Article Landing Pages - functional prototype to test and comment on

[Oliver Keyes-4]

Hey guys

So, as you know, we have issues with how new pages are treated on
Wikipedia. A lot of the pages created by new editors simply aren't very
good; this is bad for the new editors, because their pages get deleted, and
bad for the new page patrollers who then have to wade through a tide of
junk. It’s also contributing to page patrollers being overworked.
 Recently, Engineering has been working on two projects that we hope will
hopefully improve the situation: Page Triage,[1] which is aimed at making
patrolling easier, and the Landing System:[2] a better way for new editors
to create articles. With these project we hope to both reduce the burden on
patrollers by making it easier to patrol, and by ensuring the articles that
are created are of higher quality.

The first of the two Engineering is working on, partly because it lends
itself to being broken out into smaller pieces of work, is the Landing
System. Currently, when a registered newbie clicks on a redlink, they get
automatically taken to an edit page where they can create the article, but
without any context as to what is actually happening.  With the proposed
system,  instead of seeing a blank edit window devoid of context, they'll
see a new page that gives them various options.[3] They can create an
article there, go through the article wizard, or go back to wherever they
were before if they didn't mean to end up at that URL. If a new editor
tries to create the article, they'll be informed that they need a
familiarity with policy, an absence of a COI and several references
(amongst other things) before the tool recommends they create it.[4] If
they don't have those things, they'll be directed to the Article Creation
Wizard.

This is an experiment. Our hypothesis is that this could help increase the
quality of new articles and reduce patrollers’ workload, while making the
process more welcoming at the same time.

What our devs would really love is if people could provide feedback on what
they've put together so far. There is an early prototype at
http://ee-prototype.wmflabs.org/ <http://ee-prototype.wmflabs.org/;> , and
I’d encourage everyone to test it out. The tool is currently targeted at
logged in users since an account is required for creating a pge, so you
have to be logged in to see it.  I’ve created a test account (username
“editor”, password “mailing list”) for people to work with. Then just go to
something like
http://ee-prototype.wmflabs.org/wiki/Special:ArticleCreationLanding/test,
and take a look at what you’re presented with.

We know that the prototype server is fairly slow (sorry about that!) and
the prototype could be a bit buggy, but if you have suggestions as to how
we should improve the tool itself, you can send them to me at
[hidden email], or to
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Article_Creation_Workflow/Landing_System,
where the devs are watching closely :).

Thanks!

--
Oliver Keyes
Community Liaison, Product Development
Wikimedia Foundation


[1] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/New_Page_Triage
[2] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_Creation_Workflow/Landing_System
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[Charles Matthews]

On 10 March 2012 11:16, Oliver Keyes <[hidden email]> wrote:

 <snip>

Currently, when a registered newbie clicks on a redlink, they get
> automatically taken to an edit page where they can create the article, but
> without any context as to what is actually happening.  With the proposed
> system,  instead of seeing a blank edit window devoid of context, they'll
> see a new page that gives them various options.[3] They can create an
> article there, go through the article wizard, or go back to wherever they
> were before if they didn't mean to end up at that URL.


What sensible newbies really would need is (i) a place to draft, and (ii)
advice on drafting.

If a new editor
> tries to create the article, they'll be informed that they need a
> familiarity with policy, an absence of a COI and several references
> (amongst other things) before the tool recommends they create it.[4] If
> they don't have those things, they'll be directed to the Article Creation
> Wizard.
>
> I.e. you put the barriers to entry before anything else. This could be
detrimental, you know.


> This is an experiment. Our hypothesis is that this could help increase the
> quality of new articles and reduce patrollers’ workload, while making the
> process more welcoming at the same time.
>

What is this hypothesis based on?

Charles
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[Oliver Keyes-4]

> Currently, when a registered newbie clicks on a redlink, they get
> > automatically taken to an edit page where they can create the article,
> but
> > without any context as to what is actually happening.  With the proposed
> > system,  instead of seeing a blank edit window devoid of context, they'll
> > see a new page that gives them various options.[3] They can create an
> > article there, go through the article wizard, or go back to wherever they
> > were before if they didn't mean to end up at that URL.
>
>
> What sensible newbies really would need is (i) a place to draft, and (ii)
> advice on drafting.
>

In a way they've already got that through things like Articles for Creation
(which I would love to see us support better, on the software side. I can't
promise anything, though).

