Current events | ||||
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Hi @ Elli! I noticed you created this and added it to Colin Powell. Has it been discussed anywhere else? I like the idea of having a current event editnotice (particularly if it allows us to offload some of the bloat from {{ Current}}), but I think this is probably too long. The second/third bullets just repeat general editing advice that applies in a lot of places (if they need to be shown, they should be shown everywhere). And I'm not sure the last bullet will actually do much to help avoid copyright violations—something like "don't add an image if it's been nominated for deletion on Commons" might be more straightforward. {{u| Sdkb}} talk 19:29, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
I've been using this particular custom edit notice for some years on pages that are judged to be subject to high volume of edits due to subject matter or due to current events ( Death of Osama Bin Laden, Trial of Derek Chauvin, etc). Its intended purpose (insofar as it has one) is to remind drive by editors who may be attempting to help build a given article to source their information and write neutrally, and to remind contributors in general that even though its a current event it should be written of in the past tense since thats the default tense on wikipedia and as such when the editing dies down we were going to put the current event in past tense anyway. It was in part adopted from a failed proposal at MILHIST to add similar edit notices to our quality content (GA, A, and FA class articles) so as to ensure people messing the article's information would know to leave source, write neutrally, etc (you can see the prototype templates here). Since its position in the template space allows it to be seen regardless of which section is being edited it helps provide a fail safe measure as it were for people to make sure they have a chance to read the info first. As a practical matter, this is a temple designed more for the anon and new user groups than it is for veterans since as @ Sdkb points out some of those points are essentially general editing advice, and as you can see in its editing history at COVID-19 pandemic people have adjusted the template to suit individual needs, so its not altogether unreasonable that it should pass into the mainstream and have some larger discussion over whether or not it should be added to articles and if so what should be in it. Personally, I'd love to see this graduate from a "me" specific template as it were to a general use wikipedia template, subject to the usual course of gaining consensus from the community to make that step, and I'm glad to see that @ Elli has taken that first step. TomStar81 ( Talk) 03:28, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
@ Jr8825: For my own curiosity why was the template totally rebuilt without any discussion? The original version has worked fine for years with no one ever raising any issues over edit conflicts and moving the points around, and since I created the original I'm a little upset as it were that this whole thing was changed without so much as a discussion on the issue. I'm also curious why so many other bullet points were added and why the biggest one of all - use past tense for a current event - is now the very last bullet point, in a place where few if any are likely to read it. Was there a good reason for totally rebuilding this, and if so why wasn't I at least pinged for my opinion (or better yet to be part of that discussion)? TomStar81 ( Talk) 15:51, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
We are aware that this article documents a current event, but writing in the past tense will make it easier for us to polish the article as it developsdoesn't add enough to justify its presence. It's crucial we keep the editnotice concise, or editors simply won't read it. The revised version was 42 bytes shorter, despite the added formatting and bullets.
If reliable sources attribute unconfirmed information to a third party rather than stating it in their own voice, it should also be attributed in the article text here.This is common in current events articles (e.g. 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine cites the Ukrainian/Russian government's casualty counts), so I think this is important.
* Please use summary style, avoiding indiscriminate detail—Wikipedia is not a newspaper.I think this is self-explanatorily important.
* To avoid an edit conflict, please consider only editing the section you wish to change, rather than the whole page.This seems useful to me, although I could see an argument it's not worth it; the best solution would be to display it only if someone is actually editing the full page rather than a section (we'd probably have to ask at VPT about that).
the biggest one of all: the most important thing is reliable sources, whereas copy editing details like tense can easily be adjusted by other editors if someone gets them wrong. Mx. Granger objects to it entirely, making the point that as written it's not always correct.
@ Jr8825, Elli, Lugnuts, TomStar81, and Mx. Granger: I've created a sandbox for us to workshop the changes. The first two bullet points, for sourcing and neutrality, are set so that they only appear to non–extended confirmed editors; to view them, log out or open an incognito window. I also set the bullet point about edit conflicts to appear only if the article has been edited in the past 20 minutes, as that's around the frequency when conflicts become likely. Overall, the bullets are roughly in order of how important I'd say they are. Thoughts? Is there anything that you think is missing or excessive? {{u| Sdkb}} talk 00:56, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
I apologize for my delay in getting back here, there's been a stomach virus going around at work and I ended up putting in two nights of overtime to help offset the lack of personnel and have been wiped out for the last day and a half as a result. I believe the template looks good, although the first line appears to be malformed when looking at the overall layout. Is that something you can fix, @ Jr8825:, or is that something that was done by design? TomStar81 ( Talk) 08:07, 20 March 2022 (UTC)
Most of the time that an article has {{ Current}}, it should probably also have this editnotice. (Since any time a page is in the news enough to need to alert readers, there are generally also things about which to alert editors, and we'd ideally like to do that through this template rather than cramming the info into the reader notice.) But comparing the categories, it often doesn't. That's partially because a template editor is needed to add it, but also this doesn't seem as well-known. I just tweaked the documentation at {{Current}} and Wikipedia:Current event templates to make it more prominent, which should help a bit. But we could consider stronger steps, up to and including some sort of automated process that'd add this editnotice on any article that transcludes {{Current}}. Thoughts? {{u| Sdkb}} talk 01:16, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
In principle, {{ current}} is purely an editor template, anything intended only for editors should be in an editnotice, not presented to readers. Part of the broader philosophy behind this is to help move stuff for editors to the editnotice, so that {{ Current}} can then be tailored better to reader needs. {{u| Sdkb}} talk 02:13, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
