gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation

Re: Usability grant

Michael Snow — 2008-12-04T03:36:53

I expect we all recognize that software is not the solution to every problem. As far as improving the learning experience for new contributors, I certainly hope this doesn't cause anyone to give up working on other avenues and tackling any cultural challenges that should be addressed. The purpose of this grant, however, goes beyond just simplifying a particular process, so from that perspective it's not a question of whether software is the best way to do that. Rather, we're treating the MediaWiki software as a critical aspect of the overall environment for our projects, and one that can and should be improved. "Best-of-breed" it may be, but I think it's apparent that sometimes it hinders efforts that need help, so I consider it worthwhile to reduce the obstacles it introduces to our environment. Indeed we have not gotten it right the first time, which is why we have accepted this grant, as we keep trying to get it right. I believe that's the logical fallacy known as "argument from vaporware". Just because software might change how things work in the future doesn't mean we should avoid working on other improvements in the meantime. Unless we know that a specific feature is in the works and will conflict with the proposed solution, there's no reason to forbid experiments. Otherwise, I think I'd happily start nuking unsightly infobox markup on the theory that some future software can be counted on to automatically generate the information from article prose. It is just prototyping for the Semantic Web, after all. --Michael Snow _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r< at >public.gmane.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: Handholding for new articles (Was: Re: 80% ofour projects are failing)

David Gerard — 2008-12-04T01:28:23

2008/12/3 David Goodman public.gmane.org>: Or it indicates that whoever's trying to make the point needs to write more concisely, at least leading with a summary good enough to hook the reader into reading the rest. tl;dr = writer fail. - d. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r< at >public.gmane.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: Handholding for new articles (Was: Re: 80% ofour projects are failing)

David Goodman — 2008-12-03T23:12:18

Nothing personal, but when tl;dr is given as a response, it indicates that there is something certainly substantial and probably interesting to be seen and understood--and possibly even used as the basis for action -- as in this case/. On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 11:21 PM, Nikola Smolenski public.gmane.org> wrote:

Re: Usability grant

Gregory Maxwell — 2008-12-03T20:42:38

On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 4:58 AM, Gerard Meijssen public.gmane.org> wrote: I agree. My concern is that we should not jump first into writing software unless a proof of concept is not possible. We will not get the software right the first time, fewer people have the skills needed to change the software, etc. The first priority is obtaining a good understanding of what works through prototyping, but we fail at that. The possibility of future software is used as an argument against any prototyping. English Wikipedia, as a high profile example, simply does not want to encourage new users to create articles. In fact, over time they have intentionally increased the barrier to create new articles: You now must have an account for 4 days and make 10 edits before you can create an article on EnWP. If you've made it that far without being blocked you probably do not need the wizard. Arguments made include positions backed by solid fact such as "The overwhelming majority of contributions by inexperienced people are very low quality" as well as less factual but hard to argue against positions such as "We do not know what effect this may have, but it could be very bad, and we may never be able to turn it off". I would like to think this class of problems is unique to English Wikipedia, but I've seen it to varying degrees in other communities which use super-majority as the decision criteria, and I suspect that it may be the fate of many projects as they mature. This is true. But it's poor use of resources to churn out feature after feature that many communities will reject. [snip] [snip] I'm not wed to the concept of templates, and certainly not to their implementation today. If you search the lists you'll find cases of me ranting about "edit this page" bringing up two screens of template-gunk on many articles. What I am strongly opposed to is our practice of inventing functionality in a near-vacuum and throwing it out as faite accomplis. Not only do I believe that you, me, and the other kind residents of this list are unqualified to produce perfect solutions to complex social-technical issue in a single pass, I believe no one is. The questions for any new non-trivial functionality should be: (1) Can you prototype it or study it without software changes and learn more about what we really need? (2) Have you tried alternative solutions? (3) From your prototyping what evidence do you have for and against the proposed changes? (4) Is there a more minimal software change which would address this need in a generic manner and facilitate more learning and prototyping? We ask none of these today. Instead, temporary solutions are widely rejected because some undefined software solution will be available "any day now", which either never comes, or when it does come is not activated because people believe that it fails to meet the requirements because no one took the effort to really understand and define the requirements. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r< at >public.gmane.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: Handholding for new articles (Was: Re: 80% ofour projects are failing)

