User:Gryllida/welcome a bit/More

Next steps

1. Read WN:PILLARS, style and content guides.
2. Upon receiving the feedback please follow these steps:
   • As soon as possible have a read through the article and leave feedback at its talk page. Leave any kind of essential feedback it does not have to be comprehensive just enough to get the article author started with the conversation. Do not edit the article in the first 24 hours of its creation unless its author asks you to do so.
   • If the author IS continuing to edit, continue providing them feedback.
   • If the author IS NOT continuing to edit, create a copy of the article and after 24 hours have passed merge your improved version into the original and submit for review.
   • Continue watching the article and its talk page for feedback from other people. When you receive it, immediately act on it (edit the article, leave a message in reply).

More details

I'm ready to do a first welcome-a-bit (WaB). How do I start?

1. Watch Special:RecentChanges for new article creations (those which are not spam).
2. Quickly, within minutes of article creation, identify a key improvement that could be made.
3. Without doing a full review, again immediately, ask the author on their personal talk page about it.
   • Encourage their response.
   • Make it clear that you are offering your help.

Do you have any examples?

Examples:

• This looks great, but is over a week old. Did you know it is best to report on something that happened today? Here is [1] or [2] which happened today. Which one would you like to write about?
• That's interesting! Could you please share where you got this information from, so that we can include it as sources? I would be glad to help.
• The source says We have at last "finalized" the dogs traveling on the Canine Caravan!, but it is not clear what 'finalized' means or when it happened. Could you please clarify this in the article? Then we could include the answers to who, what, where, why, when, how in the first paragraph. Please let me know if you need any help.

Why could this possibly work?

• instant, rewards the author for their attempt
• not a full review - means it is more instant and more clear, less overwhelming
• reduces time it takes an article to get published - means more likely to be on time
• you learn to identify issues or improvements (and also fact-check or review)

What next?

Keep watching the talk page where you left the message, and keep watching the article.

If the author replies or makes an edit:

• Start communicating and working together.
• Try to make it flow without waiting for each other too long.
• Work until the story becomes ready to publish.

If the author does not reply:

• you could ask them a second question if there is a great addition to your first one (optional)
• after about day, you could 'take over the story' and complete it yourself, if it is still fresh at that time. (I personally recommend doing this with stories within your strong topic area.)

How do I know what articles are new?

• Look at the left column at WN:Newsroom. Make sure you click 'refresh'.
• Look at Special:NewPages (here you may also find either spam or articles where someone forgot to tag them with {{develop}}.
• Look at Special:RecentChanges (shows all new changes including spam and talk namespaces) and Special:Watchlist (tracks the pages which you edited).
• I personally use the Timeless skin with this script so that I see the newly created articles in the sidebar. When this script becomes available for other skins I will leave a message here.

Who is doing this? And how do I join?

There is no requirement for joining. You are welcome to join even if you did not write or edit news before. ;-)

To assist you, read these documents:

• WN:PILLARS (very important)
• style and content guides (the 'Bible' of writing so to speak)

Add your name to this list.

• --Gryllida (talk) 10:49, 23 November 2018 (UTC)