Now that the Article Hatchery has taken it’s first step, which is to de-index new articles, I would like to see the following step taken. I would like for a bot to put the following friendly note on the talk page of the creator of each new article. I would like for this to happen at the time of article creation. Thanks for creating a new article here at wikiHow. Would you like to see that article become a publicly viewable article? If so, please contact (randomly chosen active editor) for guidance after you have read the wikiHow Writer’s Guide. Once the article has been verified as meeting wikiHow’s New Article Standard, it will become visible to the world at large. Please note that the main reason articles don’t meet wikiHow’s New Article Standard is that they are essential duplicates of articles already existing at wikiHow. An automated note of this type is crucial to helping new article creators fully understand that the burden of pushing the article through to public status falls primarily on the article creator.
MTSTS
3
Yes, KnowltSome, we need it
Looks good. My only concern is the “randomly chosen active editor” part. Would users be able to opt out of this random selection? Personally, I don’t mind being asked questions, but not all people may like being bombed with “review my article” requests from new users.
Opt out sounds good, @WritingEnhusiast14
@Alabaster
has a great idea about how to get the info to the New Article Creator. Pop up Message at time of article creation. This gives the greatest chance that the New Article Creator will see the message.
I’d love to see this act similar to the Welcome bot, where the message is sent by an active editor, in an “if-you-need-help-let-me-know” type of way. Maybe something like this?_Hey there! Thanks for helping and creating a new article here at wikiHow! Your article is now being reviewed and/or revised by more of our volunteer editors to ensure that it meets all of our quality standards. Once we confirm that you’re article is high enough quality, it will be published for the world to see! Check out our [[Writer’s Guide]] if you’re interested in editing the article more and making it even better. Thanks again for contributing here! Let me know if you need anything._I’d also agree with an opt out system as WE14 mentioned above. It should also be limited in such a way that users who have been around for years don’t get this message every time they write an article.
system
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Great ideas. There’s no reason we need to wait for a tool/bot either…we can start doing this today and see if this system can work. I’m wondering if we will have enough volunteer mentors who can coach the new authors who will be asking for help, since mentoring often involves a consistent time commitment. Let’s give it a go! I can send a message to all new accounts that created a new article in the past week, and instead of specifying the name of an active editor, they can ask for new article help on a page similar to this: http://www.wikihow.com/wikiHow_talk:Help-Team
Those who are interested in mentoring can put this page on their watchlist, pick out the people they want to mentor, remove those names from the list. That way, just like with the help team page, anyone can opt in/out as they please. This should give us some ideas about how this system is working, how to improve it, etc. How does this sound? If it sounds good, I can create the help page (or anyone else is welcome to). What should we call it? Hatch team?
I like the message, but as written above, it gives the misimpression that we are actually going to work on their article. This is not true. The entire reason for the article hatchery is to keep our few active editors from messing around with a lot of this new stuff that comes in so far below standard. I would modify @AndrewG1999
message to be more like this: Hey there! Thanks for helping and creating a new article here at wikiHow! That article may one day be reviewed and/or revised by more of our volunteer editors to ensure that it meets all of our quality standards. If that occurs, then once we confirm that the article is high enough quality, it will be published for the world to see! It is also possible that no one will see this new article any time soon. It’s possible that no one at wikiHow will ever come across that article. The best way to get that article through the process is to improve it yourself. Check out our [[Writer’s Guide]] if you’re interested in editing the article more and making it even better. Thanks again for contributing here! Let me know if you need anything.
