[Wikimedia-l] Re: Mopping with the tap open

[Paulo Santos Perneta]

For 10 years or more, already, reliable sources have been mandatory in
the Wikipedia in Portuguese, and any unsourced edit can and should be
reverted and the user warned.
Adding to that, since at least 2016, we use the abuse filters to block any
edition lacking sources. Newbies like the one described by Romaine would
receive a daunting red warning from the abuse filter system about the
necessity of adding reliable sources in order for their edit to be saved -
and the opportunity to go back and fix the problem. This has greatly
improved things there, in that subject.

Back in 2009, about 1 month after joining Wikipedia I found myself in a
serious conflict with other, well established users, about a well sourced
edit I wanted to add, which was being reverted by the veteran users in
favour of unsourced (and false) information. At the time, I had to comply
and swallow it, as the newbie I was. One year later, now with a reputation,
I returned to the theme, reverted the whole thing and opened a public case
there about falsification of information by said veteran user(s) - and that
time it stood. This whole episode deeply marked me, and made absolutely
clear that in Wikipedia there can be no tolerance for whatever lacks proper
sources - something we actually often indulge in in paper encyclopedias, in
my own experience. I'm very glad that the era of rampant tolerance with
people adding unsourced content - something that was already against all
good practices back in 2001 - is now a distant, sad memory. The quality of
our Wikipedia skyrocketed since then, changing the paradigm from "Wikipedia
is not reliable" to "Wikipedia is actually quite reliable, so much that I
actually want to be there" all over the Lusophone world - and bringing new
problems of its own. But that's undoubtedly the way to go, and it's sad it
took so much time to actually implement what should have been there already
from day 1.

Best,
Paulo




Romaine Wiki  escreveu (quarta, 6/03/2024 à(s)
13:59):

> In the past days, a new Wikipedia contributor edited Wikipedia and made a
> great contribution, except... This user added zero sources, and the article
> in what the edit was made was about a living person. So the verifiability
> is a problem and in conflict with the policy Biographies of living persons.
> This was just one example of thousands that have to be dealt with every day
> in Wikimedia. And every day the community tries to maintain the quality of
> Wikipedia and has to deal with this kind of edits.
>
> I asked myself the question: why did this new contributor not add any
> sources?
>
> I logged out, went to an article and clicked edit. Made some modifications
> (in the Visual Editor), and then clicked Publish changes. In the steps I
> took to edit the article, I got nowhere a message that Wikipedia wants to
> have sources for the information I added. Nowhere!
>
> I hope that every experienced user by now understands the importance of
> adding sources. But we cannot expect from new contributors to already know
> this. They need to be informed that adding sources is needed. They do not
> go first read the manual of Wikipedia with all the help and project pages,
> they just start editing right away. They think, link in many other
> platforms, that if they do something wrong, they get a message while
> editing/uploading/etc.
>
> For some strange reason, if you edit Wikipedia, you get no notification at
> all that you need to add sources, even while this is one of the most
> important pillars of Wikipedia. The result is that a lot of work of these
> new contributors gets lost, because the information is removed from the
> articles because of a lack of sources. If those new users would have got a
> message in the Visual Editor during the editing, a lot more contributions
> would be able to stay in Wikipedia, less new contributors would get
> demotivated, and it would reduce the workload of existing users who do the
> maintenance every day.
>
> As with the influx of edits without sources nothing is done, the Dutch
> expression "mopping with the tap open" (Dutch: dweilen met de kraan open)
> applies here.
>
> Romaine
>
>
>
>
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Mopping with the tap open

[Andy Mabbett]

On Wed, 6 Mar 2024 at 13:58, Romaine Wiki  wrote:

> I logged out, went to an article and clicked edit. Made some modifications 
> (in the Visual Editor), and then clicked Publish changes. In the steps I took 
> to edit the article, I got nowhere a message that Wikipedia wants to have 
> sources for the information I added.

