Does anyone else think the complexity of the markup is an explanation declining editorship?
I agree with the above editor's comments. People who are accustomed to the user friendliness of today's high-tech devices are highly unlikely to be drawn to an environment where you have to place three apostrophes before and after a word to make it bold. There's simply no way Mac-savvy 20-somethings who were weaned on wordprocessing and PlayStations are going to find that cool. Without an easier-to-use interface, Wikipedia can only look forward to a continuing drop-off in participation.
I also support the Foundation's efforts to encourage a more welcoming approach to newcomers and a healthier culture among veterans. I would note, however, that even with an improved IU, the seriousness and tedium of what we do will remain so. If there has been a decline in general friendliness, part of that has to be related to the fact that we as editors have raised the bar in terms of what's acceptable for "publication". Yes, there's a nice way to tell somebody their edit sucks, but it still amounts to rejection. Furthermore, contributions by newcomers and casual visitors create a backlog of work that is impossible to keep up with. For example, a random, valid drop-in in an article can take anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour to verify and cleanup. While I prefer that to simply ripping out unsourced entries, I also know that I'm taking time away from larger, more productive, more interesting matters.
What I'm getting at is that the Foundation needs to consider that to maintain quality, standards must be enforced (which is not the reality now in regards to verifiability). However, if you require people to provide a source for the information they want to add, now you've put up a barrier to recruitment. But just to give one example of the possibilities, it would not be unreasonable to require editors to provide a source for what they add, and we could make the requirement more friendly by providing a form that might even allow something as lame as "I saw it on television." Then the software could ask them, "What station?"
Of course, this is one of the recommendations of the study and a new WYSYWYG editor is being created; so it is apparent that everyone agrees this is a big problem that can be resolved.
Aye, Imersion is right this is a big priority of the Foundation. You can see some of the ideas on the Product Whitepaper and the Strategic Plan (I think there is something more specific about it.. I'm going too look around ) but it's definitely a priority.
Thanks for the responses. I'm very happy to hear a WYSIWYG is in the works. Allreet 21:40, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
"IU"? Hm. A good example of why folks are turned off. Let's see . . . ah, I know! IU=IntraUterine! But what does that have to do with Wikipedia? Or WP, as we call it? Oh, by the way, what does "Bump this thread" mean? Questioningly, your pal,