Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Outreach/Archives/2013/January

Matters needing immediate attention

1. We need to greet users IMMEDIATELY on their talk page as soon as they register or as soon as they make an edit. This greeting must contain a link to the WP:TEAHOUSE.
2. We need to lower the waiting time spent on the WP:AFC queue to hours instead of days.
3. We need to stop being robotic on our responses and provide personal and custom messages to newcomers.
4. We need to get rid of wikicode. It is past its time. It's archaic. It's way too difficult for non-technical people. WP:WMF is working on Wikipedia:VisualEditor but we need to get external developers and UX designers since our churn rate is greater than our buildup, and WMF is not dealing with it fast enough.
5. We need to start forcing WMF to become more agile and efficient in dealing with churn rate.

Anything else?

—Ahnoneemoos (talk) 03:57, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

It'd be better if we could get more people to watch the page already set up for that (the AfC help desk I think?).

One way to lower the wait time would be to set up a policy of a speedy decline based on either formatting or lack of sources, i.e. if the article doesn't use any formatting (meaning ==title==, <ref> etc.) or has no references (by virtue of not having any of these: <ref> {{citeweb}} {{cite}} etc. the MediaWiki software would not allow the AfC submission to be created until sources are added.

I'm not really sure how this would work, but most of us don't have the time to 'not be robotic', especially if it's expected that we welcome every single editor.

I agree its complicated, but it really isn't. At the top, it clearly has a B for bold, an I (in italics) for italics, a help menu with literally EVERY wikicode we use, and more. If we decide the WMF isn't acting fast enough, we need a large consensus of en.wikipedia editors to convince them to go faster. There are also already some visual editors out there already, just google "Wikipedia visual editor software" and I'm sure some will come up.

Just my ideas :) gwickwire^talk_edits 04:07, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

In regard to wikicode...You guys might not remember, but there was a significant amount of grief when Microsoft dropped DOS when they started XP. I think the number of editors who are attracted to Wikipedia just because of the archaic nature of wikicode might be much larger than you believe. Some of us actually like that stuff! Gtwfan52 (talk) 07:40, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Also in regards to wikicode, it's a lot easier for me to just type blahblah to make italics than it is to type blahblah and then go find some crap at the top of the window to make it italic. There's already a lot of help in the four tabs at the top of the edit window to help users, if they choose not to read it it's not our problem. We don't need to change to fit their needs, they need to read the neatly organized table under the |> Help dropdown at the top of the edit window. gwickwire^talk_edits 18:33, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Project proposal

Hi, I started a draft project proposal regarding targeted recruitment of contributors with expertise and resources, which I believe relates to the scope of this WikiProject. If you have any comments or suggestions, please provide feedback here. --ELEKHH^T 01:29, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Rolling Ball

Hello,

I have created a new page called WP:Rolling Ball. It shall be a friendly place where experienced as well as new editors can freely discuss topics on Wiki. Everyone is invited and welcome to join the Group. You presence shall also be much appreciated.

You may join by adding your name to the list here. We are currently trying to hold all discussions on the Hang Out Zone. We would love to have some feedback from you at the talk page. Should you join, please also watchlist/keep an eye on the Hang Out Zone, so you can be aware of all the discussions that are going on.

Cheers, TheOriginalSoni (talk) 05:04, 20 January 2013 (UTC)