On 27-01-2003, Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote thusly :

On Sun, Jan 26, 2003 at 09:57:32PM -0800, Brion Vibber wrote:

...

For eons people have complained that "Put the text of the new page here." is extremely unhelpful and promotes confusion among newbies to wiki; that it discourages people from doing anything further with the site as they don't know what they've stumbled into; and that it encourages a lot of useless blank, "Put the text of the new page here", and "What does this do? FJSDIOJDFS" pages. Longer, more informative messages have been suggested.

As an experiment, I've gone ahead and changed the (English) message to the following:

You've followed a link to a page that doesn't exist yet. If you'd like to create a new page under this title, delete this message and get typing! Click the 'Help' link up top if you haven't used a Wiki before and aren't sure how to go about it.

If you didn't mean to create a new page, just click the 'back' button in your browser, or use the search box at the top of the screen to find existing articles.

Suggestions for more consice, professional, friendly, and informative wording are welcome.

Now this is unfriendly for everyone who knows what Wiki is about. Please make an option for nothing to appear in this box.

Can I request "'''PageTitle'''" to appear in the box as an option ?

Regards, Kpjas.

On Mon, 27 Jan 2003 03:50:49 -0800 (PST), Anthere anthere5=/E1597aS9LQAvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org wrote:

What about letting a text this type only for anonymous users ? Most loggued-in users already know what wiki and an edit page is about

A good idea - that will help me avoid creating articles without being logged in (I lose my login because I am upgrading my browser (a beta) frequently).

Erik Moeller wrote:

I've changed the code so that the text is autoselected via JavaScript. This should eliminate the need for a user option.

I don't think the Linux people will be overjoyous - selecting the text means copying it...

Magnus

On Mon, Jan 27, 2003 at 11:45:09AM +0100, Erik Moeller wrote:

On Mon, 2003-01-27 at 11:31, Magnus Manske wrote:

...

Erik Moeller wrote:

...

I've changed the code so that the text is autoselected via JavaScript. This should eliminate the need for a user option.

...

I don't think the Linux people will be overjoyous - selecting the text means copying it...

I am one of those, but I don't see the problem. 1) This is PRIMARY, not CLIPBOARD. If you want your clipboard contents to be safe, you use CLIPBOARD (i.e. Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V). 2) To delete the text, you have to select it anway. True, not everyone will do it by mouse (and thereby trigger PRIMARY), but even for those who don't, it will be a convenience to preselect it.

However, if there's a way to suppress PRIMARY when calling the select() method in Javascript, please let me know.

I'm Linux person and I really don't like it. Real men use PRIMARY for copying, not CLIPBOARD ;-)

Option to start with empty box is the best solution. Or even better always start with empty box and put such text over it.

How about this:

if you click on a link to a non-existing page, the same thing happens as if you type a non-existing article URL into your browser, i.e. you get a page that says "(there is currently no text in this page)". (Of course we want to change that text to a friendlier one, see below.) Then if you click on Edit, the edit box shows up, with the initial text set to '''ArticleTitle''' in the main name space, and left empty in other namespaces.

That doesn't seem to take much longer for power users: they have to do one additional click, but save the removing of the initial message that's currently necessary. In the best of all possible worlds, we could even have a user option that brings you directly to the empty edit box, bypassing the message. It also requires a conscious decision on the part of newbies to start editing; they can never end up with an edit box by mistake anymore.

For the message, I suggest:

This article doesn't exist yet. To write an encyclopedia article about this topic, hit "Edit this page" and type away. Alternatively, use your browser's "Back" button.

in the main name space (note the word "encyclopedia" to clue in people who don't know where they are) and

This page doesn't exist yet. To create it, hit "Edit this page" and type away. Alternatively, use your browser's "Back" button.

in other name spaces.

Axel

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On lun, 2003-01-27 at 16:11, tarquin wrote:

Brion Vibber wrote:

...

Suggestions for more consice, professional, friendly, and informative wording are welcome.

been sitting on Meta for months:

http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empty_page_page

I'm well aware of that, as I wrote it. :) That's not editbox text, but a full page with links to what you oughta meant.

More work to set up, requires a second click to edit any page if it's to serve the same function (help for people who click an edit link without knowing what they've gotten into), and is even more likely to tick people off for being too intrusive -- not that many have bothered to comment on it.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Brion Vibber wrote:

I'm well aware of that, as I wrote it. :) That's not editbox text, but a full page with links to what you oughta meant.

More work to set up, requires a second click to edit any page if it's to serve the same function

Sorry to double post, but rereading I think there's been a misunderstanding.

The first part of that meta page is a suggestion for what is seen when the the user enters a Wikipedia URL for a page that does not exist, thus:

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/fghfgh

it's for people who follow a dead link from another site, not for our own internal ghost links.