Meta Discussion
Ideas [#1685]
There is a lot of discussion going on currently on how to attract contributions to SL etc.
One thought that comes to mind is that although SL is not WikiPedia, that doesn't mean we can't learn from WikiPedia.
I'm going to throw out some ideas here, some of which used at WP, that I think might be worth considering for SL:
- Weekly Featured Article on the front page
- Weekly Featured Joseki
- Weekly Featured Game
- Go News on the front page
- Page rating (Best of SL, Good Article)
- Namespaces (User:HermanHiddema, Template:Language, Forum:QuickQuestions, Talk:OngoingGame5)
- Categories (aka keyword template, but as a special template with automated indexing pages, etc)
- Awards (aka WP barnstars. By editors, for editors. a simple "recognition of a job well done")
I think that one or more Weekly Featured articles on the front page would be an especially good idea. Preferably, the next two or three upcoming featured articles should be known. This will give editors an incentive to improve those article, because they are sure their work will get noticed.
I think we don't use the front page enough. It is basically where everyone comes in, so if it changes regularly it will keep people coming back, and it will also give newcomers the feeling that SL is an active vibrant site.
Bob McGuigan: Good ideas, Herman! One problem I foresee is that of who will decide on the weekly features and maintain the front page. I have noticed that regular contributors to SL sometimes burn out and disappear for a time. This might add significantly to the workload of the frequent or "high level" contributors.
Here is a thought on how the weekly features could be selected. Have a suggestion box type of page where readers could post requests for topics of featured articles. If a particular topic looks good then whoever is selecting the features could find a good article on it. People familiar with the contents of SL could suggest particular articles for feature status. Of course both these approaches require a lot of work from the selection committee, if it is a committee. And it would be good to keep a "best of SL" list of featured articles so people could look at what has been featured in the past.
Anyhow, the idea of weekly featured pages is a good one IMO.
Won't this just lead to arguing over what should have featured article status? :) In theory something along these lines should be a good idea.
We could let people vote on it, or have a committee or working group decide. I'm sure we can work something out.
Hi HermanHiddema thanks for your suggestions.
Was a bit thinking of your ideas
First of all I do use wikipedia a lot but never go to the front page. and i am wondering if it is very different for readers from sensei's library
Also i think it is better to also have featured pages by difficulty level. (For beginners, advanced ed) and by keyword (think we need more of them)
Then the front page can be a table (we now have tables) and say 20 thirthy picks of the week on it.
Maybe we can do this semi automaticly.
Readers can nominate pages by posting links to them on a "featured pages for beginners/software/people/ect" page and the system picks one of them random for display on the front page, maybe it can be done fully automatic, that it changes every time somebody visits the frontpage. Nominating via quality page rating (Best of SL, Good Article, In development, discussionpage, needs wme, stub) is also good. And can guide editors to pages that needs something added
Only one featured article is a bit difficult i think most articles are only good for some people. (you really think a 9 dan is interested in an article on Atarigo for himself)
More and automaticly made indexes are very welcome. (although find keywords not specific enough for it) (or we need much more of them)
Was also thinking the discussion pages are a bit chaoticly organised. Sometimes it is a main page. sometimes a subpage (but no talk page) sometimes a talk page Think we need some guiding in this and a central point to get to them. (Maybe with a tree structure of itself)
It is, see most popular. Some years ago the most popular page was recent changes, but the frontpage is miles ahead now.
We have the Page of the month page, which isn't maintained. Since the frontpage is much more interesting it may work. But maybe monthly is better for starters. (I've seen weekly pictures pages etc. starving on WP portals.) While I like such a monthly/weekly feature on the frontpage, I somehow don't like a permanent "featured/excellent" status.
I've some reserves regarding the Go news. I don't see how we are able to do this yet. But as we are brainstorming: What about featuring a blog entry monthly or weekly?
add: Regarding name spaces and categories, I believe that page type and keywords are fulfilling more or less the same functions already. And you already can search only in specified page types etc. (though not on the frontpage/topline)
I agree that monthly is a better idea. Weekly is just setting ourselves up to fail.
I think weekly can work, and would be better. With weekly, you can get an effect where people will come to SL on monday morning to see this week's article.
For weekly to work, however, we would need the following:
- A queue of at least 4 articles that are going to be posted in the coming weeks and are up to scratch (do not need major editing)
- A further queue of at least 10 article that are being considered, but need work.
- A page where people can leave suggestions for items to go into the queue. Where suggestions can take two forms:
- An existing page that people think is interesting and deserves a go on the front page
- A topic that people would like an article on, which would need to be written from scratch.
I think that with a bit of work, we can easily find 8 articles on sensei's that are up to scratch for this, as well as a further 10 that can use some improvement.
With a queue like this, it is not a problem if some editors take a break for a few weeks, as you can always survive for about a month with very little work going on. That way, you smooth out the "ups and downs" of editing activity.
