Proposal:A "be bold" campaign

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The status of this proposal is:
Request for Discussion / Sign-Ups

This proposal is associated with the bolded strategic priorities below.


  1. Achieve continued growth in readership
  2. Focus on quality content
  3. Increase Participation.
  4. Stabilize and improve the infrastructure
  5. Encourage Innovation



This is a featured proposal.
This template automatically categorizes into Category:Featured proposals. All proposals marked by this template should be on this list too.

Summary

Many people are afraid of editing pages, I remember, when I was less involved in the project, spotting mistakes and only reporting them in the discussion page instead of editing the article myself, and I'm afraid that attitude is shared by many readers (some who wouldn't even dare to report something on the discussion page). I only started to be less fearful when I registered and discovered the "be bold" page.

Discuss the Summary section: Thread:Proposal talk:A "be bold" campaign/Summary discussion.

Proposal

A "be bold" or "don't hesitate" (or anything in the same vein) campaign to entice people not to hesitate too much when they spot a mistake or anything that doesn't seem good in an article. I was thinking of some kind of banner or something, like those that we currently have concerning the registration for Wikimania 2009 (with a bigger font and maybe a picture), or those used when wikimedia was raising funds, that would be displayed at the top of every page.

Alternatively, and slightly less conspicuously (especially for established users), the small "make a donation" links displayed only to anonymous editors can be repurposed. It might be far more beneficial to solicit small editing contributions than financial ones; time instead of money.

Discuss the Proposal section: Thread:Proposal talk:A "be bold" campaign/Proposal section discussion.

Motivation

To encourage more readers to edit and improve articles.

Risks

The risk of this inciting people to commit more vandalism is low: everyone is aware that the site is editable, some people are just afraid to modify anything and these aren't the vandals ... However there is a risk that more people might edit pages without being aware of the wikipedia policies and thus break crucial rules such as that of neutrality, verifiability, or that of "no original research".

Discuss the Risks section: Thread:Proposal talk:A "be bold" campaign/Risks section discussion.

Key questions

  • What would the exact motto be?
  • What would the logo of the campaign be? (associating an image to this would be a good idea).
  • Does protection and semi-protection of visible articles significantly hinder the ability of anons to edit?
    • Can they be directed to the talk page in such instances?

Potential costs

Basically none.

References

Community discussion

Do you have a thought about this proposal? A suggestion? Discuss this proposal by going to Proposal Talk:A "be bold" campaign.

Want to work on this proposal?

  1. Gaeser 07:06, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
  2. Sandeepsp4u 04:33, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
  3. Azam Ishaque 17:19, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
  4. Clavier 06:12, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
  5. Vibhijain 10:03, 6 May 2011 (UTC)