[WikiEN-l] Proposal: Article Improvement Weeks! (was Turn offarticle creation AND deletion.)

Sun Dec 11 16:37:21 UTC 2005

Anthony DiPierro wrote:

> I proposed requring editors that aren't logged in to enter text into
> the comment field, when editing the article namespace.  This would be
> done with the intention of extending it to all non-minor edits to the
> article namespace if the experiment succeeded.
>
> In fact, of the 3 non-implemented experiments above, I think this one
> would be the least controversial.
>

I disagree on this one. As a frequent Recent Changes patroller, using a 
combination of CoolCat's IRC bot, CDVF and Special:Recentchanges, I have 
come to appreciate the predictability of a lot of the vandals: no edit 
summary, using an IP. Of course, I glance over every edit summary too, but 
in my experience, usually the people using edit summaries are editing 'in 
good faith'.

Forcing people to leave an edit summary for all non-minor edits, will in my 
view result in one or more of the following results:

1. Non-sense comments: "sldkjlsdfj" or "."
2. Abusive comments in edit summaries
3. People marking all their edits as minor, to avoid having to leave an edit 
summary.

That way, vandalism will be harder to spot and there will be more 'noise' in 
the edit histories.

I think an option that forces you to leave an edit summary, which can be 
switched on in the preferences, would be better: if you stimulate people 
using that, you'll have more quality edit summaries and not an increase in 
nonsense and abusive summaries.

Regards,
JoanneB 