[WikiEN-l] Eschatology and Wikipedia

[Ray Saintonge]

On 12/22/10 3:02 PM, Andrew Gray wrote:
> I had an interesting discussion a year or two ago with someone about
> the absence of redlinks in "high-quality" articles - in the past few
> years, there's been a definite trend to arguing that redlinks are
> detrimental to a finished article, and should be removed even when an
> article is pretty much guaranteed to be created eventually. Net
> result, of course, is that the article is more polished-looking - to
> us, at least, even if not to a reader unclear on the red/blue
> distinction - but has marginally less reminders of its editability.

The polished look is a mere superficiality.  We should be doing more to 
encourage editors to wikify articles by creating links to what might be 
wanted.  The red links let it be known that there is still work to be 
done, and that alone may draw new editors.  I find that if I make edits 
somewhere it is just as easy to create links at the same time.
> I suspect this is part of a similar trend!
>
> It reminds me of the spirit of
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Always_leave_something_undone
>
> "Whenever you write a page, never finish it. Always leave something
> obvious to do: an uncompleted sentence, a question in the text (with a
> not-too-obscure answer someone can supply), wikied links that are of
> interest, requests for help from specific other Wikipedians, the
> beginning of a provocative argument that someone simply must fill in,
> etc. The purpose of this rule is to encourage others to keep working
> on the wiki."
>
This too continues to be an important principle, but I would not take it 
to the extent of compulsory stupidity,  Still there is no shame in 
letting it be obvious that more work and help is needed on an article by 
someone who has better access to the needed information.

Ec