This is an archive of past discussions. 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 |
Earlier, I participated in this talk page to a discussion on how to remove duplication from Wikipedia. Since then, I found a neat tool called transclusion to publish the same text in more than one page. Now, here is my crazy idea: a summary article could be made up of a collection of lead paragraphs transcluded from the corresponding main articles. Thus, it will always be up to date and editors attempting to edit it will be sent to the main article. Emmanuelm ( talk) 18:44, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
A general issue: I can see a case where the lede of a subarticle might be right for that article, but too long for the desired summary in the parent article. I doubt we should try to address cases like those via technical means. But even if the {{ spinout}} approach proves to work well only in some cases (it remains to be seen if it is a good idea in any), I at least like the prospect of having it as an option.-- Father Goose ( talk) 03:12, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
<onlyinclude>{{#ifeq:{{PAGENAME}}|Human vestigiality||text of the lead paragraph}}</onlyinclude> ... <onlyinclude>{{#ifeq:{{PAGENAME}}|Teeth||text of the vestigiality paragraph}}</onlyinclude>
<onlyinclude>{{#switch:{{PAGENAME}}|Wisdom teeth|Teeth=text of the lead paragraph}}</onlyinclude> ... <onlyinclude>{{#switch:{{PAGENAME}}|Wisdom teeth|Human vestigiality=text of the vestigiality paragraph}}</onlyinclude>
The obvious problem, as I have pointed out elsewhere, is that some things (like use of boldface and internal links) will need to be different. For use to be appropriate the section also needs to be an exact summary of the article, which it often isn't. There's also the possibility of a lead containing material that indicates that it is a lead, e.g. 'which will be treated more fully below' or something like that (though we could create a guideline similar to WP:SELF to avoid doing anything like that such that leads can be treated as small articles in themselves, independent of the rest of the article). I thought the main article and {{ summary in}} notices were enough to make editors aware they should try to keep such sections in harmony. It could also be confusing for editors who don't understand what's going on, e.g. trying to edit a section and being redirected to editing the lead of a different article. Taking these things into account, even if people do understand not to use it inappropriately (which they don't with {{ main}}), it's unlikely to be much use.
The other situation where it could be used is where two sections discuss the exact same thing without there being an article on the overlap of these things (it being too trivial to warrant its own article, for example). An example that comes to mind is the vestigiality of wisdom teeth, discussed both at human vestigiality and wisdom teeth. In these cases I sometimes add a hidden comment to each section alerting editors to the existence of the other and suggesting changes are reflected in both. Richard001 ( talk) 07:55, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
This idea would only be at all useful in cases where the lead section being transcluded is the length required by the summary article it is transcluded in (that is, no more than four paragraphs long). WP:SS recommends that the section in the summary article be longer than the lead section of the sub-topic article and in many cases the sections in summary articles are several subsections long. I fear that the result of implementing the lead section transclusion trick would create a tendency to force summary article sections to be smaller than they need to be and less-integrated in the article b/c those "sections" are really lead sections for other articles. This isn't as flexible as the current approach and just doesn't seem right to me; unintended consequences appear very likely. -- mav ( talk) 06:32, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
Okay, while I continue to be open minded towards this idea, I have noticed a couple of further issues by watching the Indoor bonsai example. First, there is a watchlisting issue: when part of one page is transcluded into another, editors watchlisting the parent page also need to watchlist the spinout to keep track of changes. Secondly, the Bonsai#Indoor bonsai section now includes information in addition to the transclusion. Since this change happened so quickly, it is reasonable to expect that such edits will not be a particularly rare occurance. They have the potential to confuse editors and mess up the coordination of the articles. These two issues are related: if someone is watchlisting all of the articles involved in a transclusion, then they can maintain the coordination, but what guarantee is there that such an editor exists? And why is this any better than leaving comments/templates in the article source and on the talk page per Richard001? Geometry guy 19:39, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I (a pathologist) have created a complex example of how the summary style guideline can be applied using transclusion of lead paragraphs. Here is the hierarchy so far:
What I've learned: I had to use plenty of self links for the transcluded text to work in both pages. Altough I removed some duplicated content from WP, the summary article contains a lot of repetitions. Overall, I like it a lot. Emmanuelm ( talk) 20:54, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
The pathology example used here proved my point I give above; The lead section in History of pathology is, and always will be as long as it follows WP:LEAD guidelines, totally inadequate as a section summarising the history of pathology at Pathology. The history section at Pathology should be at least a couple subsections long with a half dozen or more paragraphs total when both Pathology and History of pathology are fully developed. I'm all for making sure that related articles be synced; especially summary vs subtopic articles. But lead sections and full-fledged sections serve different purposes. -- mav ( talk) 06:49, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
We need to define the specific role of the templates used in summary style and summary-like fashions. It remains unclear to me what the exact niche of {{ main}}, {{ further}}, {{ see}}, {{ details}} (and others?) is. If they overlap, they should be merged. Each should have a specific and unique function otherwise it only creates confusion about the whole process and inconsistency among and even within articles. I have long ago proposed {{ details}} and {{ further}} be merged, but there has been no real response. This article is similarly vague, e.g. "—see {{ Main}}, {{ Details}},...)" - and what is the difference? Richard001 ( talk) 23:26, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
I moved this discussion from my user talk page to here.
