Wikipedia rambling (new page patrolling, editing for quality instead of quantity)

Jan 02, 2010 20:58

New page patrolling has been interesting -- I get to do a lot of research on schools and whatever catches my eye -- but challenging in dealing with new editors. I find it tricky to diplomatically word things like "I see that you recently published a book on local history, but in the interest of verifiable sources it would be appreciated if you could add references to the cartload of article stubs you are creating with no references other than your book."

...

I still enjoy categorizing uncategorized pages the most, but new page patrolling finds them before the handful of Wikipedians who put broad categories on articles in order to increase the quantity of their edits see them in the uncategorized section. It sounds petty typed out, but an automated script could apply broad categories without improving the page and it'd be about as accurate as some of the aforementioned handful. (I was mildly annoyed the other day by someone categorizing a school district article in the wrong state because their skimming stopped at "Town" instead of "Town, State". I understand the error, but that's lazy editing.)

030.285_wikipedia

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