John,
Thanks a lot - you made my Saturday! ;)
Is it somehow possible to let newcomers write articles together with oldtimers until they learn the most basic things?
But why (?) we suggest that it's impossible? If we will put that as (realized) aim this is very possible - we should just to embody in Wikipedia community such thing as apprenticeship http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apprenticeship . Isn't it sorta funny that Wikipedia contain guidelines which seems to be ignored by project community? ;)
How can we change this, both at a human level and with technical solutions?
...
Perhaps it is possible to make personal sandboxes where they can get some guidance before the dogfight starts?
Some people believe that it's good for newcomer to put him/her into the middle of dogfight from the day1. I'm not really supporter of that approach - there will be more than enough dogfights in future. So it's really important (mission-critical in terms of Wikipedia mission) what happens before the first dogfight.
We have some stuff (RSS-feeds, personal sandboxes etc.) to assist both grossmeister and apprentice, but sure we should develop some more.
On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 12:49 PM, John at Darkstarvacuum@jeb.no wrote:
How the new contributors are approached by the community is very important and it seems like they face a very hostile environment. How can we change this, both at a human level and with technical solutions? Is it somehow possible to let newcomers write articles together with oldtimers until they learn the most basic things? Perhaps it is possible to make personal sandboxes where they can get some guidance before the dogfight starts?
John
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