English Wikipedia has a notice to this effect:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Editpage-head-copy-warn

Discussion about improving it (and some objections to it) is here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Editpage-head-copy-warn

-- 
Andy Mabbett
@pigsonthewing
http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Mopping with the tap open

[Johan Jönsson]

I really think we have a good opportunity to influence this behaviour by
using tools and UX, but as an aside, as  Lodewijk and Galder have pointed
out, in addition to the technical challenges, it's also up to us as
Wikipedia editors how we handle what's lacking in articles written by
newcomers.

If we delete the article, we typically tell them why, but there's a huge
difference between moving an article to a user space and politely
explaining what's missing and deleting a text and making the explanation
sound more like a justification for our actions than as a helpful guide to
writing an encyclopedic article.

As a patroller, I'd be happy for people to just indicate sources in any way
– if that means they write out the title within brackets, fine, that's a
quick and easy fix and then we can thank them for their contribution and
explain how to do it the next time. But I also think we need to recognize
that as we've raised the bar for what's acceptable in the encyclopedia (as
most language versions do once they've accumulated the most necessary
encyclopedic content), it's not just become more difficult to write one's
first article, but also for patrollers to help newcomers. The time
investment necessary to help fix a stub without sources to what's
considered acceptable standard has grown considerably, and thus the same
level of desire to help a newcomer will lead to deletion more often in 2024
than in 2006.

Best,

//Johan Jönsson
--

Den lör 9 mars 2024 kl 16:15 skrev Natacha Rault :

> Hi, indeed it is great news to know this new tool is being tested.
> What I have noticed is that new editors (speaking from workshop
> experience) find it harder to find the source button since it is no long
> written but equivalent to quotation mark => ? . To add a ref if they don?t
> know where to do it from they need to virtually try clicking every button.
> A lot of them also use external links by mistake (the buttons are so close
> to one other it?s easy to make a mistake).
> Kind regards,
> Nattes
>
> Envoy? de mon iPhone
>
> Le 9 mars 2024 ? 03:25, effe iets anders  a
> ?crit :
>
> ?
> Thanks Benoit,
> This sounds like a good step in the right direction. We'll need to try out
> several of these approaches, but also improve our own documentation on
> nl.wikipedia. My impression is that it is currently far too hard to add a
> reference, to expect that this is done by most new contributors.
>
> Do we know more about:
> * How many new contributors know they should add a reference, e.g. when
> writing a new article
> * If they know that they should add a reference, how many know how to
> recognize a good reference from a poor one
> * How many new contributors, if they know that they should add a
> reference, can figure out how to actually make this happen (assuming they
> know the url already)
> * Assuming that they can find the reference button, and know their URL, in
> how many cases does the auto-convert feature work? (we could test this by
> taking a random sample of reference URLs, and entering them in the
> reference insertion tool)
>
> These are not just technical problems - some of them are more about
> awareness (we can focus for example a little less on copyright, and more on
> other quality aspects) or good documentation (how to recognize a good
> source?). I also suspect that these numbers might vary quite a bit across
> communities/countries.
>
> In my personal experience, it is hard to add references to articles even
> if all the 'social' steps work smoothly (they often dont!). Maybe my sample
> is biased, but it feels like I get much more often an error in nlwiki when
> I try to convert a url to a citation, than in enwiki. Does anyone know if
> this is indeed the case? Is anyone tracking statistics on this?
>
> Best,
> Lodewijk
>
> On Wed, Mar 6, 2024 at 4:03?PM  wrote:
>
>> Hello
>>
>> Some wikis have added the requirement to add citations at the edit
>> summary step. But it is clearly too late in the process, as users just want
>> to publish. Some users will add citations as a second step, but it might be
>> too late, as the edit has a great chance of being reverted meanwhile.
>>
>> You might be interested in the Editing team's current project, Edit check
>> .
>>
>> This project aims to provide in-context help by checking on the edit. The
>> first iteration is "Reference Check": if a user adds a paragraph with zero
>> source, they are encouraged to add one. We are currently testing it at 22
>> Wikipedias, to verify if the prompt to add citations is not blocking users.
>>
>> You can test it at your wiki using an URL parameter:
>> 1. Edit any article in the main namespace using the VisualEditor.
>> 2. Add =1 to the URL in your browser. -- For example in Dutch,
>> as Romaine started the thread:
>> https://nl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zon=edit=1
>> 3. Reload the page with the new URL.
>> 4. Create a new paragraph, that is at least 50 characters long without
>> 

