On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 11:58 PM, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: Actually, I often see things that need fixing, but I'm in "look up" mode and using Wikipedia as a starting point for finding some information I'm after, and often don't have the time to even make a note to come back to the article later. If I see things that need fixing when I'm in "Wikipedian" mode, I do fix things then (but even then, there is a trade-off between temp fix now, or detailed fix that will take more time). It comes back to that trade-off in time spent doing other things. Has anyone ever suggested a way for people to highlight a mistake and click to bring it to someone else's attention? But without logging any IP address. I suppose that sort of system would get overwhelmed by trolls very quickly. Maybe an off-wiki system to allow people using Wikipedia to generate a note for themselves on corrections to make later on? I'm also convinced that the generation that has grown up able to correct things on wikis or editable bulletin boards after they've posted them, are more prone to posting typos in the less flexible media, such as e-mail and non-editable bulletin boards. The number of times I've clicked "send" and spotted a typo and cursed my inability to make an instant edit to correct it! Carcharoth

On 22 December 2010 07:27, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: I do think there are fewer opportunities for such "easy" edits on Wikipedia now. Typos seem to be far less common thanks to semi-automated tools such as AWB, and most articles are generally more mature. Plus the wikicode of articles grows ever more intimidating. Has anyone analysed if the number of new contributors has risen since the Usability Project improvements? Obviously that was one of the major aims. Pete / the wub

On jargon, I still think "Neutral point of view" was a terrible name that confused neutrality with lack of bias. You cannot sum up a policy like NPOV in a single phrase, so in that case, I think NPOV is better than saying "neutral" something. Sometimes a Wikipedia "term of art" can be misleading and the abbreviation is *less* misleading. On interfaces, I think the main improvements will probably be in the realm of templates and how references are added. At least that is what I am hoping for. Talking of other interface things, what do people think of LiquidThreads, which looks like it is in use on some wikis now, from what I can see. Carcharoth On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 10:55 AM, Tony Sidaway <tonysidaway(a)gmail.com> wrote:

I see where you're coming from Tony, but ultimately, you can't herd cats. A campaign against jargon is only going to make minimal headway. The are some structural things that Wikipedia needs to do: 1) WYSIWYG would be fantastic, but I've no idea what that would meet in practice. Sticking to the achievable: 2) That need for posts to be signed with ~~~~ is counterintuitive. If I create an account on any other site, a sig in a discussion is unnecessary. I assume liquid threads would rid us of this? Is there another way? 3) The growing use of protection on high profile articles needs more discussion. There used to be a principle that the more an article was visible the less we should protect it. (After all people are told "anyone can edit" and high profile articles are watched enough to revert quickly.) We now seem to have reversed this - with the attitude that the article is now fairly good, and most IP edits are unhelpful. But the outsider comes in by experimentation. Actually, I'm a supporter of more liberal semi-protection (particularly on BLPS) but I'd use it on marginal articles where incoming edits are under-scrutinised - not one those where it is a hassle to vandal-fighters, but we always catch them. 4) Perhaps we need more integration with other social network and internet platforms. I mean, Amazon has seen the potential for someone reading a Wikipedia article to buy a book - but the reverse is true. Please buying books on Italian History are precisely the people we need to help us with articles on Italian history. Facebookers with an interest in Pokemon are precisely the people who can (and have the time to) help improve out deficiency in Pokemon articles...(ok, maybe not, but you get the point!) 5) I see the growing use of {{talkback}} templates. Personally, I hate them. However, the assumption that everyone masters watchlists and knows how to find discussions - and sees replies people make to them in any one of 27 noticeboards, talk pages etc is also counter intuitive. Could we develop software that flagged a user when someone replies to their post, wherever the reply might be? So if I post anywhere and someone posts indented below, I get some form of automatic notification? I don't know how it would work - but Facebook's beauty is that wherever I comment, or wherever someone comments about me, I get notified - that tends to keep me interested in continuing the discussions rather than drifting off. Watchlists were great in 2002, but they are part of an increasingly tired looking infrastructure. Just some thoughts. I suspect to solve these problems would need some serious investment - but I just see Wikipedia slowly becoming dated. (Of course those who grew up on it will say it is "fine" - but then that's the way with everything.) Scott -----Original Message----- From: wikien-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Tony Sidaway Sent: 22 December 2010 10:55 To: English Wikipedia Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Eschatology and Wikipedia The single best way to improve usability of Wikipedia would be to scale back the use of jargon. if you look at early discussions in those days they were usually held in plain English, with very little jargon. I've tried to keep up that style, but it is now quite rare. I don't see why this should be. Our policies have perfectly good English language names, "Neutral point of view", "What Wikipedia is Not", "Verifiability", and so on. There's absolutely no need to replace these English phrases with gobbledygook. We have no strictures against this exclusive practice, mainly because it was seen as obviously undesirable in the early days. But communities inevitably acquire exclusive practices as they develop--it's seen as one way to identify yourself to other people as a member of the "in" group. And so now when I discuss matters on Wikipedia talk pages even I, an editor since 2004, find myself shuddering inwardly at the impact of all the alphabet soup. If the damage this practice does to the openness of the community were more widely recognised it would be possible for us to agree to scale it back, but it just isn't on the map. in all conscience I cannot see anything wrong with our user interface. It's exemplary, and its having changed so little in all this time is good evidence of that. If we were to try to emulate monstrosities like the ever-changing Facebook it would be a step backwards from our unflinching commitment to a good, clean, simple interface. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

