Wikipedia:New user proposal

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

? The following is a proposed Wikipedia policy, guideline, or process.
The proposal may still be in development, under discussion, or in the process of gathering consensus for adoption. Thus references or links to this page should not describe it as "policy".

This is a proposal to automate the process of educating new users about Wikipedia's policies, and only lift the editing and article creation restrictions on new users who have undertaken the short education course.

Contents

[edit] Scope

  • New users creating inappropriate pages
  • Allowing new users to edit protected pages
  • Automated process of educating new users

[edit] Existing policy

Currently, users must wait 4 days to edit semi-protected pages. This is done to prevent vandals from setting up an account to bypass a semi-protection.

New users are not prevented from creating new articles, even if those articles do not conform to Wikipedia policies such as WP:BIO and WP:CSD.

[edit] Rationale

New users, unaware of the policies, create new articles that aren't appropriate, which causes considerable workload for admins and page patrollers - a great number of new pages are speedily deleted because the user had no idea the article was inappropriate for Wikipedia. Or the user makes test edits/vandalises semi-protected articles, and they get warned. The user may then be scared off or deterred from any further use of Wikipedia. Better educated, those users have the potential to become constructive and useful editors.

[edit] Proposed policy on new users

The proposal is that all new users should be required to undertake some kind of self-paced tutorial (especially on the main policies of Wikipedia) before they are allowed to create new pages or edit protected pages. This could replace the 4-day waiting period. It means that new users can make themselves familiar with the policies, rather than going off elsewhere (and not bothering to learn about WP) whilst they wait for the 4-day period to elapse.

There could be some form of online tutorial wizard. When the user completes the tutorial, their account is marked as confirmed, letting them create new pages or edit semi-protected articles. This is almost like a carrot for the user, rather than warning them (stick) after they made non-constructive edits, unaware of the policies.

All new users will still be able to make edits to non-protected articles if they have not completed the tutorial.