Current events | ||||
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Hi @ Elli! I noticed you created this and added it to Colin Powell. Has it been discussed anywhere else? I like the idea of having a current event editnotice (particularly if it allows us to offload some of the bloat from {{ Current}}), but I think this is probably too long. The second/third bullets just repeat general editing advice that applies in a lot of places (if they need to be shown, they should be shown everywhere). And I'm not sure the last bullet will actually do much to help avoid copyright violations—something like "don't add an image if it's been nominated for deletion on Commons" might be more straightforward. {{u| Sdkb}} talk 19:29, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
I've been using this particular custom edit notice for some years on pages that are judged to be subject to high volume of edits due to subject matter or due to current events ( Death of Osama Bin Laden, Trial of Derek Chauvin, etc). Its intended purpose (insofar as it has one) is to remind drive by editors who may be attempting to help build a given article to source their information and write neutrally, and to remind contributors in general that even though its a current event it should be written of in the past tense since thats the default tense on wikipedia and as such when the editing dies down we were going to put the current event in past tense anyway. It was in part adopted from a failed proposal at MILHIST to add similar edit notices to our quality content (GA, A, and FA class articles) so as to ensure people messing the article's information would know to leave source, write neutrally, etc (you can see the prototype templates here). Since its position in the template space allows it to be seen regardless of which section is being edited it helps provide a fail safe measure as it were for people to make sure they have a chance to read the info first. As a practical matter, this is a temple designed more for the anon and new user groups than it is for veterans since as @ Sdkb points out some of those points are essentially general editing advice, and as you can see in its editing history at COVID-19 pandemic people have adjusted the template to suit individual needs, so its not altogether unreasonable that it should pass into the mainstream and have some larger discussion over whether or not it should be added to articles and if so what should be in it. Personally, I'd love to see this graduate from a "me" specific template as it were to a general use wikipedia template, subject to the usual course of gaining consensus from the community to make that step, and I'm glad to see that @ Elli has taken that first step. TomStar81 ( Talk) 03:28, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
@ Jr8825: For my own curiosity why was the template totally rebuilt without any discussion? The original version has worked fine for years with no one ever raising any issues over edit conflicts and moving the points around, and since I created the original I'm a little upset as it were that this whole thing was changed without so much as a discussion on the issue. I'm also curious why so many other bullet points were added and why the biggest one of all - use past tense for a current event - is now the very last bullet point, in a place where few if any are likely to read it. Was there a good reason for totally rebuilding this, and if so why wasn't I at least pinged for my opinion (or better yet to be part of that discussion)? TomStar81 ( Talk) 15:51, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
We are aware that this article documents a current event, but writing in the past tense will make it easier for us to polish the article as it developsdoesn't add enough to justify its presence. It's crucial we keep the editnotice concise, or editors simply won't read it. The revised version was 42 bytes shorter, despite the added formatting and bullets.
If reliable sources attribute unconfirmed information to a third party rather than stating it in their own voice, it should also be attributed in the article text here.This is common in current events articles (e.g. 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine cites the Ukrainian/Russian government's casualty counts), so I think this is important.
* Please use summary style, avoiding indiscriminate detail—Wikipedia is not a newspaper.I think this is self-explanatorily important.
* To avoid an edit conflict, please consider only editing the section you wish to change, rather than the whole page.This seems useful to me, although I could see an argument it's not worth it; the best solution would be to display it only if someone is actually editing the full page rather than a section (we'd probably have to ask at VPT about that).
the biggest one of all: the most important thing is reliable sources, whereas copy editing details like tense can easily be adjusted by other editors if someone gets them wrong. Mx. Granger objects to it entirely, making the point that as written it's not always correct.
@ Jr8825, Elli, Lugnuts, TomStar81, and Mx. Granger: I've created a sandbox for us to workshop the changes. The first two bullet points, for sourcing and neutrality, are set so that they only appear to non–extended confirmed editors; to view them, log out or open an incognito window. I also set the bullet point about edit conflicts to appear only if the article has been edited in the past 20 minutes, as that's around the frequency when conflicts become likely. Overall, the bullets are roughly in order of how important I'd say they are. Thoughts? Is there anything that you think is missing or excessive? {{u| Sdkb}} talk 00:56, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
I apologize for my delay in getting back here, there's been a stomach virus going around at work and I ended up putting in two nights of overtime to help offset the lack of personnel and have been wiped out for the last day and a half as a result. I believe the template looks good, although the first line appears to be malformed when looking at the overall layout. Is that something you can fix, @ Jr8825:, or is that something that was done by design? TomStar81 ( Talk) 08:07, 20 March 2022 (UTC)
Most of the time that an article has {{ Current}}, it should probably also have this editnotice. (Since any time a page is in the news enough to need to alert readers, there are generally also things about which to alert editors, and we'd ideally like to do that through this template rather than cramming the info into the reader notice.) But comparing the categories, it often doesn't. That's partially because a template editor is needed to add it, but also this doesn't seem as well-known. I just tweaked the documentation at {{Current}} and Wikipedia:Current event templates to make it more prominent, which should help a bit. But we could consider stronger steps, up to and including some sort of automated process that'd add this editnotice on any article that transcludes {{Current}}. Thoughts? {{u| Sdkb}} talk 01:16, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
In principle, {{ current}} is purely an editor template, anything intended only for editors should be in an editnotice, not presented to readers. Part of the broader philosophy behind this is to help move stuff for editors to the editnotice, so that {{ Current}} can then be tailored better to reader needs. {{u| Sdkb}} talk 02:13, 19 January 2024 (UTC)