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Mopping with the tap open

[Natacha Rault]

Hi, indeed it is great news to know this new tool is being tested. What I have noticed is that new editors (speaking from workshop experience) find it harder to find the source button since it is no long written but equivalent to quotation mark => ? . To add a ref if they don?t know where to do it from they need to virtually try clicking every button. A lot of them also use external links by mistake (the buttons are so close to one other it?s easy to make a mistake). Kind regards,Nattes Envoy? de mon iPhoneLe 9 mars 2024 ? 03:25, effe iets anders  a ?crit :?Thanks Benoit,This sounds like a good step in the right direction. We'll need to try 
 out several of these approaches, but also improve our own documentation on nl.wikipedia. My impression is that it is currently far too hard to add a reference, to expect that this is done by most new contributors. Do we know more about:* How many new contributors know they should add a reference, e.g. when writing a new article* If they know that they should add a reference, how many know how to recognize a good reference from a poor one * How many new contributors, if they know that they should add a reference, can figure out how to actually make this happen (assuming they know the url already)* Assuming that they can find the reference button, and know their URL, in how many cases does the auto-convert feature work? (we could test this by taking a random sample of reference URLs, and entering them in the reference insertion tool)These are not just technical pro
 blems - some of them are more about awareness (we can focus for example a little less on copyright, and more on other quality aspects) or good documentation (how to recognize a good source?). I also suspect that these numbers might vary quite a bit across communities/countries. In my personal experience, it is hard to add references to articles even if all the 'social' steps work smoothly (they often dont!). Maybe my sample is biased, but it feels like I get much more often an error in nlwiki when I try to convert a url to a citation, than in enwiki. Does anyone know if this is indeed the case? Is anyone tracking statistics on this?Best,LodewijkOn Wed, Mar 6, 2024 at 4:03?PM  wrote:Hello

Some wikis have added the requirement to add citations at the edit summary step. But it is clearly too late in the process, as users just want to publish. Some users will add citations as a second step, but it might be too late, as the edit has a great chance of being reverted meanwhile. 

You might be interested in the Editing team's current project, Edit check .

This project aims to provide in-context help by checking on the edit. The first iteration is "Reference Check": if a user adds a paragraph with zero source, they are encouraged to add one. We are currently testing it at 22 Wikipedias, to verify if the prompt to add citations is not blocking users. 

You can test it at your wiki using an URL parameter: 
1. Edit any article in the main namespace using the VisualEditor.
2. Add =1 to the URL in your browser. -- For example in Dutch, as Romaine started the thread: https://nl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zon=edit=1
3. Reload the page with the new URL.
4. Create a new paragraph, that is at least 50 characters long without adding a citation
5. Press the Publish? Notice the prompt that appears
6. Test is completed, don't save your edit unless you know what you are doing. 

All edits are tagged, so that you can find them in Recent Changes or in your Watchlist. If a user selects "no" after the prompt, they have to select a reason why. That reason is tagged as well, easing experienced users' work on patrolling and improving these edits. 

We will soon add a message if the added citation is listed on MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist or MediaWiki:BlockedExternalDomains.json. 

As Edit Check only checks the first paragraph added, the next iteration will be to add multi-Reference checks. We are currently working on the design for multi-checks.

Of course, Edit Check is not limited to adding citations. We can imagine other ways to close the tap. Your suggestions are welcomed, as are your questions.

