[Foundation-l] Handholding for new articles (Was: Re: 80% of our projects are failing)

[Nikola Smolenski]

On Tuesday 02 December 2008 21:52:37 George Herbert wrote:
> Level two is more conceptual.  Does a person who wants to create a
> page understand all that a "well done" page in Wikipedia should have?
> Can they explain what the idea is, and why it should have a page?  Do
> they understand references and think about how to provide some?
>
> To be really useful, a toolset that structures a "create page" button
> response should address some or all of these questions.
>
> Have the output be not just a page, but a series of pages, which
> provide short inputs and do some useful things with them.  Perhaps,
> for example:
>
> "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia.  It exists to collect useful general
> information about all topics and make it freely available.  But there
> are lots of things which don't belong in encyclopedias.  Are you sure
> that the topic / article you want to create is really an encyclopedia
> article?  Is it a word definition instead (link to Wictionary), or an
> image of some sort (link to commons), or (fill in some more).  If your
> idea for an article is really an encyclopedia entry, click 'Yes' below
> to continue."
>
> "Can you explain what this page / article will be about?  What's the
> topic?  Where did you learn about it?  Please fill in the text box
> below with your idea of what this new article is about.  This will be
> posted on the article's talk page to explain the purpose of the
> article."
>
> "Wikipedia relies on outside references to verify information people
> post here.  Can you provide the titles of some books or magazine
> articles, website URLs, or other sources which confirm what you are
> saying in the new article, in the text box below?"
>
> "Wikipedia would like to have articles about all important and useful
> topics, but some topics (normal people, most small businesses, etc)
> just aren't important enough.  Is your article something which people
> in other states or countries will find interesting and useful?
> Wikipedia has some policies on what we recommend as being notable
> enough for articles (link to policies).  If you think this article
> idea is notable enough, please click 'Yes' below to continue."
>
> "Wikipedia likes to have links from article to article.  Are there
> other existing articles which you think this new article should
> connect to?  List them below if you know of any."
>
> "Wikipedia article start with a short introduction, then more details.
>  Can you summarize what this article is about in one to three
> sentences, to start the article's introduction?  Think about it and
> then fill in the introduction below if you can.  Then click on
> 'Continue'."
>
> "Ok, now let's create the actual article contents.... " (filled in
> template article, with introduction section inserted, and slightly
> textually processed references and see also sections).
>
> And the final step drops the article rationale entry into the talk
> page as well, on article creation.
>
>
>
> Does this process make sense?

tl;dr as I'm afraid most people would say :(