Thread:Talk:Article feedback/Immediate improvement needed

The absence of any opportunity for the reader to actually make a suggestion for improvement of the articles is a critical absence in this "feature", and is antithetical to the processes that make Wikipedia what it is. We already see articles heavily watched by fans receiving ratings that clearly have no basis in the quality of the article, and I have had four FA-level writers state that they will be stopping participation in the project because their articles, already assessed for quality, are now being "rated" without any rationale for these ratings and completely absent any comments that could explain the ratings. They feel it is one more step toward the facebook-ization of Wikipedia, and it is hard to say they're wrong when there's no reason to believe that rating of articles will result in increased contributions or increased quality.

Please add a free-text box labeled "suggestions for article improvement" or the like, with the written commentary being fed to the article talk page and signed "Article rater" or the like. (Do not use IP addresses, because people responding to this section will not be editing per se but responding to a survey. Their identifying information should not be exposed publicly.) Yes, we'll still get a pile of "fanboy" or "anti-fanboy" comments, but these can be moved off the talk pages as needed. This will serve to introduce the readers to the concept of actively participating, while also giving editors information to improve articles. As it is, this feature is more likely to increase the gulf between readers and editors than it is to bridge the gap, and has little likelihood of turning readers into editors. Risker 04:26, 14 July 2011 (UTC)