Hi Emmanuel, I reverted, but only because I don't see any evidence that any trial projects have started or that we have the results from them yet...do we? - Dan Dank55 ( talk)( mistakes) 14:24, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Everything looks good, i.e., ready for beta. Emmanuel's insertion here looked fine for a first draft of the appropriate explanatory text, though of course the spinout family of templates should be mentioned here, and more documentation would be useful there. The flexibility exists in judicious use of the noinclude and includeonly templates (and perhaps onlyinclude), which needs documenting. I'll put this on watchlist and see how it can be incorporated and built upon here and there. Thanks again for everyone working on this idea. JJB 22:51, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
I added a shortcut called WP:AVOIDSPLIT because I think certain merge / split discussions need to keep it in mind. If someone needs to reformat it or rename it, I would support that. Randomran ( talk) 06:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
See Talk:Judith Butler and Talk:Influence of Judith Butler's concepts. Thanks! Hyacinth ( talk) 04:20, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
I removed a reference to transwikification but was later reverted. As the standard next step, I'd like to explain my rationale in more detail.
The clause in question is this: "If information can be trimmed, merged, moved to another wiki, or removed, these steps should be undertaken first before the new article is created."
User:Zappernapper is right in saying that transwikifiction is a fairly common practice. The problem with the current wording is that it describes transwikification as a competitive alternative to on-wiki forking; it essentially says that we cannot .
Clearly this is problematic. The chance that a reader will see transwikied content on any particular subject is relatively low. External links can help, but since
WP:SS deals with subtopics within broader articles, bottom-of-the-page links are generally inappropriate (as too narrow), and using them in {{
see}}
-like notices goes against various guidelines and norms. Transwikification is a Good Thing, but it shouldn't be regarded as a replacement for housing content in-wiki, especially in the context of
WP:SS.
— xDanielx T/ C\ R 19:26, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
In a summary style article, is there any policy about wikilinking to the sub-articles in the lead? Of course the respective sub-articles will be linked at the beginning of each summary section, but should they also be wikilinked in the lead? If we wikilink some of the sub-articles in the lead, but not others, is that okay? I'm referring especially to the John McCain article, where this issue has cropped up recently. Ferrylodge ( talk) 04:10, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
Just added a paragraph:
"Also, the summary on the main page should usually keep an approximately similar balance as in the subtopic article. If two sections of a subtopic article are of approximately similar length, then the summary in the main article should not spend 3 sentences summarizing one section and none on the other, unless there is an obvious reason and/or a consensus on the talk page that this different balance is appropriate."
