I don't get it, Timwi. Correct me if my perception is wrong, but it's like you're against cheers and pats on the back. PLEASE correct me. Yeah, when someone bothers to leave me a note about how they liked my article or photo, I'm happy, but I consider myself fortunate to have huge amounts of experience with both writing and photography; if the plaudits I've earned by exemplary performance (no humility here) are reflective of what the "average" writer/illustrator gets, then there's a pathetically abyssmal level of feedback and encouragement going on. We have lost, or so it would seem, two talented and capable writers in the last month because it's easier to bitch and criticise than to support and praise. Or at least to yell "patent nonsense" when we should have just kept our bleeding gobs shut until we had bothered to determine whether or not we were peeing on our own shoes.
As an easy example, try this: SETI Online offers online certificates for work units completed. I am coming up on certificate four - 1000 work units - and I'm excited. Work for SETI? Zero. Their web page (or a counting applet attached) counts the returned work units and automatically adds access to new certificates as I am eligible for them. We have some crackerjack coders here who could, I'm sure, easily implement a routine to do such a thing. Volunteer work (pick me!!) can design 500 edits/1000 edits/2000 edits etc. certificates, and then it's all up to the editor to download certs as they show up on his /her userpage. (I can print as many 100 workunits as I want - it's my printer, my ink, and my money. I could paper my walls or send one to all my friends. What does it cost Wiki? Does zero sound like a good number to you?)
Timwi, Wiki has to be in part about the fun of doing it, and that =somebody= sees and appreciates the effort you're contributing. That is one area where Wiki could do a vastly better job. E2 has a chatbox, so community links can develop quickly and effectively (they also have a bunch of level 3+ editors who need a good cuff on the side of the head for the way they treat newbies, but that's another topic). Village Pump is not exactly chat, and IRC, as wonderful as I'm sure it is, is prodigiously threatening to the newbie user. The only contact with other Wikipedians is what the newbie initiates herself/himself.
I don't know how best this can be done. Do we create a WikiCommittee whose job it is to track users and drop comments on their user page? Do we ask a codejunkie to write a script to autogenerate certificate messages? Help me out here, allies. Whatever we do, if anything, I offer my assistance, because the more welcome we make good writers feel, the longer they stay, and the more welcome we make weak writers feel, the stronger they get.
Denni
-- "Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. " -- Pablo Picasso
. Whatever we do, if anything, I offer my assistance, because the more welcome we make good writers feel, the longer they stay, and the more welcome we make weak writers feel, the stronger they get.
Denni
Could we all just agree that we will all work to promote a good atmosphere, in whatever aspect of WP we are involved?
Maybe this sounds too like WikiLove soft soap; but surely it defines what the aim is. I find quite a contrast between folk who use words like 'stupid' in edit summaries, and those who find something pleasant to say; and that is not so related to their Wikipedian productivity. A culture of mutual recognition and support is what it's about.
Charles
Denni wrote:
Yeah, when someone bothers to leave me a note about how they liked my article or photo, I'm happy, but I consider myself fortunate to have huge amounts of experience with both writing and photography; if the plaudits I've earned by exemplary performance (no humility here) are reflective of what the "average" writer/illustrator gets, then there's a pathetically abyssmal level of feedback and encouragement going on.
Hey, I'm delighted if someone leaves me a note praising my stuff! I don't think anyone's suggesting that that's not wonderful..
As an easy example, try this: SETI Online offers online certificates for work units completed. I am coming up on certificate four - 1000 work units - and I'm excited. Work for SETI? Zero. Their web page (or a counting applet attached) counts the returned work units and automatically adds access to new certificates as I am eligible for them. We have some crackerjack coders here who could, I'm sure, easily implement a routine to do such a thing.
..but, frankly, if I got auto-sent a certificate saying that I'd made 1000 edits, it would mean less than nothing to me. Yeah, I was happy when I hit 1000, I even made sure I picked an especially worthwhile edit (a nice new article) to bring up the 1000. And then I got a note on my talk page from Maximus Rex saying "congratulations", and THAT meant 100x more than any automated thing would.
