Topic on Talk:User Interaction Consultation

You write that "One way to help readers learn is to enable them to interact with content and each other on Wikipedia". Is there evidence-based research that suggests that this is so? In other words,before you ask ''How'', should you not make clear ''Why''?

I also note with concern that interaction with content is packaged into the same sentence as interaction with other readers. There seems to be a trend to try to turn Wikipedia into a social networking site. This did not go down well when the Gather project was launched, as the community of content contributors pointed out that their current policy is that Wikipedia is not a social networking site. Would it not be a good idea to resolve this contradiction first?

"There seems to be a trend to try to turn Wikipedia into a social networking site."

I also note the broader trend to make our communities a completely hostile and anti-social world. Just saying.

Hi - thanks for your questions.

1. The "Why?". I think it is broadly understood that lectures and reading alone are not the ideal way for most human beings to learn. Some level of output from the student helps them learn. That is why students are assigned problem sets, homework, essays, exams, special projects, and group projects. I personally do not think that we need to provide research to show that an encyclopedia sitting on the digital shelf is not an ideal pedagogical tool (even if it came with a reading guide). I am pretty sure you are not making that argument (let me know if I'm wrong). However, whether or not specific interventions to foster interaction will help learning is debatable on a case-by-case basis! One reason why we are asking you and others to make suggestions so that we can identify and dig into those further.
2. Interacting with others. Yes, this is a common concern among some volunteers and I think I understand its roots. I am confused by why this keeps coming up since interactivity does not equal 'social network' or 'wasting time'. Not all interaction between users is tawdry or unproductive. Interacting with other users was relegated to "social network" sites. Now it simply is part of the piping of the internet. I think there are important ways that interaction between users can incentivize learning and contribution without devolving into a social networking site. For instance, in accordane with WikipediaIsNot volunteers have pages where they talk about who they are and of the top 4 contributors of all time, the 3 of them who are still active have extensive profiles. Wikipedia used to be a pioneer in interactivity--which is important, since knowledge is not static and to suggest it is static/fixed is dangerous and goes against our principles. But now most users do not even know they can edit it and the forums are closed off from discussion of the topic. Looking at Gather's RFC, one also sees that while there were concerns that this bordered on social networking, most of the negative feedback were around the other issues summarized here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Gather/Gather_Summary_paper_-_January_2016 So to your point of addressing the social network concern, I expect this concern to continually crop up, but I do not know how to solve it. In my opinion this concern does not keep coming up because we are ignoring the WikipediaIsnot principles, but because there seems to be a disagreement about their application.

In this forum, it seems pretty obvious why people would have concerns about the wikis being treated like social media --- since we're being obliged to carry on this conversation using a chat facility, instead of the wiki-markup talk pages used for serious discussions.

You sure you understand what Social media is ?

Seriously, I de facto denounce anyone who starts discussions like this, that compare development by WMF as 'social media'. It is total and utter bull and shows that people have no serious interest in participating, or business in being part of, designing the software. It shows a lack of understanding of the diversity and complexity of the Internet that is unhealthy and immature for a website. The comparison to one specific company is even less mature and shows how completely obsessed these people are with making an oversimplification of software, just to push their own opinion.

It is appalling (as much as how badly WMF listens and learns from it's mistakes is appalling).

Thank you for sharing your views on the participants in this discussion. Perhaps when you have a moment you would share your healthy and mature views on the subject of the discussion, which is, how to best improve the reader experience, the extent to which increasing social interaction would promote that improvement, and whether such an increase aligns with currently accepted policies.

This seems to be a case of isolated demands for rigor; currently, most WMF initiatives are not based on external empirical research. (Nor are Wikipedia policies / content organization decisions, for that matter.) Whether that's something to be fixed or it simply reflects the lack or reliability of such research could be an interesting discussion; I suggest bringing that up at Talk:WMF product development process.

Concerns about fostering negative user-to-user interactions or changing the nature of Wikipedia or whatever can probably be more meaningfully discussed on the talk pages of the individual proposals.

The essay you link to suggests that selective requests for rigour constitutes a form of intellectual dishonesty. No doubt you did not intend that to apply to my question. I confine myself to noting that your argument appears to be that having failed in the past to base important decisions on empirical foundations somehow justifies a continuing failure to do so. That seems unsound -- I would merely ask whether you are satisfied that those decisions worked out well, or whether they might have gone better if there had been more investigation and critical enquiry beforehand.

I do hope that you are not attempting to advance the proposition that asking for clarity in communicating the reasons for action is anything other than welcome.