14 DAY TRIAL // Wikipedia is one of the few constants of the web, or at least that's how it appears on the surface. While the site has only been around for 10 years, it's hard to imagine the web without it and we constantly rely on it without even noticing.
But things do change at Wikipedia as well, just not as fast as with other sites. And for Wikipedia this may actually be a good thing.
One of the reasons why changes occur rarely at the site is that each is thoroughly tested and put through an entire process to make sure that it's the best route and that there is a general consensus.
So it's a bit surprising perhaps that the site is rolling out a couple of changes on the same day. One big new feature is an updated and simplified file uploader for the Wikimedia Commons. The second is the Article Feedback Tool which is now being tested with 100,000 articles, up from just 3,000.
"The upload wizard, which entered public beta in late November and has been used to upload more than 10,000 files already, is now the default upload tool on Wikimedia Commons," Wikipedia announced.
"You can upload up to 10 files as a batch, instead of having to upload each file individually. You can see thumbnails of the files you’re uploading, and abort any individual upload," the announcement touted one of the major improvements.
Another change is that there is now less info about licensing and appropriate content. This information is only displayed once, in an easy to understand way, and is only available on request after that.
Much of the work will be automated as well, the uploader fills in data from the files themselves and otherwise defaults to the settings that make the most sense.
"Today on English Wikipedia we rolled out the Article Feedback Tool – previously featured on 3,000 English Wikipedia articles – to a larger set of 100,000 articles," Wikipedia also announced.
"This initial expansion is intended to further assess both the tool’s value and its performance characteristics, with an eye to a full deployment on Wikipedia and potentially other projects," it added.
The Article Feedback Tool is a rating tool for Wikipedia entries. It enables readers to rank the article according to several criteria, such as how trustworthy, objective, complete and well-written an article is. It's still in testing, but once it gets rolled out to all articles it should help the Wikipedia team get a better understanding of the quality level of the articles.
