[WikiEN-l] Re: Experiment on new pages

Wed Dec 7 15:57:44 UTC 2005

The Cunctator wrote:
> On 12/7/05, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
>>Jimmy Wales wrote:
>>
>>>The Cunctator wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>I have some other ideas for experiments, by the way, if anyone's
>>>>interested in actually trying things to make Wikipedia better.
>>>
>>>Plesae share your ideas.  And please Assume Good Faith in that
>>>essentially everyone here is interested in "actually trying things to
>>>make Wikipedia better".
>>>
>>>--Jimbo
>>
>>I think, unless I read english improperly today, that here, tc only says
>>  he has ideas to make things better. And would share them with anyone
>>interested.
>>
>>I do not read that he implies other ideas than his are bad. Nor does he
>>imply that others are NOT trying to make things better themselves.
> 
> 
> The key phrase is "if anyone's interested in actually trying things to
> make Wikipedia better". The phrase "if anyone's interested in actually
> trying to make Wikipedia better" clearly would imply that I don't
> think Jimbo is interested in making Wikipedia better.

Then, I read English improperly today :-) (not that it is the first 
time...sigh)

> What I meant is that I'm skeptical that Jimbo is interested in doing
> experiments; admittedly, I don't think this is a deeply thought
> through plan to improve Wikipedia; it seems like a relatively hasty
> response to a major tantrum--after all, I wouldn't want to be hauled
> before Kyra Phillips and the like and be unable to say I'm not doing
> anything to protect people from having their lives ruined. The primary
> motive seems to be able to say "Look at the change we're making in
> direct response to this wonderfully valid complaint--look at how
> responsive and responsible Wikipedia is. When people point out
> problems by gosh, we fix them. It's the Wiki Way."

Yeah.
Well, I guess we are learning that media can be a wonderful tool to get 
famous... as well as a great amplificator of problems. Any famous actor 
or politician face that one day or another. Yesterday, I answered a 
couple of journalists as well, after Jimbo's talk, who were wondering if 
the restriction over anonymous were valid in all languages. And the 
first generation articles published afterward contained several 
mistakes. The second generation articles contained even more mistakes. I 
fear now looking at the third generation :-)

As our leader and public figure, Jimbo directly benefits of many 
approvals and cheers from our external supporters, but also has to 
directly face the criticisms and the pain of having to defend the whole 
community choices. This is also his job, right ? This is not easy for him.

It is important that we help him the best we can, so that the project 
suffers the least from this public relations crisis. So, that he stays 
powerful and convincing and strong in front of journalists clearly here 
to make an audience :-)

There are many ways we can help him. And these ones are not necessarily 
(or only) those which consist in approving after the crisis, all what he 
does so that he appears 100% supported. Journalists care little about that.
We can receive councelling from professionals, such as PR agencies, who 
have a certain experience in handling PR crisis and could make good 
suggestions.
We can set up strategic teams to discuss beforehand which answers we 
should give in such cases, who should give them, by which means... So 
that when we have a crisis to handle, we are all united and ready to 
speak with one voice.

In the past few weeks, we have seen increasingly criticism in the 
english-speaking press (and recently, issues in the german-press as 
well). Having bad press is bad for Wikipedia. Since we have a fundraiser 
starting in a couple of days, I'll give only one example. Bad press --> 
less money --> less new servers --> site stuck --> bad press.
Any attempt/experiment to decrease bad press (and Jimbo going to CNN 
definitly stands here) is meant to improve Wikipedia.
Any attempt/experiment to increase quality is meant to improve Wikipedia 
as well.

I think some of the answers we could have had in front of the journalist 
would have been to talk about the quality tool or citation rules. 
But.... the fact is... we have *already* annonced the quality tool... 
and it still does not exist live, so it is hard to use that argument 
over again.

So, what it teaches us is really that we have three different areas to 
work on

* improve the quality of the content

* improve the perception of the quality of our content ---> make 
promotion of new independant studies or new quality tools or rules.

* improve management of PR crisis

Some of this having to be discussed and worked upon publicly, some 
privately. Some by the full community and some by a smaller team.

Not *questionning* what is being done is no way for improvement.

> Sorry for the derailing. To make a suggestion of a real experiment,
> try getting rid of ArticlesForDeletion.

no chance :-)

I also derailed from the issue experiment/QualityPlan versus 
experiment/PR :-) Sorry about that...