Topic on Talk:Growth/2023

I'd like to post an interesting article about Wikipedia interactions (preprint):

"The Wisdom of Polarized Crowds" (29 November 2017). arXiv:1712.06414 [cs, stat]. 

In summary, it says that conflict is unpleasant and drives editors away, but it makes article content better. The authors welcome feedback.

I'm wondering if telling editors that conflict is productive might make it less unpleasant, especially as "I'm wasting my time here" is a frequent reaction to conflict. It would be interesting to do some experiments with different messages and see if they affect retention or productivity. HLHJ (talk) 22:32, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

I don't think "conflict" by itself makes the article better. Rather, conflict as an accessory to shared goals ''can'' (but not always) make an article better.

Perhaps I should have said "conflicting views"; obviously calling someone a numbskull will not improve content.

Well, consider conflict as the default path to improve articles is not really the best one. We should avoid conflicts.

Thanks for the link, @HLHJ. I'll check the article out. One question I would have right off the bat is what percent of newcomers actually are around long enough to experience what this article would call "conflict".

Depends on what the first article you edit is, I guess. "Donald Trump" will probably run you straight into conflict, even if you are a really competent editor, while (hitting the random article button) "Alastair Macdonald" would probably not. HLHJ (talk) 04:01, 23 February 2019 (UTC)