[WikiEN-l] Jimbo Wales For Speaker Of House Of Representatives 2012!

[Jim Redmond]

On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 07:12, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> Imagine the Obama "Wikipedia Care" plan. Can the government
> successfully intervene to save Wikipedia?


...wait, are you saying that Wikipedia wants to pull the plug on Stephen
Hawking?!?!  Oh noes, we're all secretly on the death panel!  (Certainly
changes how I think about "X has just died" edits: those aren't vandalism,
they're *orders*.)

The article in question has an... interesting... attribution of cause.
Contrary to the author's apparent beliefs, there's no arcane collection of
winks, nudges, and secret handshakes that seasoned editors use to identify
themselves.  Instead, established editors know how to work within the system
better than new editors.  It's a subtle distinction, but an important one;
contribs stick around because they were done right, not because of who did
them.

The new Vector skin can definitely help new editors to get a feel for the
wiki software, and hopefully it will help them make higher-quality edits
that are more likely to last.  That said, I still think we as a community
can stand to do a few things to be friendlier to n00bs:
* make Help: text as simple and straightforward as possible
* rearrange the sidebar to put the "Help" link in a more prominent place -
perhaps right after "About Wikipedia"?
* put the Tutorial link in a more prominent place - perhaps even in the
sidebar
* re-write some of our more common templates to explain why certain things
are unacceptable, rather than just calling them "vandalism"
* use fewer of our private acronyms, or at least do a better job hiding them
with the pipe trick (see also [[Wikipedia:WTF? OMG! TMD TLA. ARG!]])
* Ease up on the trigger finger with some of those long-term and indefinite
blocks.  I get that some people are only there to cause problems, but come
on.

I almost suggested we create a new title of "mentor", but I'm loath to get
all processy on this.  If you'd like to help new editors, then go help new
editors: don't wait on a title and a badge.

-- 
Jim Redmond
[[User:Jredmond]]