Wikipedia Wants Me

[unfilthy]

I love Wikipedia. It's not perfect, but I love what it stands for, and I love what it's trying to achieve. I'm also very interested in issues surrounding intellectual property, copyright laws, users' rights, public domain, and the tremendously powerful lobby that is set on retaining the rights to our entire culture in perpetuity, so the decision to

Comments

[lea724]

I wish I had something grandiose and pithy to add, but all I can say is bravo for attempting to navigate the waters. I tried once to edit an entry in Wikipedia and I was stuck right away in whatever page they threw at me and I was very confused about how I should continue so I gave up.

[unfilthy]

I wish I had something grandiose and pithy to add

That's my natural state of being...

I do have are occasional outbursts of words that I have to let out in order to avoid brainplosions. Also, now that the conference is (mostly) over, I think I have at least one more wiki-related entry in me. Then I really need to do a personal post, because it's been way too long, but there's a beach party I have to go to first. :D

[ijon]

Try again! Wikipedians got a little better at explaining their culture as time went by.

Specifically, make use of various "incubator" or "greenhouse" pages where particularly-friendly Wikipedians are happy to guide newbies gently on their first steps in Wikipedia. If you tell me what language you'd like to edit, I'll send you the exact link.

[lea724]

Thanks! I'd be editing in English.

Great recap

[ext_734928]

Great recap. I was at WikiMania too. It's fascinating. They really want new people, they're trying to get them, trying to understand ... but the insiders can't understand how unfriendly the system is to outsiders. I was at the session where they discussed the Incubator program that Russian Wikipedia is trying. They showed how friendly it was to newbies. I couldn't believe it. "That's user friendly?!" I kept asking myself. So ironic that an organization whose primary value is inclusiveness and helping everybody edit is so difficult for most outsiders. Despite the best intentions of the organizaton's leaders.

Re: Great recap

[unfilthy]

Thanks :)

I found it interesting that Jimmy Wales was the only one who seemed to actually have a sense of what it must be like to be a Wikipedia newbie. The examples he used in his State of The Wiki talk certainly echoed my own experiences, but his understanding of the issues involved doesn't seem to filter down as effectively as I would've expected.

BTW, I'm glad to see that you managed to post with a Twitter ID. I tried to allow anonymous replies on this post, but it turns out that I can't do that unless I allow anonymous comments on my entire journal. :-/

[amire80]

Wikipedia wants you-you. And it's not just a slogan. Let me explain.

What you describe are indeed painful and well-known usability problems in our human interface. We are working on it gradually. For example, the structure of the discussion pages is being completely redesigned - the software is already programmed and translated to many languages, but the testing and the deployment take more time than planned. It is quite possible to edit Wikipedia despite these shortcomings, but that's not an excuse for neglecting to fix them.

You have good attention to detail and ability to describe problems well. These abilities are very valuable in Wikipedia, because it means that you'll be able to write good detailed articles and describe software usability problems to developers who will be able to fix them.

I'll be very glad to help you get used to our still clunky interface. Please contact me at amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il .

[unfilthy]

Just got my computer back, but I'll definitely contact you. Thanks for your comment :)