[Foundation-l] Usability grant

Wed Dec 3 20:11:23 UTC 2008

Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 2:02 AM, Michael Snow <wikipedia at verizon.net> wrote:
> [snip]
>> improve the MediaWiki software and the experience for new contributors.
>> Not that this is a direct result of recent discussions here, plenty of
>> people have mentioned the issue before, including Delphine as Ting
> [snip]
> 
> Sadly most of the discussions on these lists run on without mention of
> the efforts that have come before, in this case see:
> http://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/Wikipedia:Article_wizard
> 
> When people discuss enhancements it seems that it is taboo to discuss
> the question of what happens when the communities reject these
> efforts.
> 
> Too often we blame technical issues as limiting factors for usability
> when with a little creativity a 90% solution is available without
> waiting for inflexible technical solutions which never seem to come.
> Unfortunately, interest, project politics, and other social factors
> are ready to stand in the way of progress even when there are no
> technical roadblocks at all.

Note also that the Slovenian Wikipedia has an adaptation of this[1] that
they link to from the message shown when creating a new article[2] (the
second line of the message).

[1] <http://sl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedija:Napi%C5%A1i_%C4%8Dlanek>
[2] <http://sl.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Newarticletext>

-- 
Alex (wikipedia:en:User:Mr.Z-man)