Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-09-24/Recent research


 * Is "weening" a typo for "weaning" or is it really the archaic term meant to mean "to think or imagine"? Shyamal (talk) 17:04, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
 * You have spotted a very prominent typo unfortunately! Renklauf (talk) Wed Sep 26 19:10:01 UTC 2012 —Preceding undated comment added 19:29, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
 * This report is full of glaring typos and grammatical errors. Perhaps the authors should have copyedited it before publishing it. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:11, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I would regard "full of" as somewhat exaggerated, but yes, some parts didn't really get copyedited before publication, due to lack of time. I think I can speak for the Signpost's copy-editing team in saying that copyeditors are always welcome - check Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom for sections that are marked "needs copyedit", during the run-up to publication (currently around Monday or early Tuesday UTC). Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 12:58, 27 September 2012 (UTC)


 * "They suggest Wikipedia editors ... build tools that aid in identifying and supporting desirable newcomers." Sounds great. Has anyone ever tried to do anything like that? Can we make a bot that goes through new editors' article contributions looking for patterns matching additions with references and handing out robo-encouragement? &mdash; Cup co  21:23, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I like that idea. We should pursue this. Note that this can also be done manually through active wikiprojects; for WP:POLAND I review new articles weekly, and I leave some semi-templates thank you notes for creators of good articles (usually advising them they may want to DYK them), and/or inviting them to join our wikiproject. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 19:03, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Please show support at BOTREQ because an auto-welcome bot is a perennial proposal which is generally thought to be a bad idea, but looking, for example, for new editors who have added a &lt;ref> tag in at least two edits as I suggested to get started, is a substantially different thing than simply welcoming all new accounts and IPs. &mdash; Cup co  19:21, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Have a look at Volunteer Fire Department. -- llywrch (talk) 22:49, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * That seemed to be able handling server load issues, not trying to identify the best new editors. &mdash; Cup co  23:25, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Sigh. I guess there is no active Wikipedian left who remembers this group -- & I don't consider myself very active. The Volunteer Fire Department's purpose was to welcome new members & help them adapt to Wikipedia. An early article describing Wikipedia & its culture singled out the VFD as an important group for that reason; many online communities have disintegrated when they were overrun by people who wanted to turn the sites into their own playgrounds or otherwise subvert their intended purpose. Until late 2003, Wikipedia ran on a grand total of three computers, so the arrival of even a few dozen new members in 24 hours would cause significant server load issues. -- llywrch (talk) 16:40, 28 September 2012 (UTC)


 * The problem of first-time editors having their edits reverted is a real problem. There are a number of topic areas in Wikipedia, not all of them seemingly that controversial, in which groups of established editors are resistant to any changes being made to that topic's articles, and revert almost all changes or additions on sight.  Wikipedia probably should make it clearer that reverts, including single ones, are subject to sanction if the editor who did the revert made no effort to correct, discuss, or improve the edit in question. Cla68 (talk) 00:26, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * If the average quality of a "newbie" contribution is, say, 0.5 on a scale of 0–1, then, as the average quality of all articles surpasses that value (whatever it actually is), then the number of newbie reverts must go up, as desired. I think what we're seeing is just natural behavior. (I didn't read the article yet, though; I just found this discussion via a more recent one here)  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅contribs ⋅dgaf)  16:40, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Where to post? - on-topic possible partial explanaton
Where should I post this info on a possible partial explanaton of part of this article's topic? ParkSehJik (talk) 17:40, 2 December 2012 (UTC)