Matt Brown wrote:
On 12/20/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
Same template, *on* by default. This is for newbies. Note this was a logged-in editor.
Since only logged in editors can currently create articles anyway ...
I'd really really like anon page creation switched back on.
(a) A prefilled template would give guidance to editors of goodwill; (b) editors of bad will are just creating accounts to write rubbish with anyway.
- d.
On 12/20/05, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I'd really really like anon page creation switched back on.
(a) A prefilled template would give guidance to editors of goodwill; (b) editors of bad will are just creating accounts to write rubbish with anyway.
It's not like we make it very hard to create an account anyway, so I agree.
Do you think prefilled templates should be switched on by default for established users? (those existing prior to implementing this feature, that is).
-Matt
Matt Brown wrote:
It's not like we make it very hard to create an account anyway, so I agree.
Do you think prefilled templates should be switched on by default for established users? (those existing prior to implementing this feature, that is).
-Matt
Yes! A large number of Wikipedia editors are not making quality articles, today. Remedial help is needed.
Sydney Poore Go Bengals!
On 12/20/05, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I'd really really like anon page creation switched back on.
(a) A prefilled template would give guidance to editors of goodwill; (b) editors of bad will are just creating accounts to write rubbish with anyway.
It's not like we make it very hard to create an account anyway, so I agree.
I'd really really like anon page creation switched back on.
(a) A prefilled template would give guidance to editors of goodwill; (b) editors of bad will are just creating accounts to write rubbish with anyway.
I am seeing a benefit to anons having to make contact with humans via the AFC page. There is someone there to question their sources, suggest alternative places for bad topics, etc.
Of course I have no experience with the "old way" (new pages patrol and request for deletes?). But the "new way" has some positive attributes.
Steve
Matt Brown wrote:
Do you think prefilled templates should be switched on by default for established users? (those existing prior to implementing this feature, that is).
Sure, why not? We have to add categories and level two headers to our articles, just like everyone else. And if they don't like it (which I wouldn't exactly understand), give them the option to turn it off.
Nathaniel
Well, just to get the ball rolling, I created a possible version at [[Wikipedia:New article template]] (or should it have been on meta?). We're you thinking of something along those lines?
Sam
-- Asbestos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Asbestos
On 12/20/05, Nathaniel Sheetz spangineer@gmail.com wrote:
Matt Brown wrote:
Do you think prefilled templates should be switched on by default for established users? (those existing prior to implementing this feature, that is).
Sure, why not? We have to add categories and level two headers to our articles, just like everyone else. And if they don't like it (which I wouldn't exactly understand), give them the option to turn it off.
Nathaniel _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Is it worth having different templates for different sorts of articles? Is it worth having a wizard? "Is this an article about a person, place, event...?" "So it's a person. Are they alive or dead?" "Great, what field are they most known in?" "Sport, eh? American, British, Jamaican?" Take that far enough and it could spit out half the article, with relevant templates, categories, stubs and pointers for you to read the guidelines for that type of project.
Is this the road we want to go down?
Steve
-----Original Message----- From: wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Sam Fentress (Asbestos) Sent: Tuesday, 20th December 2005 8:41 PM To: preparing@psu.edu; English Wikipedia Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] A newbie on article prefill templating
Well, just to get the ball rolling, I created a possible version at [[Wikipedia:New article template]] (or should it have been on meta?). We're you thinking of something along those lines?
Actually, while I don't think that it needs to go as far as having a wizard, I'd be for a bit of New article Edit Box re-structuring:
How about a box that asks for the articles category (with a link beside it taking you to a pop-up category navigation) and a check-box for stubs?
We could also have a series of boxes for See Also's, External Links and References. Maybe if the user doesn't put in a references, their given a pop-up box letting them know that they really ought to use them.
Of course, this would be rather more work for the developers than simply adding some text to the edit box.
Thoughts?
Sam
-- Asbestos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Asbestos
On 12/20/05, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
Is it worth having different templates for different sorts of articles? Is it worth having a wizard? "Is this an article about a person, place, event...?" "So it's a person. Are they alive or dead?" "Great, what field are they most known in?" "Sport, eh? American, British, Jamaican?" Take that far enough and it could spit out half the article, with relevant templates, categories, stubs and pointers for you to read the guidelines for that type of project.
Is this the road we want to go down?
Steve
-----Original Message----- From: wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Sam Fentress (Asbestos) Sent: Tuesday, 20th December 2005 8:41 PM To: preparing@psu.edu; English Wikipedia Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] A newbie on article prefill templating
Well, just to get the ball rolling, I created a possible version at [[Wikipedia:New article template]] (or should it have been on meta?). We're you thinking of something along those lines?