I'm going to give this a go by suggesting a list of about 10-20 articles :-)
Here's a difficult one: consider using a repository such as Subversion to store pages? The idea is that one can go back in time for any page, but from there on, there is no more consistency with the (then) linked pages.
With a version controlled repository, it is possible to travel back in time and admire the complete state of the wiki at any point in time. This seems to me a bonus: it is easier to retrace discussions because they will be linked to the versions of the pages that were applicable then.
I think this is the kind of technological advances that keeps a site interesting and will attract new editors.
I wrote "difficult" because I assume that SL cannot just change its architecture. But I think this is another requirement to keep afloat: to ensure that SL is not sidestepped because outdated. So timely changeovers (which require major updates) are needed before it becomes too hard to change anything any more and the whole site sinks for good.
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http://wiki.freaks-unidos.net/svnwiki/featuresHerman, your ideas sounds good. I am wondering whether the article of the week/month can sometimes include new articles that are not fully developed but not entirely a stub either. Perhaps it might encourage editors to improve those new articles.
Yes, that is a possibility. A further part of the "article of the week/month" idea is to also have a list of upcoming articles. That way, editors can focus their efforts on those articles and be sure to get their work noticed.
Since we are featuring the Front Page now, -- an excellent idea! :) -- shouldn't it appear in the navigation box in the left margin? :)
You can allready customize it in your preferences but making it a default setting would help new and unregistered people.
Actually, it is, if you click the stone image in the top left, you get to the front page ;)
Herman said: "I think weekly can work, and would be better. With weekly, you can get an effect where people will come to SL on monday morning to see this week's article."
It works, but what about the second sentence. Is this happening? Arno? Morten?
Cheers Tapir
Yes, I would be interested in this too. It is hard to gauge the effect without proper statistics, but from Most Popular, we can see that Article of the Week related pages are popular (Archive, Upcoming, Nominations). As are recently created articles that have been featured.
The current top list for articles created in the last 6 months:
| Pos. | Visits | Page | Related to AotW? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | 4284 | Ongoing Game 6 | No |
| 2. | 2534 | Corner shapes | Yes, featured in January |
| 3. | 1748 | Ongoing Game 6 / Discussion | No |
| 4. | 1404 | Article of the Week/Nominations | Yes |
| 5. | 1373 | goproblems.com / 2008 December 27 Hacking Incident | No |
| 6. | 1342 | Article Of the Week/Upcoming | Yes |
| 7. | 1202 | Article of the Week/Archive | Yes |
| 8. | 1164 | Rank Worldwide Comparison / Data Collection | Yes, featured in May |
| 9. | 1015 | Article Of The Week | Yes |
| 10. | 983 | GoDiscussionsCom / Ladder | No |
| 11. | 975 | Oh Chi Min | No |
| 12. | 900 | DragonTourney2009 | No |
| 13. | 883 | Basilisk Go Server | No |
| 14. | 693 | Ladder problem | Yes, linked in the feature summary for Ladder in January |
| 15. | 645 | Article of the Week Template | Yes |
| 16. | 622 | The Go Companion | No |
| 17. | 612 | Unremovable Ko | No |
| 18. | 601 | Zen | No |
| 19. | 591 | DragonTourney2009/Pools | No |
| 20. | 582 | Special Templates / Table | No |
| 21. | 581 | European Go Database / Wishlist | No |
| 22. | 576 | Creative Commons Licenses | No |
| 23. | 549 | Xian Ji Wu Ku Problems | No |
| 24. | 544 | goproblems.com | No |
| 25. | 527 | Only enclosed groups can be killed | No |
| 26. | 513 | GoSensations.Com | No |
| 27. | 493 | AppLocale | No |
| 28. | 493 | Tony Goddard | No |
| 29. | 492 | Okura Kishichiro | No |
| 30. | 486 | BCcard Cup World Baduk Championship | No |
| 31. | 476 | Hayashi Gembi's Loose Ladder | Yes, via Ladder Problem |
| 32. | 476 | Long cycle rule | No |
| 33. | 466 | Birthday Komi | No |
| 34. | 466 | Natural Situational Superko Rule | No |
| 35. | 465 | Go software for the future | No |
| 36. | 438 | Cave Problem/Solution | No |
| 37. | 434 | Doping in Go | No |
| 38. | 428 | Gokyo Seimyo Tsumego Series | No |
| 39. | 428 | The Netherlands | No |
| 40. | 427 | Nakayama Ladder Problem | Yes, via Ladder Problem |
| 41. | 413 | Legend Go Server | No |
| 42. | 411 | Being Obsessed With Punishing | No |
| 43. | 410 | Cave Problem | No |
| 44. | 396 | Baduk and the current Economic Crisis | No |
| 45. | 396 | Interesting and Uninteresting | No |
| 46. | 396 | Ko Threat Evaluation | No |
| 47. | 395 | PlatinumDragon | No |
| 48. | 391 | Improve Fast at Go | No |
| 49. | 384 | Go Game Assistant | No |
| 50. | 384 | Influenza Fuseki | No |
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