Wikipedia articles
I just responded to a question from one of you via email and thought I would post to the whole group. The question was about the relationship between your entries and the existing entries. Most of you have probably checked the history of your entries, and in almost all cases there will be a multitude of authors listed. Think of what you are doing as a collaborative project: leave what works, rework what needs it, delete anything superfluous or erroneous, and add anything necessary.
Another of you asked about the rationale I asked for. Quoting myself,
You may also comment on why you think your reworkings are necessary or desirable. Or, conversely, why the existing post does a reasonable job.
Another of you asked about the rationale I asked for. Quoting myself,
Obviously there are strictures to what you can write, and to how you write; you need to follow Wikipedia policies and guidelines. You may address any issues (for example, material that you might post if you had your druthers, but which you cannot given the policies) in your proposal.
You may also comment on why you think your reworkings are necessary or desirable. Or, conversely, why the existing post does a reasonable job.
posted at 9:53 p.m. | Permanent link
4 Comments:
Um, so the Wikipedia guidelines and policies say that we should be bold, yet maybe think hard about reverting an entire page or making significant edits. My plan was to revert the entire page. I'm not sure how to do otherwise. My changes are so significant, I basically rewrote the entire page. hmm...
Reverting the page means, I believe, reverting back to an earlier version (i.e. if someone edited your entry and it ticked you off you might revert back to your original entry). I assume you don't mean that you are reverting to an earlier version by someone else?
Re. rewriting: I think the warnings were most specifically for when someone wants to drastically change a contentious article (eg. abortion), but of course one needs to be sensitive with any editing. I just looked at the history of the Haywood article and people are actively working on it, so that means there are people out there with some investment in it as it stands.
Why don't we say this: tell me what you want to do, ideally, and then decide yourself how you will go about implementing your changes. You might throw your ideas out in the discussion forum, for example, as the guidelines suggest, before posting them.
ok, that sounds good. I haven't started editing the actual page yet, but will update the process on my blog.
Jesse,
The rationale should engage with the question, what is important in these sorts of encyclopedic biographies? How does the existing article measure up, and what do you need to add, subtract, or change in order to bring the article in line.
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