I'd like to work out some way of advocating the "missing article" lists to potential new contributors. On en:wp:
http://enwp.org/WP:WANTED http://enwp.org/WP:MISSING
I've been writing new stub articles just from those in the past couple of days. It reminds me of how and why I got hooked on writing an encyclopedia.
What would be a good way of advocating these to n00bs? "See this list? Write a coupla paragraphs with a coupla good references and it'll go in."
Suppose I should help process the "new articles from unconfirmed users" queue ... where is that these days?
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
I'd like to work out some way of advocating the "missing article" lists to potential new contributors. On en:wp:
http://enwp.org/WP:WANTED http://enwp.org/WP:MISSING
I've been writing new stub articles just from those in the past couple of days. It reminds me of how and why I got hooked on writing an encyclopedia.
Good idea. Lists of redlinks are an important and somewhat neglected part of the infrastructure. I feel we haven't worked out exactly how to present them (decentralisation is quite important, but there is an obvious tension with the idea that newbies can find them quickly).
Really [[Category:Wikipedia missing topics]] should be the master category. It turns out to be a subcategory of [[Category:Wikipedia requested articles] ] - which I find to be less than logical. Equally [[WP:MISSING]] should be the master page in project space. There is nothing wrong with having Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles there, but that wikiproject has its Procrustean bed tendencies (equating "encyclopedic articles" with "articles in existing encyclopedias" isn't what should happen).
Charles
On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 11:35 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I'd like to work out some way of advocating the "missing article" lists to potential new contributors. On en:wp:
http://enwp.org/WP:WANTED http://enwp.org/WP:MISSING
I've been writing new stub articles just from those in the past couple of days. It reminds me of how and why I got hooked on writing an encyclopedia.
What would be a good way of advocating these to n00bs? "See this list? Write a coupla paragraphs with a coupla good references and it'll go in."
Suppose I should help process the "new articles from unconfirmed users" queue ... where is that these days?
- d.
I personally think we are at the stage where we should be spending time improving what we have, rather than creating more work. We aren't low on articles.
--Majorly
I personally think we are at the stage where we should be spending time improving what we have, rather than creating more work. We aren't low on articles.
--Majorly
Which would be a personal decision, indeed. People should give priority to what they think is more important. But do you have ideas about getting newbies to improve articles? (I happen to think that starting by improving existing articles is probably a better training, and certainly an easier one. The question is how to motivate newcomers, to do that or anything else.)
Charles
On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 4:18 PM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
I personally think we are at the stage where we should be spending time improving what we have, rather than creating more work. We aren't low on articles.
Which would be a personal decision, indeed. People should give priority to what they think is more important. But do you have ideas about getting newbies to improve articles? (I happen to think that starting by improving existing articles is probably a better training, and certainly an easier one. The question is how to motivate newcomers, to do that or anything else.)
Give polite and constructive feedback on their editing, be gentle on what they are doing wrong, leave them with plenty of ideas for other things to do, and warn them that Wikipedia is a big place and some people they meet will be quite abrasive. If they are already abrasive themselves, support anyone they have upset.
Or do you mean how to get them editing in the first place? That used to be "click this red link and create an article". As the standards for new articles rises and the links are to obscurer topics that need a good start when created, that is harder to do. Maybe promote more of the links to various projects such as disambiguation, wikilinking, vandalism patrol, simple article clean-up, and so on. But don't throw people in at the deep end and wonder why they are floundering.
Carcharoth
2009/12/5 Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com:
Give polite and constructive feedback on their editing, be gentle on what they are doing wrong, leave them with plenty of ideas for other things to do, and warn them that Wikipedia is a big place and some people they meet will be quite abrasive. If they are already abrasive themselves, support anyone they have upset.
"Wikipedia is part of the internet, so (a) there are a certain number of complete idiots (b) there are a certain number of people who will think you are a complete idiot. Whatever you do. Those of us here to write an encyclopedia learn to be patient and get on with it."
Or do you mean how to get them editing in the first place? That used to be "click this red link and create an article". As the standards for new articles rises and the links are to obscurer topics that need a good start when created, that is harder to do. Maybe promote more of the links to various projects such as disambiguation, wikilinking, vandalism patrol, simple article clean-up, and so on. But don't throw people in at the deep end and wonder why they are floundering.
That's why missing-article lists occur to me as a good starting point - these are articles that someone has noticed we could do with. So a coupla good references and they're likely to stick.
- d.
