Article feedback/Survey

This page presents a summary of data we collected via the Survey Call to action. While these results cannot be taken as genuinely representative of our user community (they are limited to those users who rated an article), they provide some useful insights into the perception of the Article Feedback Tool across different phases of its development.

Reasons to rate an article
Among users who took the survey, more than a half said they rated an article to "positively affect the development of the page". The following is the breakdown of reasons why users rated an article (data collected via AFT v.4 between 2011-05-13 and 2011-07-11)



Usefulness of article ratings
About 90% of users (either registered or anonymous) who took the survey found the ratings useful.



Comments
The following are selected comments about the AFT from the post-rating survey:

Supportive feedback

 * As a high school librarian, I want my students to assess the sources of information they use. This feature forces them to consider the reliability of Wikip articles.  Glad you have it.


 * The option to rate a page should be available on every page, all the time, once per page per user per day.


 * It's good that Wikipedia is doing this! I just hope that this leads to less articles that are good and useful from being deleted.


 * Ratings seem like an interesting idea, I feel like the metrics used to determine the overall value of the page are viable, and I'll be interested to see how the feature fares when it's rolled out and has  some miles under its belt.


 * Is this rating system new? I like it! As a librarian, I use wikipedia all the time, mostly finding it pretty reliable or at least a good starting place. I do like having a few other judges of the reliability of particular pages. thanks!


 * Seems like a good system to find pages that are completely incorrect/biased!


 * I am pleased that there is no requirement to rate every possible criteria. Today I found that an article was so badly written that I couldn't tell what it meant. The trustworthiness criteria didn't apply because if I don't know what it means, I can't compare it to the sources to see if it fairly reflects them.


 * I am happy to see a survey that is under 20 questions I hate going through long surveys. I am also happy to try and improve the reputation of Wikipedia with this needed feature.


 * this is a cool feature that I've never seen before! i would rate pages more often, if I had the option to!

Criticism

 * The trustworthy tag is the problem. While I know this article is trustworthy as it is entirely factual and free of embellishment, warranting a high rating, I feel compelled to rate lowly, as it fails to cite any sources in spite of being obviously well-researched.


 * People comment about topics they know nothing about.


 * I think you need to make the rating systems clearer (provide a rubric of some sort). Particularly with regard to what constitutes objectivity. 


 * The ratings do not ask for an opinion on the article's sources; how conclusive is a rating on bias when it's already in the literature used for the article? I can't tell the author what exactly is biased in his article, so how is he or she supposed to improve it?


 * The article was just to short to provide a reasonable rating. 


 * Two of the criteria rated require an expert's knowledge to render an informed opinion (completeness and something else). How is a person, starting from a position of ignorance on an entry's topic, supposed to assess these qualities?


 * Ratings generally seem to be very arbitrary, and bear little relationship to the quality of the pages


 * Users do not have to provide any further information, i.e., explanations on why they assigned such grades. This makes the system a random marking experience rather than collaboration to the improvement of Wikipedia.

Improvements

 * When editing, users should be asked to provide a verifiable link to the source of information being changed.


 * A 'small' text entry box - limited to a few lines - for specific critiques/suggestions might be useful.


 * "appropriate length and organization" should be a ratings category


 * Lack of textbox for comments