User:Enterprisey/Edit Wizard design doc

The Edit Wizard is a proposed alternative to the edit request process that guides users step-by-step through building an edit request.

Background and problem

Editing is too hard to learn. When a new editor clicks "Edit", they can make any change they want, but many changes a new editor might think of are invalid. For example:

• Adding a fact they know is true, but the fact can't be cited for whatever reason (perhaps no source exists)
• Adding an opinion
• Citing an unreliable source (like Wikipedia or Reddit)

The editing interface allows them to make all of these changes, but they won't stick. We just have a lot of rules. The rules can be summarized, but then there's another problem: users hate reading.

Other readers are intimidated by the editing process because it feels like it involves a lot of complicated steps and rules.

Solution

We need a process that guides users to making good edits without making them read rules. It would also provide a stepping stone until users can confidently make edits using the regular editor.

The process I'm thinking of is just edit requests with a better interface. (As background, edit requests are when users request edits that they can't make themselves, generally due to page protection.) The process isn't very intuitive for new editors, and we would be solving that problem too if we made an easy guided process for making edit requests.

Design principles and requirements

• Editor time isn't cheap.
  • It's more important to prevent bad edits than to allow every good edit.
  • Automated guidance is more scalable than human guidance.
• The only way to prevent something bad from happening is to make it impossible. (Not revert it after the fact.)

This workflow should:

• Require minimal new supervision/moderation effort from experienced editors.
• Provide an easy transition into editing.

Some may call this proposal dangerously "unwiki". Yes, it is, but it's not meant to be the entire Wikipedia editing experience.

Implementation notes

This section is a draft. OK, the whole page is a draft, but this part is even more draft.

There will be four workflows:

• Add Fact: Choose Source, Choose Quote (quote must appear exactly in source), Rephrase Quote (in your own words), Choose Place (for the new fact)
• Tag an Issue: Select Text (in the article), Choose Tag (Category:Inline cleanup templates), Choose Source+Quote (optional)
• Update Text: Select Text, Choose Source, Choose Quote, Rewrite Text
• Delete Text: Select Text, Choose Reason (irrelevant, incorrect (require source), misleading, redundant (require selection of other text))

"stop here and submit what I have" button (warning: "more information means more likely to get applied") + if enough information provided to actually make the edit, offer that as an option too

"Choose Source":

• URL/ISBN/DOI fields (for now; later, some smart thing to figure it out from title/whatever)
• ISBN/DOI validation: idk, check predatory journal list??
• URL validation
  • steps
    1. if big social network/website, reverse search wikidata for website (e.g. someone submits youtube video from CNN - wikidata:Q48340#P2013)
    2. RSP (machine-readable subset of obvious/clear-cut cases?)
    3. SBL (plus additional to-be-created database of human-readable responses)
    4. check for wordpress/mediawiki/phpbb/yotsuba/any other well-known software
    5. raw IP addr, file:///, ftp:///
    6. link shorteners
    7. if cited in an article (FA/GA? B?)
    8. if >10 on reddit/HN/whatever?
    9. MEDRS?
    10. ...if we get all the way down here, log it... flip a coin...?
  • "appeal" button?
  • note: only implement what we actually need, because some of the steps are complex...

"Choose Quote": "Copy and paste the text from your source that states your fact" + text area + "1-3 sentences suggested"

"Rephrase Quote": "1 sentence suggested"

Miscellaneous:

• copyright boilerplate whenever actual edit made, of course
• "log in to add a free-form comment with your request" (semi?)

See also

• Wikipedia:Making editing easier - an earlier version of these ideas
• T300454 - I submitted this to GSoC 2022