Full disclosure: This issue does relate to a discussion I am currently involved with. I do not intend to cite my own text as policy in that discussion, but I believe that it is generally a common-sense point for the future. Homunq ( talk) 01:15, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Ferrylodge that this should not be a straitjacket, for reasons such as those they stated. This is why I stated it as I did: two equal-length sections should not get 3 sentences for one and 0 for the other. 3 sentences and 1 sentence would probably be OK. I think that this provides enough flexibility to cover cases like Ferrylodge's hypothetical, while still serving as a useful point of reference when opinions differ. Homunq ( talk) 12:52, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
Consider the case at hand. There are different POV's involved, as well as editors with varying grasps of Wikipedia conventions. Clearly there is the greatest focus and the most chaos on the main article, a secondary focus but more order on the contents of the sub-article, and the least focus and the most order on the lead (aka lede) of the sub-article. Since I think that quality is something like the product of focus and order, in these circumstances, I think the best skeleton for a summary would be the TOC of the sub-article, not its lead. Homunq ( talk) 17:11, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
This is currently classified as an editing guideline. Most of the contents at Category:Wikipedia editing guidelines seem to be about navigation, and I always expect this guideline to provide information about the level of detail (as in, "summarize your sources", instead of dumping zillions of unimportant details into an article). Do you think it might be better classified with the Category:Wikipedia style guidelines? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 21:33, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
I added a shortcut called WP:DETAIL as it might prove useful to merge/split debate. If someone wants to reformat or rename it, no problem. Hiding T 13:08, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
This page says... "There is no need to repeat all the references for the subtopics in the main "Summary style" article, unless they are required to support a specific point. The policy on sources, Wikipedia:Verifiability, says that sources must be provided for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations." was there any consensus for this? I was under the impression that all articles needed sources, not just the ones who don't have content forks. Many content forks are completely unsourced and in poor condition, should we rely on these for information found in Featured Articles? I don't think so. I think every article should stand on its own, complete with references, and should not rely on other WP articles as "sources". I think this phrase should be changed to state the opposite. -- ErgoSum• talk• trib 20:32, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
If sometimes happens that an article that describes something that is well known in an English-speaking country and then has a set of summaries that describe the same thing in other countries. Often an English-language article will map onto two or more articles in the same foreign language and it is appropriate in the English-language article to discuss the differences between the various foreign language articles (for example there might be differences between the way in which Germany, Switzerland and Austrian approach the subject). In such cases is it appropriate to have a set of "Main Article" links or "See" links, or is it preferable to incorporate the links as foreign-languagve Wikilinks? Martinvl ( talk) 22:06, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
Input would be welcomed at Talk:HMS Belfast (C35)/GA1 regarding if a Summary style split is appropriate. SilkTork * YES! 17:10, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
I see there have been several discussions on this page about the practice of 'partial transclusions' where noinclude and its variations are used to include the lead section of an article in a summary-style article. One of the main problems with this is that it messes up the page history completely, with an old page version showing not what was on the page at the time, but what is on the transcluded sections at the time of viewing (if it showed what was in the transcluded section at the time of the page version in question, there would be no problem, but that needs to be sorted before this technique is used any further). I've said something similar here, pointing out that the same problems arises with templates and infoboxes, but unlike section transclusion, there is a definite page history for the templates to cross-reference with. My view is that the technique of partial transclusion of sections of another article into another article (imagine if that page was further transcluded into other articles) needs to be banned (now, completely) until these issues are sorted out. It is OK to do this in talk pages, user page, and Wikipedia project namespace, but to do this on live articles risks causing all sorts of confusion. If anyone agrees with me, I will try and attract more attention to this discussion to see if there is any support for my proposal to forbid use of article-article transclusions in mainspace (template-article transclusions are OK, as that is what that system was designed for). Carcharoth ( talk) 17:47, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
There is currently an ongoing discussion about the future of this and others MoS naming style. Please consider the issues raised in the discussion and vote if you wish GnevinAWB ( talk) 21:01, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
Transcendental Meditation#Notable practitioners is long and getting longer, so we're considering splitting it off to a standalone list for the parent article. (Now done: List of Transcendental Meditation practitioners.) The question is now about how to "summarize" a list of names. Do we, as editors, pick the names we think are most interesting or representative? Do we refer to the short lists of the most prominent practitioners? Do we pick every nth entry as a random assortment? Do we leave out the names and say that the notable practitioners include "musicians, actors, politicians, and other notable personalities"? Do we simply say that "many notable people have been practitioners"? Or do we avoid the problem by not attempting to summarize a list? Any suggestions? Will Beback talk 02:18, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
Criteria, from TM talk page discussion:
-Choosing one or two names from each decade.
-One or two each from the different groups of: doctors, musicians, actors, politicians, newscasters, military, bankers, and so on.
-Possibly even age ranges (teen, adult, elderly).
Consensus can help determine which if not all of these criteria, we can use, and then which names to use.( olive ( talk) 20:29, 26 April 2010 (UTC))
I m considering howe summaries could be better supported and have some initial ideas. This would support both summary style splitting or articles and within article summaries like in the lead or at the top of some subsections.
