Fennec Foxen wrote:
On Sun, 30 May 2004 23:20:10 -0400 (EDT),
kartik(a)townisp.com
<kartik(a)townisp.com> wrote:
One day when I looked at the quadratic formula
page, it mentioned another
quadratic formula I had never seen before:
<snip>
On Wikipedia, I have a message I use for cases such as this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Sofixit
Nice one ... but I think its use of links is a little dodgy and probably
confusing to newbies:
So, feel free to _be bold_ and make this correction
yourself!
Here, "be bold" is a link. Where is a newbie supposed to think it leads
to? It seems to suggest that one should click it in order to be bold. I
don't think that makes a lot of sense to people.
If you are unsure about _how to edit a page_, try out
the _Sandbox_ to test your editing skills.
This sentence contains *one* suggestion, but *two* links. While the
latter link seems to be what the suggestion is about, it leaves the
visitor wondering in confusion about the former link.
I am posting this here not just because I want to discuss this
particular thing, but because I think that quite in general, people tend
to put these spurious links into text that is meant for newbies,
thinking "the more links to introductory newbie explainy pages, the
better!", but it's really confusing if the newbie has no idea where the
links actually go.
So here is my suggestion for a change. Of course, it's a little bit
longer-winded than Fennec's original:
Hello, [[Wikipedia:Welcome, newcomers|welcome to Wikipedia]]! We welcome
your contributions. Wikipedia is a [[wiki]], and anyone - including you!
- can edit nearly any article, at any time, by clicking the
'''Edit'''
tab at the top of the page, next to the tabs for Discussion and History.
You don't even need to [[Special:Userlogin|log in]], although there are
several [[Wikipedia:Why create an account?|reasons why you might want
to]]. Here at Wikipedia, [[Wikipedia:be bold|we ask people to be bold]]
and not be afraid of making mistakes. So, feel free to make this
correction yourself! If you are unsure about how editing works, have a
look at [[Wikipedia:how to edit a page|''How to edit a page'']], or try
out the [[Wikipedia:Sandbox|Sandbox]] to test your editing skills.
Greetings,
Timwi