If you think this is inappropriate for any reason (one being it gets added to new articles shortly after they created if they are unlucky in the 'lottery', how do you remove it from an article? Dougweller 13:50, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
This post was posted by Doug Weller, but signed as Dougweller.
This option takes up a lot of realestate and gets loaded unconditionally. There should be an off switch, and it should be findable for every user. Same option should also be present in the preferences. The Vector experiment has shown that such is possible, with a little effort.
Yep, there will definitely be an off switch. My sense is that an ideal implementation would be an "X" link which would, for logged in users, store the preference, and for logged out users, set a cookie, after a quick pop-up confirmation ("Are you sure you want to disable the rating tool on all pages").
Why is this tool not implemented as an opt-in feature instead of a full deployment with an opt-out option?
That way an editor who opts-in to add the feature to an article could (and should) assume a fair amount of responsibility to also handle the comments and ratings the tool generates for that article. The last thing we want is full deployment on all articles and readers growing frustrated when reported issues are not addressed.
The reason the tool is not "opt-in" is because, frankly, the bias implied in "opt-in" or "opt-out" will prevent us from gathering the data required.
For a time the tool was "opt-in" (e.g., add yourself to the category) but as our needs for data grew, we outgrew the category system itself.
If you think about it, the concept of editors "owning" an article - and thus choosing whether or not it should be subject to Article Feedback - is, at its heart, antithetical to the ideals of the movement.
As far as issues not being addressed, there is an updated roadmap that includes solving for the tool appearing on disambig and redirects, as well as linking to a "what's this?" page.
Data required for what?
Opt-in has nothing to do with editors owning an article. It has to do with editors saying "I want to improve this article. I'm gonna use AFT to help me do it, and in doing so I also accept a responsibility to address the readers issues."
I think you mis-read my last sentence as it wasn't critique of this project. I was saying that we don't want Wikipedia readers to rate and comment on an article and then having to wait too long before their issue with the article is addressed.
I thinks the rating information can be useful not only for the authors/editors, but also for readers, who can click on "View page ratings" to see what other readers think about the page.
Let me add that we need data to be able to establish a baseline for quality assessment of Wikipedia articles from a variety of sources. Without the ability of measuring in an accurate way what this tool is tracking there is simply no way in which we can try and make article feedback a useful and viable proposal to the community. If you are interested in what we are currently using data for, you should check out the research update page. As Erik noted earlier, we are also in the process of making anonymized versions of the datasets we are collecting via AFT publicly available. Sharing this data with the editor and research community will help us better understand how to improve this tool to support quality assessment work and to explore effective ways to increase reader engagement.