There is something I do not understand.
Some editors are putting some "clean up" flag on some articles. The resulting information is ugly and defacing the article. There is no indication of why the article should be cleaned up, neither in the talk page, nor in the clean up page.
Ex : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flax or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat
I doubt not there is still work to do on the articles, just as on most articles. Why showing so much to our readers the imperfections ? What about not just putting per default this flag on ALL articles ? Why just not fixing the article you think is bad instead of mentionning so proeminently it is bad ?
How long will these flags stay up ?
Would it not be nicer to have a less visible mention on the article itself at least ? If putting the flag is necessary to mark them and have them listed for improvement, could it be made more discreet ?
On Sat, 02 Oct 2004 15:58:30 +0200, Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
There is something I do not understand.
Some editors are putting some "clean up" flag on some articles. The resulting information is ugly and defacing the article. There is no indication of why the article should be cleaned up, neither in the talk page, nor in the clean up page.
Ex : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flax or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat
I notice both these examples have now been reverted. Personally, I see very little point in any "labelling" of this kind. Any issues with an article should surely be discussed on that article's Talk: page; that's what it's there for. In fact, I've just had a thought:
For cleanup listings, all we want to do is have a central point to draw attention to issues, which should be explained on Talk: pages. Therefore, why don't we have Category:Cleanup consisting of the Talk pages, rather than the articles?
Personally, I quite like the idea of Cleanup as a category, with justifications on talk pages. This would give us a central list to work through (the category listing) but also have equal access to the reasons and discussions from both ends (there's a complaint on Wp_talk:Cleanup about a page where things were mentioned on [[Wikipedia:Cleanup]] but not the talk page). And removing a category tag automatically removes the listing, without having to hunt through reams of archives to see if it is, actually, listed somewhere.
The only thing we (or rather, people who actually use the list; I can't say I ever have) *lose* is being able to glance down summaries of what needs doing, but this could be mitigated by splitting it into sub-categories. This could also let people put big fat labels on pages in really dire need of attention, but not ones where they just weren't sure what to do about a particular passage.
OK, so it's Yet Another Article Cleanup Suggestion, but categoires are still relatively new and unexplored, so what are people's thoughts?
On Sat, 2 Oct 2004 17:25:08 +0100, Rowan Collins rowan.collins@gmail.com wrote:
Therefore, why don't we have Category:Cleanup consisting of the Talk pages, rather than the articles?
Adding the cleanup tag automatically puts the page into the cleanup category. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cleanup already has over 1100 entries.
The advantage of also listing the article on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Cleanup is that it allows you to see which are most recent, and also gives a brief summary of the problem, so if you're only interested in finding articles with POV issues you can focus just on those. Dividing the cleanup category into different types, in a similar way to the division of stub tags might lessen the need for the separate Cleanup page.
I strongly feel these should only appear on talk pages, but I gave up arguing that a while ago because people insist on having them on articles, supposedly because they feel readers need to be warned the article is not good enough.
Angela
Angela wrote:
I strongly feel these should only appear on talk pages, but I gave up arguing that a while ago because people insist on having them on articles, supposedly because they feel readers need to be warned the article is not good enough.
I think they ought to go on articles, but with a higher threshold of "suckiness". An article that needs a little work shouldn't go on cleanup, by my understanding of its intent. An article that was wholesale copy/pasted from a PD source with no wikification or rewriting should get the tag, as should an article that appears to be completely incoherent.
-Mark
I also think it's a poor idea to list an article for cleanup - via any method - without explaining what you think is wrong with it. In fact, my biggest issue with the cleanup concept is that it encourages the 'someone else's problem' mentality, though it does help for when you feel like a little Wiki-tidying and need some pointers for problem areas.
-Matt
On Sat, 02 Oct 2004 16:16:06 -0400, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Angela wrote:
I strongly feel these should only appear on talk pages, but I gave up arguing that a while ago because people insist on having them on articles, supposedly because they feel readers need to be warned the article is not good enough.
I think they ought to go on articles, but with a higher threshold of "suckiness". An article that needs a little work shouldn't go on cleanup, by my understanding of its intent. An article that was wholesale copy/pasted from a PD source with no wikification or rewriting should get the tag, as should an article that appears to be completely incoherent.