Thank you,
--
Beno?t Evellin - Trizek_(WMF) (he/him)
Community Relations Specialist 
Wikimedia Foundation
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Mopping with the tap open

[Felipe Schenone]

Thanks Benoit, I'm so happy to see the Editing Team and the WMF are working
on this! I think it will be another great success, just like the talk pages
project. Keep up the good work !!

El sáb., 9 de mar. de 2024 9:43 a. m., Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga <
galder...@hotmail.com> escribió:

> Hello,
> When I was born, I didn't know how to speak or walk. When I started in the
> school, I didn't know how to multiply 2x2. When I started in the
> University, I didn't know how to research a topic within academy standards.
> When I first drove a car in the driving school, I didn't know how to drive
> properly. In everyone of these learning steps, I had someone helping me: my
> parents, my teachers, my professors, my driving-teacher(?). When I started
> writing in Wikipedia, I didn't know what a template was, how to make a
> redirect, what to link or not and how to properly add a reference. Instead
> of just deleting things, we (the community) should help newbies. You can
> learn with a text written inside a box or whatever, but way better is if we
> help them, take what they did and correct it and let them improve. Could
> the editing platform be better designed? For sure. But we are a community.
> It is in our hands to be rude with the newbies or welcoming. I try to chose
> the second one.
>
> Best,
>
> Galder
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> *From:* Gnangarra 
> *Sent:* Saturday, March 9, 2024 1:18 PM
> *To:* effeietsand...@gmail.com ; Wikimedia
> Mailing List 
> *Subject:* [Wikimedia-l] Re: Mopping with the tap open
>
> could there be message box that asks a simple question like "thank you for
> the contribution, where did you get this information from?" with a text
> field, it just adds it to the edit description. so something is captured in
> the edit history.
>
> On Sat, 9 Mar 2024 at 10:25, effe iets anders 
> wrote:
>
> Thanks Benoit,
> This sounds like a good step in the right direction. We'll need to try out
> several of these approaches, but also improve our own documentation on
> nl.wikipedia. My impression is that it is currently far too hard to add a
> reference, to expect that this is done by most new contributors.
>
> Do we know more about:
> * How many new contributors know they should add a reference, e.g. when
> writing a new article
> * If they know that they should add a reference, how many know how to
> recognize a good reference from a poor one
> * How many new contributors, if they know that they should add a
> reference, can figure out how to actually make this happen (assuming they
> know the url already)
> * Assuming that they can find the reference button, and know their URL, in
> how many cases does the auto-convert feature work? (we could test this by
> taking a random sample of reference URLs, and entering them in the
> reference insertion tool)
>
> These are not just technical problems - some of them are more about
> awareness (we can focus for example a little less on copyright, and more on
> other quality aspects) or good documentation (how to recognize a good
> source?). I also suspect that these numbers might vary quite a bit across
> communities/countries.
>
> In my personal experience, it is hard to add references to articles even
> if all the 'social' steps work smoothly (they often dont!). Maybe my sample
> is biased, but it feels like I get much more often an error in nlwiki when
> I try to convert a url to a citation, than in enwiki. Does anyone know if
> this is indeed the case? Is anyone tracking statistics on this?
>
> Best,
> Lodewijk
>
> On Wed, Mar 6, 2024 at 4:03 PM  wrote:
>
> Hello
>
> Some wikis have added the requirement to add citations at the edit summary
> step. But it is clearly too late in the process, as users just want to
> publish. Some users will add citations as a second step, but it might be
> too late, as the edit has a great chance of being reverted meanwhile.
>
> You might be interested in the Editing team's current project, Edit check <
> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Edit_check>.
>
> This project aims to provide in-context help by checking on the edit. The
> first iteration is "Reference Check": if a user adds a paragraph with zero
> source, they are encouraged to add one. We are currently testing it at 22
> Wikipedias, to verify if the prompt to add citations is not blocking users.
>
> You can test it at your wiki using an URL parameter:
> 1. Edit any article in the main namespace using the VisualEditor.
> 2. Add =1 to the URL in your browser. -- For example in Dutch, as
> Romaine started the thread:
> https://nl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zon=edit=1
> 3. Reload the page with the new URL.
> 4. Create a new p