> If a new editor
> > tries to create the article, they'll be informed that they need a
> > familiarity with policy, an absence of a COI and several references
> > (amongst other things) before the tool recommends they create it.[4] If
> > they don't have those things, they'll be directed to the Article Creation
> > Wizard.
> >
> > I.e. you put the barriers to entry before anything else. This could be
> detrimental, you know.
>
> Quite possibly; that's why, as said below, it's an experiment. It may be

that it reduces the number of incoming articles without any substantial
increase in quality. It may be it reduces the number, but increases the
quality. It may be that by providing clearer guidance and making people
aware that they can contribute, it increases one or the other or both
without detriment. We simply don't know: but we want to find out :).

>
> > This is an experiment. Our hypothesis is that this could help increase
> the
> > quality of new articles and reduce patrollers’ workload, while making the
> > process more welcoming at the same time.
> >
>
> What is this hypothesis based on?
>
> Primarily the idea that a chunk of potential and attempted editors are

ignorant, rather than malicious; I'd hope we would all agree that this is
the case. Note that we're not deploying this; we're asking for comments on
the implementation itself so we can make it the best (or, if you disagree
with the premise, least-bad) tool it can be. Once it's developed, it'll be
deployed in a bucketed format for say, 5 percent of newbies  We can find
out if the hypothesis is accurate without overworking people.


--
Oliver Keyes
Community Liaison, Product Development
Wikimedia Foundation
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[David Gerard-2]

On 10 March 2012 12:55, Oliver Keyes <[hidden email]> wrote:

> In a way they've already got that through things like Articles for Creation
> (which I would love to see us support better, on the software side. I can't
> promise anything, though).


The problem with AFC is that hardly anyone cares to review (me
included). Perhaps it could be streamlined ... but then it's basically
another Special:Newpages queue.


> Primarily the idea that a chunk of potential and attempted editors are
> ignorant, rather than malicious; I'd hope we would all agree that this is
> the case. Note that we're not deploying this; we're asking for comments on
> the implementation itself so we can make it the best (or, if you disagree
> with the premise, least-bad) tool it can be. Once it's developed, it'll be
> deployed in a bucketed format for say, 5 percent of newbies  We can find
> out if the hypothesis is accurate without overworking people.


Sounds workably plausible.


- d.

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[Charles Matthews]

On 10 March 2012 12:55, Oliver Keyes <[hidden email]> wrote:

>
> > If a new editor
> > > tries to create the article, they'll be informed that they need a
> > > familiarity with policy, an absence of a COI and several references
> > > (amongst other things) before the tool recommends they create it.[4] If
> > > they don't have those things, they'll be directed to the Article
> Creation
> > > Wizard.
> > >
> > > I.e. you put the barriers to entry before anything else. This could be
> > detrimental, you know.
> >
> > Quite possibly; that's why, as said below, it's an experiment. It may be
> that it reduces the number of incoming articles without any substantial
> increase in quality. It may be it reduces the number, but increases the
> quality. It may be that by providing clearer guidance and making people
> aware that they can contribute, it increases one or the other or both
> without detriment. We simply don't know: but we want to find out :).
>
> I'm particularly concerned that ham-fisted reference to the COI guideline

could put off good and conscientious people we do want editing, while
having no effect on those who are motivated in such a way as to have an
actual COI.

Charles
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[David Gerard-2]

On 10 March 2012 14:48, Charles Matthews
<[hidden email]> wrote:

> I'm particularly concerned that ham-fisted reference to the COI guideline
> could put off good and conscientious people we do want editing, while
> having no effect on those who are motivated in such a way as to have an
> actual COI.


Yes ... people are quite fond of making rules against stupidity or bad
faith, but making rules doesn't affect stupid or bad faith behaviour.
Also, the denialism of PR people about what constitutes a COI is
spectacular.


- d.

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[WereSpielChequers-2]

Since the Foundation vetoed the EN wiki idea of not allowing newbies to
create articles until they'd been autoconfirmed, I'm surprised that it is
considering requiring them to have "a familiarity with policy" and "several
references". Yes you need that for a Good Article, but this is about new
articles at their very outset. Whatever happened to the idea of
crowdsourcing and being the encyclopedia that anyone can edit?

