I’m sure every regular contributor on wikiHow has read an article before that was of particularly high quality, but, after a recent addition made to the article by an inexperienced editor, the quality temporarily dropped in terms of grammar and/or punctuation. However, the rest of the article following that addition was back up to the previous high quality. A good example of this would be where a contributor might add “. and then mix well i find it helps.” to one of the steps, then they write a whole new step of similar low quality, and then they add in a tip. In RC Patrol, a less experienced editor might read an edit, find it pertains to the article, and then patrol it. Or maybe the editor is experienced and they’re just trying to work down the backlog and revert all vandalism ASAP. What I propose is that those editors who find using the Quick Edit button to fix up the content is not opitmum for their situation could check a box next to the patrol button labeled “Mark edit for future improvement” or something of the sort. By clicking patrol with this box checked, the edit would be patrolled through RC, but it would also be added to a queue for the “Edit Booster” tool. Within the Edit Booster tool, contributors could see a view of each article with the edit needing improvement highlighted, similarly to the spellchecker tool. A person using the tool could either skip that edit or fix (boost) the edit. In an even more interactive/dynamic fashion, clicking on a particular step/tip/warning would open that single one to an editing mode, leaving the rest of the article around it in regular reading form. This kind of tool would ensure the preservation of quality on wikiHow. Low quality edits that are patrolled and forgotten about build up over time, reducing the overall quality of wikiHow’s articles. Also, seeing a sudden low-quality piece of an article you’re reading gives a bad impression and may cause some readers to receive the misconception that allowing anyone to edit is not such a good idea.
Or…extend the QG tool or Edit by Topic tool to include edits that are marked for future improvement.
It wouldn’t be the OG tool, as it’s based on voting, and the Edit by Topic is designed for (including its name) making edits to articles by topic.
@WikiRicardo
I don’t see why we can’t just use the quick edit button, or click “page history” to open a new tab where you can access the article. The quick edit is perfectly fine, in my opinion, and the great thing is you can fix other problems in the article while you’re there. This adds to the fact that we should already be doing stuff like this, but I’m sure someone is going to disagree. Just my thoughts.
It is a good idea, but as Rosejuice said, we should be using the Quick Edit button. The option of quick editing or skipping should be publicized more, I agree. But what makes you think these patrollers would even use this button? You said a low-experience patroller would find this edit pertains to the topic, so they would patrol it. Regardless of the button, the patroller would find it is not off-topic or vandalism, and ignoring quality, would patrol the edit still.
Agree. Also, that’s why we have coaches. If a person accepts the vandalism and enough of it, their edits will get rolled back by the Patrol Coach. Also, admins patrol every patrol (to make top quality and to also help coach). If someone makes a bad edit, the admin will know and will be able to send the editor a note. If a bad edit gets in that way, which I hope wouldn’t, then someone with wikiHow knowledge could revert that (put it back into the patrol thing) and coach. And as Tiagoroth said:
Yeah; there’s no telling what an unexperienced patroller will do. That’s why I think coaching and having them learn from their patrol mistakes is the best way to go. (; I think that’s what I did. =O June Days
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Hm… “Edit Booster” is a fine new way of saying “Quick edit while patrolling” if you ask me!
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I don’t know what you mean by “Admins patrol every patrol”, admins don’t patrol edits that are marked as patrolled by any other patroller, and that probably yields a very low percentage of total patrolled edits, since admins make up a very small percentage of the general wikiHow population, and many are inactive or only moderately active. The tool described sounds like a reasonable go-between to use where a “quickedit” would involve a substantial edit (in general, I use the quickedit to fix grammar or spelling, or to remove something that doesn’t look right), but usually only in the content displayed in the edit summary. Often, it is easier to revert the edit to an earlier revision, provided we are not throwing out too much of the “baby” (good new content) with the bathwater. I would even venture to guess, if we are not rushing through patrols trying to overcome a backlog, that anywhere from 15-30% of the RC queue’s content really could benefit from a dose of quickediting.
