[Wikipedia-l] The New Yorker on Wikipedia

Mon Jul 24 14:49:07 UTC 2006

On 24/07/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't think specialists are the answer here; just like for
> verifiability, this is too big a task to be feasible for a small group
> of people, since just about every article could use a better
> "structure". What is needed is a better general awareness, and perhaps
> tools. For example, if the edit window is a part of the problem, then
> why not have the window auto-resize to fit the screen, instead of a
> fixed width and height? Or perhaps we could bring it to people's
> attention that the size of the edit box is customizable? &etc.

A few suggestions like these are floating around at the moment that
may affect the edit screen. The whole <ref> and upcoming Semantic
additions are leading to quite cluttered views. It has been suggested
that we add syntax highlighting features including hiding some
elements as per preferences (with options running from all WikiSyntax
to just <ref>).

I suggest an alternate "paragraph" view may be quite useful where the
article appears as it does to the normal reader except the editor is
able to drag blocks of text (paragraphs), infoboxes and images around
and drop them where they are better suited. Perhaps they could then
double click on one of these elements to edit it. This may lead to a
rise in aesthetic and paragraphing editing which is needed. One
problem is that it would probably take a lot of work.
-- 
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)