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Wikipedia:Pages needing attention

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Mav (talk | contribs) at 07:20, 18 February 2003. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.


Of course, every entry on Wikipedia deserves attention. But some entries deserve tender loving attention.

If you come across a page that you think needs a lot of work, but have no idea how to approach it, list it here so that others can find it.

This page is very similar to the other pages like: Requested articles, Current events. However it is more utilitarian than those pages, being intended for the editorial community alone.

You might also want to look at:

  • Wikipedia:Help desk -- like a library help desk: ask questions, get references to Wikipedia articles (not for technical assistance)
  • Wikipedia:Duplicate articles -- a list of articles on the same subject which need to be merged (and instructions on how to do this)

Stubs

See also the following lists of stubs:

Mere definitions

Wikipedia is not a dictionary, and an article which simply defines a word is useless. Sometimes, those articles can turn into bona fide encyclopedic treatments of a topic; sometimes they should just be deleted.

The above series of definitions do not appear to have been expanded or improved in the six months since February 25. Even the details of where they came from are lost in pre-history. For the most part these definitions appear isolated from their contexts. I know nothing of the theoretical study of hierarchies. Perhaps someone who understands this stuff can bring all this into a single coherent and cohesive article, or possibly scrap some articles completely. Eclecticology 04:00 Aug 30, 2002 (PDT)
Organization is now a reasonable article. Hierarchical tree structure and rooted hierarchical tree structure have now been merged into tree structure: see below. The Anome 08:42 Oct 24, 2002 (UTC)

More than definitions but still stubs

Subtly wrong


Atlas Shrugged

Discussion taken from Votes for deletion

  • Atlas Shrugged/United States
    • Basically states that the action in Atlas Shrugged took place in the US. BTW, does every chapter of Atlas Shrugged really require a separate wikipedia entry??? Chas zzz brown 22:25 Nov 2, 2002 (UTC)
    • Holey Moley! There are 209 articles on Atlas Shrugged, including separate articles on each section of each chapter; plus endless stub reference articles such as Atlas Shrugged/Atlantic Ocean and Atlas Shrugged/Food (liverwurst, canapes, and something else). Looks like a project someone started, then (naturally) got tired of. Can't imagine anyone filling out any of the stubs.
      • Can't imagine anyone refactoring this mess either. Ortolan88
  • look kinda interesting to me, be a shame to delete what appears to be a pretty good breakdown of the book Lir 15:55 Nov 3, 2002 (UTC)
      • Nobody's really suggesting deleting anything, just commenting on what a mess it is. When little fragments of an article go flying off into their own articles, the reader is not being well served. Here, an important point about the novel, its setting and what it means, has turned into an separate independent article. The article on the novel is made less informative; the separate article is nearly worthless outside the context of the discussion of the novel. I thought reading Ayn Rand was supposed to make one ruthlessly logical. Guess not. Ortolan88
  • This complex of articles about a cult novel needs a lot of work to reduce it from its 209 articles. The only information on Atlas Shrugged/Waiter is that he served drinks. Does that qualify him to be a brain surgeon? Eclecticology

Also (moved from below)

  • Atlas Shrugged - the entire set of Atlas Shrugged/... articles need to be sorted out.
    • This set should be debated: what to do with it? There also seem to be very funky links from this set, made by the original author. For instance, the link "Lilan" in Atlas Shrugged/Section181 links to Lillian Todaro. olivier 09:50 Oct 29, 2002 (UTC)

