Defining quality

You know how Macdonalds, Coke, Nike, and so on, do promotion? They make it simple, easy, intuitive -- and plaster things (tastefully) wherever they can that channel people towards the ways that help that organization.

We're no different in a way. We want readers to be nudged to check out possible corrections and facts to cite, and we want to make that really easy and obvious... we want editors who write an article to have it made really simple and attractive to revisit it to get it one more notch up a crude quality number... and so on. The latter tool you link (AndyZ's) has real potential if it could prioritize the key issues and suggest them, and if it was made simple with an integrated interface thing that was "once click away" on each page. Every last article that's not GA/FA could have a little tasteful slow-blink icon saying "Improvements we want on this article", listing 2 or 3 selected improvements the article needed and a "Let's fix it!" button.

Do it that way, not as an editor gadget. That would get the wider public's involvement!

Sounds good - shall we endorse AndyZ tool as one of our recommendation for future development, per your description above? And KISS all the way, of course (incidentally, this is why I like Wizard 1.0 interface better compared to information overload in Wizard 2.0). --Piotrus 03:29, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

In some ways it seems that you are playing off of "branding," which is kind of where I have been going with my comments about framework and consistency. I am going to upload a branding document that may help us with consistency. It harkens back to "what is Wikipedia growing up to be?" When someone understands the brand, all else falls into place.

Ok, Help! How do I post a graphic here?

Upload a file, then include as usual ([[media:Filename.jpg|right|thumb|200px|Description]] should do it). if you can't upload here then ask for help from whoever runs this wiki, or upload it to commons and hope through-links work :)

thanks but that assumes I have uploaded files in the past and know how to do it. I have never uploaded images to Wikipedia.

the fact that anyone on this team said they "hope xxx works" is a huge statement about reliability factors on Wikipedia. that is a quality statement right there.

thanks FT2.

this interface should allow for us to easily share information, as noted below in the PAGE thread, this isnt working for me.

Sorry, figured anyone here would probably be a long term user and likely have that experience. Quick guide (it's easy enough):

1. There's an option, "Upload file", on the sidebar to the left. Click it.
2. Choose the file to upload, and the name to give it (often the same, but you can change it). Give a brief description -- on the major reference wiki's there's a lot to go here, but for this one a brief note will do.
3. Click the button to upload it.
4. The image will appear once uploaded, on a "File:" page, eg "File:Mypicture.jpg".
5. Include it as follows (simple usage):

• To include full size: [[File:Mypicture.jpg]] (As simple as that)
• To inclue it as a small "thumbnail" with a caption, that can be clicked for the full image: [[File:Mypicture.jpg|thumb|position|size|This is my picture.]]
  where position is left/center/right, size is usually in pixels (enter as 200px, 400px, etc) and the rest is a caption.

Hope that helps.

Branding, yes. If you think about the essence of (one aspect of) branding, it's to make life simple for users, who see conceptually similar thuings that look similar, are familiar and "known", etc. A number of branding truisms also apply to the work we do, in the sense we want to reach out and attract people and then guide them into best ways (if they choose). So yes, a lot in common. Not via "visual image" or graphical design, but philosophically.

Branding actually goes a lot further than that. While branding may simplify the user experience as far as choices, branding is actually how a thing exists in the mind of the user. Brand is NOT a physical image. The graphic I wished to upload that I sent you actually explains the complexity of brand. What we are talking about here is really about what Wikipedia is, and thus how it does what it does, because how Wikipedia does what it does is a reflection of the Wikipedia brand.

In truth, we cannot have a conversation about quality without starting the conversation with brand.

Because "Branding" is a word with strong connotations/meanings, it can confuse a discussion. Would you be okay using terms such as expectation and perception, which I think cover what you're talking about, rather than branding which tends to imply the visual design identity.

Actually I would prefer other people understand what the word "brand" really means rather than use expectation/perception because brand is not encompassed by either/both concepts. I am not talking about expectation and perception, I am talking about what something IS and how the IS drives the what something DOES. In this case, Wikipedia is the something. An IS is not necessarily visual. Brand is intangible but is expressed through that which is tangible, whether it be a mark/logo, or the way customer service responds to a customer or the way that a user experiences Wikipedia (not necessarily tangible but could be.) I have uploaded the graphic, if you need me to explain it, please ask.

for some reason my message asking for help uploading a graphic didn't show up. Help. :)

It would be a fork with a similar concept. Used differently, coded differently, adaptable to different projects, highlighting and prioritizing and scoring issues, not just noting them, and feeding other processes that would live feed, notify them to users, allow editors to be notified when filtered types of edits were of interest on a page they viewed, etc. I wouldn't make this alone "a recommendation". I'd bundle the concept it's part of all together as one concept package (when we finalize our ideas) and say "this package of stuff that works together is recommendation #1".

But our final conclusions will probably be reshaped quite a lot between now and then.