On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 11:18 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
(I happen to think that starting by improving existing articles is probably a better training, and certainly an easier one. The question is how to motivate newcomers, to do that or anything else.)
The difficulty I see for newcomers improving existing articles is that, as newcomers, they don't know which things they can change and which things they should leave alone.
For example, imagine a well-meaning newbie who sees that our article "Logic" starts with "Logic is the study of reasoning." This newbie might change that to "Logic is the art and science of correct deduction", which is a priori reasonable. They would not know that people have argued over the first sentence in detail and that the present wording is a compromise between the many definitions of "logic" available in reliable sources. And "Logic" is not at all a controversial topic, nor rated as a featured article. If a new user were to wade into a featured article on a religious or political topic, they would have even less freedom to edit.
One rewarding task for new users is expanding stubs. With that sort of editing, they have much more discretion in how to organize and phrase the content, and they are more likely to feel empowered to edit.
- Carl
2009/12/5 Carl (CBM) cbm.wikipedia@gmail.com:
The difficulty I see for newcomers improving existing articles is that, as newcomers, they don't know which things they can change and which things they should leave alone.
[snip examples of highly-discussed wordings]
Any article relating to religion can be like this. As late as 2004 there was room for me to improve the articles on the Gospels with no specialist knowledge ... no chance now.
And real-world controversial topics ... w00t!
One rewarding task for new users is expanding stubs. With that sort of editing, they have much more discretion in how to organize and phrase the content, and they are more likely to feel empowered to edit.
Yep! That's in there with the missing article lists.
It's really good that stubs are already sorted by topic to quite fine detail.
So: point newbies at the stubs in their specialist area. "Look, you can edit these right now. That book on your shelf? It's a good reference. Go for it."
These ideas are marvellously useful :-) Someone want to put them on the strategy wiki too? I assume there's a section on n00b recruitment.
- d.
Carl (CBM) wrote:
On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 11:18 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
(I happen to think that starting by improving existing articles is probably a better training, and certainly an easier one. The question is how to motivate newcomers, to do that or anything else.)
The difficulty I see for newcomers improving existing articles is that, as newcomers, they don't know which things they can change and which things they should leave alone.
For example, imagine a well-meaning newbie who sees that our article "Logic" starts with "Logic is the study of reasoning." This newbie might change that to "Logic is the art and science of correct deduction", which is a priori reasonable. They would not know that people have argued over the first sentence in detail and that the present wording is a compromise between the many definitions of "logic" available in reliable sources. And "Logic" is not at all a controversial topic, nor rated as a featured article. If a new user were to wade into a featured article on a religious or political topic, they would have even less freedom to edit.
Right. Reading down an article and changing the first thing you happen to disagree with is not an ideal way to work; it happens to suggest itself to many newcomers, though. I suppose the three pillars of improving an article are: fact-checking and referencing anything that appears dubious to you; expanding in areas where coverage seems obviously lacking; and restructuring. All these really matter more than wording tweaks, or at least should be given priority. But they require specific skills (in our terms).
Charles
On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 12:29 PM, Carl (CBM) cbm.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote: [snip]
For example, imagine a well-meaning newbie who sees that our article "Logic" starts with "Logic is the study of reasoning." This newbie might change that to "Logic is the art and science of correct deduction", which is a priori reasonable. They would not know that people have argued over the first sentence in detail and that the present wording is a compromise between the many definitions of "logic" available in reliable sources.
[snip]
We sometimes use HTML comments in the wikitext to note traps like this.
Perhaps that is a good practice which should be encouraged?
On Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 10:28 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote: [snip]
Creating forests of redirects is useful to the reader. Certainly to me as a reader.
Agreed.
We can't disclose the raw search request feed because people sometimes plug confidential information into the search box (e.g. accidentally pasting a password or a whole email there) but we could probably release some kind of aggregate. For example, release search strings which came from at least X distinct subnets during the day/week/month.
When the (insufficiently anonymized) AOL search data was released I took the top query terms where there were no wikipedia articles and went about making redirects: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Gmaxwell/seo
I'd like to think it helped...
There are probably more from that list which could stand to be created.
2009/12/6 Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com:
When the (insufficiently anonymized) AOL search data was released I took the top query terms where there were no wikipedia articles and went about making redirects: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Gmaxwell/seo I'd like to think it helped... There are probably more from that list which could stand to be created.