Articles needing a rewrite

Articles that have good information, but need work for some reason

  • British railway system History section needs completing.
  • A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z -- All these could use some reworking. I've linked them all to each other, but it would be nice to have some common formatting between them. Also, if someone wants to find pictures of all the letters, that would probably be helpful. Information from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica might be a good idea.
  • Ablution -- unless we can (or need to) write a general definition & description, this should be moved to "Ablution in the bible". Yet more from Eason's.
  • Abstract - seems like a very philosophical discussion. Needs some clarification, and extension to arts for instance.
  • Alexandria, Virginia - the data is old and needs updating, and a reference to "Alexandria County" is totally outdated.
  • Anti-Israel movements - the page seems to have the right idea but it needs to be integrated into the framework of pages connected to Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
  • ANZAC Day - two fairly lengthy articles that need to be tightened and combined into one.
  • Asynchronous Transfer Mode - this article is nearly ready but needs final editing and checking
  • Balloon - could use some more examples. (I moved the cross-ref to hot air balloon to near the beginning, but haven't resolved what got it onto this page. Vicki Rosenzweig)
  • Bead artists: this page is becoming commercial!. olivier 09:51 Oct 29, 2002 (UTC)
  • Belarusian media: NPOV issues
  • Black box - a bit jumbled. Further notes on Talk:Black box
  • Black Sabbath - from the article: and someone else can write 1979 to date
  • Boot sequence - needs an introduction explaining the concept in general; also something on "soft boot".
  • Cracow - has a lot of good info, but also has some claims that fall outside the NPOV.
  • Charles Babbage - a bewildering jumble of three different articles.
  • Dominique Arago - full of scanos like "~ri1ière".
  • E-mail: good information, but should be developed to have a proper history of E-mail, and perspectives on the directions E-mail is evolving: security, for example.
  • English Civil War - looks like some parts of paragraphs are missing, it doesn't quite make sense in some bits.
  • Ernest Hemingway: information from several sources to be merged. Copyright issues?
  • Fascism - needs watching for NPOV
  • Hammond Organ - seems to impose additional copying restrictions.
  • Hector Camacho - a lot of text, little NPOV
  • Holocene extinction event - more species are needed, and some help with NPOV
  • Human - Genetic similarity with chimps & gorillas appears wrong per this new research: [1] and [2]
  • Imprecise language - no longer in first person, but still needs work
    • Please be more precise. What kind of work? The article looks fine to me.David 13:16 Aug 22, 2002 (PDT)
      • It looks OK to me too. Sometimes these articles are fixed, but nobody thinks to remove the reference from this page. I propose to remove it from this list if nothing more happens about it in the next week. Eclecticology 18:12 Nov 7, 2002 (UTC)
  • Irian Jaya - requires merging and NPOVing
  • Jocasta -- paternity mixup. See Talk:Jocasta
  • John Law - appears to be someone's notes or lecture outline
  • Kashmir - long on bathic emotion, short on facts
  • Image:KavirajuStampE-3.jpg -- article in image space, pasted from a Geocities page, apparently by the author
  • Martin Luther King Jr. - much more needs to be written, in more depth
  • Mary Kay Letourneau — Just a bunch of links. I'm not even sure this person should be in Wikipedia at all. Is anyone going to want to look her up in 50 years? Pandora 20:09 Feb 4, 2003 (UTC)
  • G. Gordon Liddy - found it on the requested articles page, so I wrote a stub containing the information I could find, but I couldn't find important facts like his birthdate or birthplace, or the date of publication of his autobiography.
  • Media in Poland - NPOV issues
  • Micronation: this article has been fought over in various directions, with some "micronation" enthusiasts writing their fantasy worlds in as real countries -- currently contains a new version at top, and older text below -- needs merging, fact-checking and careful watching
  • Military history - Working on organizing (Chris Mahan 05/23/2002)-- suggestions welcome.
  • Milo Burcham and P-80 Shooting Star - need wikification and de-1st personing; the latter needs details about the aircraft
  • Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab - need wikification and watching for NPOV
  • Napoleonic Wars - little more than an extended structure
  • New Imperialism - a dense, POV article with very little to help the reader understand any of the tangential issues.
  • Old Catholic Church - one page, three articles on the same subject. In need for a synthesis...
  • Oliver North - currently just a brief summary. Needs a lot of work.
  • PDP-11 - huh? this needs to be more easily understood
  • Poet laureate - contains a list and little else that is useful. Should contain the history of the position and the duties or usual actions of the poet laureate.
  • poets - not only are the page titles messed up, very possibly the page itself should be redirected to listing of poets
  • Political_philosophy - contains government definition inside, and is actually a quotatation of some (novel-like) lecture
  • Religious aspects of marriage - Larry wanted this article, but I doubt he wanted it quite like this. (Not so bad now that the original has been replaced.)
  • Richard Boyle - jumbled and incomplete
  • Shor's algorithm - half of it is missing
  • Sensory Integration Dysfunction - needs attention from an expert.
  • Sigismund I Jagiello -- at present, this is just bad prosopography. Needs an infusion of context and coherence
  • Solar power satellite -- NPOV issues, possible copyright?
  • Stock market - Good article, but entirely US-centric. Needs globalisation in terms and content, and also history section about the development of stock markets.
  • Sugarhill Gang - needs reorganization
  • Tabletop roleplaying games - rename to Tabletop roleplaying game or maybe with a hyphen like Role-playing game.
  • Thirteen Years' War - needs editing and clarification. also, shouldn't have an approstrophe in the title, probably.
  • Tree structure - formed by merging four fragmentary articles. Now has some reasonable content, but needs lots of copyediting and checking for mathematical correctness
  • Torah Judaism: needs editing for NPOV and proofreading by experts on Judaism
  • Tsherim Soobzokov - POV and incomprehensible to someone who's never heard of him
  • Vacuole
  • Wends- general re-write and information needs
  • William Jardine - needs paragraphs, formatting, Wikification, summary
  • World War II - There is nothing at all in here about Italian Fascism (other than appearing in a list of the major Axis powers), nor is there anything about Mussolini except a link to his article
  • Zarnowiec - translation problems
  • Zimbabwe - complex issue needing more facts, outdated data corrected
  • Side effect - has only computer definition. Needs medical stuff
    • Well, I cleaned things up and created a beginning of a "medical side effects" article. It does still need work... -- RTC 04:00 Nov 26, 2002 (UTC)

