Grants:IdeaLab/Automatic reminders to authors of articles that have not been changed over time

Automatic reminders to authors of articles that have not been changed over time
Many regular contributors have considerable watchlists they check on a regular basis. Articles without further changes don't appear on the watchlist. If an article hasn't been changed for a long span of time, this may be due to a nearly-perfect state of the article, but more often than not it will be due to lack of interest or simply neglect. If contributors to an article would get an automatic reminder when an article on their watchlist hasn't been changed for, say, one year, this could be a welcome impulse to have a fresh look at the article, make improvements or bring it up to date. Contributors should get the option to deselect this feature in their preferences. Another possible option could be to limit this feature to editors who have contributed substantially to an article (more than minor edits).
idea creator
Jossi2
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Chrisamazonie
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created on14:31, 4 March 2016 (UTC)


Project idea edit

What is the problem you're trying to solve? edit

Facilitating review and improvement of articles which haven't been worked on for a long time

What is your solution? edit

Motivating contributors to check neglected articles.

Goals edit

Get Involved edit

About the idea creator edit

Editor in German Wikipedia for more than 11 years and with > 10000 edits.

Participants edit

Endorsements edit

  •   Support With AlessioMela and Incola we studied similar problem on itWiki. We mainly focused on long-time warning (such as orphan articles) because of the maintgraph tool. Also we produced for the monthly quality festivals lists of long-time non-human edited articles (or edited with minor details, but it is very important to skip the bot edits, they are not relevant) and there were some ideas about how to implement user-specific warnings in talk pages for long-term unchanged articles or articles with persistent quality issue (no source, stub). So whatever is the idea you want to implement, it is useful.--Alexmar983 (talk) 01:24, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
  •   Support Xavier Combelle (talk) 10:42, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
  •   Support I agree that this should be used but would it be default to everyone (which may annoy some if it automatically appears and have to opt out) or should people have to opt in? An alternative might be to have it at Special:Watchlist/Old (like the existing (View relevant changes | View and edit watchlist | Edit raw watchlist | Clear the watchlist) tabs). Maybe Special:AncientPages could be adapted to also use your watchlist if wanted (like Special:AncientPages/Watched). Something else I wandered about years ago was being able to search your watchlist for pages with date maintenance tags or abuse filter pages on your watchlist. Also another thing might be to be able to reset your watchlist so that if you decide to watch every page you have edited but have already made edits before choosing this option, you "reset" you watchlist so that the pages also are added to your watchlist. Crouch, Swale (talk) 22:29, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
  • This would work well to improve "forgotten articles." Smallbones (talk) 22:58, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
  • I think it would help obscure articles become more robust by giving them the attention from writers they need. Lukejodonnell (talk) 17:30, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Really good idea, would help bring editors back from time to time who might know much about the subject of the article itself and especially current developments. Laberkiste (talk) 18:59, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Good idea. Apart from the benefits mentioned, it would help editors to review their old works and thus improve their writing style. Carrotkit (talk) 12:36, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
  • This idea has great potential to bring back editors to the article who have an interest in the topic and also possible sources. Sydney Poore/FloNight (talk) 20:26, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
  • It's a good idea but unless the community wants to welcome back contributors who have been blocked or banned so they can improve the articles they created, there should be a way to exclude editors who have been blocked or banned from being notified. A lot of these were created or largely improved by editors who are no longer allowed to participate or have been run out of the project by POV pushers and bullies. Reguyla (talk) 19:32, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
  •   Support A lot of forgotten "current" events articles and also construction project related articles could really use this! Amphitere (talk) 23:15, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

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