[WikiEN-l] Newbie and not-so-newbie biting

[Emily Monroe]

> When you say not to our standards, are you expecting a minimum  
> standard from new editors?

Yeah, I do. I believe this helps them acclimate to the Wikipedia  
community.

Like I've said previously, I often edit articles *before* tagging for  
deletion. These articles are usually written by people not familiar  
with Wikimarkup, or people not even familiar with English, period.

> Imagine the let-down they feel when they discover that actually,  
> there are loads of good and bad checks and balances in place that  
> actually make contributing quite difficult.
I do imagine they feel let-down. Most if not nearly all the articles I  
tag for speedy deletion are by barely autoconfirmed people with hardly  
any edits at all. They just jumped right in the deep end and most of  
the time, they drown. I think there needs to be two levels of auto- 
confirmed, the "You aren't Willy on wheels" confirmed, and "You can  
probably write a non-speedyable article" confirmed.

Is there any way to take out the bad checks and balances without also  
taking out the good as well?

Emily
On Sep 18, 2009, at 2:49 PM, Carcharoth wrote:

> On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 8:32 PM, Emily Monroe <bluecaliocean at me.com>  
> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> I can't help but notice that the author of this article keeps trying
>> to add articles that aren't to our standards. Maybe make people who
>> are writing their first (or second, or third, if the first or second
>> is deleted) article go through the article wizard? That way, some (or
>> perhaps all) of his articles would've eventually been deleted, but at
>> least they would've been sourced and at least somewhat of a NPOV?
>
> It's not the article that matters here - others can come along and
> tidy it up later. What matters here is getting people started off on
> the right footing, and explaining things to them. Forcing someone to
> go through an article wizard is a "one size fits all" solution. The
> best approach, in nearly all cases, is personal and friendly
> interaction, helping people improve.
>
> When you say not to our standards, are you expecting a minimum
> standard from new editors? If so, then the problem goes all the way
> back to this:
>
> "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit."
>
> That gets people excited when they realise it is true. They really
> *can* edit it. Imagine the let-down they feel when they discover that
> actually, there are loads of good and bad checks and balances in place
> that actually make contributing quite difficult.
>
> And of the two articles mentioned, Kettlebowl seems OK for what it is,
> and the other one is fine as well:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_Education_Group_Inc.
>
> Carcharoth
>
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