If you are going to require "a familiarity with policy" then simply
restricting new article creation to Autoconfirmed editors would not be
restrictive enough. Admins, Rollbackers, Reviewers and Autopatrollers would
probably be a reasonable proximation of editors who've demonstrated  a
familiarity with policy. Though if we must go down that route I'd prefer
something much less restrictive - would you be willing to compromise on 100
edits before you can create new pages? More importantly are you going to
seek community consensus for such a restriction? The idea of restricting
article creation to Autoconfirmed editors got a clear majority and arguably
a consensus on EN wiki, but I'm pretty sure that a significantly more
restrictive proposal would struggle to get consensus; I'm sure I wouldn't
be the only one to oppose it.

As for requiring several references, BLPprod was pretty contentious with
its requirement that all new BLPs have one reference (and not necessarily a
reliable one). It also allows for a tenday period in which  editors can add
a reference from a reliable source and rescue the article. several
references for any new article is a much higher barrier.

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?

WereSpielChequers

On 10 March 2012 11:16, Oliver Keyes <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Hey guys
>
> So, as you know, we have issues with how new pages are treated on
> Wikipedia. A lot of the pages created by new editors simply aren't very
> good; this is bad for the new editors, because their pages get deleted, and
> bad for the new page patrollers who then have to wade through a tide of
> junk. It’s also contributing to page patrollers being overworked.
>  Recently, Engineering has been working on two projects that we hope will
> hopefully improve the situation: Page Triage,[1] which is aimed at making
> patrolling easier, and the Landing System:[2] a better way for new editors
> to create articles. With these project we hope to both reduce the burden on
> patrollers by making it easier to patrol, and by ensuring the articles that
> are created are of higher quality.
>
> The first of the two Engineering is working on, partly because it lends
> itself to being broken out into smaller pieces of work, is the Landing
> System. Currently, when a registered newbie clicks on a redlink, they get
> automatically taken to an edit page where they can create the article, but
> without any context as to what is actually happening.  With the proposed
> system,  instead of seeing a blank edit window devoid of context, they'll
> see a new page that gives them various options.[3] They can create an
> article there, go through the article wizard, or go back to wherever they
> were before if they didn't mean to end up at that URL. If a new editor
> tries to create the article, they'll be informed that they need a
> familiarity with policy, an absence of a COI and several references
> (amongst other things) before the tool recommends they create it.[4] If
> they don't have those things, they'll be directed to the Article Creation
> Wizard.
>
> This is an experiment. Our hypothesis is that this could help increase the
> quality of new articles and reduce patrollers’ workload, while making the
> process more welcoming at the same time.
>
> What our devs would really love is if people could provide feedback on what
> they've put together so far. There is an early prototype at
> http://ee-prototype.wmflabs.org/ <http://ee-prototype.wmflabs.org/;> , and
> I’d encourage everyone to test it out. The tool is currently targeted at
> logged in users since an account is required for creating a pge, so you
> have to be logged in to see it.  I’ve created a test account (username
> “editor”, password “mailing list”) for people to work with. Then just go to
> something like
> http://ee-prototype.wmflabs.org/wiki/Special:ArticleCreationLanding/test,
> and take a look at what you’re presented with.
>
> We know that the prototype server is fairly slow (sorry about that!) and
> the prototype could be a bit buggy, but if you have suggestions as to how
> we should improve the tool itself, you can send them to me at
> [hidden email], or to
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Article_Creation_Workflow/Landing_System
> ,
> where the devs are watching closely :).
>
> Thanks!
>
> --
> Oliver Keyes
> Community Liaison, Product Development
> Wikimedia Foundation
>
>
> [1] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/New_Page_Triage
> [2] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_Creation_Workflow/Landing_System
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> [hidden email]
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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[Alan Liefting]

On 11/03/2012 12:16 a.m., Oliver Keyes wrote:

> Hey guys
>
> So, as you know, we have issues with how new pages are treated on
> Wikipedia. A lot of the pages created by new editors simply aren't very
> good; this is bad for the new editors, because their pages get deleted, and
> bad for the new page patrollers who then have to wade through a tide of
> junk. It’s also contributing to page patrollers being overworked.
>   Recently, Engineering has been working on two projects that we hope will
> hopefully improve the situation: Page Triage,[1] which is aimed at making
> patrolling easier, and the Landing System:[2] a better way for new editors
> to create articles. With these project we hope to both reduce the burden on
> patrollers by making it easier to patrol, and by ensuring the articles that
> are created are of higher quality.
>
> The first of the two Engineering is working on, partly because it lends
> itself to being broken out into smaller pieces of work, is the Landing
> System. Currently, when a registered newbie clicks on a redlink, they get
> automatically taken to an edit page where they can create the article, but
> without any context as to what is actually happening.  With the proposed
> system,  instead of seeing a blank edit window devoid of context, they'll
> see a new page that gives them various options.[3] They can create an
> article there, go through the article wizard, or go back to wherever they
> were before if they didn't mean to end up at that URL. If a new editor
> tries to create the article, they'll be informed that they need a
> familiarity with policy, an absence of a COI and several references
> (amongst other things) before the tool recommends they create it.[4] If
> they don't have those things, they'll be directed to the Article Creation
> Wizard.
>
> This is an experiment. Our hypothesis is that this could help increase the
> quality of new articles and reduce patrollers’ workload, while making the
> process more welcoming at the same time.
>
> What our devs would really love is if people could provide feedback on what
> they've put together so far. There is an early prototype at
> http://ee-prototype.wmflabs.org/<http://ee-prototype.wmflabs.org/;>  , and
> I’d encourage everyone to test it out. The tool is currently targeted at
> logged in users since an account is required for creating a pge, so you
> have to be logged in to see it.  I’ve created a test account (username
> “editor”, password “mailing list”) for people to work with. Then just go to
> something like
> http://ee-prototype.wmflabs.org/wiki/Special:ArticleCreationLanding/test,
> and take a look at what you’re presented with.
>
> We know that the prototype server is fairly slow (sorry about that!) and
> the prototype could be a bit buggy, but if you have suggestions as to how
> we should improve the tool itself, you can send them to me at
> [hidden email], or to
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Article_Creation_Workflow/Landing_System,
> where the devs are watching closely :).
>
> Thanks!
>

--
*Alan Liefting*
107 Warrington St
Mairehau
Christchurch

[phone] [phone]

Environmental consultant
*Envision New Zealand* <http://www.envision-nz.com>
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[Alan Liefting]

There would be no need for these additions if we used Flagged Revisions.


Alan


On 11/03/2012 12:16 a.m., Oliver Keyes wrote:

> Hey guys
>
> So, as you know, we have issues with how new pages are treated on
> Wikipedia. A lot of the pages created by new editors simply aren't very
> good; this is bad for the new editors, because their pages get deleted, and
> bad for the new page patrollers who then have to wade through a tide of
> junk. It’s also contributing to page patrollers being overworked.
>   Recently, Engineering has been working on two projects that we hope will
> hopefully improve the situation: Page Triage,[1] which is aimed at making
> patrolling easier, and the Landing System:[2] a better way for new editors
> to create articles. With these project we hope to both reduce the burden on
> patrollers by making it easier to patrol, and by ensuring the articles that
> are created are of higher quality.
>
> The first of the two Engineering is working on, partly because it lends
> itself to being broken out into smaller pieces of work, is the Landing
> System. Currently, when a registered newbie clicks on a redlink, they get
> automatically taken to an edit page where they can create the article, but
> without any context as to what is actually happening.  With the proposed
> system,  instead of seeing a blank edit window devoid of context, they'll
> see a new page that gives them various options.[3] They can create an
> article there, go through the article wizard, or go back to wherever they
> were before if they didn't mean to end up at that URL. If a new editor
> tries to create the article, they'll be informed that they need a
> familiarity with policy, an absence of a COI and several references
> (amongst other things) before the tool recommends they create it.[4] If
> they don't have those things, they'll be directed to the Article Creation
> Wizard.
>
> This is an experiment. Our hypothesis is that this could help increase the
> quality of new articles and reduce patrollers’ workload, while making the
> process more welcoming at the same time.
>
> What our devs would really love is if people could provide feedback on what
> they've put together so far. There is an early prototype at
> http://ee-prototype.wmflabs.org/<http://ee-prototype.wmflabs.org/;>  , and
> I’d encourage everyone to test it out. The tool is currently targeted at
> logged in users since an account is required for creating a pge, so you
> have to be logged in to see it.  I’ve created a test account (username
> “editor”, password “mailing list”) for people to work with. Then just go to
> something like
> http://ee-prototype.wmflabs.org/wiki/Special:ArticleCreationLanding/test,
> and take a look at what you’re presented with.
>
> We know that the prototype server is fairly slow (sorry about that!) and
> the prototype could be a bit buggy, but if you have suggestions as to how
> we should improve the tool itself, you can send them to me at
> [hidden email], or to
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Article_Creation_Workflow/Landing_System,
> where the devs are watching closely :).
>
> Thanks!
>

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[Alan Liefting]

On 11/03/2012 2:51 p.m., WereSpielChequers wrote:
> snip...  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?
>
> WereSpielChequers
>

Good point.  The ability for anyone to edit any existing article is a
far bigger problem than the creation of new articles.


