Excellent resolution. Implementing it will be a complex task

Fragment of a discussion from Talk:May 2011 Update

Yes, the shear weight of policies and guidelines is utterly overwhelming for new editors. Even most "welcome" templates contain a frightening number of links to "rules" pages for the newbie. Trying to teach newbies how not to get bitten can be just as off-putting as actually getting bitten. Excuse the anectodal evidence, but my sister once expressed a wish to write an article for Wikipedia, and knowing that I am a regular contributor, came to me for advice. She is an English Literature graduate and could probably have written many excellent articles for Wikipedia. I ran through all the things that one should do to get an article through the outer defences, and after patiently listening to all that, she walked from Wikipedia and never came back.

We need to find a way to allow new editors to work in safety without the continual risk of being clobbered with warnings and templates, or the need to learn lots of rules right from day one. Here's a suggestion, when a new editor attempts to create a new page, before actually committing it, offer the newbie (through some automated process) the opportunity to create it in userspace instead with a very brief summary of the benefits on screen. At some later stage, perhaps when the article reaches a certain size, or when attempting to move it to mainspace, offer the newbie an opportunity to have it reviewed by a more experienced editor.

The basic idea is to let the newbie learn the rules in a gradual way at their own pace. This way they may not even realise they have been learning anything - it just happens naturally by osmosis. Spinningspark 11:02, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Spinningspark11:02, 8 May 2011