https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=30208

Erik Moeller <[email protected]> changed:

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--- Comment #43 from Erik Moeller <[email protected]> 2011-09-14 01:50:31 UTC 
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Hi everyone, and thanks for your patience. 

As you can see from all the previous discussion on the bug, on-wiki, and on the
mailing lists, there are some strong reservations about this proposal. As the
closing statement of the Request for Comment on the trial noted, both sides on
this issue believe that what they’re doing will lead to greater openness and
constructive participation in Wikipedia. And, the Board has asked us all to
work together to promote and increase the openness of Wikimedia projects.

We understand the goals of the autoconfirmed trial as stated:

- - -
1) This would reduce the workload on New Page Patrollers;
2) New users would be "bitten" less due to the resulting reduction in stress on
the part of those most in contact with them;
3) New users are less likely to be disenchanted by their article being deleted 
4) Autoconfirmed users with 10 edits to existing articles would enjoy an easier
learning curve than trying to create an encyclopedic article with their first
edit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Proposal_to_require_autoconfirmed_status_in_order_to_create_articles
- - -

Implicit in these goals are a desire to promote learning how to create a new
article, a desire to reduce biting of new editors, and a desire to reduce the
workload of new page patrollers. Not stated, but assumed, is a desire to
maintain and increase the quality of Wikipedia articles.

However, we believe that creating a restriction of this type is a strong a
statement of exclusion, not inclusion, and that it will confuse and deter good
faith editors. Instead of trying to address many different issues by means of a
simple but potentially highly problematic permission change, we believe that in
order to create a friendly, welcoming and understandable experience for new
editors, we need to apply an iterative, multi-prong approach, including but not
limited to:

* simplifying the actual workflow of new article creation and reducing
instruction creep

* experimenting with alternative models to provide new users with safe spaces
for new article development

* connecting new users with experienced mentors faster.

I’d like to invite the people who’ve commented on the bug and who have worked
hard to think about our options to continue to do so on-wiki in collaboration
with those of us at the Wikimedia Foundation. We’ve worked up a shortlist of
ideas to significantly improve the process for creating articles on Wikipedia
for everyone. Your thoughts are most welcome: 

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/ArticleCreationWorkflow

I’m sure you’ll find some of the ideas in the proposed flow problematic, but
please also tell us which parts make sense to you. Please look especially at
the “Future Phases” section of the page, as we think it’ll take iteration to
optimize across all variables we care about: getting more quality content,
recruiting and retaining excellent contributors, and reducing new page
patroller workload.

Because this issue isn’t limited to the English Wikipedia, we’d like to ask you
to comment on MediaWiki.org, where we will invite folks from other language
editions to participate in the conversation as well. There are some very
interesting experiences that we should learn from, including, for example, an
experiment with article incubation in the Russian Wikipedia. 

Thanks for all your efforts to make Wikipedia better, and sorry for the long
silence. We absolutely hope that we can move forward in partnership. WMF is
prepared to invest effort (software development, design, research) to help get
this right. We don’t have unlimited resources, but we can help :-). Let’s try
to come up with the best experience for article creation that we can, to build
a better encyclopedia and grow and nurture a healthy, diverse community.

All the best,
Erik

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