Articles which appear to be highly contentious

Articles containing outdated text

The following articles were drawn from out-of-date public domain texts, such as the 1911 Encyclopedia Anglicana, the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia, or the 1881 Household Cyclopedia. Or, they may contain large sections drawn from such texts. In any event, they require fact-checking, modernization, and deletion of anachronisms. (This may be the best way to deal with the flood of dubious material from 62.98. It's a lot more constructive than flame wars.)


Abgar -- Club

  • More articles by 62.98.xx.xx containg Household Cyclopedia material. Added to previously existing articles. Dog



  • Amaranth information looks fine, but needs rewording

Articles of dubious merit, accuracy and/or validity


The following articles are by an author who does not tend to follow the consensus NPOV - rather, he/she has their own concept of wikipedia:Natural point of view. All these articles, and other works by this author, need close attention and review to place them in an NPOV format.


I revealed that conception to spark a dialogue - it isn't what I apply in writing articles. Your characterization is entirely reasonable as your own opinion, but it belongs in a separate file. -24

Although they have not created a login, more pages by this author can be found at special:contributions&theuser=24.150.61.63.

The user has also been using the main page at meta.wikipedia.com to draw attention to his views and agenda. It is perfectly legitimate to air personal views about Wikipedia on meta - that is what it's there for. However, the main page is there chiefly as a contents page to the articles on meta, not to advertise particular ideas.

there are none of my "views" nor "agenda" there - simply governance concerns that dominate this project since Larry has been gone. There's a process there to assess the "status quo" of the project based on threats, visions, best cases, worst cases, perceived by others ... the simplest possible governance method. It's a completely values-neutral process. -24

Please review what 24.150.61.63 has written before you add a link here - this person on occassion writes decent material. However, if you see that 24 has written some worthless gibberish, then simply REVERT the page to its pre-24 state. ONLY post articles by 24 that are of dubious merit (i.e. semicoherent ramblings or surprising suppositions).

I submit that most of what's here is very likely just here because I wrote it, if in fact I did. Some of this list is things that I have barely touched, or which other people consensed. That said, if you want to put more effort into my writing that that of others, go ahead, it can hardly hurt the project itself.

Files relating to Wikipedia Operations

Files containing prehistoric discussions

Much of the content here is based on long abandoned ideas. Old old hands may have better background to know what should happen to this stuff

Other Wikipedia Utilities

Solved issues

  • Black Metal and Black metal music - they are two distinct articles on the same subject - maybe they were duplicates, but has now been edited.
    • Redirected. olivier 12:19 Nov 9, 2002 (UTC)

Watling Street Article merged.

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