Wording of template edit

Hi, Sadalmelik had the idea here of trying to modify the wording of this template to better encourage contributors to rewrite the articles.

Suggested changes to template:

  • Move the instructions about rewriting to come first, to increase their prominence
  • At the end after "from scratch", append ", using web pages or other publications as sources of facts, but not as sources of sentences or phrases," similar to a wording I saw Moonriddengirl using.
  • "Often a good solution is to make the Wikipedia article very short, with a link to the web page."
  • "Please don't delete this template without good reason. Someone will be checking. If you delete the template, please explain your reason on the article talk page."

Coppertwig(talk) 22:52, 23 November 2008 (UTC)Reply

I see no problem with your suggestions, except perhaps about the "don't delete" bit, which seems a little bitey to me. — Coren (talk) 01:25, 24 November 2008 (UTC)Reply

OK, I implemented most of those changes.

Another suggested change: add a clause explaining what to do if it's a copy of a Wikipedia page. Maybe something like:

  • If you have created this page using text copied from another Wikipedia page, it must say in the edit summary when you create the article where the text came from, in order to give proper GFDL attribution to the Wikipedian authors. If this wasn't done, please have the page deleted by putting {{db-author}} on it, and recreate the page with an appropriate edit summary.

Also, the template you post on user talk pages could use this kind of information. Actually, what exactly are people supposed to do in that situation? Is it good enough to do an edit later on with an edit summary explaining where the information came from? Whatever people are supposed to do, this template and the user talk page one ([1]) should tell the person what to do. Coppertwig(talk) 23:48, 6 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

Or should it say "add a note at the bottom of the page saying that it incorporates text from ..." [2] Coppertwig(talk) 00:35, 7 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
Probably not; I find that most (if not almost all) of the cut and paste from withing Wikipedia are attempts at creating a disambig or moving a page that would be better served with an history merge or a genuine move. Those always need attention from someone who is more familiar with the "right" way to do those. — Coren (talk) 05:58, 7 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
Oh. I guess that means we should be listing a lot of those (from SCV) at Wikipedia:Cut and paste move repair holding pen. Coppertwig(talk) 14:55, 7 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
Yes, that sounds like the right place.  :-) — Coren (talk) 22:34, 7 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

"Often a good solution is to make the Wikipedia article very short, with a link to the web page." edit

Can I suggest that this be removed? If someone is creating copyvio pages, it's unlikely they understand how to create an article that's short but not so short it will be speedily deleted for lacking context or not indicating the subject's significance. I just saw someone create a copyvio article and then create an article with the text "Link to Wild Hare Productions: http://www.wildhareprod.com/production.html" after it was deleted.Prezbo (talk) 21:34, 9 September 2009 (UTC)Reply