[WikiEN-l] Article Landing Pages - functional prototype to test and comment on

[Oliver Keyes]

WSC, have you actually tried using the prototype, as suggested? It makes
very clear precisely what we're suggesting of newbies. I may be mistaken,
but your questions above about what exactly is included, and the idea that
we "require" anything, strongly implies you haven't actually tested it. It
might be a good idea to use the prototype before commenting on it.

Nobody has said "we want our existing articles filled with errors". Nobody,
anywhere, has said that. Nor have we any evidence to suggest this is the
case; Steven and a few others did a small study last year that showed the
vast majority of edits by new and anonymous people are good edits, and
we've just wrapped up a larger one with Aaron Halfaker, Stuart Geiger and
Maryana Pinchuk that provides more data on that. Of course we want quality:
this idea that quality and openness are somehow opposed in a titanic battle
to the death is simply incorrect. The reason we're starting off by seeing
if we can improve quality and inform newbies with Special:NewPages rather
than Special:RecentChanges is, firstly, because it's a lot easier to trial
there (less stuff going on), and secondly because we'd been led to believe
that in the eyes of the community, new pages can be a serious problem. One
of the most vocal editors telling us this was an issue was you.

On 11 March 2012 03:00, WereSpielChequers <werespielchequers at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hi Steven,
>
> I'm quoting from OKeyes' description  "a familiarity with policy" and
> "several references" and responding to that proposal. If the experiment is
> going to be nothing like that, then how would you describe it?
>
> WSC
>
> On 11 March 2012 02:18, Steven Walling <steven.walling at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Sat, Mar 10, 2012 at 10:51 PM, WereSpielChequers
> > <werespielchequers at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Before we go to such a restrictive closed wiki approach I'd really like
> > to
> > > understand why the WMF has made such an abrupt Uturn on openness. I'd
> > also
> > > like to see an answer from the great unanswered question of the ACTRIAL
> > > proposal; Why do you want newbies to make their mistakes in existing
> and
> > > sometimes very widely read articles where their mistakes will be widely
> > > seen and permanently recorded in the edit history, as opposed  to have
> > them
> > > creating new articles which relatively few of our readers will read and
> > > where many of the mistakes will disappear via deletion?
> >
> > This experiment is nothing like what you've described.
> >
> > This is not requiring anything of people other than that, before they
> > get to the editing form for a new article, they click through a button
> > with some very brief instruction written on it, and fair warning that
> > improper articles are deleted. That's it.
> >
> > I think it's important to keep in mind that we know very little about
> > the article creation process from a data-driven perspective, and this
> > is simply a test of an alternative method for teaching new editors the
> > ropes before we throw them into the deep end. It doesn't actively
> > restrict or close off anything. The exact same user rights are
> > retained for everyone.
> >
> > In fact, in some ways this creates more openness. For example: for the
> > first time it would be actively encouraging anonymous editors to
> > create an account and start an article after they click a redlink.
> > Currently, the anonymous landing page on a redlink does not even
> > mention that creating an account allows you start new articles!
> >
> > As for bringing up where to encourage people to edit (new versus
> > existing): the Foundation is not interested in funneling any new
> > editors away from how they want to help the encyclopedia and towards
> > something else. We need new articles and we need to improve existing
> > ones, and you can become a Wikipedian by doing either.
> >
> > Steven
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
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-- 
Oliver Keyes
Community Liaison, Product Development
Wikimedia Foundation