I don't know how best this can be done. Do we create a WikiCommittee whose job it is to track users and drop comments on their user page? Do we ask a codejunkie to write a script to autogenerate certificate messages? Help me out here, allies. Whatever we do, if anything, I offer my assistance, because the more welcome we make good writers feel, the longer they stay, and the more welcome we make weak writers feel, the stronger they get.
What we need, quite simply, is for people to drop notes on other users talk pages saying "hey, that's some great work you've been doing there!" I've been doing some of that myself, _I_ enjoy doing it, and I'm sure that the recipients are happy too. So my advice: more of that. Less talking on mailing lists about awards and certificates, less organising of committees, just get out there and leave the personal message saying "well done!"
Cheers! David... (Stormie)
Denni wrote:
I don't get it, Timwi.
I might try to clarify anything you "don't get", but I'm afraid you'll have to come down to a level where we can communicate. English is not my native language! Things like this:
if the plaudits I've earned by exemplary performance (no humility here) are reflective of what the "average" writer/illustrator gets, then there's a pathetically abyssmal level of feedback and encouragement going on.
are incomprehensible to common folk such as myself. :-p Additionally, I would be grateful if you would reply to the relevant message next time, to keep it within the proper thread. Thank you.
As an easy example, try this: SETI Online offers online certificates for work units completed. I am coming up on certificate four - 1000 work units - and I'm excited.
This is significantly different from what I was referring to. It is already technically possible for us to count the number of contributions (I even keep an approximate value on my user page updated). However, it is clear to everyone, troll or not, that these numbers don't mean anything. Anyone can make tens of thousands of edits; the system does not judge how meaningful each edit is.
And *that* is where the problem comes in. By giving awards to people, we would be *judging the value* of a contribution. And we're bound to go horribly wrong. We're going to be biased against obscure topics that nobody finds interesting; we're going to be biased towards people who have been here for longer and whom we already appreciate; and we're going to be biased against people who are not quite as socially competent as we would like them to be.
You already mentioned that we are here for the fun of it. Yes, of course we are. Who's denying that? The problem with these awards is that each award makes *one* person happy, and a *load* of people unhappy. It is simply no fun to see other people receive awards for something you personally feel you have done better, more of, or to a greater degree/extent. People are inevitably going to feel that way. It is well possible that some people are different, but I think the majority would *feel* (not think!) that way, no matter how hard you try to say to yourself that you *should* be happy for other people when they receive a reward and you don't. It only gets worse over time as you are continually denied a reward. People are *much* more likely to become demotivated and gradually (not explicitly!) leave in frustration (and they may not even be consciously aware that they are leaving *because* they have been denied a reward, even if that is the case!), than they are to work *even* harder for something they feel they're already entitled to.
the more welcome we make good writers feel, the longer they stay, and the more welcome we make weak writers feel, the stronger they get.
I tend to agree with this. We'd just have to work on being more welcoming. Things like what prompted James Marshall to post here about being reverted and blocked, simply should not happen. Newbies make a few mistakes because they are not aware of all our customs, policies, conventions, rules, taboos, etc. The problem is that this automatically makes them unpopular. Inventing rewards for our long-time contributors is not going to fix that (quite to the contrary, it might even make some awardees feel *even* more superior to "those pesky newbies").
Some of the rules we have seem unwelcoming to newbies. Unfortunately, we can't easily find out which ones they are, because all we ever see from a person that is driven away by such a rule, is a single edit from an anonymous IP adress; usually even one that is waved off as "vandalism" and reverted. We see more from the people who rebel against the rules, and these people are not representative of those that have left. If we were to introduce these awards, those that have left quickly are unlikely to even take notice of the fact that we are awarding something, so it's not going to make them stay.
Timwi
--- Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote:
...blah blah...
are incomprehensible to common folk such as myself. :-p
Let's all recall that the W is international.
The problem with these awards is that each award makes *one* person happy, and a *load* of people unhappy.
Indeed, so in keeping with Drew Carey's TV show Who's Line Is It Anyway, everybody gets 1000 points.
In any case. If you want to thank someone for their contrubution: Send them a personal email. Make it sweet, like: "Thank you for working on Wikipedia. I personally appreciate your hard work."
