Wikipedia talk:Guide to writing better articles/Pay attention to spelling
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Supporters of this rule include: Larry Sanger, Mike Dill, drj (articles with good spelling and proper grammar will encourage further contributions of good content), tbc (ditto) (Sloppiness in one aspect of writing can lead to sloppiness in others. Always do your best.), Josh Grosse (spelling would be easily amended by others, but incorrect page names quickly get copied all over the place, making it difficult), AxelBoldt, Koyaanis Qatsi JHK, 24, Eclecticology (perhaps futilely),
Opponents include: GWO (good content is king, other wikipedians easily amend bad spelling), Larry Sanger :-) (I agree with that too), Taw (if mozilla had a spell checker then maybe)
Counter-argument: Good content is king, bad spelling is easily amended by other wikipedians. For some people, proper spelling is difficult, and it is a big deal. They shouldn't be scorned by others.
I'm with Josh--within the text of the page, don't obsess about it. But page titles should be checked and doublechecked before saving. -- Lee Daniel Crocker
I would add the words "and grammar" to the title of this page. The whole thing is completely unenforceable, but it's good to remind writers that consistently poor spelling and grammar compromises the credibility of what they write. Eclecticology
There should be automatic support for spell-checking just before saving (or previewing) an article. Can we get an extra "Check spelling" button next to the "Save Page" and "Show preview" buttons please? feature request
[edit] Proposal to consolidate advice on writing better articles
At present there are many articles in the Wikipedia namespace that seek to give guidance on how to write better articles. I propose consolidating these into a much smaller number. On User:Jongarrettuk/Better writing guide I propose how these could be consolidated. The proposal is not to change advice, just to consolidate it. If I have inadvertently moved what you consider to be good advice that is currently in the Wikipedia namespace, please re-add it. I'm hope that the proposal to merge all these articles, in principle, will be welcomed. Of course, it may be preferred to have 2, 3 or 4 inter-connected articles than just one and would welcome advice on how this could be done. (In particular, perhaps all the guidance on layout should be spun off into one consolidated article on layout.) I'm also aware that putting lots of different bits of advice together may throw up anomalies or bits that people now disagree with (including bits that I myself disagree with:) ). I ask for support for the consolidation. Once the consolidation has happened, the advice can be changed in the normal way. Please feel free to improve on the current draft consolidation, but don't remove or add advice that is not currently on the Wikipedia namespace. If all goes well, I'll add a new Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles page on the 19th, though maybe some bits of the new article will need to be phased in over a longer period. I'll also take care to preserve all the archived discussion in one place. jguk 19:53, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
