In patrolling new tips, there are so, so, so many bad tips to just one good tip added, and tens of thousands of tips to patrol. I have been wondering if the tip adder is such a good thing… Comments?
The tips patrol does help editors to know which tips are good and bad even when they are just editing an article. There are lots of bad tips (and sometimes 1,000’s) but some are helpful. That’s my opinion…
It seems to me that the cost-to-benefit ratio for tips creation and patrol is super high. That is, the amount of time spent per unit of helpful content is extraordinarily high. It is like spinning wheels on pavement and going nowhere. The activity dissipates effort and, almost certainly, the time expended might be more effectively spent actually improving articles. I would welcome suggestions from mobile users on alternative activities which might be more productive outlets for mobile users (or the most productive outlets). The positives:
- Tips creation engages editors who might otherwise not have a vested interest in wikiHow.
- Tips patrol is a training ground for new contributors.
I just think the same positives might be provided by other activities which improve the quality of wikiHow content more effectively and substantially for each unit of effort expended. Perhaps apps are appropriate.
I suppose Leah is right, but I also agree with Serendipitee… Are we going to sacrifice quality for a larger editting audience? (My opinion is that it is a toss-up between quality and quantity… And “Quality over quantity”…)
And like Serendipitee said, it is a great way for new contributors to practice minor edits. And sometimes, when we patrol tips, we end up adding a tip of our own that is very helpful as well.
I wish there was a way to make the Tips patrol app seem less hopeless. There’s what, 92,800 tips at the moment to be patrolled? It could be split up into categories; doing so might reduce how many tips we skip over.
If I am not mistaken, the tips patrol number has nearly doubled in the time @Rock20000
has been inactive (about three months). Additionally, many articles are already weighted with tip bloat and need a good pruning and consolidation. I would still like to hear suggestions as to how we might use the mobile user energy as a positive force that does not create a lot of unfulfilling, time consuming maintenance and sorting for the other members of the community.
True, I suppose… I want to see a RCP for mobile, though. I use the full site on my tablet, anx it is hard, but possible… It would be nice to see more mobile-freindly ools.
I feel inclined to somehow add the tip adder together with the patrol feature, or make it an option to see new tips that have been added, so patrollers can remove useless tips too. Just my two cents.
That is not a bad idea in my opinion.
