Forum:Mainspace editing

Forums - Mainspace editing

This page is an archive. Please do not edit the contents of this page. Comment: We're doomed “This is a crisis” ―Mas Amedda After a brief surge of editing, in the last couple of days, our mainspace editing has once again gone back to the state of being abysmal. Yesterday, we had 33 mainspace edits. Today, with less than an hour left to go, we're up to about 38- a huge increase. I'm not here to start another blog complaining about this. We don't need more complaining. We need a solution. One of the reasons I think people don't edit is because they don't know what to edit. I propose we squish up the official friends box on the main page and add a box for Brickiprojects. I also propose we make a page called "Brickipedia:Requests for Improvement"- anyone who sees a page they don't like can add it to a list, and explain what they want improved. A link to this page can go to the top of the new box on the MP as well. For now, that's all I've got- The F12's basically inactive, Meiko's editing blog's died down, I can't think of any other ideas. Please list ideas any ideas for getting people editing below. NovaHawk 23:33, 21 February 2014 (UTC) Requests for Improvement is definitely a good idea. I was considering suggesting something like that myself. Helping people know what they can edit should indeed help, but the only thing I can think of in addition to the Requests for Improvement page is a sort of page notice that demonstrates a random instance of needed improvement. Not sure how this would be coded, but I'm sure it's possible. Almost as big of an issue as not knowing what to edit is fears that one won't know how to edit. This should definitely be combated. We should, for starters, make sure we let people know that even if they screw up, they can ask for help or others will fix the pages later. We could also maybe create better pages with editing guidelines (like "How to Write a Description/Background/Whatever") and set up a group of users that can give editing help to newer writers. And if people just generally don't like writing long pages, we could perhaps set up a system where editors can collaborate on things, where one person just uploads photos or whatnot, another adds descriptions, etc. Then there's just general lack of motivation. We could maybe start creating "challenges" that we assign to individual users, with an award if they complete it. If this is done for new users, they may see what editing is like and come to do it more regularly. BrickfilmNut (talk) 00:47, 22 February 2014 (UTC) Another idea is starting up activities again with editing-related rewards. Kind of like, in order to make another several actions in an RPG, you need to raise an article's rating by one level or something. BrickfilmNut (talk) 00:49, 22 February 2014 (UTC) Special:Articlefeedbackv5 is basically that Requests for Improvement thing in an even easier interface. --ToaMeiko (talk) 02:06, 22 February 2014 (UTC) In that case, then, it should be more prominent. I didn't know how to get to a general list of them until now. BrickfilmNut (talk) 02:15, 22 February 2014 (UTC) There's a link to it on every article. --ToaMeiko (talk) 02:18, 22 February 2014 (UTC) Yep, I don't know how big we need to make it more obvious :P Great ideas though BFN, I'd be happy if we implemented all of them. @Meiko- true, the articlefeedback's useful, personally I think a central page pointing users to a plain list of things that need help would help as well, and other tasks can go down on the page not about one specific page, like checking the 3000+ pages in Category:Parts_with_outdated_names and either moving them to the right page or removing the template. NovaHawk 11:02, 22 February 2014 (UTC) Our analytics aren't completely slumping yet though. We're still above pre-launch levels, and our social media has been successful. Basically the only issue is that most everyone here is lazy. I've been less active the past few days here because I've been working more at Wikimedia. There are two ways that can make people edit I've noticed: guilt and threats. Look at User blog:CJC95/Failure, maybe if the people who commented saying they'd edit would actually do so, things would work. --ToaMeiko (talk) 02:18, 22 February 2014 (UTC) Thing is, after blogs like that, the guilt only lasts a day or two at maximum, so it's not really that effective. Views may not be slipping yet, but if we remain a clone of Wikia's information, or worse still, start dropping behind, then those views will be guaranteed to go right now. (but that's great to see the increase in social media activity, I've noticed more posts/tweets going in, which seems to have boosted the followers a bit :) ) You are too optimistic Meiko, when it comes to people doing what they say they will. Which once again leads us to one of the main issues - the people who can edit have busy lives and can't (or at least, I do :P), and the ones who don't don't know how to edit, and perhaps don't want to. Editing is hard to physically teach, its done through experience, but no one wants to have their edit undone (perhaps if people gave reasons like they are meant to undoing, that would be less of a worry). CJC95 (talk) 15:29, 23 February 2014 (UTC) Just written a little widget for chat that pops up a little box saying "You've done lots of chatting, why not do some editing here too" after every 15 chat messages. It gives links to a few articles. We could link a Brickipedia:Things to edit or whatever here. UltrasonicNXT (talk) I haven't seen it on chat yet, but I've seen the code- love it :D And hopefully it does turn out to get some more edits going, great idea :) NovaHawk 11:02, 22 February 2014 (UTC)