George Herbert — 2008-12-03T20:29:28

This is at least a three-edged problem: 1) New users who don't understand WP policy/standards/community/expectations . 2) Lack of appropriate new user help info (when creating articles particularly, elsewhere as well). 3) Experienced users biting new users. The first one is just a fact of life. We can and should deal with it via appropriate responses to the other two (polite, friendly engagement by experienced users, and building better help materials, frameworks for new pages, etc). -george On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 12:24 PM, Ziko van Dijk public.gmane.org> wrote:

Re: Handholding for new articles (Was: Re: 80% ofour projects are failing)

Ziko van Dijk — 2008-12-03T20:24:27

The major weakness may be the attitude of some Wikipedians, who treat newbies rudely as if we would have an infinite reservoir of them. Our ideal of openess ("everyone can edit") has as an implication that new people come in and make things we experienced Wikipedians consider as wrong. Pacience and friendliness must be the answer. Any tools that make editing easier are welcome, but that's only one of the problems. Yes, "conceptual" is the other one. And, we Wikipedians should look out when fellow Wikipedians are rude to newbies and try to set things right. In many Wikipedia language editions help pages are poor. I often cannot even blame newbies for having not read help pages that do not exist or explain well.:-) Ziko 2008/12/3 George Herbert public.gmane.org>

Re: Usability grant

Alex — 2008-12-03T20:11:23

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] [2]

Re: Handholding for new articles (Was: Re: 80% ofour projects are failing)

George Herbert — 2008-12-03T20:01:06

On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 2:56 AM, Gerard Meijssen public.gmane.org> wrote: There are a range of options, going from "if they don't understand those questions don't let them add the article", which is the most severe response, to opening up a new window with a context specific help page to explain what the issue is, or going to an intermediate (more detailed) explanation page that then links on to the next step anyways. The point is that those are the questions that anyone should be thinking about if they're going to add an article, whether they're a brand new user or an experienced one. Brand new ones obviously lack the context and framework to know the questions and issues ahead of time... that's why we set up a framework to help them answer the questions. The framework makes them aware of the questions and issues, and if done properly helps them understand and respond with appropriate answers. If they really shouldn't be creating an article (it's something that really shouldn't have an article, seriously not notable or grossly non encyclopedic or has no references at all) then it can gently point that out and perhaps suggest that they not do so. Obviously anyone could hit "back" and then click yes anyways - we can't force them to not create an article if they don't answer a question, but if we give them a framework which lets them know what things matter then they are more likely to get the things that matter correct. The question of "should the framework discourage if unprepared" is completely separate from the question of "should there be a framework to structure the new users page creation engagement". I see no downside to the latter. The former, I know some people who will be more happy to discourage, but I'd personally prefer to educate and let people go ahead anyways if they chose to. -george

Re: 80% of our projects are failing

teun spaans — 2008-12-03T15:53:11

I agree that creating an article should be much easier. Creating a wysiwyg editor would greatly facilitate that. It would also help if we promoted a culture where people are invited to create new articles. Many hard code wikipedians seem to have adopted the attitude that red links are ugly - so red links are converted to normal text. But a red link is and should be an invitation to create an article. 2008/12/3 Milos Rancic gmail.com> _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l< at >lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: 80% of our projects are failing

David Gerard — 2008-12-03T15:49:09

2008/12/3 Yaroslav M. Blanter public.gmane.org>: en:wp is very much an international Wikipedia, not just for English native speakers at all. This leads to some difficulties (apparently infinite supplies of nationalist POV-pushers in some conflicts, for example), but is almost certainly good for NPOV. This is no reason to neglect the other Wikipedias - English just happens to be the current lingua franca and may not be in 100 years. - d. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r< at >public.gmane.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: Moving towards a more usable MediaWiki

Domas Mituzas — 2008-12-03T15:44:36

Hello, I wanted to point out that there're way more directions where usability efforts can go to benefit not only small-slow-projects, but also the major ones. Better tools for communication (talk pages!), in-place/paragraph editing, etc - community building isn't just "write an article", it is way more about "collaborate on it". And better collaboration tools we need (though MediaWiki even now is the industry darling for anything like that ;-)