I've just been spending this morning before work creating a pile of them :-D
Most of the typos for "MySpace.com" and "google.com" had been created and deleted by db-R3 (typo unlikely to happen in real life). I recreated them with an edit summary pointing to that page, as evidence that people's typing really is consistently much worse than we'd like to think ...
- d.
On Mon, Dec 7, 2009 at 8:23 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Most of the typos for "MySpace.com" and "google.com" had been created and deleted by db-R3 (typo unlikely to happen in real life). I recreated them with an edit summary pointing to that page, as evidence that people's typing really is consistently much worse than we'd like to think ...
There is an argument that MediaWiki should really just have a very good natural language search engine that can guess what users are looking for, despite any typos.
There's an even better argument that a hand-built search engine built by thousands of monkeys addressing every query individually will outperform it every time.
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote:
On Mon, Dec 7, 2009 at 8:23 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Most of the typos for "MySpace.com" and "google.com" had been created and deleted by db-R3 (typo unlikely to happen in real life). I recreated them with an edit summary pointing to that page, as evidence that people's typing really is consistently much worse than we'd like to think ...
There is an argument that MediaWiki should really just have a very good natural language search engine that can guess what users are looking for, despite any typos.
There's an even better argument that a hand-built search engine built by thousands of monkeys addressing every query individually will outperform it every time.
And there is a further argument that [[Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#Redirects]] should reflect this by stronger wording. As in "if any doubt, don't nominate or delete, since the resource implications of retaining a redirect for a typo are tiny." I.e. much less than arguing about it.
Charles
On Mon, Dec 7, 2009 at 10:58 PM, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com> wrote:
And there is a further argument that [[Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#Redirects]] should reflect this by stronger wording. As in "if any doubt, don't nominate or delete, since the resource implications of retaining a redirect for a typo are tiny." I.e. much less than arguing about it.
Since deleting doesn't actually (afaik) delete the redirect, then
deleting—even without discussion—takes more space than not deleting.
Stev
2009/12/7 Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com:
And there is a further argument that [[Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#Redirects]] should reflect this by stronger wording. As in "if any doubt, don't nominate or delete, since the resource implications of retaining a redirect for a typo are tiny." I.e. much less than arguing about it.
I'm sure there's a productive aspect to RFD. Perhaps the regulars are better occupied there than elsewhere? I haven't studied the matter closely, I must note.
- d.
2009/12/7 Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com:
There is an argument that MediaWiki should really just have a very good natural language search engine that can guess what users are looking for, despite any typos.
There's an even better argument that a hand-built search engine built by thousands of monkeys addressing every query individually will outperform it every time.
Steve
In theory no. A true natural language search engine should out perform humans. However at this time no one has built one and I would be somewhat surprised if those trying to do so don't use wikipedia's redirect structure as a data source.
2009/12/5 altally altallym@googlemail.com:
On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 11:35 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I'd like to work out some way of advocating the "missing article" lists to potential new contributors. On en:wp: http://enwp.org/WP:WANTED http://enwp.org/WP:MISSING I've been writing new stub articles just from those in the past couple of days. It reminds me of how and why I got hooked on writing an encyclopedia.
I personally think we are at the stage where we should be spending time improving what we have, rather than creating more work. We aren't low on articles.
I'm working on the theory that "volunteers will work hard at whatever they damn well feel like." This is one way to get n00bs in, and doesn't preclude other approaches.
And we have lots of articles, but there are plenty of areas in dire need of improvement. We didn't have [[euphonicon]] until I wrote it yesterday. (Using book references - specifically, the Amazon scans!) Music in particular is sadly lacking beyond relatively recent popular music. We continue to have terrible systemic bias, as documented in the Guardian recently.
Summary: there's still a lot of encyclopedia to go.
- d.
On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 4:30 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
<snip>
And we have lots of articles, but there are plenty of areas in dire need of improvement. We didn't have [[euphonicon]] until I wrote it yesterday. (Using book references - specifically, the Amazon scans!) Music in particular is sadly lacking beyond relatively recent popular music.
What's that rumbling noise of discontent I hear? Oh, it's WikiProject Opera! :-)
We continue to have terrible systemic bias, as documented in the Guardian recently.
Summary: there's still a lot of encyclopedia to go.
Indeed. It is best, some say, to concentrate on what is most in demand (either by what links here, or by searching Wikipedia for the term and seeing how many articles mention it). I think 'missing articles' does factor that in. Oh, and one way to enculture new editors is to help them out on an article and if they talk back (many people are shy or don't want to interact), then take things from there.
