Improving the newcomer experience

I appreciate that this is a goal for all WMF projects, improve the newcomer experience, make it easier for them to edit, etc. Issues have arisen in the past where attempts to make things "easier" for newcomers, have lead to it being harder for experienced, long-in-the-tooth editors to get their job done. As an example, I'd go for the vector skin. When it was bought in, people couldn't find stuff, the watchlist was hidden under a symbol copied from a web browser (whose smart idea that was, I don't know), and things that you knew where to find, suddenly weren't there anymore.

I don't frankly mind what you do to help newcomer editors to the wikis, I think it should be a good thing. But you need to clearly make sure the changes to help the newcomers, don't affect those of us who already know how to use the software, what we can do, where we can find it and how we put it to use.

Oh, and Sue, try to use "newcomer" instead of Newbie, a lot of people find that word slightly grinding :)

I can't help but feel that part of the problem of retaining newcomers (I also add my plea not to use the apalling word "newbies") is the downright aggressive and unfriendly attitude of a small number of experienced editors. We can all name a few! Often their interaction with newcomers is little short of bullying, their behaviour patronising, rude and overbearing, when what is really needed is a gentle push in the right direction, a kind word or two, and maybe a pointer to good examples of what the newcomer is trying to do.

It would also help if some of those experienced editors realised that, even five years on, most editors are still learning, and haven't magically learnt about every naming convention and, surprising though it may seem, haven't quite got round to memorising the Manual of Style word for word!

Well, some of us who are experienced editors are likewise the victims of "downright aggressive and unfriendly attitude of a small number of experienced editors" -- although I might disagree with referring to them as "experienced". Unfortunately, any policy worded to deal with this specific problem ends up being abused by other editors with an agenda -- I speak from experience.

And getting one volunteer to provide a "gentle push" -- & no more -- to another is a perennial issue. If you can provide a successful solution, please share!

Lastly, don't sweat what the Manual of Style says; I've been a Wikipedia volunteer for over 8 years & still don't know what its says. Or cares. Despite what its advocates might think, it is still trumped by the policy "ignore all rules". That policy both excuses making beginner mistakes, & encourages everyone to follow common sense.

The rules are a tool to predict the behavior of other users who follow the rules. In a collaborative system like Wikipedia, predicting what other users will do is how we get our edits to stick.

If someone does not care whether their edits will stick, then they can safely ignore all rules.

Reading the friendly manuals is not the only way to learn the rules. We can (and do) also learn by observing the behavior of other users. Watching what people do helps us predict what they will do next.

Having detailed manuals actually makes Wikipedia more open because it allows any new user, who will make the effort to read the rules, to predict the behavior of other users almost as well as an experienced user. That is, most people who are capable of learning Wikipedia will learn it faster by reading the rules, in addition to learning by experience, than they will if they approach Wikipedia only by observation, trial, and error. This allows newcomers to get on an even footing with established users as quickly as they want to. When rules are not in writing, then experience becomes an extremely powerful advantage, which the new user cannot overcome quickly.

It's the same with almost any knowledge domain. For example, you can learn science a lot faster by reading science books in addition to observing nature. When humans learned science the first time, before they could just read about it, the learning took centuries.

Computer programmer types tend to understand this - anyone who has coded in several computer languages understands the fastest way to learn a complex new system is to read the friendly manuals. The manuals on Wikipedia are the best I have ever seen for any complex system. So it could be a lot worse.

This is a great thread. There seems to be a lot of support for "Improving the newcomer experience," "Improving the experienced editor experience," and starting off by referring to newcomers with some respect, which includes not calling them "newbies." (It brings to mind: New? Bye!)

All these "downright aggressive and unfriendly attitudes" seem to be dispensed with largess and abandon by "a small number of "experienced" editors" (not to mention the Foundation CEO :-) I regret not to be familiar with "any policy worded to deal with this specific problem" and how and/or why it/they ended up "being abused by other editors with an agenda."

It is also stated, and it's easy to accept, that "getting one volunteer to provide a "gentle push" -- & no more -- to another is a perennial issue." Therefore, there is an apparent need to "provide a successful solution" and share it.

Is it possible that the following statement will be generally, if not universally, accepted?

"An experienced editor is not necessarily a great communicator."