Re: 80% of our projects are failing

Yaroslav M. Blanter — 2008-12-03T15:57:25

After eight years of teaching physics at a Dutch university and active participation in scientific activities all over the country, I am still to see a scientific talk given in Dutch. Cheers Yaroslav _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r< at >public.gmane.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: Moving towards a more usable MediaWiki

Amir E. Aharoni — 2008-12-03T14:42:23

2008/12/3 Marcus Buck public.gmane.org>: Did this experiment the motivation to create a page? Or did the UNICEF guys just asked the testees to create a page? For most people the first and last thought about such an experiment would be: "Why on Earth would i *want* to create a page on the UNICEF wiki"? Wikipedia is completely different. Did you ever give a thought to the fact that the first sentence of nearly every WP article is "X is Y". Thousands of people created millions of pages in Wikipedia, because they had the motivation to tell that their favorite subject IS something. (I invite everyone here to take a look at [[Predication]] and [[E-Prime]] to get an idea about the importance of the "is" in "X is Y".)

Re: GFDL 1.3 Release

Thomas Dalton — 2008-12-03T13:37:01

2008/12/3 Milos Rancic public.gmane.org>: How do you mean? Details of what kind of licenses other projects would need to use in order for content to be shared between them and Wikimedia projects? If so, I agree, that would be useful information. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r< at >public.gmane.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: 80% of our projects are failing

Lars Aronsson — 2008-12-03T11:58:33

At the Wikipedia Academy conference in Sweden some weeks ago, many of the 100+ participants were librarians or teachers in social sciences, and a smaller number were into natural sciences and technology. All presentations were in Swedish and on the first day's workshops we used the Swedish Wikipedia as our playground. On the second day, one of the presentations was made by an astronomer, Dainis Dravins, who talked about his experience from letting undergraduate college students do their project presentations either as posters or as Wikipedia articles. This picture is from his lecture, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:LA2_Wikipedia_Academy_2008_lecture_by_Dainis_Dravins.jpg Only after a while did it become apparent that he was talking of the English Wikipedia. Some surprised librarian asked "are you now talking of the English Wikipedia?" His answer was something like "yes, the Swedish is almost completely useless" (for advanced astronomy). In the undergraduate astronomy classes he was teaching, all literature is in English. This seemed like an unknown planet to the Swedish librarians. And I guess that their surprise came as an equal surprise to the astronomer. I think one of the greatest values of Wikipedia Academy is when the attendees get to see each other's reactions to Wikipedia.

Re: Handholding for new articles (Was: Re: 80% ofour projects are failing)

Gerard Meijssen — 2008-12-03T10:56:25

Hoi, So if the question to any of these questions is not positive a person should not contribute ? I would strongly argue that when a valid subject is identified and a plain text of one or two paragraphs has been written we already have a winner. You still want wikification, you still want interwiki links, you still want illustrations and you still want references. We call this a stub and stubs are good and can be improved at a later date. I understand where you are coming from, you want to see Pallas Athena rise fully armoured from Zeus's head. The Greek Gods do not exist. Not all contributors write perfect articles in one go. Requiring Gods to participate will drive ordinary people away. The process of writing the perfect Wikipedia article is not obvious and it takes time for people to become comfortable with it. Some time ago I was asked to write an article on the English Wikipedia on imho a valid topic. I decided against it because I am uncomfortable with the straight jacket that is imposed on me. So the conceptual question is, how do we want what to achieve and do we want other people to participate ? Thanks, GerardM 2008/12/2 George Herbert public.gmane.org> _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r< at >public.gmane.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: Usability grant

