[Foundation-l] Moving towards a more usable MediaWiki

[Marjon Bakker]

> Van: Magnus Manske <magnusmanske at googlemail.com>
> Beantwoorden - Aan: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Datum: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 15:16:54 +0000
> Aan: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Onderwerp: Re: [Foundation-l] Moving towards a more usable MediaWiki
> 
> On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 3:00 PM, Gerard Meijssen
> <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hoi,
>> They failed their task. Their task was to create a new article. There are
>> many people who fail at this.
> 
> From our internal lab/project wiki, I can confirm that people
> (including PhDs and professors) keep looking for a "start a new page"
> button (or something). Editing a page to create a redlink and then
> follow that does not occur to them; it is apparently counter-intuitive
> to most. I usually recommend to search for the new article, then click
> on the "create an article" link.

For the past 3,5 years, I have worked with Kennisnet, setting up educational
projects using MediaWiki. I also work for the ICT department of a big bank,
implementing their internal corporate wiki, based on MediaWiki.

Over the years, I've worked with young people, old people, people that are
computer literate and total computer noobs. Most of them have trouble
understanding how to create a new page. Especially if they're not literally
pointed in the right direction by someone standing right beside them.

For people not working with MediaWiki outside Wikipedia, it is hard to
imagine what learning curve you went through when you first started editing.
It's the curse of knowledge; you cannot unlearn it. That's what made my work
hard in the beginning: I had trouble understanding why people had
difficulties editing a wiki. I found it so easy!

If you are an editor at a very new project, it's hard to get things going.
When you start a new project, your MediaWiki installation has *no* pages.
And there's no community yet to help you out. There are not even any red
links to click.

Believe me, I've looked for the simple tweaks. I've written manuals, given
workshops. But MediaWiki is just really hard to explain. The best solution
to most of the problems I encounter when teaching people to work with a
wiki, are these Uniwiki extensions. Creating pages is only one of the
difficulties. Uploading images and putting them on a page is another. That's
also a problem the Uniwiki extensions can solve.

MediaWiki is very difficult software for people not used to it. I see that
every day in my work. That's why I'm all for supporting every effort made to
improve the usability of MediaWiki. In the end, it will help the Wikimedia
projects as well. The more people are at ease working with wikis, the more
the projects will benefit.

Wikipedia is a huge success, but that is *not* thanks to its easy software.
It is thanks to the patient community members and the perseverance of the
newcomers. Imagine how much the projects would benefit if it became simply
easier to edit and create pages and to upload and use images.

Best regards,

Marjon Bakker



DISCLAIMER:

Dit bericht (met bijlagen) is zorgvuldig samengesteld. Voor eventuele onjuistheid en/of onvolledigheid van de hierin verstrekte informatie aanvaardt Kennisnet geen aansprakelijkheid. Aan de inhoud van dit bericht (met bijlagen) kunnen geen rechten worden ontleend. De inhoud van dit bericht (met bijlagen) kan vertrouwelijke informatie bevatten en is uitsluitend bestemd voor de geadresseerde van dit bericht.