Talk:Article feedback/Public Policy Pilot/Workgroup

Other projects
What about testing the extension on smaller wikis? Some Wiktionaries use a JavaScript-based tool to gather feedback, I suppose they would be interested. --Nemo 06:55, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok, now I'll add the link: wikt:en:Wiktionary:Feedback (see also interwiki); and don't forget strategy:Special:RatedPages (there are lots of comments on the wiki about it). I don't understand why you're developing a new feature with a pilot on (a small part of) Wikipedia while there are several other projects that eagerly need such a feature, and in fact are already using something similar (but much more crappy). --Nemo 07:01, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Hey Federico!
 * I totally missed this given the flurry I've been trapped in over the past couple days and for that I apologize.
 * The answer is this: part of the reason we are doing this on such a small article subset is to actually ensure that the technology works and see immediate problems. While I don't see any moral or political reasons not to enable it in other places, the extension is slated for a series of rather rapid, iterative changes (hopefully improvements). So my advice is to wait a bit; I'm about to start on design for phase 2 (some of the feedback we've already gotten dovetails with what was expected, and we're going ahead and implementing it).
 * In the meantime, I'd love it if you joined the workgroup and gave some ideas. You're a smart guy and can see around corners a lot.
 * I know that's not the answer you were looking for but I hope that helps.--Jorm (WMF) 19:16, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Download Extension
I would be interested to download this as extension for other wikis. --Pdcemulator 09:34, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * There's no reason why you cannot. The extension itself is named "ArticleAssessmentPilot".  However, you should know that this is a pilot program, and the extension itself should not be considered "final". If we decide to move forward, it will likely be renamed as well.--Jorm (WMF) 18:52, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * FYI, there are other more "finalized" extensions available for this general purpose as well, such as Extension:ReaderFeedback and Extension:AjaxRatingScript, in case Pdcemulator is not aware. Thorncrag 02:37, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Assorted comments
This feature has a lot of potential, but the current implementation sucks.

A bit of background
First, we need to establish that rating articles/entries is not a new idea. The English Wiktionary, for example, has been doing this for years. You can look at wikt:User:Conrad.Irwin/feedback.js for the code that the English Wiktionary uses. A few key points about the English WIktionary's implementation:
 * because it's implemented in JavaScript, it only works for users who load and run JavaScript on this domain;
 * it only displays for anonymous users;
 * it displays in the sidebar;
 * it appears to only work in the (now antiquated) Monobook skin currently;
 * it uses a number of simple metrics for articles with a simple one-click interface; the options to choose from are: [this entry is] "good," "bad," "messy," "mistake in definition," "confusing," "could not find the word I want," "incomplete," "entry has inaccurate information," "definition is too complicated," and finally "if you have time, leave us a note."

Current ArticleAssessment implementation
The current implementation of ArticleAssessment has a few niceties:
 * it's implemented in PHP with a proper database backend;
 * it has a nice UI for rating an article (the stars are pretty).

But the main issues I see with it are:
 * it's enormous &mdash; the entire "view results" box shouldn't be shown at all until the user clicks something;
 * the metrics are terrible;
 * it's located at the bottom of lengthy articles, making it unlikely that anyone will see it; those who do see it will likely not want to participate because it looks complicated (as opposed to the one-click system that the English Wiktionary uses).

Room for improvement
My suggestions:
 * look at how a site like ted.com uses user feedback; the Wikipedias have hundreds of awesome articles that nobody knows about and they aren't sorted by anything useful currently; this tool could be adapted to create useful metrics, e.g., [this article is] informative, interesting, sloppy, boring, unintelligible, confusing (math articles, anyone?), biased
 * once you have ratings from users, you can generate all sorts of nifty tools; you can have the most interesting articles listed in a dynamic report; or you can have "select a random informative, well-sourced history article"; this is actually something that would be useful;
 * I understand and appreciate the desire to be unobtrusive, but the rating system needs to be more visible somehow; the sidebar is a good place to look at (esp. if you can reasonably collapse some of the interwiki links on long articles); it might also be possible to put an unobtrusive icon near the top of the page (the central focal point for nearly any article); mashable.com has been using a blue box at the top of articles&mdash;that's a bit much, I think;
 * further simplify the interface, but allow for more in-depth comments if the user wants to provide them.

Hope that helps, --MZMcBride 22:54, 24 September 2010 (UTC)