https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=30208
--- Comment #51 from Nemo_bis <[email protected]> 2011-09-14 07:03:40 UTC --- (In reply to comment #45) > On what data are you basing this opinion? The specific way that new editors > will respond to various interface changes is an extremely chaotic phenomenon, > and it would be naive to believe that anyone could accurately predict the > result of this change without any experimental data. Right, but restriction of article creation is not an interface change, it's a process/community/culture change whose effects can be predicted quite easily. > Why is the WMF so > resistant to implementing a brief trial so that we can base our opinions on > facts rather than gut reactions? Even if we implemented the trial for a > shorter period of time than 6 months, at least we would have some real > information on which to base these important decisions. I disagree: such a trial could have permanent effects despite the fast turnover of new editors, in particular because this change would necessarily produce several deep process changes which could be difficult to revert (and anyway would be a waste of time). Look, for instance, at the effects of a small change such as the mandatory summary for IP edits introduced by de.wiki in 2007: steep decrease of anonymous edits, which never reached the previous level although the change was rapidly reverted (and yes, you can blame thousands other causes, but that's valid for every trial). > In closing, the WMF seems very concerned about how new editors are treated. > Perhaps they should also consider how they treat their experienced editors who > have volunteered for years. I fully realize now the extent to which the wool > has been pulled over my eyes; it makes me look differently upon the hours I've > spent volunteering my time here, and there isn't much else that's a stronger > disincentive to continue contributing. I sympathize with you, but it's not WMF's fault if the time you spent on this discussion doesn't produce an immediate result: the point is that there is no clear consensus, as it happens frequently in our discussions; it's frustrating but it's always been like this. > I wish you good luck in your attempts to solve the problem by other means. I > hope for everyone's sake that the WMF knows better than the 500 experienced > editors who supported this trial. > > I don't plan on contributing to this discussion any further (unless there is a > sudden change of heart), but other en-wiki editors may wish to continue > discussing this with you. As I said above, I don't think that "500 editors vs. WMF" is a fair characterization of what's happening here. You might also want to consider that en.wiki is one wiki among 700+ and 270 Wikipedias: first, you should consider the experiences of other wikis and we could discover that keeping restricting new editors permissions hasn't helped; second, I don't think that the global community and the WMF can allow projects which are all called "Wikipedia" to be completely different with regard to openness and basic principles/workings – it's already strange enough that en.wiki is the only wiki with article creation restricted to registered users (ok, there are also id, fa, ta.wiki and es.books). -- Configure bugmail: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/userprefs.cgi?tab=email ------- You are receiving this mail because: ------- You are the assignee for the bug. You are on the CC list for the bug. _______________________________________________ Wikibugs-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikibugs-l