-Mark
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I love it when people keep telling everybody else what they should and shouldn't do, when they don't bother to do any of things they think other people should be doing.
RickK
Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote: I also think it's a poor idea to list an article for cleanup - via any method - without explaining what you think is wrong with it. In fact, my biggest issue with the cleanup concept is that it encourages the 'someone else's problem' mentality, though it does help for when you feel like a little Wiki-tidying and need some pointers for problem areas.
-Matt
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On Sat, 2 Oct 2004 18:16:23 +0100, Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
The advantage of also listing the article on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Cleanup is that it allows you to see which are most recent, and also gives a brief summary of the problem, so if you're only interested in finding articles with POV issues you can focus just on those. Dividing the cleanup category into different types, in a similar way to the division of stub tags might lessen the need for the separate Cleanup page.
Please see my proposal at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Cleanup#Yet_Another_Proposed_Rep... Basically, I think dividing into sub-categories by type/degree of cleanup needed makes *more* sense than dividing by time listed.
One of the biggest problems with a time-based list is how to find a particular entry on it if you're following the link from the article to Cleanup, not vice versa. When an article on a tag tells you to look up, and remove, its entry on a page which is split into time-based archives, where do you begin?
On Sat, 2 Oct 2004 13:53:18 -0700, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
I also think it's a poor idea to list an article for cleanup - via any method - without explaining what you think is wrong with it. In fact, my biggest issue with the cleanup concept is that it encourages the 'someone else's problem' mentality, though it does help for when you feel like a little Wiki-tidying and need some pointers for problem areas.
That's why I think we should primarily encourage people to put a message on the talk: page saying "this needs X doing, but I don't have time/skills/confidence to do it", with an accompanying category tag which brings it to the attention of people looking for something to fix.
On Sat, 02 Oct 2004 16:16:06 -0400, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
I think they ought to go on articles, but with a higher threshold of "suckiness".
I'd agree to that: really bad articles don't lose anything by having a big "please edit me" begging label. Ones that just need more attention than they seem to be getting just need labelling more subtly and/or on the talk page - possibly subtly to the point of adding them to a category but otherwise not drawing attention to the fact.
Every article needs work, and if you want to look what other people think needs doing on the article you're looking at, you should click "discussion" and should be able thereby to read people's thoughts.
I agree with this; I added a comment on your proposal. ant
Rowan Collins a écrit:
On Sat, 2 Oct 2004 18:16:23 +0100, Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
The advantage of also listing the article on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Cleanup is that it allows you to see which are most recent, and also gives a brief summary of the problem, so if you're only interested in finding articles with POV issues you can focus just on those. Dividing the cleanup category into different types, in a similar way to the division of stub tags might lessen the need for the separate Cleanup page.
Please see my proposal at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Cleanup#Yet_Another_Proposed_Rep... Basically, I think dividing into sub-categories by type/degree of cleanup needed makes *more* sense than dividing by time listed.
One of the biggest problems with a time-based list is how to find a particular entry on it if you're following the link from the article to Cleanup, not vice versa. When an article on a tag tells you to look up, and remove, its entry on a page which is split into time-based archives, where do you begin?
On Sat, 2 Oct 2004 13:53:18 -0700, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
I also think it's a poor idea to list an article for cleanup - via any method - without explaining what you think is wrong with it. In fact, my biggest issue with the cleanup concept is that it encourages the 'someone else's problem' mentality, though it does help for when you feel like a little Wiki-tidying and need some pointers for problem areas.
That's why I think we should primarily encourage people to put a message on the talk: page saying "this needs X doing, but I don't have time/skills/confidence to do it", with an accompanying category tag which brings it to the attention of people looking for something to fix.
On Sat, 02 Oct 2004 16:16:06 -0400, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
I think they ought to go on articles, but with a higher threshold of "suckiness".
I'd agree to that: really bad articles don't lose anything by having a big "please edit me" begging label. Ones that just need more attention than they seem to be getting just need labelling more subtly and/or on the talk page - possibly subtly to the point of adding them to a category but otherwise not drawing attention to the fact.
Every article needs work, and if you want to look what other people think needs doing on the article you're looking at, you should click "discussion" and should be able thereby to read people's thoughts.