[Foundation-l] Social networking (was: Analysis of lists statistics: community in decline)

[geni]

2008/11/3 Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com>:
> On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 4:18 PM, David Moran <fordmadoxfraud at gmail.com> wrote:
> [snip]
>>  What we SHOULD be
>> talking about is not social media, but more robust tutorials and
>> walkthroughs for new users as they go through their first edits, and their
>> first created articles, &c.
>
> I agree.
>
> And moreover,  this is important because *quality* not *quantity* is
> what we should be most concerned about.   With umpteen million
> articles in across many languages Wikipedia has already reached
> "mission accomplished" level from a pure quantity measure.
>
> Making it easier to contribute won't just help quantity, it will help
> quality by reducing some forms of bias, and bringing in a broader
> range of knowledge.  If Wikipedia is only easy for techno-geeks then
> editors will be mostly techno-geeks, and their edits may not
> representative. (The [[Warp drive]] vs [[Ice pick]] effect).

Tutorials and walkthroughs are useful only after you have got that
first click. We need to get better at getting that first click.
Perhaps even just making the edit button bigger or a different colour.

We also need to get better at highly our different ways of attracting
that first click. Luring people onto talk pages or the like. A system
which went "you have view 100 pages why not try editing one" would be
too annoying to allow for live use but perhaps some smarter way to
target those likely to edit.

-- 
geni