maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
"No - I want more text by adding a survey article that summarizes the whole topic and provides links to the detailed parts that have already been written."
Right now, the origins article is a part of the U.S. history series. An executive summary currentley exists and is found in [[History of the United States]]. Furthermore, the origins article starts off with a detailed overview and is supplemented by a timeline linked below the overview's heading.
maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
"If those parts [of the article] depend on context that has already been established by previous parts, then those will have to have more context and links added so that they can be both stand-alone articles and part of a series."
The use of passive voice avoids addressing on key obstacle here: who's going to do this? This would take far more time than it had taken me to write the entire article in the first place. Instead, we should focus our time and energy on areas where Wikipedia is far more underdeveloped. After all, the feedback about the Civil War origins article has been overwhelmingly positive. The Poynter Institute even cited it as an example of one of WP's reference-quality articles. A high school teacher recommended it to his/her class and said that the article was helpful to his/her students. The bulk of the positive feedback was sent to my e-mail account through the WP e-mail feature. The only criticism has come from you and Bryan, who admits that he hasn't even bothered to read the article.
The three of us should redirect our attention to making the existing overview, summary, and timeline for accessible to readers interested in a quick glace at the subject. Also, perhaps we can look into making it easier to follow the main outline as the reader turns from one page to the next.
-172
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--- Abe Sokolov abesokolov@hotmail.com wrote:
maveric149@yahoo.com wrote: Right now, the origins article is a part of the U.S. history series. An executive summary currentley exists and is found in [[History of the United States]]. Furthermore, the origins article starts off with a detailed overview and is supplemented by a timeline linked below the overview's heading.
I think that overview should be expanded to be an article in its own right. As it is, it is not much longer than the summary at [[History of the United States]]. That is hardly enough text to introduce the various parts of the series.
maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
"If those parts [of the article] depend on context that has already been established by previous parts, then those will have to have more context and links added so that they can be both stand-alone articles and part of a series."
The use of passive voice avoids addressing on key obstacle here: who's going to do this?
I'll start work on that this weekend.
This would take far more time than it had taken me to write the entire article in the first place.
The ability to write good summaries is a rarer trait than the ability to write at length on a subject. Let those who can summarize help improve the article series by making it useful to people who don't want to read for an hour.
It should take me a couple hours to write a draft survey article that would take a reader 15 minutes to read and link to full articles on 4 or 5 different aspects of the topic explained in more detail (each section would be almost as long as the current overview and have a 'Main article' link below its heading). That gives the reader a real choice as to how much detail they are willing to read through. The draft could be worked on a /temp page until it is ready to be moved to [[Origins of the American Civil War]]. I would have started this a while ago, but you have kept indicating you would revert any effort like that.
... The three of us should redirect our attention to making the existing overview, summary, and timeline for accessible to readers interested in a quick glace at the subject.
That will require an entire survey article and eventually a separate time lime. Yes - let's get to work on that this weekend.
Also, perhaps we can look into making it easier to follow the main outline as the reader turns from one page to the next.
'Page turning' is a print concept that does not work within the context of a hyperlinked encyclopedia.
Let's continue this discussion on that talk page.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
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