I'd like to know exactly what the consensus is on "metacomments" within an article text - "More should be written here", "See WikiProject Foo for help with editing this page", "Is this correct?", and so on.
I'm of the opinion that things like this should almost always be in the Talk page. Having them in the article looks tacky and unprofessional. Only things that directly affect "customers" should be in the article, I'd say.
--- Khendon jason@jasonandali.org.uk wrote:
I'd like to know exactly what the consensus is on "metacomments" within an article text - "More should be written here", "See WikiProject Foo for help with editing this page", "Is this correct?", and so on.
I'm of the opinion that things like this should almost always be in the Talk page. Having them in the article looks tacky and unprofessional. Only things that directly affect "customers" should be in the article, I'd say.
There's no specific consensus on such meta-comments (however, you'll have to ask the WikiProject folks about the "See WikiProject" ones).
In Wikipedia's early days, it was quite common to add such comments. It now seems to be frowned upon as more and more people use Wikipedia articles as references. I usually move them to the talk page.
Stephen G.
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I don't like metacomments, especially if they are personalized like "I will add this later" or "Add the date if you know it", "if you are from London, join in", etc.
I think that in rare circumstances, they can be useful to the reader though. When I write about a topic and I know that I omitted a major aspect of it, because I ran out of time or I don't know enough, then I sometimes add a metacomment to the article, informing the reader of the omission. That way, they won't walk away thinking they got the full story. It's just a matter of honesty in that case, and it's especially important if people want to use the article as reference material.
Axel
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I think the first thing I wrote in Wikipedia was in response to a metacomment. They can be obtrusive, but they can also be functional. Take a look at [[Harmonica]] for some I added just the other day.
Tom Parmenter Ortolan88
On Tue, Oct 01, 2002 at 02:07:34PM +0100, Khendon wrote:
I'd like to know exactly what the consensus is on "metacomments" within an article text - "More should be written here", "See WikiProject Foo for help with editing this page", "Is this correct?", and so on.
I'm of the opinion that things like this should almost always be in the Talk page. Having them in the article looks tacky and unprofessional.
I disagree. I don't know about the WikiProject references, but 'is this correct?' and 'more should be written about <whatever>' both seem valuable to me.
I prefer an article which points out its weaknesses to one which glosses them over; I think it's more useful to the reader, as well as more encouraging to potential editors. I don't think there's anything unprofessional about work in progress.
In general, if someone thinks its worth their while to add something to a page, I think it's best to give them the benefit of the doubt, even if it's something you wouldn't have added yourself.
-M-
I'd like to know exactly what the consensus is on "metacomments" within an article text - "More should be written here", "See WikiProject Foo for help with editing this page", "Is this correct?", and so on.
I'm of the opinion that things like this should almost always be in the Talk page. Having them in the article looks tacky and unprofessional. Only things that directly affect "customers" should be in the article, I'd say.
IMO: Some metacomments ("More needs to be written on this aspect.") have a place, and can be very useful to readers as well as writers. Others ("This is based on material from an unnamed 1911 encyclopedia.") can safely be relegated to [[Talk:]], if that.
-- Toby
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