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Mopping with the tap open

[Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga]

Hello,
When I was born, I didn't know how to speak or walk. When I started in the 
school, I didn't know how to multiply 2x2. When I started in the University, I 
didn't know how to research a topic within academy standards. When I first 
drove a car in the driving school, I didn't know how to drive properly. In 
everyone of these learning steps, I had someone helping me: my parents, my 
teachers, my professors, my driving-teacher(?). When I started writing in 
Wikipedia, I didn't know what a template was, how to make a redirect, what to 
link or not and how to properly add a reference. Instead of just deleting 
things, we (the community) should help newbies. You can learn with a text 
written inside a box or whatever, but way better is if we help them, take what 
they did and correct it and let them improve. Could the editing platform be 
better designed? For sure. But we are a community. It is in our hands to be 
rude with the newbies or welcoming. I try to chose the second one.

Best,

Galder






From: Gnangarra 
Sent: Saturday, March 9, 2024 1:18 PM
To: effeietsand...@gmail.com ; Wikimedia Mailing List 

Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Mopping with the tap open

could there be message box that asks a simple question like "thank you for the 
contribution, where did you get this information from?" with a text field, it 
just adds it to the edit description. so something is captured in the edit 
history.

On Sat, 9 Mar 2024 at 10:25, effe iets anders 
mailto:effeietsand...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Thanks Benoit,
This sounds like a good step in the right direction. We'll need to try out 
several of these approaches, but also improve our own documentation on 
nl.wikipedia. My impression is that it is currently far too hard to add a 
reference, to expect that this is done by most new contributors.

Do we know more about:
* How many new contributors know they should add a reference, e.g. when writing 
a new article
* If they know that they should add a reference, how many know how to recognize 
a good reference from a poor one
* How many new contributors, if they know that they should add a reference, can 
figure out how to actually make this happen (assuming they know the url already)
* Assuming that they can find the reference button, and know their URL, in how 
many cases does the auto-convert feature work? (we could test this by taking a 
random sample of reference URLs, and entering them in the reference insertion 
tool)

These are not just technical problems - some of them are more about awareness 
(we can focus for example a little less on copyright, and more on other quality 
aspects) or good documentation (how to recognize a good source?). I also 
suspect that these numbers might vary quite a bit across communities/countries.

In my personal experience, it is hard to add references to articles even if all 
the 'social' steps work smoothly (they often dont!). Maybe my sample is biased, 
but it feels like I get much more often an error in nlwiki when I try to 
convert a url to a citation, than in enwiki. Does anyone know if this is indeed 
the case? Is anyone tracking statistics on this?

Best,
Lodewijk

On Wed, Mar 6, 2024 at 4:03 PM 
mailto:bevel...@wikimedia.org>> wrote:
Hello

Some wikis have added the requirement to add citations at the edit summary 
step. But it is clearly too late in the process, as users just want to publish. 
Some users will add citations as a second step, but it might be too late, as 
the edit has a great chance of being reverted meanwhile.

You might be interested in the Editing team's current project, Edit check 
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Edit_check>.

This project aims to provide in-context help by checking on the edit. The first 
iteration is "Reference Check": if a user adds a paragraph with zero source, 
they are encouraged to add one. We are currently testing it at 22 Wikipedias, 
to verify if the prompt to add citations is not blocking users.