Gerard Meijssen — 2008-12-03T09:58:56

Hoi, I had a look. It is based on templates. What templates do wonderfully is create a proof of concept. When you have a look at the UNICEF implementation, you will learn that the same idea is implemented by them. On their wikis they do have templates for particular types of content. So I agree, it is a great idea. When you mention the "taboo" of rejection by a community, I can tell you that this is one thing that I talk about quite often. Now rejection should be based on arguments and it is important to understand the arguments WHY things are proposed and the arguments WHY proposals are rejected. When people just vote, there is nothing that helps in understanding the reasons why, there is no handle on the argument that will help with preventing the negative effects of a proposal. When one community rejects a proposal, new functionality does not need to be rejected by other communities. Extensions do not need to be enabled. However, when Brion in his role as chief technical officer and architect of MediaWiki decides that somethig should go in regardless. This would be the case when functionality needs to be part of the MediaWiki core. When you are talking about "inflexible" solutions, you have to appreciate that you are capable of creating the most wonderful templates. These same templates scare many people away. So where you see a wonderful template I find projects like the Neapolitan Wikipedia reject them because they scare people away (it does work for them). So you are completely correct that social issues play a part in accepting solutions. The solutions that come with templates are rejected by many just for comming as a template, will this prevent you from using them? Templates are great for proto typing, they are however a help and a hinder. If anything we need to find a way to overcome the problems people have with templates because they do provide value. Thanks, GerardM 2008/12/3 Gregory Maxwell public.gmane.org> _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r< at >public.gmane.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: Usability grant

Finn Rindahl — 2008-12-03T09:14:59

That link should be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Article_wizard I presume Finn R. 2008/12/3 Gregory Maxwell public.gmane.org> _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r< at >public.gmane.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: Usability grant

Gregory Maxwell — 2008-12-03T09:11:08

[snip] [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. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r< at >public.gmane.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: Usability grant

Gerard Meijssen — 2008-12-03T08:53:01

Hoi, This is great news, this makes me really happy. As I have been arguing before, the lack of usability prevents many people from contributing to wikis. Many of our projects are failing and, usability is a major factor in this. Combine this with a lack of localisation for many languages, a digital divide that prevents many demographies either by lack of infrastructure and/or lack of skills. The great thing about usability is, that this is the one place where it easiest for us to make a difference. In the announcement it is said, that the experience for new contributors is to be improved by the usability improvements funded by this grant. UNICEF has done usability studies, giving newbies tasks to perform like creating new articles. They have many videos and I understand that they may be willing to share them with us for this effort. Based on their observations, developers at UNICEF have developed a set of extensions that have proven themselves in raising the collaboration of UNICEF wikis. These extensions are in the WMF SVN, they are being localised in Betawiki and they have been tested in the ExtensionTesting environment. Marjon and Magnus have testified that MediaWiki is problematic for newbies everywhere. Our lack of usability is hurting us and we have a self selecting group of editors based on the ability in overcomming the problems of our environment. Many demographics are not well represented and this leads to bias and to the underrepresentation of the subjects these demographics have an interest in. In the majority of our projects we are not even able to raise a sustainable community. With a significant grant received, it should be possible to create metrics that measure the success of the work that we are about to do. Just receiving the money and doing the things that seem to make sense does not cut it. In a different thread I stated that 80% of our projects are failing. With an improved usability, it should be possible to notice a difference. The localisation work at Betawiki has doubled the number of languages that provide a minimal support. Sadly we do not have any numbers how this has affected the projects in those languages. As the WMF has accepted this money for a targeted grant, and as Michael indicates that the board feels strongly about this issue, I am lead to understand that usability has been made a priority in the further development of MediaWiki. Indeed improved usability will benefit more then 100% of the WMF projects, it will have a big impact on all the MediaWiki projects out there, the projects by educational organisations like Commonwealth of Learning, Kennisnet, the projects by hosting organisations like Wikia and Wikiation, the small organisations like my "housing community". Given the investments in usability outside of the WMF already made, I do urge the WMF to learn from what has already been done and to incorporate the lessons learned, the software developed. I would love to see more cooperation in the further development of MediaWiki with the other stake holders in the MediaWiki software. Thanks, GerardM 2008/12/3 Michael Snow public.gmane.org> _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r< at >public.gmane.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Re: Handholding for new articles (Was: Re: 80% ofour projects are failing)

Mohamed Magdy — 2008-12-03T07:51:54

commons). new article wizard would be a great addition if someone make it. As for Nikola's "too long, didn't read", you will always have the classic way of creating a new page (things like this and WYSIWYGE should be optional).