[WikiEN-l] Spoiler Boilerplates

Sun Jun 25 13:28:04 UTC 2006

Zero <megamanzero at 521com> wrote:  On 6/25/06, Zero  wrote:
>  Please. The value and spirit of the encyclopedia comes before the  community every time. The spirit of the encyclopedia is the sharing of  knowledge and the freedom of this information unhindered by the source  material in any capacity. Sticking silly labels on articles created by  hard sweat doesn't fullfill that spirit. Making assumptions on the  basis of a networking site must not be mistaken for the the production  and flourishing of the encyclopedia. - Zero

>>Ok, just to carry on your thinking, how do you feel about the
following "silly labels":

>>* This article is a stub - you can help out by editing it.
>>* Please expand and improve this section as described on this
article's talk page or at Requests for expansion, then remove this
message
>>* The neutrality of this article is disputed.Please see the discussion
on the talk page.
>>* This article needs more context around or a better explanation of
technical details to make it more accessible to general readers and
technical readers outside the specialty, without removing technical
details. See below for more information.
>>* The title of this article should be eBay. The initial letter is
capitalized due to technical restrictions.
>>* Due to technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some
special characters in this article.

>>I have to admit to a sense of irony that we warn users of excessively
>>technical language, and we warn them if the title of the page isn't
>>quite right. We even warn them that the article uses unicode
>>characters. But we refuse to warn them that they may witness >>seriously
>>obscene material or have their enjoyment of a work of fiction totally
>>spoilt.

>Ho hum.

>Steve

  I must admit the mentioned tags are really quite feasible in wikipedia.  As an editor with over 14,000 edits, many of them new articles, I must  conceed the appropriate tags are quite valuable to the intregity,  spirit, improvement and operation of the encyclopedia.

  Lets review:

  * Stub tag- Lest we forget, this is wikipedia. As an editor, I value  completion and professional appearence, so personally I strongly oppose  the creation of a brief article; rather I prepare a rather detailed  document over a time period in [[User:MegamanZero/Sandbox]] and move it  to mainspace upon completion. This, or I merely create the article in  one go from the outset. 

  However, its reasonable to forsee editors do not follow this personal  standard, and create a brief article immediately, perhaps without  research or proper overview. In this case, we insert the stub template  to being attention to it. And as an editor that does much writing, I  know from experience they garner attention to make improvement. And  improved articles means an improved encyclopedia. Are you aware of how  many articles have benefited from expansion from me becuase I took note  of the stub or clean-up tag...? Take a gander at my contribution tree.  I assure you it is very productive indeed.

  * I look upon the second template with slight dissapointment, although  I admit it is useful to an outside party with a tendency to expand  articles at a whim. Being Bold in wikipedia gets work done.

  * I strongly endorse this tag. It provides a service to the  encyclopedia in that it requires the attention of a neutral editor. In  these cases, all that is required is a rewrite after some research on  the matter. I've used it to the advantage in many occassion and it  highlights a need when an editor blatently commits to the violation of  the neutrality we demand at wikipedia. 

  * I'm not going to explain the rest in detail; they are all tools for  editors to discuss upon for the improvement of the article itself. When  readers come to wikipedia, they must expect this is a volunteer project  and there is work in progress to make it to the highest quality. 

  "Our goal is to get wikipedia to Britianica quality or better" - Jimbo Wales

  And we will get there, I'm positive. But we have quite a way to go. The  most glaring dissapointment I have with the spoiler tag is it wasn't  developed with an encyclopedia in mind. Many users claim the offense of  "Oh but its nice and it will help not to spoil them". This isn't that  kind of website.Wikipedia is an uncensored, pure callaboration of  knowledge unhindered by what other social websites may do.   

  You say" "well it doesn't help the wikipedia, but the reader in a way  similar to usenet". This is wrong. Anything promoting such external  social ideals lacking in edvidence to improve the encyclopedia itself  should of course be deleted on sight. - Zero

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