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Steve Bennett wrote:
Is it worth having different templates for different sorts of articles? Is it worth having a wizard? "Is this an article about a person, place, event...?" "So it's a person. Are they alive or dead?" "Great, what field are they most known in?" "Sport, eh? American, British, Jamaican?" Take that far enough and it could spit out half the article, with relevant templates, categories, stubs and pointers for you to read the guidelines for that type of project.
Nah. Start simple - just some prefilled wikitext should be enough.
Is this the road we want to go down?
That's why to start simple, to see if we need to. Something to help the newbies and not annoy the experienced editors.
- d.
That's why to start simple, to see if we need to. Something to help the newbies and not annoy the experienced editors.
Speaking as a semi-experienced editor, I wouldn't mind the odd template. Typing is boring. Let the machine do it.
Incidentally, there was a proposal somewhere to change the nomenclature from "references" and "external links" to "sources" and "further reading". I've seen this implemented once or twice and it seems to work a lot better, and remove all the confusion over when to use URLs, swaps academic naming conventions ("references") for more understood "sources", etc. If a template is being created, it's probably a good opportunity to think about making a decision on that, and implementing it there.
Steve
On 12/21/05, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
That's why to start simple, to see if we need to. Something to help the newbies and not annoy the experienced editors.
Speaking as a semi-experienced editor, I wouldn't mind the odd template. Typing is boring. Let the machine do it.
Incidentally, there was a proposal somewhere to change the nomenclature from "references" and "external links" to "sources" and "further reading". I've seen this implemented once or twice and it seems to work a lot better, and remove all the confusion over when to use URLs, swaps academic naming conventions ("references") for more understood "sources", etc. If a template is being created, it's probably a good opportunity to think about making a decision on that, and implementing it there.
Steve
I'm not really happy about "Further reading". Not only do some external links show films, or images (which don't require reading), it also fails to take into account that further reading is much thought about with regard to print sources and may lead to people being confused on where to put external links.
And that's without mentioning the 800,000 articles that'd need changing.
Mgm
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
On 12/21/05, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
That's why to start simple, to see if we need to. Something to help the newbies and not annoy the experienced editors.
Speaking as a semi-experienced editor, I wouldn't mind the odd template. Typing is boring. Let the machine do it.
Incidentally, there was a proposal somewhere to change the nomenclature from "references" and "external links" to "sources" and "further reading". I've seen this implemented once or twice and it seems to work a lot better, and remove all the confusion over when to use URLs, swaps academic naming conventions ("references") for more understood "sources", etc. If a template is being created, it's probably a good opportunity to think about making a decision on that, and implementing it there.
Steve
I'm not really happy about "Further reading". Not only do some external links show films, or images (which don't require reading), it also fails to take into account that further reading is much thought about with regard to print sources and may lead to people being confused on where to put external links.
And that's without mentioning the 800,000 articles that'd need changing.
Mgm
Ditto Mgm. I'm not worried about the 800k articles we'd have to change - we got through categorising fine, didn't we? What I'm concerned about is that, as he said, external links != further reading. Maybe we could change "further reading" to "other resources"?
John Lee ([[User:Johnleemk]])
On 12/21/05, John Lee johnleemk@gawab.com wrote:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
On 12/21/05, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
That's why to start simple, to see if we need to. Something to help the newbies and not annoy the experienced editors.
Speaking as a semi-experienced editor, I wouldn't mind the odd template. Typing is boring. Let the machine do it.
Incidentally, there was a proposal somewhere to change the nomenclature from "references" and "external links" to "sources" and "further reading". I've seen this implemented once or twice and it seems to work a lot better, and remove all the confusion over when to use URLs, swaps academic naming conventions ("references") for more understood "sources", etc. If a template is being created, it's probably a good opportunity to think about making a decision on that, and implementing it there.
Steve
I'm not really happy about "Further reading". Not only do some external links show films, or images (which don't require reading), it also fails to take into account that further reading is much thought about with regard to print sources and may lead to people being confused on where to put external links.
And that's without mentioning the 800,000 articles that'd need changing.
Mgm
Ditto Mgm. I'm not worried about the 800k articles we'd have to change - we got through categorising fine, didn't we? What I'm concerned about is that, as he said, external links != further reading. Maybe we could change "further reading" to "other resources"?
John Lee ([[User:Johnleemk]])
Why not keep "External links" and add "Further reading" to separate print and online publications.
John Lee wrote:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
I'm not really happy about "Further reading". Not only do some external links show films, or images (which don't require reading), it also fails to take into account that further reading is much thought about with regard to print sources and may lead to people being confused on where to put external links. And that's without mentioning the 800,000 articles that'd need changing.
