Summary style (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Response to Bryan Derken)

[Abe Sokolov]

maveric149 at yahoo.com wrote:

"No - I want more text by adding a survey article that summarizes the whole 
topic and provides links to the detailed parts that have already been 
written."

Right now, the origins article is a part of the U.S. history series. An 
executive summary currentley exists and is found in [[History of the United 
States]]. Furthermore, the origins article starts off with a detailed 
overview and is supplemented by a timeline linked below the overview's 
heading.

maveric149 at yahoo.com wrote:

"If those parts [of the article] depend on context that has already been 
established by previous parts, then those will have to have more context and 
links added so that they can be both stand-alone articles and part of a 
series."

The use of passive voice avoids addressing on key obstacle here: who's going 
to do this? This would take far more time than it had taken me to write the 
entire article in the first place. Instead, we should focus our time and 
energy on areas where Wikipedia is far more underdeveloped. After all, the 
feedback about the Civil War origins article has been overwhelmingly 
positive. The Poynter Institute even cited it as an example of one of WP's 
reference-quality articles. A high school teacher recommended it to his/her 
class and said that the article was helpful to his/her students. The bulk of 
the positive feedback was sent to my e-mail account through the WP e-mail 
feature. The only criticism has come from you and Bryan, who admits that he 
hasn't even bothered to read the article.

The three of us should redirect our attention to making the existing 
overview, summary, and timeline for accessible to readers interested in a 
quick glace at the subject. Also, perhaps we can look into making it easier 
to follow the main outline as the reader turns from one page to the next.

-172

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