You can test it at your wiki using an URL parameter:
1. Edit any article in the main namespace using the VisualEditor.
2. Add =1 to the URL in your browser. -- For example in Dutch, as 
Romaine started the thread: 
https://nl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zon=edit=1
3. Reload the page with the new URL.
4. Create a new paragraph, that is at least 50 characters long without adding a 
citation
5. Press the Publish… Notice the prompt that appears
6. Test is completed, don't save your edit unless you know what you are doing.

All edits are tagged, so that you can find them in Recent Changes or in your 
Watchlist. If a user selects "no" after the prompt, they have to select a 
reason why. That reason is tagged as well, easing experienced users' work on 
patrolling and improving these edits.

We will soon add a message if the added citation is listed on 
MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist or MediaWiki:BlockedExternalDomains.json.

As Edit Check only chec

[Wikimedia-l] Re: Mopping with the tap open

[Gnangarra]

could there be message box that asks a simple question like "thank you for
the contribution, where did you get this information from?" with a text
field, it just adds it to the edit description. so something is captured in
the edit history.

On Sat, 9 Mar 2024 at 10:25, effe iets anders 
wrote:

> Thanks Benoit,
> This sounds like a good step in the right direction. We'll need to try out
> several of these approaches, but also improve our own documentation on
> nl.wikipedia. My impression is that it is currently far too hard to add a
> reference, to expect that this is done by most new contributors.
>
> Do we know more about:
> * How many new contributors know they should add a reference, e.g. when
> writing a new article
> * If they know that they should add a reference, how many know how to
> recognize a good reference from a poor one
> * How many new contributors, if they know that they should add a
> reference, can figure out how to actually make this happen (assuming they
> know the url already)
> * Assuming that they can find the reference button, and know their URL, in
> how many cases does the auto-convert feature work? (we could test this by
> taking a random sample of reference URLs, and entering them in the
> reference insertion tool)
>
> These are not just technical problems - some of them are more about
> awareness (we can focus for example a little less on copyright, and more on
> other quality aspects) or good documentation (how to recognize a good
> source?). I also suspect that these numbers might vary quite a bit across
> communities/countries.
>
> In my personal experience, it is hard to add references to articles even
> if all the 'social' steps work smoothly (they often dont!). Maybe my sample
> is biased, but it feels like I get much more often an error in nlwiki when
> I try to convert a url to a citation, than in enwiki. Does anyone know if
> this is indeed the case? Is anyone tracking statistics on this?
>
> Best,
> Lodewijk
>
> On Wed, Mar 6, 2024 at 4:03 PM  wrote:
>
>> Hello
>>
>> Some wikis have added the requirement to add citations at the edit
>> summary step. But it is clearly too late in the process, as users just want
>> to publish. Some users will add citations as a second step, but it might be
>> too late, as the edit has a great chance of being reverted meanwhile.
>>
>> You might be interested in the Editing team's current project, Edit check
>> .
>>
>> This project aims to provide in-context help by checking on the edit. The
>> first iteration is "Reference Check": if a user adds a paragraph with zero
>> source, they are encouraged to add one. We are currently testing it at 22
>> Wikipedias, to verify if the prompt to add citations is not blocking users.
>>
>> You can test it at your wiki using an URL parameter:
>> 1. Edit any article in the main namespace using the VisualEditor.
>> 2. Add =1 to the URL in your browser. -- For example in Dutch,
>> as Romaine started the thread:
>> https://nl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zon=edit=1
>> 3. Reload the page with the new URL.
>> 4. Create a new paragraph, that is at least 50 characters long without
>> adding a citation
>> 5. Press the Publish… Notice the prompt that appears
>> 6. Test is completed, don't save your edit unless you know what you are
>> doing.
>>
>> All edits are tagged, so that you can find them in Recent Changes or in
>> your Watchlist. If a user selects "no" after the prompt, they have to
>> select a reason why. That reason is tagged as well, easing experienced
>> users' work on patrolling and improving these edits.
>>
>> We will soon add a message if the added citation is listed on
>> MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist or MediaWiki:BlockedExternalDomains.json.
>>
>> As Edit Check only checks the first paragraph added, the next iteration
>> will be to add multi-Reference checks. We are currently working on the
>> design for multi-checks.
>>
>> Of course, Edit Check is not limited to adding citations. We can imagine
>> other ways to close the tap. Your suggestions are welcomed, as are your
>> questions.
>>
>> Thank you,
>> --
>> Benoît Evellin - Trizek_(WMF) (he/him)
>> Community Relations Specialist
>> Wikimedia Foundation
>> ___
>> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
>> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
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>
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Mopping with the tap open

