Wikipedia talk:Pages needing attention/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:Pages needing attention. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Splitting into smaller pages

VfD speed moved to Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion/lag time

On Jan 4, 2003, Tarquin (and others) suggested splitting this page. Some of these pages now exist, others don't. Existing pages:

• wikipedia:Votes for deletion
• wikipedia:Votes for deletion/copyvio
• wikipedia:NPOV dispute
• wikipedia:duplicate articles
• wikipedia:Find or fix a stub
• wikipedia:Requested articles

Don't exist (yet?), but suggested:

• factual questions (where someone with knowledge of the subject is needed)
  • How does this relate to Wikipedia:Help Desk?

• copyediting / rewrites for clarity (ie work that someone can do with no knowledge of the subject other than what they read in the article itself)

• renaming (where people request opinions on a suggested rename)
  • could just be at wikipedia talk:naming conventions

• a Translation Area for short phrases -- where you could ask a native speaker to look over your work if you weren't sure you had the best translation in your article. Not meant for long or arduous translations, just something the ambassadors and multilinguists among us who care could keep an eye on. Migh also want a list of web sites that provide free translation, as a convenience, so that someone can do a quick rough draft of the translation.

• Others?

Do we really need so many different lists? It's hard to keep an eye on all of them. Perhaps copyediting/clarity/duplicate/rename could be merged -- these are all "assistant" type tasks in that they do not usually require in depth knowledge. factual questions/fix a stub/requested articles on the other hand require deeper knowledge. (Eloquence?

24.150.61.63

24.150.61.63 hasn't made any edits in 9 months, so I'm cleaning up his section. -- Tim Starling 11:29 Mar 15, 2003 (UTC)

Excised text:

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/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.

---

Okay, I've done some serious maintainance here. Many warnings were getting on for a year out of date. Unstubbed articles were easy, but for the longer articles I basically looked at the history to see if the edit summaries indicated the issue had been resolved. This would have been easier if the entries here were dated, hence my addition to the intro. There's still work to be done - I haven't checked all the links. Perhaps a self referential link is in order... -- Tim Starling 11:29 Mar 15, 2003 (UTC)

 Thank you -- Christopher Mahan

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I think Articles that have good information, but need work for some reason should be moved as close to the top of this article as possible. Isn't that what most people are looking for when they come here? Kingturtle 17:03 May 3, 2003 (UTC)

After a week of no replies on the isssue, I am going to take the initiative and make the change I suggested. This page is too confusing and too cluttered. Experts can sift through all the sections of this page, and the everyday user can get more quickly to Articles that have good information, but need work for some reason. Kingturtle 20:59 May 10, 2003 (UTC)

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Drat. I've spent the past hour trying to tidy up this meta page. I don't know how to approach it. The page is confusing and jumbled. If there are rules, can someone post them at the top of the page? I am going to be making a few drastic edits. Please don't shoot me. I encourage everyone to start going through the pages needing attention and see if they still belong on this list. Kingturtle 18:40 May 11, 2003 (UTC)

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Can someone explain to be how Pages needing attention is "very similar to pages like: Requested articles, Current events"? I don't see the relationship at all. Kingturtle 19:14 May 11, 2003 (UTC)

"Requested articles" is really marginal, but "Current events" can be removed if you ask me. -Smack 23:04 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

---

Would it be good to make a new and separate list page for articles needing translation, in whole or in part (i.e. Annamacharya, Banrisul (see the history), Japanese proverbs), for the Wikipedia:Embassy people could go over? Or at least a sublist on this page?-Smack 23:04 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Mentoring / Request for review

Moved from Wikipedia:Village pump on Saturday, August 2nd, 02003.

I've been inserting articles and editing for a few months now and would enjoy any critical feedback anybody might have so I can improve my contributions to this encyclopaedia. (If this isn't the proper place to ask for this, I apologise.) --MTR (严加华) 01:55 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I often feel like this myself. Perhaps we should setup a page such as Wikipedia:Requests for Review so people can ask people to cast an eye over new articles or contributions? This could help catch sp and typo errors. CGS 11:16 25 Jul 2003 (UTC).

I agree that this is a good idea. Perhaps it could include some sort of mentoring and offer advice rather than using the Village Pump for this. I'm not sure about the name Wikipedia:Requests for Review though. Angela 18:17 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Perhaps you can use Wikipedia:Pages needing attention? Maybe you can create a new section within the page. Tomos 12:24, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Later, someone set up Wikipedia:Peer review, which fits exactly the bill MTR was looking for. Pete 20:31, 18 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Page policy, or What exactly belongs here?

I'm seeing a lot of "needs more information" entries. I don't think that they have a place here. First of all, people tend to check up on pages within their areas of expertise, so pages short on information will eventually be found and added to. Second, there are thousands of such pages, and we really don't need to clutter this list with them. If they're really bad, you should list them in Wikipedia:List of stubs.

What really needs to be listed here is pages that can be fixed by someone who knows nothing about the topic, but is familiar with standard Wikipedia procedures and can do a good job of refactoring. Pages that need refactoring are much fewer than those that simply need more info, and I'd say that they are also more detrimental to the Wikipedia effort.

Ideally, I think we should have a dedicated corps of refactorers who make this page their home, but before that can happen, we need a consistent policy. -Smack 20:59, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I wonder if it would be better to organise this article by date. Then it would be easy for regulars to check for recent arrivals, rather than having to wade through the same articles you've already seen. That might encourage more regulars. Martin 22:25, 18 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I have arguably abused this page in using it to fix the mains and power connector articles, but it was IMO urgent (physical danger if the previous contents had been believed) and has worked well (in fact it turned out I didn't really know what was going on in my own country let alone in others but that's another story).

Anyway, the point is that on this occasion the page really delivered well, and the articles are now off the list (unless someone else puts them back of course). IMO there's a need for a page for requests like this one, which didn't seem to fit any existing category perfectly. Andrewa 18:25, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Page closed?

Is this page closed or something? Martin has just changed the intro from "... list it here so that others can find it" to "... then drop a note on its talk page, and go on to the next page and see if you can fix that instead". Is there a need to discourage using the page? I realise it is rather large, but I don't feel messages on talk pages will have the required effect. Angela. 09:01, Feb 8, 2004 (UTC)

• This page is not dead AT ALL. I am unsure what Martin's intent was, but I reverted it until we can get a better explanation. Kingturtle 09:08, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I wanted to encourage folks to use Talk pages first (and in some cases only), but I couldn't think of a good way to phrase that. Martin 16:02, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)