[Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Newbie recruitment: referencing

[David Gerard]

On 3 November 2011 13:27, Fae <fae at wikimedia.org.uk> wrote:
> On 3 November 2011 12:27, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

>> Backlogs as a concern translate directly to "newbies are inherently a
>> problem."

> I don't get the point being made here,


People who say "But x would lead to a backlog!" as a counterargument
to making something easier, as if backlogs are inherently a problem.


> I would have thought that backlogs
> are a good way to attract new editors into teamworking and community. <
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/DER> and <
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Unreferenced_BLP_Rescue> are
> examples that attracted many new editors


Well, yeah.

Some article maintenance backlogs are just horrible to deal with,
though. I just went through new article wizard creations. I checked
about ten, cleared a few as OK enough to live and just don't want to
look at another one.

I suppose, look at the biggest article maintenance categories and
think: "how can I turn this into an opportunity to recruit?" Surely we
haven't recruited and burnt out all the world's pedants ...


- d.