--- Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote: <snip>
tonight that she had found two different articles on the same topic, and was annoyed by it. I felt like saying, "why didn't you suggest a merge?" But then realised that the steps involved are totally unrealistic for the average passer by: edit the article, add "{{mergefrom|...}}" to that article, then do the same for
<snip>
More concretely:
- Put a big "Does this article need fixing?" link in a
prominent place on each article (perhaps only for logged-out users or newbies?) 2) Upon clicking it, present a list of common problems: Plagiarism, factual error, duplicate article, incorrect name for article, missing information... 3) Explain that the user can edit it themselves *if they're interested*, or make it *very* easy for them to report the problem so more experienced Wikipedians can fix it. "So fix it" is
<snip>
I agree with Steve's idea to make it easy for readers to tag duplicate articles.
I'm not sure if it would be useful for anything beyond tags that apply to articles as a whole, but it seems like a useful way for identifying common problems like spin-offs (or whatever you call the problem when someone intentionally creates a new article to support their personal agenda).
In terms of easy/automation, it would/should allow for the person to: 1) auto-tag one of the duplicate articles 2) simply type in the name of the other article instead of having to deal with wiki-tags and link formatting like [[blah]]. 3) automatically keep a count of how many users (e.g., 5) think the articles should be combined before official merger nomination thingees are inserted into the articles.
It might also reduce admin annoyances/work where more active readers not familiar with all the wiki bureaucracy simply de-duplicate the articles themselves, blanking 1 duplicate and adjusting the other, only to have an admin auto-revert all the potentially helpful work.
~~Pro-Lick http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick http://www.wikiality.com/User:Pro-Lick (now a Wikia supported site)
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