An alternative tack is to encourage people to edit sections rather than click the edit button at the top of the page. Aside from often avoiding templates and infoboxes, a habit of editing by section will greatly reduce your risk of edit conflicts.
As for editing Wikipedia improving a marketable skill, I'm sure we have lots of editors who edit in languages other than their first language. I may have a skewed experience there because much of my editing is fixing typos, but I like to feel that one of the added benefits of my editing is that I am sometimes helping others improve their written English. Of course there is a minimum competence level needed before you can try and write significant content in a language you are learning, so we need to be careful about the level of fluency we suggest people have before we encourage them to edit in a language. Regards Jonathan > On 21 Apr 2015, at 19:32, Christine Meyer <[email protected]> wrote: > > You make some good points, Ellie. However, it's been my experience that even > a basic knowledge of HTML helped me learn Wiki syntax. I am by no means a > coder, although I am married to one. Perhaps a better way to frame it is > that learning Wiki syntax can help you learn to code easier? > > Christine > User:Figureskatingfan > >> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 3:20 PM, Ellie K <[email protected]> wrote: >> I read Marie Earley's message about the Inspire campaign, and specifically >> about the Pinterest-related proposal. I was interested in the Pinterest >> proposal too! I use Pinterest for fun. As far as I know, I was the only one >> to endorse it (I am FeralOink on WP, Ellie Kesselman IRL). >> >> Marie said this in her message on the GenderGap mailing list: >>> ​"​If the pitch to women were "learn code by editing Wikipedia" then I >>> think there would be a greater take up...​"​ >> >> Yes, I agree that there would be a lot of interest from women if that were >> true. However, editing Wikipedia and learning to code have nothing to do >> with each other. Learning Wiki syntax for editing is something that can take >> bona fide programmers a (brief) while to learn, as it is markup with many >> additional Mediawiki-specific features. More to the point, Wiki syntax isn't >> a programming language, nor does it closely resemble HTML or CSS, which are >> not programming languages either. The only people who code on Wikipedia are >> the Wikidata folks and those who build utilities (many in Python, I think) >> for whatever the toolserver is called now. Most Wikipedia editors are not >> going to have any interaction with these few folks, nor any means to learn >> the skills they have. >> >> I'm sorry for sounding negative, but I don't want to mislead women into >> thinking they will learn a job skill like programming (coding) by editing >> Wikipedia. There are many other things one may learn by editing Wikipedia, >> but they aren't so easy to articulate and vary by individual. >> >> --Ellie Kesselman (FeralOink) >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Gendergap mailing list >> [email protected] >> To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please >> visit: >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap > > > > -- > Christine > ____________________ > Christine W. Meyer > [email protected] > 208/310-1549 > _______________________________________________ > Gendergap mailing list > [email protected] > To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please > visit: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
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