I wonder if WikiTours would help? Charles should be able to point us to the Meta Bus Tours that once existed. Maybe you remember those, David? Some page on meta that gave timetables for a virtual bus stopping at various central locations in Wikipedia.
Carcharoth
2009/12/5 Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com:
Indeed. It is best, some say, to concentrate on what is most in demand (either by what links here, or by searching Wikipedia for the term and seeing how many articles mention it). I think 'missing articles' does factor that in. Oh, and one way to enculture new editors is to help them out on an article and if they talk back (many people are shy or don't want to interact), then take things from there.
Possibly. It strikes me that one way to recruit smart specialists would be to point them at the redlink list in their specialty. "We have some idea how far we need to go."
I wonder if WikiTours would help? Charles should be able to point us to the Meta Bus Tours that once existed. Maybe you remember those, David? Some page on meta that gave timetables for a virtual bus stopping at various central locations in Wikipedia.
I never really encountered them ...
- d.
On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 4:46 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
2009/12/5 Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com:
Indeed. It is best, some say, to concentrate on what is most in demand (either by what links here, or by searching Wikipedia for the term and seeing how many articles mention it). I think 'missing articles' does factor that in. Oh, and one way to enculture new editors is to help them out on an article and if they talk back (many people are shy or don't want to interact), then take things from there.
Possibly. It strikes me that one way to recruit smart specialists would be to point them at the redlink list in their specialty. "We have some idea how far we need to go."
Depends how cranky they get in a place like Wikipedia...
I wonder if WikiTours would help? Charles should be able to point us to the Meta Bus Tours that once existed. Maybe you remember those, David? Some page on meta that gave timetables for a virtual bus stopping at various central locations in Wikipedia.
I never really encountered them ...
Me neither.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:TourBusStop
http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?TourBusMap
They look a bit, well, touristy!
Carcharoth
2009/12/5 Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com:
On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 4:46 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Possibly. It strikes me that one way to recruit smart specialists would be to point them at the redlink list in their specialty. "We have some idea how far we need to go."
Depends how cranky they get in a place like Wikipedia...
You can hardly move on Wikipedia without tripping over a Ph.D. We have expert editors galore. Most of them are perfectly nice to work with and comprehend the idea of working with others who are more than a little difficult.
(The problem, as far as I can tell, is with the difficult experts. Academia is very experienced with these people: it puts them in an office, insulated from humans, where they can get on with being brilliant and not have to interact with others. Wikipedia, OTOH, has an apparently limitless supply of people who would try an expert's patience, and it doesn't take many. People are a problem.)
- d.
On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 11:30 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I'm working on the theory that "volunteers will work hard at whatever they damn well feel like." This is one way to get n00bs in, and doesn't preclude other approaches.
I agree here, but the flip side is that they aren't necessarily aware of 'whatever they damn well feel like' working on, and have the potential to feel like doing a wide range of things, depending on context.
-Sage
2009/12/5 Sage Ross ragesoss+wikipedia@gmail.com:
On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 11:30 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I'm working on the theory that "volunteers will work hard at whatever they damn well feel like." This is one way to get n00bs in, and doesn't preclude other approaches.
I agree here, but the flip side is that they aren't necessarily aware of 'whatever they damn well feel like' working on, and have the potential to feel like doing a wide range of things, depending on context.
Absolutely! We need lots of approaches.
- d.
On Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 3:30 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I'm working on the theory that "volunteers will work hard at whatever they damn well feel like." This is one way to get n00bs in, and doesn't preclude other approaches.
Here's another: when someone searches for an article (let's say "norwegian antarctic expedition") that doesn't exist, let's encourage them to add it - we have successfully located someone interested in a topic that we don't have an article about. This is a good start.
The use case would go: 1) User searches, no match found 2) Wikipedia warmly encourages user to make the article, guiding them through the steps 3) Wikipedians nurture the newbie, remaining in contact with them as they make their inevitable fumbling mistakes 4) Newbie sticks around and makes other articles
What actually happens 1) User searches, no match found 2) Wikipedia yells: "Before creating an article, please read Wikipedia:Your first article." "To experiment, please use the sandbox. To use a wizard to create an article, see the Article wizard." "When creating an article, provide references to reliable published sources. An article without references may quickly be deleted." "You can also start your new article at Special:MyPage/Norwegian Antarctic Expedition. There, you can develop the article with less risk of deletion; ask other editors to help work on it; and move it into "article space" when it is ready." "If you wish to ask an informational question, please visit one of our help desks."
