[WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Update on the create an article as a newbie challenge

[Carcharoth]

On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 7:04 PM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/10/30 geni <geniice at gmail.com>:
>> 2009/10/30 David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>:
>>> 2009/10/30 WereSpielChequers <werespielchequers at googlemail.com>:
>
>>>> I'm hoping that we won't have too many "trick" articles in this
>>>> process, or articles that should be deleted but not by CSD (the
>>>> criteria are "write an article that doesn't meet the deletion
>>>> criteria".
>
>>> Yeah, any such article ahs to be done in good faith, not an attempt to
>>> catch people out. The test criterion is anonymity. Write as good an
>>> article as you would in your known identity.
>
>> Not a reasonable test since anything that heavy with markup is
>> unlikely to look anything like something created by a new user.
>
> I fear it won't be that bad a test. Try doing your usual editing as an
> anon. You'll be surprised just how preremptorily anons get treated
> these days, and the excuses for the clearly unthinking actions. ("How
> dare you! I couldn't possibly cope with the load if I had to think
> about what I was doing!" Really.)

Well, I'm slated to do my regular once-a-month spate of article
creation (yes, really, it's that bad), but I do this (and all editing)
under my account (the only one I've ever had). But I do try and create
the article in the best possible state, drafting and previewing it for
several hours. I suppose my version of this test would be to create an
article in sub-stub format, and see whether someone jumps on it before
I improve it?

But I'm stuck on which of these terms to write an article on:

1) "sword brother" (bit lightweight)

2) "heroic code" (good number of Google Scholar hits)

3) "heroic friendship" (nebulous concept, difficult to pin down)

Any suggestions?

Anyone saying "all three" will get a wet trout slap. I'm leaning
towards heroic code, but unlike most articles I start, it is one that
I don't really have access to enough sources to flesh out the article
enough. The last time I did that was here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arctic_expeditions

But it is gratifying to see that article (well, list) continuing to
grow and improve.

To try and bring this post back on-topic, I suppose my point is that
stub articles on obscure topics would probably fare even worse if a
new editor submitted them. Is that a valid point? That obscure topics
need experienced Wikipedians to start the articles going, as opposed
to new editors trying to do the same?

Carcharoth