I think I'd want two templates
Plus a type of summary citation which is stuck at the end of a summary sentence and refers to what's summarized. For summary style that is done already but within articles there's no real indication that a statement summarizes something further down. One can of course put in an ordinary link but I think something better is needed. Then a lead could have something like 'Monsoons in Mojimbe regularly kill thousands of people. [Monsoons] ' which referred to the section 'Monsoons' instead of listing various citations from that section. Dmcq ( talk) 15:04, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
I think I'll copy this over to WT:Verifiability#Citations_in_the_lead and any discussion should probably be centralized for the moment there. Dmcq ( talk) 17:18, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
Since before I ever began editing WP I have wondered why the first section of articles has no heading. I now note several things
The first thing I want to know – or rather feel – when I enter a page, often before even deciding whether to delve further within the page, is what the extent of the content is... so the regular poker-faced page-top that I am confronted with frustrates that.
I suspect this convention grew by default out of when WP was small enough that a page for a topic was enough division of content: that the first bit of the article just carried on under the h1 until it got too rambling and then an h2 was stuck in.
I am inclined to experiment in a few articles and name it Summary or Introduction or Foreword according to its rôle and watch what happens. The implications for search page extracts might be worth considering.
Actually propagating a heading for the section may serve to get it far better implemented, getting writers and editors to consider what it is actually there for, filling your first screen!
In the meantime I look forward to reading longer-practising writers' views on these matters.... Trev M ~ 16:44, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from Wikipedia:LEAD) Jump to: navigation, search This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style. Use common sense in applying it; ... it will have occasional exceptions. Please ensure that any edits to this page reflect consensus. Shortcuts: This page in a nutshell: The lead should define the topic and summarize the body of the article with appropriate weight.
Trev M ~ 22:21, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
I have posted a query at the village pump, on the question of what is the best (long-term) way to handle redundancies among related articles. It relates to the use of summary style, so I thought some of you might have something to say. Cheers! AGradman / underlying article as I saw it / talk 03:40, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
I have removed the following text:
The sourcing requirements for all articles on WP are effected only by the material in the article, and not in related articles. The use of summary style has no effect on our citation requirements whatsoever. This section has caused confusion in the past. I don't believe it is helpful. Colin° Talk 10:18, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
I'd also point out that RDBury also reverted this edit which resolved the confusing mess that the first paragraph had made as it had got references confused with further reading and external links. That edit should be uncontroversial. Colin° Talk 18:41, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. 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 |
Earlier, I participated in this talk page to a discussion on how to remove duplication from Wikipedia. Since then, I found a neat tool called transclusion to publish the same text in more than one page. Now, here is my crazy idea: a summary article could be made up of a collection of lead paragraphs transcluded from the corresponding main articles. Thus, it will always be up to date and editors attempting to edit it will be sent to the main article. Emmanuelm ( talk) 18:44, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
A general issue: I can see a case where the lede of a subarticle might be right for that article, but too long for the desired summary in the parent article. I doubt we should try to address cases like those via technical means. But even if the {{ spinout}} approach proves to work well only in some cases (it remains to be seen if it is a good idea in any), I at least like the prospect of having it as an option.-- Father Goose ( talk) 03:12, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
<onlyinclude>{{#ifeq:{{PAGENAME}}|Human vestigiality||text of the lead paragraph}}</onlyinclude> ... <onlyinclude>{{#ifeq:{{PAGENAME}}|Teeth||text of the vestigiality paragraph}}</onlyinclude>
<onlyinclude>{{#switch:{{PAGENAME}}|Wisdom teeth|Teeth=text of the lead paragraph}}</onlyinclude> ... <onlyinclude>{{#switch:{{PAGENAME}}|Wisdom teeth|Human vestigiality=text of the vestigiality paragraph}}</onlyinclude>
The obvious problem, as I have pointed out elsewhere, is that some things (like use of boldface and internal links) will need to be different. For use to be appropriate the section also needs to be an exact summary of the article, which it often isn't. There's also the possibility of a lead containing material that indicates that it is a lead, e.g. 'which will be treated more fully below' or something like that (though we could create a guideline similar to WP:SELF to avoid doing anything like that such that leads can be treated as small articles in themselves, independent of the rest of the article). I thought the main article and {{ summary in}} notices were enough to make editors aware they should try to keep such sections in harmony. It could also be confusing for editors who don't understand what's going on, e.g. trying to edit a section and being redirected to editing the lead of a different article. Taking these things into account, even if people do understand not to use it inappropriately (which they don't with {{ main}}), it's unlikely to be much use.
