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

Mon Nov 20 00:04:13 UTC 2006

--- Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
<snip>
> 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
<snip>

> 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
<snip>

I agree with Steve's idea to make it easy for readers to
tag duplicate articles.

I'm not sure if it would be useful for anything beyond tags
that apply to articles as a whole, but it seems like a
useful way for identifying common problems like spin-offs
(or whatever you call the problem when someone
intentionally creates a new article to support their
personal agenda).

In terms of easy/automation, it would/should allow for the
person to:
1) auto-tag one of the duplicate articles
2) simply type in the name of the other article instead of
having to deal with wiki-tags and link formatting like
[[blah]].
3) automatically keep a count of how many users (e.g., 5)
think the articles should be combined before official
merger nomination thingees are inserted into the articles.

It might also reduce admin annoyances/work where more
active readers not familiar with all the wiki bureaucracy
simply de-duplicate the articles themselves, blanking 1
duplicate and adjusting the other, only to have an admin
auto-revert all the potentially helpful work.

~~Pro-Lick
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick 
http://www.wikiality.com/User:Pro-Lick (now a Wikia supported site)

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