How much does Edit Check decrease the total number of saved edits and
unique editors?

On Sat, Jun 8, 2024 at 7:07 PM Peter Pelberg <[email protected]> wrote:

> If those new users would have got a message in the Visual Editor during
>> the editing, a lot more contributions would be able to stay in Wikipedia,
>> less new contributors would get demotivated, and it would reduce the
>> workload of existing users who do the maintenance every day.
>>
> Romaine – and everyone here who resonated with what Romaine expressed
> above – I thought you might value knowing that a recent A/B test
> <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Edit_check#Reference_Check_A/B_Test> of Edit
> Check <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Edit_check> (the idea Benoît shared
> here
> <https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/message/RWQIXLQEBNC62THG5J4TY7OCHCKRAPUF/>)
> supports the assumptions you're making above and in this thread more
> broadly.
>
> Specifically, the A/B test showed:
> * People [i] shown the Reference Check are *2.2x* more likely to publish
> a new content edit that includes a reference and is constructive (not
> reverted within 48 hours).
> * The highest observed increase was on mobile where people are *4.2x*
> more likely to publish a constructive new content edit with a reference
> when Reference Check was shown
> * New content edit revert rate decreased by *8.6%* if Reference Check was
> available.
> * Contributors that are shown Reference Check and successfully save a
> non-reverted edit are *16%* more likely to return to make a non-reverted
> edit in their second month (31-60 days after).
>
> You can read the full report that Megan Neisler
> <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:MNeisler_(WMF)> prepared here: Reference
> Check AB Test Analysis
> <https://mneisler.quarto.pub/reference-check-ab-test-report-2024>.
>
> If anything you see brings questions/ideas
> <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Edit_check/Ideas> to mind, now is a
> wonderful time to share them. Reason: the Editing Team is
> actively planning <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Edit_check#5_June_2024> how
> to expand Edit Check and needs volunteer expertise to shape this experience.
>
> ---
> i. "People" defined as people who are unregistered or published <100 edits.
>
>
> --
> Peter Pelberg (he/him)
> Lead Product Manager, Editing Team
> Wikimedia Foundation
>
>
> On Mon, Mar 11, 2024 at 7:48 AM Paulo Santos Perneta <
> [email protected]> wrote:
>
>> For 10 years or more, already, reliable sources have been mandatory in
>> the Wikipedia in Portuguese, and any unsourced edit can and should be
>> reverted and the user warned.
>> Adding to that, since at least 2016, we use the abuse filters to block
>> any edition lacking sources. Newbies like the one described by Romaine
>> would receive a daunting red warning from the abuse filter system about the
>> necessity of adding reliable sources in order for their edit to be saved -
>> and the opportunity to go back and fix the problem. This has greatly
>> improved things there, in that subject.
>>
>> Back in 2009, about 1 month after joining Wikipedia I found myself in a
>> serious conflict with other, well established users, about a well sourced
>> edit I wanted to add, which was being reverted by the veteran users in
>> favour of unsourced (and false) information. At the time, I had to comply
>> and swallow it, as the newbie I was. One year later, now with a reputation,
>> I returned to the theme, reverted the whole thing and opened a public case
>> there about falsification of information by said veteran user(s) - and that
>> time it stood. This whole episode deeply marked me, and made absolutely
>> clear that in Wikipedia there can be no tolerance for whatever lacks proper
>> sources - something we actually often indulge in in paper encyclopedias, in
>> my own experience. I'm very glad that the era of rampant tolerance with
>> people adding unsourced content - something that was already against all
>> good practices back in 2001 - is now a distant, sad memory. The quality of
>> our Wikipedia skyrocketed since then, changing the paradigm from "Wikipedia
>> is not reliable" to "Wikipedia is actually quite reliable, so much that I
>> actually want to be there" all over the Lusophone world - and bringing new
>> problems of its own. But that's undoubtedly the way to go, and it's sad it
>> took so much time to actually implement what should have been there already
>> from day 1.
>>
>> Best,
>> Paulo
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Romaine Wiki <[email protected]> escreveu (quarta, 6/03/2024 à(s)
>> 13:59):
>>
>>> In the past days, a new Wikipedia contributor edited Wikipedia and made
>>> a great contribution, except... This user added zero sources, and the
>>> article in what the edit was made was about a living person. So the
>>> verifiability is a problem and in conflict with the policy Biographies of
>>> living persons. This was just one example of thousands that have to be
>>> dealt with every day in Wikimedia. And every day the community tries to
>>> maintain the quality of Wikipedia and has to deal with this kind of edits.
>>>
>>> I asked myself the question: why did this new contributor not add any
>>> sources?
>>>
>>> I logged out, went to an article and clicked edit. Made some
>>> modifications (in the Visual Editor), and then clicked Publish changes. In
>>> the steps I took to edit the article, I got nowhere a message that
>>> Wikipedia wants to have sources for the information I added. Nowhere!
>>>
>>> I hope that every experienced user by now understands the importance of
>>> adding sources. But we cannot expect from new contributors to already know
>>> this. They need to be informed that adding sources is needed. They do not
>>> go first read the manual of Wikipedia with all the help and project pages,
>>> they just start editing right away. They think, link in many other
>>> platforms, that if they do something wrong, they get a message while
>>> editing/uploading/etc.
>>>
>>> For some strange reason, if you edit Wikipedia, you get no notification
>>> at all that you need to add sources, even while this is one of the most
>>> important pillars of Wikipedia. The result is that a lot of work of these
>>> new contributors gets lost, because the information is removed from the
>>> articles because of a lack of sources. If those new users would have got a
>>> message in the Visual Editor during the editing, a lot more contributions
>>> would be able to stay in Wikipedia, less new contributors would get
>>> demotivated, and it would reduce the workload of existing users who do the
>>> maintenance every day.
>>>
>>> As with the influx of edits without sources nothing is done, the Dutch
>>> expression "mopping with the tap open" (Dutch: dweilen met de kraan open)
>>> applies here.
>>>
>>> Romaine
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
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