[WikiEN-l] Civility poll results

[FT2]

I don't think that's an issue, really.

Present process:

   - No article exists, google doesn't show anything, any redlinks are
   redlinked..... and user X or passer-by Y decides to write an article "off
   their own bat".


Proposed process:

   - A draft (but not a mainspace) article exists, google doesn't show
   anything, any redlinks are redlinked..... and userX or passer-by Y decide to
   write an article "off their own bat".

   This time they find another user started a stub but it never went
   anywhere. Now they can start a new article anyway, or they have someone else
   to work with.

Bear in mind a draft space is not intended to be for "all items unless
superb". It's for starters, possible articles not yet ready for mainspace,
etc. It has other advantages:

   - An article with problem statements is mainspaced, then spidered, and
   continues to propagate round the web while at AFD or after CSD.
   - There is less pressure to CSD an article; it won't be ranked for
   promotion nor spidered for harm, so articles under construction can be put
   there a bit longer than elsewhere.
   - If a user is working on an article in userspace (which we recommend a
   lot of the time), then a second user normally won't know about it, so
   collaboration isn't possible. This way all articles under construction have
   amuch better chance of being findable by collaborators, or patrolled by
   would-be improvers.

But overall when you compare "userspace or deletion" to "draft space", then
this actually might work *better* for collaboration.

FT2




On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 1:27 PM, Surreptitiousness <
surreptitious.wikipedian at googlemail.com> wrote:

> FT2 wrote:
> > I'd be in favor of a "Draft:" namespace, which users could use for
> drafting
> > articles. Content to be non-spidered. That way we can tell a user to see
> if
> > some other user has started work on a draft already.
> >
> > This would possibly help collaboration, ensure only credible articles get
> > mainspaced, yet retain "anyone can edit" and the gradual development of
> > stubs without pressure to delete.
> >
> > Thoughts?
> >
>
> What worries me about it being a draft namespace which is non-spidered
> is that you'd lose the ability to grow the contribution base, because
> people couldn't stumble upon it.  You'd also lose the ability for
> Wikipedia itself to grow.  I'd rather have the stuff up front and
> centre.  After all, Wikipedia is always supposed to be a working draft.
> I'd rather use something like a sub-standard tag, perhaps even so far as
> to embed the tag in the article so that it can only be removed by an
> admin or other form of gatekeeper, although how that would work I don't
> know. I think there is lack of understanding that the "rules" work on a
> gradient on Wikipedia, by which I mean rules apply more rigidly in some
> cases than in others, and if we could ingrain that by having tiered
> articles, that might be a way forwards. The BLP has been a step in the
> right direction, but we haven't really formulated anything for other areas.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>