Alan

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[Thomas Dalton]

On 11 March 2012 01:51, WereSpielChequers <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Since the Foundation vetoed the EN wiki idea of not allowing newbies to
> create articles until they'd been autoconfirmed, I'm surprised that it is
> considering requiring them to have "a familiarity with policy" and "several
> references". Yes you need that for a Good Article, but this is about new
> articles at their very outset. Whatever happened to the idea of
> crowdsourcing and being the encyclopedia that anyone can edit?

I think the idea is that they should have a familiarity with policy
and several references if they want to create an article freestyle.
Otherwise, they should use the wizard.

I think people should have a basic understanding of some policies
(NPOV, Verifiability and Notability, say) before creating articles,
otherwise there is (as we see) a very high chance of them getting
deleted. You probably don't need several references, though - just one
should be enough to prevent an article being deleted straight away.

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[Steven Walling]

On Sat, Mar 10, 2012 at 10:51 PM, WereSpielChequers
<[hidden email]> 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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[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

After all that fine talk, i feel almost hesitant. But let's be real
here. It isn't the threshold
getting in you need to worry about in terms of editor retention. It is
the threshold of
getting tossed out either as content or editor or both!


--
--
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]

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[WereSpielChequers-2]

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 <[hidden email]> wrote:

> On Sat, Mar 10, 2012 at 10:51 PM, WereSpielChequers
> <[hidden email]> 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
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> [hidden email]
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>

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[Oliver Keyes-4]

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 <[hidden email]>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 <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> > On Sat, Mar 10, 2012 at 10:51 PM, WereSpielChequers
> > <[hidden email]> 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
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > [hidden email]
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
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> [hidden email]
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>

--
Oliver Keyes
Community Liaison, Product Development
Wikimedia Foundation
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[Charles Matthews]

On 11 March 2012 03:37, Oliver Keyes <[hidden email]> wrote:
<snip>

>  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.
>
> To clarify, it might be a help to state what it is that is apparently
broken that you are trying to fix. If it is the existing low barrier to
article creation by one-and-all, it is worth pointing out that wiki systems
were designed to have such low barriers. If it is grumbling, it is worth
pointing out that grumbling is always with us. (And understanding what it
is you are trying to fix is surely a precondition to assessing any
prototype. No one owes it to you to do that rather than anything else with
their time.)

Charles
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[Oliver Keyes-4]

On 11 March 2012 08:33, Charles Matthews <[hidden email]>wrote:

> On 11 March 2012 03:37, Oliver Keyes <[hidden email]> wrote:
> <snip>
>
> >  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.
> >
> > To clarify, it might be a help to state what it is that is apparently
> broken that you are trying to fix. If it is the existing low barrier to
> article creation by one-and-all, it is worth pointing out that wiki systems
> were designed to have such low barriers.
>

A low barrier to contribution is not a problem. What we are trying to fix
is the overwork of patrollers and the fact that new editors go into the
article creation process unaware of what to expect and ignorant of policy,
which understandably ends up leading to disappointment. This is set out
fairly clearly in my initial message, which also linked through to
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_Creation_Workflow/Landing_System,
which has a full rationale and hypothesis.
--
Oliver Keyes
Community Liaison, Product Development
Wikimedia Foundation
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[Charles Matthews]

On 11 March 2012 08:56, Oliver Keyes <[hidden email]> wrote:

>
> A low barrier to contribution is not a problem. What we are trying to fix
> is the overwork of patrollers and the fact that new editors go into the
> article creation process unaware of what to expect and ignorant of policy,
> which understandably ends up leading to disappointment.
>
> Still not happy with this formulation. I think the sentences contradict
each other. You are trying to fix, you say,

*potential disappointment of new editors;
*overwork of patrollers.

Unless you discourage some contributors, the volume of contributions would
be the same? The nature of the contributions would not necessarily be the
same. I would certainly be leading off with "To avoid disappointment at the
outcome of our process, please take a moment ...".

But in any case what you are apparently trying is to fix is the _nature of
contributions of inexperienced editors_. There is a may/must distinction in
how you go about it, which seems to me to be key.

