[WikiEN-l] Re: Error on quadratic formula page

[Timwi]

Fennec Foxen wrote:

> On Sun, 30 May 2004 23:20:10 -0400 (EDT), kartik at townisp.com
> <kartik at townisp.com> wrote:
> 
>>One day when I looked at the quadratic formula page, it mentioned another
>>quadratic formula I had never seen before:
> 
> <snip>
> On Wikipedia, I have a message I use for cases such as this:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Sofixit

Nice one ... but I think its use of links is a little dodgy and probably 
confusing to newbies:

> So, feel free to _be bold_ and make this correction yourself!

Here, "be bold" is a link. Where is a newbie supposed to think it leads 
to? It seems to suggest that one should click it in order to be bold. I 
don't think that makes a lot of sense to people.

> If you are unsure about _how to edit a page_, try out the _Sandbox_ to test your editing skills.

This sentence contains *one* suggestion, but *two* links. While the 
latter link seems to be what the suggestion is about, it leaves the 
visitor wondering in confusion about the former link.


I am posting this here not just because I want to discuss this 
particular thing, but because I think that quite in general, people tend 
to put these spurious links into text that is meant for newbies, 
thinking "the more links to introductory newbie explainy pages, the 
better!", but it's really confusing if the newbie has no idea where the 
links actually go.


So here is my suggestion for a change. Of course, it's a little bit 
longer-winded than Fennec's original:


Hello, [[Wikipedia:Welcome, newcomers|welcome to Wikipedia]]! We welcome 
your contributions. Wikipedia is a [[wiki]], and anyone - including you! 
- can edit nearly any article, at any time, by clicking the '''Edit''' 
tab at the top of the page, next to the tabs for Discussion and History. 
You don't even need to [[Special:Userlogin|log in]], although there are 
several [[Wikipedia:Why create an account?|reasons why you might want 
to]]. Here at Wikipedia, [[Wikipedia:be bold|we ask people to be bold]] 
and not be afraid of making mistakes. So, feel free to make this 
correction yourself! If you are unsure about how editing works, have a 
look at [[Wikipedia:how to edit a page|''How to edit a page'']], or try 
out the [[Wikipedia:Sandbox|Sandbox]] to test your editing skills.


Greetings,
Timwi