translation: - Don't create an article (without reading piles of tedious documentation first) - Don't create an article (because we know you just want to muck around) - Don't create an article (without applying a higher standard of referencing than we do) - Don't create an article (because we will delete it mercilessly. write a draft and beg for approval first) - Don't create an article (because you don't actually know anything)
(You know the rest of the use case)
Steve
Here's another: when someone searches for an article (let's say "norwegian
antarctic expedition")
Incidentally, I find the following collection of facts rather curious in their ensemble: 1) "Norwegian Antarctic Expedition" was one of the most requested redlinks, with 25 or so hits 2) There is a "WikiProject Antarctica/Norwegian Antarctica work group" 3) Of the six or so norwegian antarctic expeditions I found with a quick bit of googling, only two were listed at [[List of Antarctic expeditions]]. 4) The above mentioned Norwegian Antarctica work group claims credit for [[Alien vs. Predator (film)]] as a featured article.
Anyone have an explanation?
Steve PS Oh, I have an explanation to 1) at least. Most, maybe all, of those hits are from pages imported from a USGS document, which are actually referring to a specific expedition in 1956-60.
On Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 10:46 AM, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
Here's another: when someone searches for an article (let's say "norwegian
antarctic expedition")
Incidentally, I find the following collection of facts rather curious in their ensemble:
- "Norwegian Antarctic Expedition" was one of the most requested redlinks,
with 25 or so hits
Strange.
- There is a "WikiProject Antarctica/Norwegian Antarctica work group"
Not that strange.
- Of the six or so norwegian antarctic expeditions I found with a quick bit
of googling, only two were listed at [[List of Antarctic expeditions]].
Such lists are normally incomplete. I started "List of Arctic expeditions", and immediately marked it as incomplete. I hope it will end up as a useful timeline at some point.
- The above mentioned Norwegian Antarctica work group claims credit for
[[Alien vs. Predator (film)]] as a featured article.
Mistagging for the project by a bot (maybe using geo-cord tags), presumably because the film was (I'm guessing here) set in the Antarctic, or the Antarctic is involved somehow.
Carcharoth
On Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 10:00 PM, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.comwrote:
On Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 10:46 AM, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
Here's another: when someone searches for an article (let's say
"norwegian
antarctic expedition")
Incidentally, I find the following collection of facts rather curious in their ensemble:
- "Norwegian Antarctic Expedition" was one of the most requested
redlinks,
with 25 or so hits
Strange.
- There is a "WikiProject Antarctica/Norwegian Antarctica work group"
Not that strange.
My perhaps-too-subtle dig: What is the Norwegian Antarctica work group *doing* exactly, if they haven't written [[Norwegian Antarctic Expedition]], written about any of the 6+ Norwegian Antarctic expeditions, nor even listed 4 of them on the List of Antarctic Expeditions? Answer: writing about Alien vs Predator, apparently...
Steve
On Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 11:04 AM, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 10:00 PM, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.comwrote:
On Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 10:46 AM, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
Here's another: when someone searches for an article (let's say
"norwegian
antarctic expedition")
Incidentally, I find the following collection of facts rather curious in their ensemble:
- "Norwegian Antarctic Expedition" was one of the most requested
redlinks,
with 25 or so hits
Strange.
- There is a "WikiProject Antarctica/Norwegian Antarctica work group"
Not that strange.
My perhaps-too-subtle dig: What is the Norwegian Antarctica work group *doing* exactly, if they haven't written [[Norwegian Antarctic Expedition]], written about any of the 6+ Norwegian Antarctic expeditions, nor even listed 4 of them on the List of Antarctic Expeditions? Answer: writing about Alien vs Predator, apparently...
Clearly they didn't write about it (if any WikiProject did, it was likely the film one). Look to see who tagged the article and when.
I suspect that "Norwegian Antarctic Expedition" is more in the scope of a history of Antarctic exploration group, and "Norwegian Antarctica" should redirect to the Antarctic territorial claims of Norway, and should cover things like:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Antarctic_Territory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian-U.S._Scientific_Traverse_of_East_Anta... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(research_station) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_(research_station)
Indeed, anything in this category:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Norwegian_Antarctic_Territory
Whether or not a project or task force has been working on the articles tagged within its scope is not always immediately clear. many projects only get as far as the tagging stage. It is easier to build a list of things to work on than to actually work on them.