I actually have some concerns with this version of the message. Although the message started out very good, (lets think I’ve just written an article as a brand new editor here (just for the sake of argument)). When you get down to “It is also possible that no one will see this …” What? That would definitely completely throw some new users’ impressions of wikiHow into a loop where they would potentially never come back. No one will want to hear that their article never will be seen or read. Everyone wants their articles read. Also, give the new editors a few more articles to read and use so they can make more and better contributions to their articles. Make sure these are visible so they can’t be missed! The “Thanks again for contributing here!” is a little weak in my point-of-view. Give the new writer a mentor upon their first article, and make sure their mentor knows how many people they are mentoring at the time so they know they can be expecting a person or two. (Also, could mentors have a way to either temporarily or permanently opt-out of mentoring people? (but that’s for a completely new discussion)). Otherwise, I’d have to really read this one better. Most of us who are in the “know”, know and understand why this is taking place, and it seems that too much information (again, my POV) is getting out and people will see this as controversial. I’ll try and see what becomes of my thoughts. Things need to be looked at and adjusted before anything goes into live place.
@Krystle
“Hatch Team” or “Hatchery Team” or “Hatchery Reviewing Team” (can’t really decide, as each one sounds better than the other before it) sounds really great, however, new writers need to know that where they can get additional help on the Help team, and also a clarification on the Help team that the Hatch team is a place to suggest their article be considered for live-viewing in my Point-of-view. Great idea, otherwise.
I remember when the informational forums post came past, their was some discussion put past every editor here. It was that the NABers, Admins will have ways to get their articles to stay out of the Hatchery. I fully support the idea that opting out (keeping their articles in the Hatchery) is a good idea. All NABers and Admins know what it takes to create publish really great articles. The idea was passed around that Featured Authors would have the ability to keep their articles out of the Hatchery. While I don’t feel this is a good idea for them necessarily, these rights for their articles could be obtained after they pass a test (or their articles get a second review to ensure their articles meet this “higher quality”. With featured authors having 5 Rising Stars, their no saying how many others are almost up to workable standards and that every article has achieved a point where these former “test articles” would cause a possibility that other lower-quality articles could seep through too. (Again, this is only my point of view). All-in-all, I feel that some members can be given unseen rights to have their articles not pass into the Hatchery. Try to prove me wrong, please. I don’t mind.
I agree the suggested wording I used above is not ideal. My main point is that we absolutely must not give writers the impression that there is some huge body of eager editors who have nothing better to do than to comb over every single new article and make it great while the writer of the new article goes about his business. Giving an article a good start is the responsibility of the creator of that article and the creator needs to be made aware of this.
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@KnowItSome
I completely agree. One of the reasons we have a huge NAB bottleneck is because that system puts the brunt of the editing work on a small set of volunteer editors. Our boosting superhero @ttrimm
can only do so much! With the new hatchery, there will be better filtering systems in place so that hopefully boosters can focus in on the articles that really just need that extra boost to be awesome. Articles like this: http://forums.wikihow.com/discussion/12435/boosting-opportunities-with-promising-articles-/p1
Maybe something like this? Hey there, Congrats! You created a new article on wikiHow. That’s awesome. Thanks so much for adding your knowledge to this epic how-to manual. Did you know you can help more people by making some improvements to your article? Every new article on wikiHow needs to be reviewed by an experienced editor before it can be found on search engines. If you’d like some help with figuring out what you need to do to your article to make it more public, just leave a link to your article for the Hatch Team: (link) Someone will get back to you with some ideas for what you can do to make the article more popular!
That’s good wording, @Krystle
. I would change the last word, though. Maybe useful is a better word here than popular. Also, let’s not call it “your article”. Let’s use wording more along the lines of “the article”. "If you’d like some help with figuring out what you need to do to “the article to make it more public, just leave a link to the article for the Hatch Team: (link)”
Um, okay. I could accept it, but I feel that we do not need to be paying for another bot.
What is the cost of a bot?
The only thing that a bot really “costs” is time.
Really? I thought I read something that said that “We don’t need to be paying for another bot”. Something like that at least.
Batreeq
19
I’ve run a bot on Wikia and it is absolutely free. You can run it using AWB or another program. Read my article for more info: http://www.wikihow.com/Download-and-Install-AutoWikiBrowser
system
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A bot only “costs” engineer time, which is always in scarce supply because we have a small team relative to other sites with as much content & traffic as ours
Great article @Batreeqah
! Did you write one on how to actually run a bot too?
