MediaWiki talk:Newarticletext

Red links

It strikes me a lot of "vandalism" is a result of an inexperienced user clicking a red link in an article, finding themselves straight on a live edit page, and then typing-in the first thing that comes into their heads - probably with no real idea that they are modifying the live database, since this is not the expected behavior on an ordinary website.

Is this the best default behavior? Should we make users read a boilerplate page before reaching a live edit page? Might reduce the page deletion load on the sysops.

Similarly, a lot of VfD pages seem to have started out as ill-considered red links which got turned into stubs - so we really should not red-link anything that would not make a suitable article in its own right and we should remove any such red links when detected. I generally do this, but it does not seem to be common practice and I have not seen any guidelines. Anjouli 13:50, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The edit page already contains the following notice:

I think it's a good thing that users stumble across the editability of Wikipedia by accident. It's a quick introduction into the world of wikis. Deleting nonsense pages is really not a lot of work. I do agree about not creating links to articles which we don't want to be written, of course.—Eloquence 13:59, Dec 19, 2003 (UTC)

I broadly agree. I just think it is a bit too easy to blindly bang the keyboard without reading the boilerplate. Just making it require a little more thought would keep out the real headbangers but not put off anybody with more than half a brain. Anyway, just a suggestion. Not something about which I have any strong feelings. Anjouli 15:08, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Too much boilerplate and instructions and help and pointers has a way of becoming annoying, so keeping it short is a Good Thing. But anyone who hangs around long enough to find it annoying is also likely to make an account. So I'd say: treat anon users to some more boiler plates, info and pointers, carefully chosen not to be overdone, and keep to shorthand philosophy for people with user names. Zocky 17:06, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Keep in mind that some people deliberately choose not to create an account, or not to use it on certain locations.—Eloquence

That's true. In that case they don't get a watchlist, user page, IP anonimity, etc. We already treat anon users differently. Zocky 17:11, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Of course, but this has technical reasons. We shouldn't annoy them intentionally. :-) —Eloquence

It's just as technical as giving them talk pages. And I'm not talking about striving to be annoying: just push verbosity on the edit page up to the level appropriate for somebody who has stumbled here by accident and has never heard either of wikipedia or wiki concept. Zocky 17:45, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Perhaps you could edit MediaWiki:newarticletext to demonstrate what you mean. I have unprotected it for you.—Eloquence

OK, I added a link to the sandbox, plus changed the wording from "page" to "article", which I hope sounds a tad more serious. I would have made it a bit flashier and more explicit if logged users didn't have to look at it.

OTOH, the text on the edit screen for existing pages could say something like:

"Please note that your changes to the encyclopedia will be visible immediately, so you should review Wikipedia's guidelines and policies before making extensive changes."

But I'm not sure that it would convey "It's always OK to correct typoes" enough. Zocky 19:17, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I redesigned it a bit. The message probably shouldn't be displayed for signed in users.—Eloquence

You're allergic to verbosity, heh? :)

I think that it should be somewhat cuddlier, so we don't sound scary. Also, please bear in mind that non-native speakers may have trouble understanding less verbose sentences. "Please do so" is not very good in that respect. Any thoughts? Zocky

I'm torn. The message is shown for signed in and unregistered users alike. I'm not sure it's a good idea to disable it entirely for signed in users. It might be overkill to have a separate message. But if we keep it enabled, we should try to not go beyond a certain maximum number of characters to avoid annoying the users. How these characters are used is another question.

In other words, with the current setup, I'm all for rewording the message, but I think it should not get any longer.—Eloquence

Any objections to changing the colour? It's fairly unreadable on my screen on the pages with a yellow background. Angela. 20:16, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Sure, go ahead, it was just an experiment.—Eloquence

How about some tinting?

You've followed a link to an article that doesn't exist yet.

To write the article, type in the box below

(see the help page for more info). If you are here by mistake, just click your browser's back button. Your addition to the encyclopedia will be visible immediately, so if you just want to test how things work, please do that in the sandbox. Thanks!

Do we think it's ugly in principle? Zocky 20:37, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Not at all. I'm mostly concerned about the space as it affects the placement of the edit box on the page.—Eloquence

Well, I think that tinting it will make it look more like a part of UI than like accompanying text, which might be good. If we want that philosophy, it shoud of the same width as the edit box. Zocky 21:11, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Just a thought: Maybe just the warning shoud be in the frame: Zocky

---

To write the article, type in the box below (see the help page for more info). If you are here by mistake, just click your browser's back button.

Your addition to the encyclopedia will be visible immediately, so if you just want to test how things work, please do that in the sandbox. Thanks!

Visually I think that's very ugly. Semantically I'm not sure the two are so different.—Eloquence

Well, the second one is a warning, the first one is just accompanying text. I was thinking that it's more prominent tinted (and easier to ignore when you get used to it), but if the whole box is tinted, it looks pretty bulky.Zocky 01:21, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I think that this is not what we need --ilya 05:45, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC)

---

I have two points re the new text:

• How will older/different browsers handle the formatting? (I've yet to check, but will)
• Should the DO NOT UPLOAD...PERMISSION text be moved here? I think that's a good idea - I think too many people miss the copyright text down the bottom.

Dysprosia 01:04, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Please not more text into the box. In low resolutions the edit box will then be too far down at the bottom and because of a JavaScript that puts the cursor in the box, we might cause some involuntary screen scrolling.—Eloquence 01:10, Dec 20, 2003 (UTC)

I agree. Anyway, copy vio is a far less common problem than testing, and people who are guilty of copy vio are usually easier to deal with. Zocky 01:21, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC)

May be "so you may want to experiment in the sandbox first" instead of "so if you just want to test how things work, please do that in the sandbox" (too crude)

That might encourage people to start writing their articles in the sandbox, which is not a good thing and does happen quite a bit already. Angela. 05:42, 21 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Well, if somebody cannot tell sandbox from regular article how can we be sure he won't mess things in an article? And Sandbox in its present is clearly not the place where one may want to write about Shakespeare. And current message is too bold --ilya 06:22, 21 Dec 2003 (UTC)

What about requiring anonymous users to do preview before saving new articles? Previewing new articles is a good idea in any case so it won't harm good users. And on the preview we can notify about copyright etc. --ilya 05:45, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC)

That's not something we can change with this namespace, so needs to go to Sourceforge as a feature request. Angela. 05:42, 21 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Still [what is] your opinion? --ilya

What do you mean? It wasn't an opinion. We can't make it so edits by anons don't go through without them pressing preview using the MediaWiki namespace. That's a change beyond sysop control -- nothing to do with my opinion. Angela. 07:25, 21 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Hm, I was sure everything on Wikipedia is to do something with everyone 's opinion... still you don't need to answer. ilya

Oh, what is my opinion. I don't mind either way but it's not up to me as I wouldn't be the one coding it. Anyway, my point was that it shouldn't be discussed here in the MediaWiki namespace because it isn't something that can be changed using this namespace. Angela. 21:11, Jan 3, 2004 (UTC)

Bad idea in any case. You don't want to preview when making spelling correction, which is something that anons do a lot.—Eloquence

I said, when writing a new article. --ilya 14:33, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)

People will be more responsible if they see 'Oh, I click Yes and this will look that way'; at least they will understand what happens ilya

Please let's not forget the difference between an article and any other wiki page. Pages like this need to use "page" and not "article". --mav 05:20, 12 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Mav, I don't get the point. ilya

The point is that MediaWiki:Newarticletext said "article" before when this same message is displayed in every wiki page namespace. An empty page even in the article namespace is not an article either. --mav 23:57, 12 Jan 2004 (UTC)