One WikiGnome's view:
If every Wikizen made at least one improvement to each page they saw, we would have:
- an even busier RecentChanges
- more edit conflicts (this problem is solved by waiting until pages settle down to make your change)
But, more importantly, we would have:
- Much better content
- More feedback (that is, if you write something, and then it gets improved in a way you didn't think of, you learn)
- More evenly distributed maintenance The current WikiReaderToWriterRatio is well over 40:1. This doesn't necessarily imply that 39 out of 40 people are slacking off. However, I do think that if more people make OneImprovementPerWikiPage it would avoid the situation where a very small minority takes over for some of the tedious maintenance.
- Less fear of editing If you know that other people are there to catch your mistakes, then you'll be much more likely to go ahead and take the editing plunge. If other people can trust you to do the same, then they'll be more likely to make their edits. See? It's a beautiful cycle.
It is almost a guarantee that you can find
something to improve on any given
WikiPage.
Examples:
- Balance viewpoints
- Eliminate redundancy
- Improve wordings
- Link it to other pages
- Link other pages to it
- Add items to lists (hint, hint)
- Fix grammar, punctuation, and spelling
- Fix vertical spacing (Especially above and below the "---- bars". Sometimes the last line on the page needs two newlines to make all the bars look consistent.)
- Bullet lists
Of course, when you do find the occasional page that lacks an obvious improvement, by all means just enjoy it.
I agree entirely, but I find that most WikiPages have tabs and it's an absolute chore for me to replace them all with sufficient spaces. If pages were easier to edit I'd be doing it silently and behind the scenes, but there's just no way I'm going to spend 20 minutes adding or deleting single lines or words to pages, fixing broken links, or even trying to broker peace. LifesJustTooShort.
If LifesJustTooShort to spend 20 minutes fixing everything on a page, try spending 2 minutes fixing just one thing, and trust the other 39 people to fix the other stuff. With regard to the tabs, if your browser destroys them, ignore pages that have tabs. It may be, of course, that by now you've updated your browser so it's no longer a problem.
If the amount to fix is daunting, RefactorLowHangingFruit.
CategoryWikiMaintenance CategoryWikiEditing
One Improvement Per Wiki Page