Submissions/Can a Straightforward Tool Help Editors and Newbies?

After careful consideration, the Programme Committee has decided not to accept the below submission at this time. Thank you to the author(s) for participating in the Wikimania 2014 programme submission, we hope to still see you at Wikimania this August.

Submission no. 5009

Title of the submission: Can a Straightforward Tool Help Editors and Newbies?

Type of submission (discussion, hot seat, panel, presentation, tutorial, workshop): Presentation

Author of the submission: Zakaria Oudrhiri

E-mail address: zack.wadghirigmail.com

Username: Zack

Country of origin: Morocco

Abstract: Wikipedia follows the path of a free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Its openness is what makes it rich in terms of material. However, in this openness lies its weakness. For the most part, Wikipedia has been criticized for its lack of reliability as an academic source of information and its vulnerability to vandalism.

So far, protecting pages and reverting edits were the actual tools to counter vandalism. Yet, the problem with reverting or pending edits is that the editor supervision can sometimes be biased or selective. Reverting is often a bad option in the case of interlacing quality edits and vandal edits accumulated after periods of non-revision. Increasing protection is not good for the benefit of an encyclopedia that anyone can edit either.

Rather, it makes more sense to make it easy for readers and first-time editors to understand the centrality of providing reliable sources for the reliability of Wikipedia itself, which will ultimately benefit experienced editors too, as this will decrease the significant amount of time spent on reverting for instance. Accordingly, the role of editors will be proofreading instead of judging what should or should not be published.

The image of Wikipedia as a reliable source is always damaged when the eye of a reader comes across an unreferenced article no one has paid attention to. The philosophy of openness in Wikipedia must be reconsidered as to serve the quality of the totality of the material presented to the audience, and the phrase anyone can edit Wikipedia is to be frankly expressed and understood as anyone can become an editor of Wikipedia and not anyone can make any edit.

To this end, this presentation will propose and discuss the development of a simple interface tool that can be easily implemented, as a gadget or extension, to encourage informed contributions and genuine editor engagement—with the hope of reducing the heavy liability of reverting/revising the edits of others, and promoting the reliability of the free encyclopedia.

Keywords: protecting, reverting, Flagged Revision, sources, tool

Track: Technology, Interface & Infrastructure

Length of session (if other than 30 minutes, specify how long): 30 Minutes

Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?: Yes

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Husky (talk) 11:01, 4 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 19:50, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Sjgknight (talk) 08:43, 1 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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