case, as I replied earlier, both talk page and e-mail list are options, and we could switch between them, or offer both, as necessary.
(assuming even a extremely tiny fraction of the 1.25 million articles or whatever get reviewed), each one possibly lengthy, and each one possibly needing a subject area layman or expert to meaningfully deal with, be sent to an extremely obscure mailing list no one in their right mind would want to subscribe to or deal with.
Perhaps some people are better at handling large amounts of e-mail than others? :-)
What this should be is a nice and easy form for adding a section to a talk page.
See my earlier response for the comparative merits of the e-mail approach.
Erik
On 7/30/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/30/06, maru dubshinki marudubshinki@gmail.com wrote:
An email list for this is a *horrible* idea. You're proposing that something that could receive hundreds and hundreds of emails a day
Well, that remains to be seen. In any case, as I replied earlier, both talk page and e-mail list are options, and we could switch between them, or offer both, as necessary.
Email is great as an input method because - as pointed out - it's less scary. The email should then be immediately rerouted back onto the wiki, because the wiki is The Right Place to have article-specific discussions. Contact information can be trimmed out if necessary, but I don't see that you can both respect people's reputation and hide their private information at the same time.
Steve
Fork and do it. To be fair, existing editors would have to be reviewed this way as well.
Erik Moeller wrote:
How would people feel about a "Submit review" tab that is only shown to unregistered users, and that would result in a page showing [...]
The reviews would be sent to a to-be-created mailing list [...]
If we will ever have proper discussion threads to replace the archaic and dysfunctional talk pages, these reviews would be a perfect candidate for starting such a discussion thread.
Timwi
Timwi wrote:
Erik Moeller wrote:
How would people feel about a "Submit review" tab that is only shown to unregistered users, and that would result in a page showing [...]
The reviews would be sent to a to-be-created mailing list [...]
If we will ever have proper discussion threads to replace the archaic and dysfunctional talk pages, these reviews would be a perfect candidate for starting such a discussion thread.
There's a pseudo-forum function, used on Uncyclopedia (and probably others), based on the Dynamic Page List function (which would also be nice to have):
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/DPLforum