Alex wrote:
One thing that I think could help, at least on the
English Wikipedia,
would be to further restrict new article creation. Right now, any
registered user can create a new article, and according to some
statistics I gathered a few months ago[1], almost 25% of new users make
their first edit creating an article. 81% of those users had their
article deleted and <0.1% of them were still editing a few (6-7) months
later, compared to 4% for the 19% whose articles were kept, giving a
total retention rate of 1.3%.
However, for the 75% of users who started by editing an existing
article, the overall retention rate was 2.5%. Still a small number, but
almost double the rate for the article creation route.
This is significant, but I'm not convinced about the reason.
There is surely an attacking factor. You make them go through hoops,
having to register an account, then destroy its work. It's normal that
some potentially good contributors leave. But many of those are single
purpose accounts which would only be interested in adding its myspace
band, ever.
We should support the first type users, but we don't want even its
register for the second type.
The English Wikipedia, with 3.5 million articles, has
been scraping the
bottom of the notability barrel for a while. Creating a proper new
article is not an especially easy task in terms of editing, yet the
project practically encourages new users to do it. We're dropping new
users into the deep end of the pool, then getting angry at them when
they start to drown.
Completely. This mentality should be changed.
What we should be doing instead is suggesting that
users add their information to an existing article somewhere (with
various tools to help them find it). And if they can't find anything
remotely related in 3.5 million articles, ask themselves whether they
still think its an appropriate topic.
That's a good point, but not suitable for all topics.
If I want to create an article that would have been considered relevant
you shouldn't make me wander in circles. Some people shouldn't be
treated as babies, while others should.