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

Tue Mar 22 12:19:17 UTC 2005

Matt R wrote

> Perhaps, but for stubs, providing "References", "External links" or 
> "Further
> reading" brings a practical benefit that doesn't apply quite the same way 
> for
> more mature articles: namely, recording the location of useful material 
> can be
> very helpful to subsequent editors looking to expand the article.

Providing an _optional_ template might not do a lot of harm; but given the 
way stubs operate, thought should be given as to which 'fields' are really 
compulsory.  I've been seeing quite a number of Indian/Chinese music and 
dance articles recently - do we really expect references and web sites for 
these?  From the point of view of increasing Wiki-en's reach, we do need the 
stub that simply points out a gap.  WP is founded on stubs, after all.

There is a tension: the more complete WP is on things about which being 
fairly complete is not so hard, the more difficult it is to make articles in 
the less-favoured areas match up.  I don't want to see this develop into a 
your-reach-is-greater-than-your-grasp faultline.

Charles 