[WikiEN-l] [WikiEn-l] Article surveys re-surveyed

[Ray Saintonge]

Steve Bennett wrote:

>On 5/21/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>  
>
>>Get rid of the culture of fear where an editor avoids being bold to
>>avoid arguments.
>>    
>>
>Yes. The trouble is, edit wars have an effect far wider than just the
>article where they take place. Peopel hear about them, and expect to run
>into them everywhere. The fact is, in the various random topics I've edited,
>I've only ever hit two edit wars. Occasionally people revert changes, but
>usually in good faith - the changes were simply incorrect.
>
OK, sometimes it is a bit like judging the English by the behaviour of 
its soccer fans.  It makes you shy about being near any of them.

>On the other hand, I very, very frequently break up unstructured articles
>into sections, wikify, or rearrange sections into some kind of order - the
>very basic sort of editing that anyone can do, but that people seem afraid
>to? It's actually really trivial to read an article paragraph by paragraph
>and add a ==section heading== before each one summarising what it's about,
>and it's so helpful. Once that's done you can actually begin to see the
>article as whole and see what's missing, rather than just seeing that
>there's lots of text, and maybe it has enough text?
>
Some editors don't like to do work that's "really trivial"; it's 
inconsistent with their self-image. ;-)

I agree with the importance of what you say.  It still involves building 
a culture that values the need to wash dishes once in a while.  It's 
tough doing that when heretofore they took it for granted that mom would 
always do that.

Ec