The other situation where it could be used is where two sections discuss the exact same thing without there being an article on the overlap of these things (it being too trivial to warrant its own article, for example). An example that comes to mind is the vestigiality of wisdom teeth, discussed both at human vestigiality and wisdom teeth. In these cases I sometimes add a hidden comment to each section alerting editors to the existence of the other and suggesting changes are reflected in both. Richard001 ( talk) 07:55, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
This idea would only be at all useful in cases where the lead section being transcluded is the length required by the summary article it is transcluded in (that is, no more than four paragraphs long). WP:SS recommends that the section in the summary article be longer than the lead section of the sub-topic article and in many cases the sections in summary articles are several subsections long. I fear that the result of implementing the lead section transclusion trick would create a tendency to force summary article sections to be smaller than they need to be and less-integrated in the article b/c those "sections" are really lead sections for other articles. This isn't as flexible as the current approach and just doesn't seem right to me; unintended consequences appear very likely. -- mav ( talk) 06:32, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
Okay, while I continue to be open minded towards this idea, I have noticed a couple of further issues by watching the Indoor bonsai example. First, there is a watchlisting issue: when part of one page is transcluded into another, editors watchlisting the parent page also need to watchlist the spinout to keep track of changes. Secondly, the Bonsai#Indoor bonsai section now includes information in addition to the transclusion. Since this change happened so quickly, it is reasonable to expect that such edits will not be a particularly rare occurance. They have the potential to confuse editors and mess up the coordination of the articles. These two issues are related: if someone is watchlisting all of the articles involved in a transclusion, then they can maintain the coordination, but what guarantee is there that such an editor exists? And why is this any better than leaving comments/templates in the article source and on the talk page per Richard001? Geometry guy 19:39, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I (a pathologist) have created a complex example of how the summary style guideline can be applied using transclusion of lead paragraphs. Here is the hierarchy so far:
What I've learned: I had to use plenty of self links for the transcluded text to work in both pages. Altough I removed some duplicated content from WP, the summary article contains a lot of repetitions. Overall, I like it a lot. Emmanuelm ( talk) 20:54, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
The pathology example used here proved my point I give above; The lead section in History of pathology is, and always will be as long as it follows WP:LEAD guidelines, totally inadequate as a section summarising the history of pathology at Pathology. The history section at Pathology should be at least a couple subsections long with a half dozen or more paragraphs total when both Pathology and History of pathology are fully developed. I'm all for making sure that related articles be synced; especially summary vs subtopic articles. But lead sections and full-fledged sections serve different purposes. -- mav ( talk) 06:49, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
We need to define the specific role of the templates used in summary style and summary-like fashions. It remains unclear to me what the exact niche of {{ main}}, {{ further}}, {{ see}}, {{ details}} (and others?) is. If they overlap, they should be merged. Each should have a specific and unique function otherwise it only creates confusion about the whole process and inconsistency among and even within articles. I have long ago proposed {{ details}} and {{ further}} be merged, but there has been no real response. This article is similarly vague, e.g. "—see {{ Main}}, {{ Details}},...)" - and what is the difference? Richard001 ( talk) 23:26, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
I moved this discussion from my user talk page to here.
Hi Emmanuel, I reverted, but only because I don't see any evidence that any trial projects have started or that we have the results from them yet...do we? - Dan Dank55 ( talk)( mistakes) 14:24, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Everything looks good, i.e., ready for beta. Emmanuel's insertion here looked fine for a first draft of the appropriate explanatory text, though of course the spinout family of templates should be mentioned here, and more documentation would be useful there. The flexibility exists in judicious use of the noinclude and includeonly templates (and perhaps onlyinclude), which needs documenting. I'll put this on watchlist and see how it can be incorporated and built upon here and there. Thanks again for everyone working on this idea. JJB 22:51, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
I added a shortcut called WP:AVOIDSPLIT because I think certain merge / split discussions need to keep it in mind. If someone needs to reformat it or rename it, I would support that. Randomran ( talk) 06:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
See Talk:Judith Butler and Talk:Influence of Judith Butler's concepts. Thanks! Hyacinth ( talk) 04:20, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
I removed a reference to transwikification but was later reverted. As the standard next step, I'd like to explain my rationale in more detail.
The clause in question is this: "If information can be trimmed, merged, moved to another wiki, or removed, these steps should be undertaken first before the new article is created."
User:Zappernapper is right in saying that transwikifiction is a fairly common practice. The problem with the current wording is that it describes transwikification as a competitive alternative to on-wiki forking; it essentially says that we cannot .
