[WikiEN-l] Time for preformatted empty articles?

[David Gerard]

On 29/11/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:

> We should probably still kill a lot of unsourced edits. Such a preload
> template is already in use at AFC and it is routinely ignored, but better to
> try and convince some people to follow it. It didn't solve the problem, but
> it cut back on problem cases slightly.


Yeah. The nice thing about a preload template is that it can guide new
editors without being a straightjacket on experienced ones - it's just
text in the edit box, after all.

Something like (off the top of my head):


'''{{PAGENAME}}''' is ... [one-sentence definition]. It is ...

==More detail==

[Put more detail about important aspects of {{PAGENAME}} here. Use
==section-name== around new sections.]

==References==

[List the sources you used in writing this article]

==External links==

[List the most important couple of external webpages on the subject.]


This shows people how to give us the useful content for a good stub
article without having to know all about editing wikitext and lovely
formatting.

wikitech-l - is it possible yet to do a preload when someone hits
'edit' on a red link? If so, what do we need for this to be switched
on for en:wp? It is likely time for such a thing.


- d.