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Include references

Most articles that end up at CSD, do not have any references. I think that a little bit of emphasis to remind users to include references could result in less CSD work (and maybe in fewer useless submissions). I recommend a small change telling people what TO do, not just what NOT to do. Take the line "Articles that do not cite reliable published sources are likely to be deleted" move it higher, and tweak the wording:

  • Be sure to include references to the source(s) of your information. Articles that do not cite reliable published sources are likely to be deleted.

This would be the result (minus blue links):

-- Sbowers3 (talk) 17:32, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

The message does currently prominently say "Articles that do not cite reliable published sources are likely to be deleted." when creating articles. Test it out. —Centrx→talk • 20:49, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
My recommendation is to move it higher in the box and to expand the wording slightly. The goal is to make it more visible for newcomers. Sbowers3 (talk) 20:53, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
I think it is currently more visible. It is currently in bold right above the text entry box. The message would be less visible as one of many unread bullet points. —Centrx→talk • 00:59, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

(unindenting) Users are creating tons of articles that do not have references. Clearly, the current wording is not working. My proposal might not work any better but it could hardly be worse. Isn't it worth a try? Sbowers3 (talk) 01:11, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion

Hello. I do a lot of new page patrolling, and there is a helluva lot of speedily-deleteable pages being created. I would like to suggest we redesign this page. I have a proposal:

Before creating your article, please read the notes below.

Anyone have any opinions on this? Most people don't bother to read the notice. I think this could grab their attention. Thanks. JetLover(talk)(Report a mistake) 04:53, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

From WP:VPP, It is typically preferable not to use images in the interface messages. Also, please look at the existing code, if this is going to be a large scale replacement, lets mock up ALL the code here first (including all the namespace selector stuff). Thanks! — xaosflux Talk 04:01, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

This was the latest suggestion at WP:VPP:

Before making your Wikipedia article:

From the preceding comment I'm not sure whether it is essential or just preferable to remove the image, but here it is without the image:

Before making your Wikipedia article:

Next question is do we want to make any changes to the message for other namespaces (e.g. User, Category, Template)? The message source is a bit complicated and varies depending on namespace so we can't just plop the new message in there without paying some consideration to other namespaces.

My inclination is to leave the other messages as is and add this new message with a simple "if" statement, e.g. if article space then this new message else for any other space then the old messages.

Sbowers3 (talk) 14:06, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd keep the image. One will know that the message is important. JetLover (talk) (Report a mistake) 23:01, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Hey come on what happened to this? I thought we were going to get some bold new notices. But I went to a non-existent page in article space and saw the same dull and never-bothered-to-read-it message that's always been there. Has this been forgotten about, or where is the discussion? • Anakin (contribs • complaints) 20:23, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

The new text is ready to go. (See Revised Jan. 8). It's waiting for an admin to install it. The admin who was involved is on a wikibreak. Sbowers3 (talk) 23:48, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Text in context

For reference, here is the text in the context of various namespaces:

  • (Mainspace):
  • Talk:
  • User:
  • User talk:
  • other talk:
  • Wikipedia:
  • Image:
  • MediaWiki:
  • Template:
  • Help:
  • Category:
  • Portal:

Comments

For non-article space (e.g. Talk, Image, Portal) do we really need to include:

  • Wikipedia is not an advertising service
  • use the sandbox
  • To learn more about creating articles

It seems to me that those comments are directed almost completely toward article space and not needed for the other spaces.

If we are going to make changes to the wording for article space (as I hope we will) we can change the wording for other spaces while we are at it. So now is a good time for suggestions to changes besides the article space change. Sbowers3 (talk) 02:33, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposed text

Here is the proposed Newarticletext. I have restructured it with separator selectors for each namespace. This will make it easy to customize the message for each different namespace. I also changed html markup to Wiki markup.

Edit this section to copy the raw text to the message.

For reference, here is how it appears in the context of various namespaces:

  • (Mainspace):

Before making your Wikipedia article:

  • Talk:
  • User:
  • User talk:
  • IP user talk:
  • other talk:
  • Wikipedia:
  • Image:
  • MediaWiki:
  • Template:
  • Help:
  • Category:
  • Portal:

Sbowers3 (talk) 00:22, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Comments about proposed text

  • The article message is essentially the last proposal from WP:VPP except that I omitted the image. I could not get it to work in the message. I think that tables may not work properly in the context of a message.
  • For non-article messages I removed the wording (e.g. read Wikipedia:Your first article) that seemed not necessary for non-articles.
  • I also removed the part about a delay updating the database and trying the purge function. I don't believe database delay is a problem these days.
  • I'm not sure whether to include something about checking the deletion log before recreating a page that was deleted.

