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

[David Goodman]

Nothing personal, but when tl;dr is given as a response, it indicates
that there is something certainly substantial and probably interesting
to be seen and understood--and possibly even used as the basis for
action -- as in this case/.

On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 11:21 PM, Nikola Smolenski <smolensk at eunet.yu> wrote:
> 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 :(
>
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-- 
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG