Last modified: 2012-04-16 09:15:44 UTC
One thing that Wikipedia could definitely use is Sticky notes What are sticky notes? On every header, next to 'edit', there would be a button that says 'sticky highlight'. Just Click, Highlight some text, and leave a Comment. Then a sticky note (a TINY little yellow square) will appear on the right margins. Other readers can click it, it will open and reveal its comment, and the text it relates to will highlight. ~~~OTHER DETAILS~~~ Why? For one, it's good salesmanship. How do you take someone who reads wikipedia sometimes and turn them into a frequent editor? The answer will normally be one little step at a time. And if you're reading some random page that says something suspicious, who could resist highlighting it and saying "is that true?? What about this website..." Hell, we could even give people collour options; 'blue for tiny suggestions', 'yellow for most comments', 'red for potentially serious issues'. Right now, however, the first little step to make a direct contribution is STILL to be STUCK trying to figure out Wikipedia's editing system. That's insane. Many readers will hit edit, see some benign code for an image or header, and say "screw that". Which is exactly what I hear; "Yeah it was false, but I couldn't be bothered to figure out how to change it". Wikipedia desperately needs to involve, and gain access to the minds of, people who care about topics (even if not wikipedia's cause, yet). But what about...Vandalism? Same rules and precautions as the page (bots are welcome to help). And it's another chance to say "thanks for the comment! Here are some reasons you might want an account..."
The users are expected to use the talk page for that. A dialog window for automatically leaving the note there from the page could be nice, though.