[effe iets anders]

Thanks Benoit,
This sounds like a good step in the right direction. We'll need to try out
several of these approaches, but also improve our own documentation on
nl.wikipedia. My impression is that it is currently far too hard to add a
reference, to expect that this is done by most new contributors.

Do we know more about:
* How many new contributors know they should add a reference, e.g. when
writing a new article
* If they know that they should add a reference, how many know how to
recognize a good reference from a poor one
* How many new contributors, if they know that they should add a reference,
can figure out how to actually make this happen (assuming they know the url
already)
* Assuming that they can find the reference button, and know their URL, in
how many cases does the auto-convert feature work? (we could test this by
taking a random sample of reference URLs, and entering them in the
reference insertion tool)

These are not just technical problems - some of them are more about
awareness (we can focus for example a little less on copyright, and more on
other quality aspects) or good documentation (how to recognize a good
source?). I also suspect that these numbers might vary quite a bit across
communities/countries.

In my personal experience, it is hard to add references to articles even if
all the 'social' steps work smoothly (they often dont!). Maybe my sample is
biased, but it feels like I get much more often an error in nlwiki when I
try to convert a url to a citation, than in enwiki. Does anyone know if
this is indeed the case? Is anyone tracking statistics on this?

Best,
Lodewijk

On Wed, Mar 6, 2024 at 4:03 PM  wrote:

> Hello
>
> Some wikis have added the requirement to add citations at the edit summary
> step. But it is clearly too late in the process, as users just want to
> publish. Some users will add citations as a second step, but it might be
> too late, as the edit has a great chance of being reverted meanwhile.
>
> You might be interested in the Editing team's current project, Edit check <
> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Edit_check>.
>
> This project aims to provide in-context help by checking on the edit. The
> first iteration is "Reference Check": if a user adds a paragraph with zero
> source, they are encouraged to add one. We are currently testing it at 22
> Wikipedias, to verify if the prompt to add citations is not blocking users.
>
> You can test it at your wiki using an URL parameter:
> 1. Edit any article in the main namespace using the VisualEditor.
> 2. Add =1 to the URL in your browser. -- For example in Dutch, as
> Romaine started the thread:
> https://nl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zon=edit=1
> 3. Reload the page with the new URL.
> 4. Create a new paragraph, that is at least 50 characters long without
> adding a citation
> 5. Press the Publish… Notice the prompt that appears
> 6. Test is completed, don't save your edit unless you know what you are
> doing.
>
> All edits are tagged, so that you can find them in Recent Changes or in
> your Watchlist. If a user selects "no" after the prompt, they have to
> select a reason why. That reason is tagged as well, easing experienced
> users' work on patrolling and improving these edits.
>
> We will soon add a message if the added citation is listed on
> MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist or MediaWiki:BlockedExternalDomains.json.
>
> As Edit Check only checks the first paragraph added, the next iteration
> will be to add multi-Reference checks. We are currently working on the
> design for multi-checks.
>
> Of course, Edit Check is not limited to adding citations. We can imagine
> other ways to close the tap. Your suggestions are welcomed, as are your
> questions.
>
> Thank you,
> --
> Benoît Evellin - Trizek_(WMF) (he/him)
> Community Relations Specialist
> Wikimedia Foundation
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> Public archives at
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/RWQIXLQEBNC62THG5J4TY7OCHCKRAPUF/
> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Mopping with the tap open

[bevellin]

Hello

Some wikis have added the requirement to add citations at the edit summary 
step. But it is clearly too late in the process, as users just want to publish. 
Some users will add citations as a second step, but it might be too late, as 
the edit has a great chance of being reverted meanwhile. 

