Last modified: 2011-06-29 13:28:23 UTC
I would really like to see a Wikipedia addition of live chat, sort of in the same vein as Facebook chat. Having worked as a copy editor and as a reporter, I know that the most effective copy editors will talk directly with article authors to clarify any ambiguities. Although that is possible with the way that the Wiki system currently works, live chat would make the process much more efficient, and it would make collaboration much easier. And sometimes, you just need to have a live conversation. I know there have been several edits where I needed more information before I made the change, but I opted not to touch it for fear of introducing an error because it wasn't worth the effort to hunt down the information. I also think the increased interaction would help to stem some of the snarkiness, which seems to be featured as a prominent theme in complaints about Wikipedia. Interaction builds relationships, which builds respect (usually and ideally). Just my thoughts. Not sure how practical the suggestion is, but it sure would be handy.
You can leave messages to the editors in their talk pages. That's the way to contact the other editors in the wiki. You can of course join to the multiple chat channels in freenode, but how likely do you find it is that the person you want to talk to is connected at that same time? This has been proposed before [1], and is not going to happen. 1- http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:Real-time_chat *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 11190 ***