Charles

>
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[WereSpielChequers-2]

Hi Oliver,

Yes my criticism of your requiring new authors of new articles to have  "a
familiarity with policy" and "several references" was about what you said
you intend this new software to do, not on how close the current prototype
is to achieving that. If your intent is other than you said then please
clarify your intent, don't expect me to disregard your stated intent simply
because the current prototype doesn't fully implement it yet.

I'm well aware of last year's studies which showed that despite an
increasing proportion being spammers and far more being vandals than in our
early years, most new editors are still editing in good faith. But that
doesn't mean they don't make mistakes, a large proportion of them do, much
of my editing is fixing mistakes made by new editors. One of the divides in
the community is between those who think that newbies need to be accepted
indeed welcomed, their mistakes corrected without criticism and their good
stuff celebrated; As opposed to the majority who supported the idea of
stopping editors creating articles until they'd been autoconfirmed, and who
believe in template bombing newbies articles or simply reverting their
edits as "unsourced".

Your comment "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." is potentially misleading. Yes I've been
concerned about the new page process since at least 2009. Remember my
mystery shopping exercise when I demonstrated that new articles by new
editors face a significant risk of being incorrectly tagged for speedy
deletion and sometimes even deleted? But I approach this from an Article
Rescue Squadron perspective. To me the major problems are in the loss of
good faith contributions and contributors. Others took a very different
tack and the community voted by a clear majority for the ACTRIAL proposal -
which you and I both opposed. So the majority of the community consider
that new pages by newbies are a serious problem; I consider that the new
page process has serious problems. The difference is crucial, your comment
implies that I was a vocal supporter of ACTRIAL rather than an opponent of
it.


I do talk to some of our more deletionist colleagues, and we have a lot of
common ground in ways to improve new page patrol to more effectively sift
the goodfaith from the Badfaith articles. There are several flaws in the
new page process and even a number of proposed improvements that  I have
been able to agree with vocal supporters of ACTRIAL. Where we disagree is
in whether we think that the best way to improve quality is to raise
barriers to newbies or to help the goodfaith ones and collaborate with them.

WSC

On 11 March 2012 03:37, Oliver Keyes <[hidden email]> wrote:

> 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 <[hidden email]
> >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
>
>

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[Oliver Keyes-4]

On 11 March 2012 09:30, Charles Matthews <[hidden email]>wrote:

> On 11 March 2012 08:56, Oliver Keyes <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> >
> > A low barrier to contribution is not a problem. What we are trying to fix
> > is the overwork of patrollers and the fact that new editors go into the
> > article creation process unaware of what to expect and ignorant of
> policy,
> > which understandably ends up leading to disappointment.
> >
> > Still not happy with this formulation. I think the sentences contradict
> each other. You are trying to fix, you say,
>
> *potential disappointment of new editors;
> *overwork of patrollers.
>
> Unless you discourage some contributors, the volume of contributions would
> be the same? The nature of the contributions would not necessarily be the
> same. I would certainly be leading off with "To avoid disappointment at the
> outcome of our process, please take a moment ...".
>
>
> That would be an excellent way to word it. I disagree that numbers and

quality have to necessarily conflict; what we have at the moment is an
interface that is:

*Unfamiliar
*Unintuitive
*Failing to provide sufficient guidance on what is desireable in a new
article.

The third element is, arguably, the source of at least part of the woes
that come with new page patrol; quality is not high. What we want to do is
test the hypothesis that by better educating new editors and potential
editors, we can dissuade people from writing bad articles and encourage
good-faith new editors to put a bit more work into theirs. Now, I fully
agree that, on its own, this would bring down the raw numbers of new
articles. I think that's a given. That's where the other problems with the
interface - how unfamiliar it looks to other websites, how confusing it is
- comes in, combined with the lack of guidance. I would hypothesise (and
again, that's what this is; testing hypotheses) that this brings down the
number of new contributions before people have typed a word: it's
confusing, it's unfamiliar, and it's scary - I wouldn't be suprised to find
that those people who actually write articles are a tiny number compared to
those who intend to, or those who are unaware they can but could if they
were *made* aware. If we provide better guidance and make it a nicer
environment, we could see raw numbers increase as well as quality.

Now, as said a few emails back, and repeatedly here: this is just an
experiment. It could be both quality and numbers go up, it could be one
goes up and the other goes down, it could be we have no impact whatsoever.
But quality and numbers are not, by default, in conflict; the very lack of
guidance that leads to people writing articles in ignorance may well be
leading to others not writing them at all.



--
Oliver Keyes
Community Liaison, Product Development
Wikimedia Foundation
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