User:Gryllida/Handling new article submissions

Note: It's a talk page. Some thoughts on a topic, and a proposal at the end. You can discuss in the last section(s).

Handling the new articles submissions

Hi. I will present context, and rationale, for a proposal. Please read everything.

Anonymous contributions

• In 2005, anonymous contributors wrote false information about a famous subject and were only corrected 4 months later.
  • (Registered contributors could also have done this.)
• Jimmy Wales reacted by suggesting to disable anon pages creation on experimental basis, partly as «so often they are deleted».
• Several new processes have evolved since anonymous page creation was disabled (including patrolling new pages, for example).
• To let anonymous contributors, a Articles for creation, being superseded by Drafts. Contributors use a wizard and get work reviewed, less aggressively deleted.
• The following problems are introduced:
  • Additional terms ('draft', 'declined', 'passed') introducing paperwork impression.
  • Excessive templates usage, often repeated exactly same statements. This is not personal approach, it is difficult for new contributors.
  • The drafts system, with its current clear assumption that registered contributors may create in main-space directly, creates assumption of bad faith from anonymous contributors.
• The following problems remain:
  • The review process does not hinder the process of mainspace articles creation by registered contributors: registering is not a real barrier. The problem simply moves around.
    • Registering saves them from some new pages patrollers bias (“he is anon, he must be doing it wrong”). However, I personally believe such bias should be spotted and privileges revoked.

Reviewing

The following problems remain:

• New pages patrol is not sorted to WikiProjects, and poor familiarity of reviewer with the topic causes inefficiency.
• As a consequence and with negative feedback, new contributors are rarely engaged into WikiProjects.
• Larger effort is wasted (notable articles shouldn't be deleted, and non-notable don't have a place here).
  • (Frustration from deletion may be mitigated by notifying contributor that their article was left in the wishlist instead.)

Proposal

With this context in mind, I think that these changes may be required to prevent the system from falling over:

1. Dedicate a sorting team to adding categories to newly created articles.
2. By categories, spread the existing new pages patrollers into wikiprojects to work in topics they know well. (Wikiprojects would grow.)
3. Re-enable anonymous page creation, eventually, since the new pages patrol would've gotten more closely tied to enthusiasts familiar with the topic and capable of expanding articles on it.

This way, reviewers familiar with a topic will be able to provide personal feedback to new contributors.

It would seem that we were previously trying to address the wrong problem; people aren't frustrated by quick deletion, they're frustrated by lack of interaction, which the topic reviewers would be able to provide, showing their own knowledge of the topic.

Discussion

Please tell me what you think. Thanks. --Gryllida 09:45, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

• works for me. If only one exceptional article gets created by a worthy IP editor from scratch thanks to this approach, it justifies the whole kit and caboodle. --Mareklug ^talk 09:55, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
• Any change in procedures trades one set of problems for another. (The Devil's Dictionary said a conservative is enamored of existing evils, while a liberal wants to exchange them for new ones.) With that in mind, your system might give the WikiProjects a heightened sense of ownership over articles in their area. One might think that good or bad, but I understand it to be a trend Wikipedia has tried to resist in the past. (In contrast, Wikibooks is inherently partitioned into well-defined groups of pages, with a specific subcommunity devoted to each, and the Wikibooks community as a whole responsible for occasionally deciding whether to delete an entire book.) --Pi zero (talk) 12:09, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
• The goal of this proposal is to better filter new article submissions from anonymous/new contributors, under the aspirational goal of improving recruitment/retention.

  - This seems unlikely to be a profitable sourcing for new articles. Due to the nature of an encyclopedia, notable/acceptable content will become progressively more-precise as the collection grows and the ability of laypersons to contribute substantive content will be reduced.

  - The suggested model appears to require a net increase in volunteer hours cost. Assuming it does displace the existing systems, it adds in review time/input from topical experts - a fairly rare commodity.

  - Related to the above, it seems to me likely that articles will be queued for review by most wikiprojects, which often have very low activity, thus likely to obviate any recruitment/retention benefit. That is, the wait times on average may not change.

Even with the above, however, this system may have additional benefits such as tracking progress, automation^[xkcd], and providing measures for new content development. You might consider a ticket model of implementation. - Amgine | t 15:54, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Thought the massive crowd of so-called «patrollers», were they distributed to WikiProjects, would make them less inactive. Gryllida 21:24, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Heh. that'd be a great feat, worth instituting the process by itself! - Amgine | t 21:29, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

A few questions spring to mind:
1. Who in their right mind would volunteer for the sorting team?
2. How many new page patrollers have interest in or knowledge of any wikiproject subject area?
3. What would happen to the many patrollers whose only interest or expertise is in MOS? Downsize43 (talk) 04:10, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

1: It's much much less load than NPP. I would. (Normal NPP could still remain, for unsorted articles and for those not processed by a WikiProject within a week or so.) --Gryllida 05:41, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

2: Interest, maybe a lot! 90% of pages I had to patrol were in topics I had no interest in, and it was a significant problem affecting both result and pace. --Gryllida 05:41, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

3: I think they'd remain and mildly specialize on things like this, optionally; they don't actively contribute to any of the mentioned problems. --Gryllida 05:41, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

• Sounds like an intern project for automated interim categorization through keyword searches might be beneficial. Praemonitus (talk) 00:05, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
  • PraemonitusBe careful here: don't leave templates "Hi, your page was tagged as so-and-so WikiProject" on contributors' talk pages (although showing them in notification centre is probably worthwhile).

The idea probably has a potential, with a spec preferably coming from people who do it manually for a few weeks and analyze the result. --Gryllida 00:11, 25 January 2014 (UTC)