[WikiEN-l] Making it easier for the public to help out

Sun Nov 19 14:30:23 UTC 2006

Hi all,
  Wikipedia started out with the idea that the person reading the
article should be helping to fix it. But we're really moving further
and further away from that, and defining a "Wikipedia community" that
works on the articles, and end users who just read them. For example,
we now tend to put many templates on the talk page (like "image
requested") rather than on the article itself. Similarly, metacomments
like "This section is not complete" are often put in HTML comments, or
just on the talk page, rather than being more visible.

Would anyone like to see this trend reversed? My girlfriend remarked
tonight that she had found two different articles on the same topic,
and was annoyed by it. I felt like saying, "why didn't you suggest a
merge?" But then realised that the steps involved are totally
unrealistic for the average passer by: edit the article, add
"{{mergefrom|...}}" to that article, then do the same for the other
article (but with "mergeto", then go and add your reasoning to the
talk page!

My suggestion: Get past the simplistic idea that since anyone can
"edit" any page, anyone can "fix" any article. They're not the same.
More concretely:

1) Put a big "Does this article need fixing?" link in a prominent
place on each article (perhaps only for logged-out users or newbies?)
2) Upon clicking it, present a list of common problems: Plagiarism,
factual error, duplicate article, incorrect name for article, missing
information...
3) Explain that the user can edit it themselves *if they're
interested*, or make it *very* easy for them to report the problem so
more experienced Wikipedians can fix it.  "So fix it" is a fine
response from one oldbie to another - but not to a newbie.

Anyone agree with me here? Or have we passed the point where we
actively attempt to engage passers by to help us improve quality?

Steve