On 22 December 2010 09:53, Peter Coombe <thewub.wiki(a)googlemail.com> wrote: I had an interesting discussion a year or two ago with someone about the absence of redlinks in "high-quality" articles - in the past few years, there's been a definite trend to arguing that redlinks are detrimental to a finished article, and should be removed even when an article is pretty much guaranteed to be created eventually. Net result, of course, is that the article is more polished-looking - to us, at least, even if not to a reader unclear on the red/blue distinction - but has marginally less reminders of its editability. I suspect this is part of a similar trend! It reminds me of the spirit of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Always_leave_something_undone "Whenever you write a page, never finish it. Always leave something obvious to do: an uncompleted sentence, a question in the text (with a not-too-obscure answer someone can supply), wikied links that are of interest, requests for help from specific other Wikipedians, the beginning of a provocative argument that someone simply must fill in, etc. The purpose of this rule is to encourage others to keep working on the wiki." -- - Andrew Gray   andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

On 12/22/10 11:36 PM, Carcharoth wrote: True enough about the prognosis for talk page notes. A discrete help marker on the public page would still be worthwhile. It could perhaps link directly to an explanation of the problem. An ordinary reader is unlikely to view the talk page otherwise. An effective way to lose volunteers is to leave them sitting around with nothing to do. If you want help from new blood make it obvious where the help is needed, and abandon this notion of polished articles written to impossible standards. Ec

On 12/22/10 1:53 AM, Peter Coombe wrote: You can still find them by reading. The tools may very well catch non-words or common misuses, but will it catch a plurals when there should be a singular, or wrong verb tenses? Excessive wikicode for templates or in-line references is a problem for simple edits. If one sees an error in the normal text, it can be a chore to find it again in edit mode when it is buried in the code. Ec

This would be a generic equivalent of the Fix family of templates based on Template:Fix I hate this coding but selecting the text which needs attention and hitting enter could create a popup where the problem could be explained or at least noted, if the person did not want to spend time on it. Selection from a checklist would put tags like "spelling" "verification needed" "Source?" in at the end of the highlighted text. We have a wide variety of such template, although I would be at a loss to remember them all or use them without a crutch like the popup I suggest. A new editor, could never, of course. These templates are simple but there are lots of them, often duplicating each other. Fred Bauder