Ditto Mgm. I'm not worried about the 800k articles we'd have to change - we got through categorising fine, didn't we?
Also, it's eminently bot-suitable. One of the first things Kate did on en: was run a bot to change "External link", "External Links" and "External Link" to "External links".
What I'm concerned about is that, as he said, external links != further reading. Maybe we could change "further reading" to "other resources"?
Or maybe we could leave it alone! I don't at all see the problem with "References" and "External links". (And some articles, e.g. [[Xenu]], actually have "References" and "Sources" and "External links".) I think the current convention is fine.
- d.
G'day David,
John Lee wrote:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
<snip />
What I'm concerned about is that, as he said, external links != further reading. Maybe we could change "further reading" to "other resources"?
Or maybe we could leave it alone! I don't at all see the problem with "References" and "External links". (And some articles, e.g. [[Xenu]], actually have "References" and "Sources" and "External links".) I think the current convention is fine.
[[Lang Hancock]], which I bring up whenever I need to refer to a good article I've written (since, alas, it's the only really good one I can claim!), has References, External links, Further reading, and See also.
I listed all my sources as footnotes in "References", and now there's far too many footnotes; especially when I cite some sources more than once. I've been considering renaming "References" to "Footnotes" and using it only for extraordinary claims, and moving everything else to a sources section ("References"). Then there'll be Footnotes, References, See also, Further reading, and External links.
Thank goodness it's not a stub as well! Knowing Hancock, there'd be a *lot* of stub categories the man could fit under.
Mark Gallagher wrote:
[[Lang Hancock]], which I bring up whenever I need to refer to a good article I've written (since, alas, it's the only really good one I can claim!), has References, External links, Further reading, and See also. I listed all my sources as footnotes in "References", and now there's far too many footnotes; especially when I cite some sources more than once. I've been considering renaming "References" to "Footnotes" and using it only for extraordinary claims, and moving everything else to a sources section ("References"). Then there'll be Footnotes, References, See also, Further reading, and External links.
I dunno. Have a look at some Featured Articles - to get through FAC these days, you need the metric shitload of references. A lot of people seem to put them <small>, which helps the less-interested eye gloss over them reading the article.
- d.
Yeah, personally I think it doesn't even need to be changed. Teach people the difference. Don't change Wikipedia to help the ignorant.
On Thu, 22 Dec 2005, Mark Gallagher wrote:
[[Lang Hancock]], which I bring up whenever I need to refer to a good article I've written (since, alas, it's the only really good one I can claim!), has References, External links, Further reading, and See also.
I had a quick look at this article & found it is a solid, useful piece, the kind of work I've been looking for to add to [[Wikipedia:Good articles]]. I think it is just as important to recognize that spending 50 hours to create, say, 25 solid & useful articles is just as valid as spending 50 hours to create one Featured Article. Considering the number of articles, spending the time on more articles may be more worthy of praise.
Some of us are having trouble explaining that to a group at [[Wikipedia talk:Good articles]]. Or maybe they are just afraid that as it stands, saying that something like [[Lang Hancock]] is a Good Article is arbitrary & therefore bad -- without acknowledging that for the most part, everything on Wikipedia is arbitrary. (Although it helps in the long run if you can articulate a reason for your actions.)
Geoff
I had a quick look at this article & found it is a solid, useful piece, the kind of work I've been looking for to add to [[Wikipedia:Good articles]]. I think it is just as important to recognize that spending 50 hours to create, say, 25 solid & useful articles is just as valid as spending 50 hours to create one Featured Article. Considering the number of articles, spending the time on more articles may be more worthy of praise.
Some of us are having trouble explaining that to a group at [[Wikipedia talk:Good articles]]. Or maybe they are just afraid that as it stands, saying that something like [[Lang Hancock]] is a Good Article is arbitrary & therefore bad -- without acknowledging that for the most part, everything on Wikipedia is arbitrary. (Although it helps in the long run if you can articulate a reason for your actions.)
Geoff
We already have a lot of articles and a lot of them are substandard. I think spending time fixing, updating and generally improving articles is better spent than creating new ones (especially ones that end up on AFD or spark huge rows). But hey, everyone is entitled an opinion. As long as you are one of those that seek out gaps in our coverage that no one disputes needs to be covered. I can think of a few, then creation is a good cause.
Mgm
Sam Fentress (Asbestos) wrote:
Well, just to get the ball rolling, I created a possible version at [[Wikipedia:New article template]] (or should it have been on meta?). We're you thinking of something along those lines?
Something like that. Thank you! I'll have a fiddle with it later as per the discussion so far on the list.
- d.