-------------------Beginning of *another* rant (I’m on a roll, am I?)--------- As I was NABbing today, I noticed the new part of the welcome message: " If you’re looking for something to do, fixing spelling mistakes and answering requests are great ways to start!" I couldn’t disagree with this addition more. First of all, when I’m patrolling, I have to rollback edits a ton because of people, especially new users, are using the Spell Checker tool incorrectly. Not that they mean to, but there are lots of abbreviations and such that despite being correct, are counted as errors and are “fixed” by mostly newer users in the Spell Checker tool. Second, a lot of new users’ articles are NFD’s/low quality, and since (A) there is a huge NAB backlog and (B) wikiHow follows Quality over Quantity, the last thing we should be doing is encouraging new users to write articles. -------------------End of rant--------------------------------------------------------------- Maybe I’m exaggerating, but just thought I’d share my thoughts with the wikiHow community
system
2
<3 it! Thanks for sharing your idea with the community here on the forums, I support it!
system
3
I added those two links to the welcome message as an experiment, to see if new contributors like diving into an activity
As for your concerns, I can understand that, but it’s important to remember that we are an inclusive wiki that encourages people to be bold and edit, and we never discourage people from trying something just because they might make mistakes. The beauty of a wiki is that mistakes are okay, not only because they can be reversed, but also because people can learn from their mistakes, and the feedback they receive. Teaching new contributors how to use our tools is part of being a member of the wikiHow community. If our goal was to prevent mistakes from being made, we would restrict everything and have tests for every tool and you know what? People would still make mistakesIf someone keeps making the same mistakes over and over again, though, they need to be coached! I know that can be hard to do sometimes, so if you struggle in coaching someone, please feel free to drop me a note and let me know what they are doing wrong, so I can gently encourage them in the right direction. Above all, let’s remember to assume good faith, and let’s also remember that wikiHow is open, and that’s why many people are here, because they can dabble and try different things and learn as they go along. One more thing - While a lot of newbies do make mistakes, a lot of them do wonderful things too!
One of the reasons that those were added, was for statistics.
system
6
I don’t have too much to say on here that hasn’t already been said, but can the Spell Checker Tool not check the image coding? Because I’m finding things like this
where the user changed the image coding because it wasn’t a word.
Love2
7
Always see edits like it while patrolling
I think the best way for new editors to start is voting on Quard Quality
@Love2
then we can forget about quality! lol ! but the present scenario is such that you don’t get any images in quality guardian because no one uses image picker. @Everyone
how about giving them admin jobs! We are closing soon… Let people choose things on there own free will and contribute nicely because what if a forced user is not good at that application.
Love2
9
@Genius_knight
Not really. Quard Quality is much better than the spell checker tool. Our votes will be counted with them. Also, new editors aren’t that bad. While patrolling, I saw a new editor doing amazing job using the spell checker tool.
I don’t entirely agree with this idea, but I don’t entirely disagree, either. I think that we need to give new editors some activities to try right off the bat. If they take the wikiHow Tour, they could get a few ideas, but I like the idea of giving them a few direct links to make things a bit easier. If spell-check and answering requests are causing major issues, why don’t we suggest another set of activities that are a bit more ‘harmless’? Or give them a link to the Community Dashboard perhaps? Like Krystle and Love2 mentioned above, not all newbies are bad. They just need a place to start, and a bit of coaching. Looking back at my first edits and articles here litterally makes me want to facepalm. They were horrible. I don’t think I really knew what wikiHow was, or what good articles look like, and I’m sure there are tons of new users out there who feel the same way. However, with some help from various admins and other users, I became a thousand times better than I was when I was new. In my opinion, we need to encourage newbies to do something
. Even if they start off terribly and need some help (like I did), that doesn’t mean that they’re not going to get better and eventually make good-quality edits here.
Love2
11
I agree. I didn’t even know what is wikiHow when I first joined. We shouldn’t judge new editors just because they are new. We should be a bit patient with them. We have to keep telling them “Edits like that didn’t improve that article” with explaining why.
It may be a bit time-consuming (and for some of us, annoying) to fix the mistakes of our newer users, but that’s all part of the challenge. It simply can’t be too easy to create the biggest, best, and highest-quality how to manual. I think it’s great that newer users are being pointed at our gigantic request pile - that’s a number I think needs to go down considerably, and if people that just signed up are willing and able to say at least something on the subject the request pertains to, power to them. My only concern is the spell checker. In fact, that is my concern even apart from new users. I think there’s only a few people that realize that not everything needs to be “fixed” to match the whitelisted words - even a few of our older users haven’t figured out how to best use it yet. Why do we need it again?
Love2
13
Right. Some users just remove the codes because they aren’t words.
Oliver
14