Sbowers3 (talk) 00:22, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

The image could be unnecessarily hostile, and the blue border attracts enough attention anyway. It should be made clear that this notice is intended primarily for people creating their first article, hence the first link. It'd be annoying to appear to be told every single time to read that page. Also, "probably will be deleted" may be too discouraging to good faith attempts at creating an article with a notable subject. There's no need to mention the deletion log, because it shows on the page. What about:

Before creating your first Wikipedia article:

–Pomte 00:35, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
No objection. Sbowers3 (talk) 04:01, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Is it possible to code this without having to include the same <div> tags in each section, if the selector can be wrapped in them it will make future edits easier. — xaosflux Talk 02:47, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
The div for article space is different from the div for all other namespaces - and I think we want the article's div to stand out as it does now. It would be easy enough to restructure the messages as "if article space then ... else "div begin" switch namespace ... "div end" end if. That would make it harder to have custom divs for each namespace but that might be a good thing - would encourage uniform appearance for everything except article space. Sbowers3 (talk) 04:01, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Revised Jan. 8

Here is the message revised per suggestions above:

And here is how it appears in article space:

Before creating your first Wikipedia article:

Sbowers3 (talk) 00:33, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Requesting admin edit. –Pomte 00:59, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}

To be specific - edit this section (of the talk page). You will see the proposed message text. Copy it in its entirety and replace all of the current message text. Sbowers3 (talk) 01:50, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
I tested it, and it seems to work. But I am concerned about the wording on the article pages. Providing references is not something you do before editing, it's something you do while editing. How about this? — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:21, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Information for new editors

That's more suitable, though of course it's a better idea to provide reliable sources right away to avoid speedy deletion. One thing though is that it's the reliability of sources that is important, not so much the reference style guide, which is why I bolded the former over the latter. –Pomte
How about "As you create the article, please provide references to reliable sources."? The bold is the same as in the original box above. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:26, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

How about this:

Information for editors

I omitted "new" in the title because I want all editors not just new editors to follow these instructions. Similarly I omitted "first" before article. I bolded "references" rather than "reliable sources" because REF has has more information about why references are important, what material should be cited, and what should be in a reference. I agree that the formatting of a reference (the latter half of REF) is not so important. Frankly, I'd be happy to see ANY references, formatted any which way or unformatted, in New pages because so many new articles have no references at all. Sbowers3 (talk) 23:08, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Revised Jan. 27

Here is the latest version as displayed above:

{{editprotected}} Please replace in its entirety the current message with the above text. Sbowers3 (talk) 20:51, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I copied it over. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:34, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Very nice. Was pleasantly surprised just now, and hunted this page down to say thanks :) -- Quiddity (talk) 04:47, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

"Previously deleted" notice

Note that "If the page has been deleted ..." notice was added 2 years ago (see #If Added deletion links above). Since then a new message MediaWiki:Recreate-deleted-warn was added, which appears exactly when the page was previously deleted, click on any deleted page for an example. Please move the relevant text from one message to another ∴ AlexSm 21:38, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

{{editprotected}} I understand that the old message was too long, but I found the "search" link extremely useful. When I create a red link, I often search to see if there's anything to redirect to. Can this be added after "Before creating your article, please read Wikipedia:Your first article."? Thank you. --NE2 17:11, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I took the liberty of removing your editprotected request because as I understand the process you should have a very specific request before using the editprotected tag. I am including below a modified version of the current message and I invite you to further modify it to make your request specific. Having said that I hope we avoid WP:Instruction creep in this message.

Information for editors

Is the reason you want to add this so that the title of the article is pre-filled for you at Search? Right now, wherever you are when you see this message, you can type into the Search box on the left and click Search. So the only benefit I see to adding this line is that you can just click instead of clicking in the Search box, typing in the name, then clicking Search. Sbowers3 (talk) 17:53, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes; it's a pretty big help when writing an article, linking to things like Downtown Los Angeles, California, and then searching to see if there's an article about Downtown Los Angeles when it turns up red. --NE2 17:58, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

(outdenting) Okay, how's this? The search will be preloaded with the actual pagename. For testing purposes I expanded the message with the article name "My test".

Information for editors

or search for an existing article to redirect this title to.

If this is okay, then I'll insert the full message text here for an editprotected install. Sbowers3 (talk) 21:11, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I think it's probably better as above, in order to keep the number of lines down. --NE2 21:13, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Another example: I'm writing Interstate 680 (California), and added a link to urgency measure. It's a red link, so I opened it in a new tab in the hope that I could find somewhere to redirect it to. Before the recent change, I'd click on the search link to look for a target; now I either have to hit save (not actually saving, since it's blank) and use the search link there, or type it into the search box. --NE2 22:37, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Here's the latest as displayed in article space, then as the code ready to install.

Information for editors

{{editprotected}} Please replace in its entirety the current message with the above text. Sbowers3 (talk) 22:49, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

checkY Done. Sandstein (talk) 06:55, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Thank you very much! --NE2 16:46, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
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