[Foundation-l] How do we approach newcomers (Was: Analysis of statistics)

[John at Darkstar]

One thing I like with the stable versions is that it is possible to keep
one version stable while discussions about a future version goes on.
This makes it possible to have a discussion with the contributors about
how to solve a problem without reverting them, and to let them
experiment with the articles. To further aid in this it should be
possible to set a future action when no further work is done on the
article. Such a future action could be "mark for inspection if not
edited in 12/24/48/72 hours". Within this timeframe the contributor can
use the article as a sandbox, and when he leaves the new version will be
inspected before becoming the new stable version.

Another thing we could do is to add some kind of method to place markers
on articles without interfering with the ongoing edits. Usually when
someone writes on an article and some admin places a template in the
text the newcomers will be scared off. It would be better if such
markers was more like reminders for the contributors and didn't lead to
an edit conflict.

A third thing we should do is to make something like the chat feature in
Facebook, but instead of organizing it around users communicating with
other users we should organize them as chatrooms about the articles.
This chatroom could give more specific information about the reminder
and also let the user speak to the admin who posted the reminder.

Instead of an admin yelling to a newcomer in big letter after an edit
conflict the user gets a reminder and an option to talk to the admin.
This opens dialog and understanding. Add in the stable versions and we
get a lot more flexibility and an environment that supports education of
new editors instead of a very hostile environment that punish everyone
that makes trivial mistakes.

Of course we shall not allow trolling, but it is not necessary to revert
every change that may be a newcomer that tries to edit an article.

John

Pavlo Shevelo wrote:
> 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 Darkstar<vacuum at 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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