That might help sort out a lot of things. If it is recognized that by becoming an experienced editor one does not acquire any other human, much less godlike qualities, it might be easier to steer the right people in the right directions. Some of you might even know and/or recognize from experience that some newcomers might be the best communicators to other newcomers. A whole new way of doing things opens up.

The statement above applies to many other human qualities. Not quite in jest, being founder or co-founder, is not synonym of being a know it all. We must never loose sight of our own humanity. Otherwise, we may never be able to see others as brothers in our common humanity. Hey! I'm not saying you have to hug and kiss them all, all the time. Don't you have any brothers and sisters, even of the not the same blood type? Right. That's what I mean. No need to exaggerate.

Sincerely,

Virgilio A. P. Machado

I agree, the first step in improving the newcomer experience should be to drop the use of the word newbie.

But beware the euphemism treadmill. Whatever temporarily sanitized label we invent for newbies, it will in turn take on exactly the same connotations eventually, and we will have to invent a new sanitized label, and so on.

Two immediate problems: impenetrably confusing help system/files, and politically correct despotism in enforcing consensus over facts and good grammar.

The single most important change that can be made to ease the newcomer experience is to rationalise and condense the bewildering and shambolic help file system. No topic is ever contained in a single location - not even summaries and then links to progressive granularity of detail. Searching the help files is counter-intuitive, throwing thousands of irrelevant results back at you unless you already know what you're looking for by its precise, inevitably Wikijargonised name.

Worse, the repeated mentions of using common sense, of Wikipedia not being a democracy, and about being bold in taking risks come to naught when well-intentioned but authoritarian 'senior' editors act as some kind of Wikistapo in enforcing consensus when what's at issue is fact or grammar, which have their own internal rules that are not subject to democratic votes, or to a corporatist consensus model that has more in common with fascism than the quest for accuracy and excellence.

A case in point: trawl through the growing number of articles about Soviet history, especially those rated Good Articles, and tell me truthfully whether the standard of English used in most of them isn't appalling, and the tactics of the more petulant, precious authors in presenting their own particular sources to the exclusion of carefully referenced alternatives aren't ideologically repugnant. And yet 'experienced' Wikieditors stave off dissent and approve these articles as good examples!!!

It seems to me that rationalising help content is a purely mechanical task that should be easy, if time-consuming, for a group of serious contributors with some experience in information management to undertake as a special project.

The second problem I describe, about despotism, does not have as easy an answer. The level of politically correct, ideologically driven, concessions to special interests comes at the expense of pluralism: it is often the case that multiple, possibly conflicting sources may be necessary to provide accurate information. To demand pedantically that there is only one way of interpreting events and actions, particularly overtly political ones, is to undermine neutrality. And finally, to allow ungrammatical expression and language so ungraceful it wouldn't pass a high-school exam is to ignore that the less clear language is about intended meaning, the more likely it is that the author can deliberately or inadvertently distort meaning, and therefore even the intentions of those refrenced in citations.

If senior Wikipedia editors are so beholden to warm and fuzzy good intentions in surrendering to demands for publication and 'promotion' to GA or FA status that they can no longer recognise absence of clarity in written English, Wikipedia is irreperably damaged. The solution? Less enforced consensus (ie despotism) by those who think they know better, and more attention to rationality of argument and contribution. Rule books are good indicators, but can never replace rational assessment under specific circumstances. Peterstrempel 03:35, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia's help files are the best I have ever seen for any comparably complex system. I'd be curious to know what you are comparing them to. Reading them is hard work, to be sure, but what other comparably complex and powerful system is any easier to learn? To see some dreadful manuals, browse through the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network.

We can always make Wikipedia's manuals better. Anyone is free to write the "summaries and then links to progressive granularity of detail" you suggest. We might make the manuals easier to search by recording the search keywords that new users try when they are trying to find some wikijargonized topic whose name they don't know yet. On the Help desk, for example, I've noticed that questioners seem to use every word but "article" when they mean "article" (such as entry, profile, topic, file, wiki, site, ...). We could embed lists of keyword synonyms on our manual pages to make them visible to search, but not visible to readers which would encourage synonym disease.

Have you seen The Missing Manual? Unlike the manuals proper, that book provides a structured introduction to editing on Wikipedia.

I agree that exhortations to boldness, when directed toward newcomers, produce the same results as we saw in the opening battle sequence of Saving Private Ryan in which soldiers boldly got chopped to bits by machine guns. Boldness should only be in proportion to one's knowledge of the arcane rules.