[WikiEN-l] Preloaded new article forms to help the newbies?

Tue Mar 22 11:54:12 UTC 2005

On Tue, 22 Mar 2005 11:27:19 +0000, David Gerard
<fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> Deathphoenix wrote:
> > David Gerard wrote:
> 
> >> When the page for creating a new article comes up, would it be
> >> useful to include an article skeleton? Something like the
> >> following:
> >> Is this a useful idea? Do new article patrollers think it will help?
> 
>  > That sounds like a great idea. Since the "well-meaning awful" often
>  > comes from people who might not know where to look for such templates,
>  > maybe it would be a good idea to provide a link in the "Wikipedia does
>  > not yet have an article with this exact name" template, to the edit
>  > page, or maybe provide a button that inserts that template (similar to
>  > the buttons that help you insert bolded text, italicised text,
>  > signatures, and so on).
> 
> If they don't know how to format an article, they wouldn't know what
> a button meant, though ...
> 
> The only downside I can see is the possibility for function creep, and
> idiots using this inappropriately as a hammer to use on others.
> 
> 
> - d.
> 
> 

Indeed. For a start, many new articles are stubs, and for stubs, I
prefer the following format, rather than sections on a short article:

:''See also:'' [[Article a]], [[Article b]]

:''External links:'' [[site a]], [[site b]]

For an example of this format, check many of the towns listed on
[[List of towns in the Republic of Ireland]] (the talk page to-do list
lists the stub ones specifically).

Also, I would consider it optimistic at best to expect references for
the more humdrum stub articles. I'm not discouraging the practice of
encouraging references - but for stubs - which mostly just relate
basic information, contributors shouldn't be beaten with the "provide
references" mantra.

Even beyond stubs, to shorter/average size articles, this may be the case.

Zoney

-- 
~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...