On 3/24/06, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/24/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
Is there such a thing as editors' guides to specific areas?
For example, the Trinidad and Tobago article attracts people all the
time
who add "new" information which is already contained in some subarticle. They don't expect the level of depth of Trinidad and Tobago articles
that
exist, so they just add something that's "missing", probably unaware of
what
exists.
It would be nice if there was some way to add an "editors guide" -
something
like "Interested in editing articles related to Trinidad and
Tobago? Browse
our articles on the topic". Yeah, I realise that the "obvious" answer
is
"that's what categories are for", but there're two problems with
categories
- one is that they are too opaque (there are too many sub-sub-sub
categories) and another is that the category link at the bottom of the
page
is too obscure - it's too far down the page and not eye-catching
enough. I
am thinking of something that could go in a box like the Sister Links
box
(or in that box). Something friendly and eyecatching, something aimed
at
capturing new editors and pointing them to the type of page they might
have
something to add to - or if nothing else, preventing them (maybe) from adding trivia when we already have a whole article.
Is there anything like this? Do other people see it as something potentially useful?
Ian
Isn't this what Portals are for? I mean they have to-dos, links to relevant topics and wikiprojects and requested articles and all of that stuff. We don't have a [[Portal:Trinidad and Tobago]], but we do have, say [[Portal:Netherlands]] and [[Portal:Iran]].
--Oskar
I haven't seen a portal that really achieves what I am talking about - they are good entrees to the subject, but they are really information guides. One of the best WikiProjects I know is the Cricket WikiProject (which actually has a pretty good Editors Guide, though not exactly along the lines of what I am thinking of, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Cricket/contribute. The Cricket Portal is really impressive, and it points to the WikiProject, but only secondarily. In addition, creating a Portal simply for the purpose of pointing readers towards an "editors' guide" dilutes the Portal idea. Even starting a WikiProject just to create an editors' guide seems to be a bit cart-before-horse.
Ian