Carcharoth
Steve Bennett wrote:
Here's another: when someone searches for an article (let's say "norwegian antarctic expedition") that doesn't exist, let's encourage them to add it - we have successfully located someone interested in a topic that we don't have an article about. This is a good start.
The use case would go:
- User searches, no match found
- Wikipedia warmly encourages user to make the article, guiding them
through the steps 3) Wikipedians nurture the newbie, remaining in contact with them as they make their inevitable fumbling mistakes 4) Newbie sticks around and makes other articles
What actually happens
- User searches, no match found
- Wikipedia yells:
"Before creating an article, please read Wikipedia:Your first article." "To experiment, please use the sandbox. To use a wizard to create an article, see the Article wizard." "When creating an article, provide references to reliable published sources. An article without references may quickly be deleted." "You can also start your new article at Special:MyPage/Norwegian Antarctic Expedition. There, you can develop the article with less risk of deletion; ask other editors to help work on it; and move it into "article space" when it is ready." "If you wish to ask an informational question, please visit one of our help desks."
translation:
- Don't create an article (without reading piles of tedious documentation
first)
- Don't create an article (because we know you just want to muck around)
- Don't create an article (without applying a higher standard of referencing
than we do)
- Don't create an article (because we will delete it mercilessly. write a
draft and beg for approval first)
- Don't create an article (because you don't actually know anything)
Yes, but ...
Those prompts are not actually so useless. Perhaps the presentation could be improved.
Given the huge preponderance of readers over editors, the last point really should be first (visit help desks). Then I would go to drafting: "If you are able to draft an article on this topic, you can start it at Special:MyPage/Norwegian Antarctic". And make sure that the Special page has a clear way of templating the page so that it goes into a "help requested" category, and generates a human welcome.
Then give the three options (read "Your first article", Sandbox, Article wizard) as exactly that: "If you'd like to ...". Basically that message seems to have the order stood on its head. Something that could be addressed easily, though.
Charles
On Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 11:00 PM, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com> wrote:
Given the huge preponderance of readers over editors, the last point really should be first (visit help desks). Then I would go to drafting: "If you are able to draft an article on this topic, you can start it at Special:MyPage/Norwegian Antarctic". And make sure that the Special page has a clear way of templating the page so that it goes into a "help requested" category, and generates a human welcome.
Then give the three options (read "Your first article", Sandbox, Article wizard) as exactly that: "If you'd like to ...". Basically that message seems to have the order stood on its head. Something that could be addressed easily, though.
Yeah, but I'd go further.
1) Big blue button with informaiton icon. "Looking for information on <topic>? We don't have any. :( Try [the help desk] or [Google]. 2) Big green button. "Knowing something about <topic>? We'd love your help. Click here to start writing."
And of course "here" takes them to a walled tutorial where they can start writing, with experienced wikipedians watching in real time to give them a few pointers. The most crucial tips (referincing, not copying text in) get shown as appropriate, but not in one massive up-front hit. Encouragement along the way. At the end, a message like "Thanks! Hold the line, someone will give your article one final check over before it goes public."
I wonder if we have the resources to support that. We seem to have plenty of resources to speedy delete or AfD most newbie contributions...
Steve
I'd think that'd be a good idea. Part of the problem I observe as a new page patroller is that younger Wikipedians will often write rather silly or childish articles. Maybe if we can add a line to the end of the deletion and "You wrote a problem article" notification templates advertising WP:WANTED and WP:MISSING, it'd be great. I think some mottos of the day would also be a good idea.
Emily
On Dec 5, 2009, at 5:35 AM, David Gerard wrote:
I'd like to work out some way of advocating the "missing article" lists to potential new contributors. On en:wp:
http://enwp.org/WP:WANTED http://enwp.org/WP:MISSING
I've been writing new stub articles just from those in the past couple of days. It reminds me of how and why I got hooked on writing an encyclopedia.
What would be a good way of advocating these to n00bs? "See this list? Write a coupla paragraphs with a coupla good references and it'll go in."
Suppose I should help process the "new articles from unconfirmed users" queue ... where is that these days?
- d.
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This is a good idea I like.
Emily On Dec 5, 2009, at 1:05 PM, Charles Matthews wrote:
Emily Monroe wrote:
I think some mottos of the day would also be a good idea.
There is [[Wikipedia:Tip of the day]], which I had rather lost sight of. The sequence of new tips seems to have been revamped at the end of 2008. Could be combined with mottoes of the day, no?
Charles
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