Clearly this is problematic. The chance that a reader will see transwikied content on any particular subject is relatively low. External links can help, but since
WP:SS deals with subtopics within broader articles, bottom-of-the-page links are generally inappropriate (as too narrow), and using them in {{
see}}
-like notices goes against various guidelines and norms. Transwikification is a Good Thing, but it shouldn't be regarded as a replacement for housing content in-wiki, especially in the context of
WP:SS.
— xDanielx T/ C\ R 19:26, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
In a summary style article, is there any policy about wikilinking to the sub-articles in the lead? Of course the respective sub-articles will be linked at the beginning of each summary section, but should they also be wikilinked in the lead? If we wikilink some of the sub-articles in the lead, but not others, is that okay? I'm referring especially to the John McCain article, where this issue has cropped up recently. Ferrylodge ( talk) 04:10, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
Just added a paragraph:
"Also, the summary on the main page should usually keep an approximately similar balance as in the subtopic article. If two sections of a subtopic article are of approximately similar length, then the summary in the main article should not spend 3 sentences summarizing one section and none on the other, unless there is an obvious reason and/or a consensus on the talk page that this different balance is appropriate."
Full disclosure: This issue does relate to a discussion I am currently involved with. I do not intend to cite my own text as policy in that discussion, but I believe that it is generally a common-sense point for the future. Homunq ( talk) 01:15, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Ferrylodge that this should not be a straitjacket, for reasons such as those they stated. This is why I stated it as I did: two equal-length sections should not get 3 sentences for one and 0 for the other. 3 sentences and 1 sentence would probably be OK. I think that this provides enough flexibility to cover cases like Ferrylodge's hypothetical, while still serving as a useful point of reference when opinions differ. Homunq ( talk) 12:52, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
Consider the case at hand. There are different POV's involved, as well as editors with varying grasps of Wikipedia conventions. Clearly there is the greatest focus and the most chaos on the main article, a secondary focus but more order on the contents of the sub-article, and the least focus and the most order on the lead (aka lede) of the sub-article. Since I think that quality is something like the product of focus and order, in these circumstances, I think the best skeleton for a summary would be the TOC of the sub-article, not its lead. Homunq ( talk) 17:11, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
This is currently classified as an editing guideline. Most of the contents at Category:Wikipedia editing guidelines seem to be about navigation, and I always expect this guideline to provide information about the level of detail (as in, "summarize your sources", instead of dumping zillions of unimportant details into an article). Do you think it might be better classified with the Category:Wikipedia style guidelines? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 21:33, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
I added a shortcut called WP:DETAIL as it might prove useful to merge/split debate. If someone wants to reformat or rename it, no problem. Hiding T 13:08, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
This page says... "There is no need to repeat all the references for the subtopics in the main "Summary style" article, unless they are required to support a specific point. The policy on sources, Wikipedia:Verifiability, says that sources must be provided for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations." was there any consensus for this? I was under the impression that all articles needed sources, not just the ones who don't have content forks. Many content forks are completely unsourced and in poor condition, should we rely on these for information found in Featured Articles? I don't think so. I think every article should stand on its own, complete with references, and should not rely on other WP articles as "sources". I think this phrase should be changed to state the opposite. -- ErgoSum• talk• trib 20:32, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
If sometimes happens that an article that describes something that is well known in an English-speaking country and then has a set of summaries that describe the same thing in other countries. Often an English-language article will map onto two or more articles in the same foreign language and it is appropriate in the English-language article to discuss the differences between the various foreign language articles (for example there might be differences between the way in which Germany, Switzerland and Austrian approach the subject). In such cases is it appropriate to have a set of "Main Article" links or "See" links, or is it preferable to incorporate the links as foreign-languagve Wikilinks? Martinvl ( talk) 22:06, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
Input would be welcomed at Talk:HMS Belfast (C35)/GA1 regarding if a Summary style split is appropriate. SilkTork * YES! 17:10, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
