You know how we have a “thumbs up”? Well I think we should have a thumbs down for bad edits. If a person accumulates more then 5 then they will be blocked for a amount of time. Tell me what you think!
system
2
I understand where you’re coming from, but I see two initial issues with this idea.
1) It may discourage new editors who aren’t editing in bad faith. What if you joined a website and the first notice you got was a banner announcing that an edit you thought was helpful had been “thumbs down”? With new registered users who haven’t recieved a welcome message, I usually include a {{test}} (and a {{welcome}}) for a bad edit. A {{warning}} is a bit harsh for an edit that isn’t particularly cruel or “on purpose”, especially with someone who took the time to create an account. I dunno if that’s just me, but having once been a semi-active anon editor, I want to assume good faith with everyone. 2) The blocking thing- again, a edit that deserves a {{test}} could get a “thumbs down”, and this confused editor tries to help out again and again, only to be punished with no explanation at all, just a banner announcing their mistake. And eventually blocked, again with no immediate reasoning… all of a sudden, they just can’t make edits (or however a block works). We might lose some potentialliy helpful editors that way! I’m only saying that when someone makes a bad, or even less than perfect edit, a message, and not just a banner or block, should be sent. Everyone deserves an explanation for their actions and especially for a block. IMHO.
Adding on to what Cece said, we dohave a “Couch for bad” button. Good coaching templates can be found here
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Maniac
4
Considering that our goal now is to coach users and help them become productive members of wikiHow, I don’t think essentially “punishing” them for their edits would be a good idea. Aside from that, right now you can give as many thumbs up to an editor as you want…so if we incorporated thumbs down in the same way, one editor could end up blocking as many users as they want simply by giving them thumbs down.
Perhaps the thumbs down should just be for effect - after all, that is how YouTube works.
As was said before, a thumbs down feature would be abused. A malicious editor could thumbs down every edit they review by someone who has gotten on their bad side.
That is also how YouTube works.
system
11
The wikiHow culture hinges very heavily on positive reinforcement. We only use negative feedback or punishment (such as rollbacks and blocking) as a very last resort, so we have deliberately avoided creating tools which make those things easier
