Author: awbryan904
Description:
SUMMARY: I propose that each page have an "attention score" describing how often
the page has been edited. This feature is intended to address the "Siegenthaler
problem" by indicating whether a page has been lightly or heavily edited.
The "attention score" would be calculated from the data displayed in page
history, and would ideally have the following features:
(1) Attention scores would be higher if more total edits were made;
(2) Attention scores would be higher if more unique authors made edits;
(3) Attention scores would be higher if the time between edits were lower.
Item (3) is the key point, as a page that has gone through fierce editing (or an
"edit war") should be distinguished from one that hasn't been gone over
carefully. Since (1) and (3) are counting tasks, the algorithm should be O(n)
with respect to number of edits. Including (2) might cause the algorithm to be
O(n^2), however; the exact impact on Wikipedia server load would depend on the
number of unique authors, and might need to be established empiracally.
Another possible feature of an "attention score" would be the following;
(4) Attention scores would be higher if the page was edited recently.
However, this might be dropped for computational expense reasons. If only
factors (1) - (3) were involved, the attention score would only need to be
calculated once per edit; adding (4) would require a dynamic calculation with
each page view.
The advantages of such a feature are twofold:
(1) it allows any user to make a snap judgement as to whether the page is rarely
edited (and therefore potentially questionable) or heavily edited (and
therefore, if not necessarily trustworthy, at least well examined).
(2) it allows for the possibility of editors targeting either lightly or heavily
edited pages, as necessary, using one convienent statistic.
Version: unspecified
Severity: enhancement