[WikiEN-l] A microthreshold for article _creation?_

[Anthony DiPierro]

On 10/25/05, dpbsmith at verizon.net <dpbsmith at verizon.net> wrote:
>
> The Wikipedia promise is "edit this page."
>
> But I don't think the promise of zero-threshold _editing_ should
> automatically be a promise of zero-threshold article _creation._
>
> _Most_ people get their feet wet with simple edits, giving a chance to get
> acculturated before taking the leap to creating an article. People whose
> first edit is the creation of an article are, I think, showing _too_ bold
> a
> temperament.
>
> Many online communities have a provision whereby new users' messages are
> automatically moderated initially and only removed from moderation after
> they've posted a small number of acceptable messages.
>
> Suppose we had a level of privilege called, say "contributor." Anons and
> non-
> contributors could edit articles just as they do now, but only
> contributors
> could create an article _and have it appear immediately in the main
> namespace._
>
> Articles contributed by non-contributors would go to a "moderated" area.
> These article would not appear in the namespace until a contributor made
> at
> least one edit to them. That is, an article is approved by making a single
> edit to it. The reason for requiring one edit for approval would be to
> strongly encourage contributors not to mindlessly approve marginal
> articles.
>
> I'm thinking that it should be extremely easy to become a contributor. I'm
> thinking that the requirement should be a) contributors must have user
> names,
> and b) users with accounts get contributor status automatically as soon as
> their first new article is approved.

 It's not a bad idea, but the design is overly complicated, especially the
part about the moderated area. I think the moderated area would cause too
many arguments and finger pointing, as well as be difficult to implement in
code and bloat the mediawiki software. Why not just take away the ability of
new users and non-users to create new articles? Much simpler to implement,
and it'd cause a lot fewer arguments.
 Anthony