[Foundation-l] Can you tell us about ... - An Idea to encourage more edits

[Andrew Garrett]

On 25/11/2009, at 12:00 AM, Geoffrey Plourde wrote:

> We also might want to look into policy overhauls to reduce barriers  
> to contribution.
> ________________________________
> From: David Moran <fordmadoxfraud at gmail.com>
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org 
> >
> Sent: Tue, November 24, 2009 5:53:35 AM
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Can you tell us about ... - An Idea to  
> encourage more edits
>
> I actually like this idea, a LOT.  The main page basically poses  
> Wikipedia
> as a warehouse of content, which is fine, it is that, but also does  
> little
> to pose Wikipedia as a collaborative project.  Yeah, new visitors can
> technically TRY to edit our main page articles now, but generally  
> the stuff
> that makes it there is already so polished, or so intensely guarded,  
> that
> neophyte editors have little to no chance of making meaningful edits  
> on
> them.  I've had a couple articles I created in the Did You Know  
> space, so I
> can definitely say that they aren't the editor-magnets that Featured
> Articles or In the News are, but I think putting out there on our  
> front page
> articles that need CONTRIBUTORS rather than just READERS (in an  
> obvious way,
> I mean--of course all our articles need contributors) would be a very
> helpful, and very easy thing for us to do.

In general, redesigning the reader-facing parts of the site to  
encourage contribution is something I strongly support. It will  
benefit us in the long run.

The emphasis at present appears to be on presenting us as a place to  
go to learn and discover things. This is great, but it does not  
necessarily encourage contribution.

--
Andrew Garrett
agarrett at wikimedia.org
http://werdn.us/