===== Chris Mahan 818.943.1850 cell chris_mahan@yahoo.com chris.mahan@gmail.com http://www.christophermahan.com/
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On Thursday 24 June 2004 21:30, Timwi wrote:
As an easy example, try this: SETI Online offers online certificates for work units completed. I am coming up on certificate four - 1000 work units - and I'm excited.
This is significantly different from what I was referring to. It is already technically possible for us to count the number of contributions (I even keep an approximate value on my user page updated). However, it is clear to everyone, troll or not, that these numbers don't mean anything. Anyone can make tens of thousands of edits; the system does not judge how meaningful each edit is.
This could be solved by awarding users with, for example, most articles that made it to the main page. They are already pre-selected by humans as good articles.
And *that* is where the problem comes in. By giving awards to people, we would be *judging the value* of a contribution. And we're bound to go horribly wrong. We're going to be biased against obscure topics that nobody finds interesting; we're going to be biased towards people who have been here for longer and whom we already appreciate; and we're going to be biased against people who are not quite as socially competent as we would like them to be.
OTOH, I couldn't agree with this more.
You already mentioned that we are here for the fun of it. Yes, of course we are. Who's denying that? The problem with these awards is that each award makes *one* person happy, and a *load* of people unhappy. It is
I don't think it is so. I don't see how someone receiving an award would make me unhappy.
simply no fun to see other people receive awards for something you personally feel you have done better, more of, or to a greater degree/extent. People are inevitably going to feel that way. It is well
OTOH, this does make sense.
Nikola Smolenski wrote:
On Thursday 24 June 2004 21:30, Timwi wrote:
As an easy example, try this: SETI Online offers online certificates for work units completed. I am coming up on certificate four - 1000 work units - and I'm excited.
This is significantly different from what I was referring to. It is already technically possible for us to count the number of contributions (I even keep an approximate value on my user page updated). However, it is clear to everyone, troll or not, that these numbers don't mean anything. Anyone can make tens of thousands of edits; the system does not judge how meaningful each edit is.
This could be solved by awarding users with, for example, most articles that made it to the main page. They are already pre-selected by humans as good articles.
If you award *users* for what an *article* achieves, then minor contributors to the article in question are going to feel left out.
In fact, I think the Featured Articles system is pretty clever in this regard: it rewards the articles directly, the people only indirectly; it judges the value of an article, but not that of a contributor. This way every contributor to a Featured Article can be correspondingly proud because they know their contribution helped make it Featured, and it provides just the right incentive to do exactly what we should be focussing on: writing good articles (as opposed to amassing awards).
Incidentally, I'm a little annoyed that an article I wrote has been rejected from being Featured solely because it is an obscure topic. But that's fine; I can still be proud that I've written this article, and others can judge for themselves whether they think it's good or not. If there had been a reward in it for me, personally, I'm sure it's clear I would be quite a lot more annoyed for having been denied it, especially if others got it just because their favourite topics are less obscure.
Timwi
On Friday 25 June 2004 03:24, Timwi wrote:
Nikola Smolenski wrote:
On Thursday 24 June 2004 21:30, Timwi wrote:
As an easy example, try this: SETI Online offers online certificates for work units completed. I am coming up on certificate four - 1000 work units - and I'm excited.
This is significantly different from what I was referring to. It is already technically possible for us to count the number of contributions (I even keep an approximate value on my user page updated). However, it is clear to everyone, troll or not, that these numbers don't mean anything. Anyone can make tens of thousands of edits; the system does not judge how meaningful each edit is.
This could be solved by awarding users with, for example, most articles that made it to the main page. They are already pre-selected by humans as good articles.
If you award *users* for what an *article* achieves, then minor contributors to the article in question are going to feel left out.
I was thinking about "Did you know" section, it's for new articles written only by one user. Then, perhaps making it to the main page is enough a reward itself.
Incidentally, I'm a little annoyed that an article I wrote has been rejected from being Featured solely because it is an obscure topic. But that's fine; I can still be proud that I've written this article, and others can judge for themselves whether they think it's good or not. If there had been a reward in it for me, personally, I'm sure it's clear I would be quite a lot more annoyed for having been denied it, especially if others got it just because their favourite topics are less obscure.
Don't need to tell that to me - I think that articles I make are edited perhaps once per month on average (except for grammar fixes ;) I take that as a sign of their quality :]