I see there have been several discussions on this page about the practice of 'partial transclusions' where noinclude and its variations are used to include the lead section of an article in a summary-style article. One of the main problems with this is that it messes up the page history completely, with an old page version showing not what was on the page at the time, but what is on the transcluded sections at the time of viewing (if it showed what was in the transcluded section at the time of the page version in question, there would be no problem, but that needs to be sorted before this technique is used any further). I've said something similar here, pointing out that the same problems arises with templates and infoboxes, but unlike section transclusion, there is a definite page history for the templates to cross-reference with. My view is that the technique of partial transclusion of sections of another article into another article (imagine if that page was further transcluded into other articles) needs to be banned (now, completely) until these issues are sorted out. It is OK to do this in talk pages, user page, and Wikipedia project namespace, but to do this on live articles risks causing all sorts of confusion. If anyone agrees with me, I will try and attract more attention to this discussion to see if there is any support for my proposal to forbid use of article-article transclusions in mainspace (template-article transclusions are OK, as that is what that system was designed for). Carcharoth ( talk) 17:47, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
There is currently an ongoing discussion about the future of this and others MoS naming style. Please consider the issues raised in the discussion and vote if you wish GnevinAWB ( talk) 21:01, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
Transcendental Meditation#Notable practitioners is long and getting longer, so we're considering splitting it off to a standalone list for the parent article. (Now done: List of Transcendental Meditation practitioners.) The question is now about how to "summarize" a list of names. Do we, as editors, pick the names we think are most interesting or representative? Do we refer to the short lists of the most prominent practitioners? Do we pick every nth entry as a random assortment? Do we leave out the names and say that the notable practitioners include "musicians, actors, politicians, and other notable personalities"? Do we simply say that "many notable people have been practitioners"? Or do we avoid the problem by not attempting to summarize a list? Any suggestions? Will Beback talk 02:18, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
Criteria, from TM talk page discussion:
-Choosing one or two names from each decade.
-One or two each from the different groups of: doctors, musicians, actors, politicians, newscasters, military, bankers, and so on.
-Possibly even age ranges (teen, adult, elderly).
Consensus can help determine which if not all of these criteria, we can use, and then which names to use.( olive ( talk) 20:29, 26 April 2010 (UTC))
I m considering howe summaries could be better supported and have some initial ideas. This would support both summary style splitting or articles and within article summaries like in the lead or at the top of some subsections.
I think I'd want two templates
Plus a type of summary citation which is stuck at the end of a summary sentence and refers to what's summarized. For summary style that is done already but within articles there's no real indication that a statement summarizes something further down. One can of course put in an ordinary link but I think something better is needed. Then a lead could have something like 'Monsoons in Mojimbe regularly kill thousands of people. [Monsoons] ' which referred to the section 'Monsoons' instead of listing various citations from that section. Dmcq ( talk) 15:04, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
I think I'll copy this over to WT:Verifiability#Citations_in_the_lead and any discussion should probably be centralized for the moment there. Dmcq ( talk) 17:18, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
Since before I ever began editing WP I have wondered why the first section of articles has no heading. I now note several things
The first thing I want to know – or rather feel – when I enter a page, often before even deciding whether to delve further within the page, is what the extent of the content is... so the regular poker-faced page-top that I am confronted with frustrates that.
I suspect this convention grew by default out of when WP was small enough that a page for a topic was enough division of content: that the first bit of the article just carried on under the h1 until it got too rambling and then an h2 was stuck in.
I am inclined to experiment in a few articles and name it Summary or Introduction or Foreword according to its rôle and watch what happens. The implications for search page extracts might be worth considering.
Actually propagating a heading for the section may serve to get it far better implemented, getting writers and editors to consider what it is actually there for, filling your first screen!
In the meantime I look forward to reading longer-practising writers' views on these matters.... Trev M ~ 16:44, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from Wikipedia:LEAD) Jump to: navigation, search This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style. Use common sense in applying it; ... it will have occasional exceptions. Please ensure that any edits to this page reflect consensus. Shortcuts: This page in a nutshell: The lead should define the topic and summarize the body of the article with appropriate weight.
Trev M ~ 22:21, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
I have posted a query at the village pump, on the question of what is the best (long-term) way to handle redundancies among related articles. It relates to the use of summary style, so I thought some of you might have something to say. Cheers! AGradman / underlying article as I saw it / talk 03:40, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
I have removed the following text:
The sourcing requirements for all articles on WP are effected only by the material in the article, and not in related articles. The use of summary style has no effect on our citation requirements whatsoever. This section has caused confusion in the past. I don't believe it is helpful. Colin° Talk 10:18, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
I'd also point out that RDBury also reverted this edit which resolved the confusing mess that the first paragraph had made as it had got references confused with further reading and external links. That edit should be uncontroversial. Colin° Talk 18:41, 22 November 2010 (UTC)