You might be interested in the Editing team's current project, Edit check 
.

This project aims to provide in-context help by checking on the edit. The first 
iteration is "Reference Check": if a user adds a paragraph with zero source, 
they are encouraged to add one. We are currently testing it at 22 Wikipedias, 
to verify if the prompt to add citations is not blocking users. 

You can test it at your wiki using an URL parameter: 
1. Edit any article in the main namespace using the VisualEditor.
2. Add =1 to the URL in your browser. -- For example in Dutch, as 
Romaine started the thread: 
https://nl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zon=edit=1
3. Reload the page with the new URL.
4. Create a new paragraph, that is at least 50 characters long without adding a 
citation
5. Press the Publish… Notice the prompt that appears
6. Test is completed, don't save your edit unless you know what you are doing. 

All edits are tagged, so that you can find them in Recent Changes or in your 
Watchlist. If a user selects "no" after the prompt, they have to select a 
reason why. That reason is tagged as well, easing experienced users' work on 
patrolling and improving these edits. 

We will soon add a message if the added citation is listed on 
MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist or MediaWiki:BlockedExternalDomains.json. 

As Edit Check only checks the first paragraph added, the next iteration will be 
to add multi-Reference checks. We are currently working on the design for 
multi-checks.

Of course, Edit Check is not limited to adding citations. We can imagine other 
ways to close the tap. Your suggestions are welcomed, as are your questions.

Thank you,
--
Benoît Evellin - Trizek_(WMF) (he/him)
Community Relations Specialist 
Wikimedia Foundation
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Mopping with the tap open

[Felipe Schenone]

I couldn't agree more, it reminds me of a principle in UX/UI (can't recall
its "name" or exact wording) that emphasises the importance of giving help
exactly when it's needed, not before nor after.

On Wed, Mar 6, 2024 at 10:59 AM Romaine Wiki  wrote:

> In the past days, a new Wikipedia contributor edited Wikipedia and made a
> great contribution, except... This user added zero sources, and the article
> in what the edit was made was about a living person. So the verifiability
> is a problem and in conflict with the policy Biographies of living persons.
> This was just one example of thousands that have to be dealt with every day
> in Wikimedia. And every day the community tries to maintain the quality of
> Wikipedia and has to deal with this kind of edits.
>
> I asked myself the question: why did this new contributor not add any
> sources?
>
> I logged out, went to an article and clicked edit. Made some modifications
> (in the Visual Editor), and then clicked Publish changes. In the steps I
> took to edit the article, I got nowhere a message that Wikipedia wants to
> have sources for the information I added. Nowhere!
>
> I hope that every experienced user by now understands the importance of
> adding sources. But we cannot expect from new contributors to already know
> this. They need to be informed that adding sources is needed. They do not
> go first read the manual of Wikipedia with all the help and project pages,
> they just start editing right away. They think, link in many other
> platforms, that if they do something wrong, they get a message while
> editing/uploading/etc.
>
> For some strange reason, if you edit Wikipedia, you get no notification at
> all that you need to add sources, even while this is one of the most
> important pillars of Wikipedia. The result is that a lot of work of these
> new contributors gets lost, because the information is removed from the
> articles because of a lack of sources. If those new users would have got a
> message in the Visual Editor during the editing, a lot more contributions
> would be able to stay in Wikipedia, less new contributors would get
> demotivated, and it would reduce the workload of existing users who do the
> maintenance every day.
>
> As with the influx of edits without sources nothing is done, the Dutch
> expression "mopping with the tap open" (Dutch: dweilen met de kraan open)
> applies here.
>
> Romaine
>
>
>
>
>
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