MediaWiki talk:Noarticletext

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This message on this site, depending on the user-specified interface language:

  • en (English):

Wikipedia does not have a talk page with this exact name.

If a page was recently created here, it may not yet be visible because of a delay in updating the database; wait a few minutes and try the purge function. If a page previously existed at this exact title, check the deletion log and see Why was my page deleted?.


  • Om du har skapat artikeln under de senaste minuterna kan du ändå få upp denna sida ifall Wikipedias cache inte hunnit uppdateras. Vänligen vänta då en liten stund och se om artikeln syns senare innan du försöker skapa den igen.

pages in the MediaWiki namespace regarding this message

Writing in Wiki is not very intuitive. It just contributes to the increasing number of mark-up languages.

OK, I have changed the text to Edit and made it a link. It's a bit messy, and I don't know if it will work on all pages. Dori | Talk 14:24, Jun 13, 2004 (UTC)

Beautiful. ✏ Sverdrup 14:28, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Actually, this does not work on empty category pages ([1]). I think it's okay to keep it, though. ✏ Sverdrup 11:22, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I changed "on this topic": there may well be a page on the topic, but with a slightly different name.--Patrick 00:53, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Namespace in wiktionary link

The new [[Wiktionary:{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}|{{PAGENAME}}]] link results in an extra colon in non-namespaced pages. How about [http://en.wiktionary.org{{localurl:{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}}} {{PAGENAME}}] ? Goplat 19:58, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Strange characters

The "edit this page" link creates wrong article titles in case the page name contains brackets or comma - e.g. "Test (city)" becomes "Test %28city%29)". I guess it was the exchange of PAGENAME by PAGENAMEE. andy 08:47, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Add direct search function to "article does not exist" page

Currently, if an article does not exist, the visitor gets a message with three options:

  • Edit this page
  • Look into the Wiktionairy
  • Look at the candidates for speedy deletion.

I propose to add an option "search for this". When I want to know something about a certain subject, I type it directly into the address bar. Recently, I typed "w are you being served", and received the Article does not exist page. It turned out to be called "Are You Being Served?". I had to paste the text I was looking for into the search form to search for it. If the 'does not exist' message would have had an option "search for this", it would not have been neceserry to do the latter. I'm sure it would be a useful feature, the only minor disadvantage being that the 'does not exist' message would grow. Gerritholl 14:29, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I've added a link to the search to this and MediaWiki:Newarticletext. Angela. 13:17, Nov 6, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Delays?

"If you have created this page in the past few minutes and it has not yet appeared, it may not be visible due to a delay in updating the database. Please wait and check again later before attempting to recreate the page." (formatting removed)

  1. Is this a new problem? This message wasn't there until a short time ago.
  2. Does this belong on MediaWiki:Newarticletext? Remember that only that message (not this one) wil be seen by those following a broken link (commonly called a red link but this can be changed). Brianjd 08:31, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)
  1. It has recently been a large problem. There's numerous posts over on Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) from people who are seeing this and related problems. Because they don't see their article, they hit back in their browser, and re-save it. This causes the article to be created twice, which creates all sorts of other fun problems with categories and what links here.
  2. Yes, it should have been added there too. I just didn't realize there was more than one place it needed to go before I needed to allocate time to other things. -- Cyrius|✎ 12:43, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] I don't get it

Everytime I edit this template, it keeps saying that no article exists. But the template does exist! Do you think I should file a bug report? K. Thanks. - Ta bu shi da yu 10:41, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think the people who handle bug reports are very busy lately. You should wait precisely 15 days and then file it. -- Curps 17:37, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Delete, fancruft. (with apologies to Silsor) — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:44, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] remove "yet"?

I suggest that we should remove "yet" from the sentence "Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name." To me, this implies that we don't have the article now but we should have one. If someone types blahblah into the search box and hits "Go" and gets this message, he might feel that he should start the article. I'm basing this off a few isolated comments from users who thought they were supposed to add those articles but which got put on VFD or were speedily deleted. Maybe this word change isn't a big deal. Thoughts? — Knowledge Seeker দ 09:01, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'd suggest something along the lines of:
Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name.
Would you like to:
Start the FOO article
<the other options>
I think it would strike a balance between "there doesn't necessarily need to be an article here" and "yes, you can write an article if you want to". -- Cyrius|✎ 15:40, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good to me, although perhaps "Would you like to:" could be something like "You may choose one of the following:" or something. Anyone else have any thoughts? — Knowledge Seeker দ 00:02, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"You may choose..." seems a little too formal to me. -- Cyrius|✎ 13:33, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, it seems too formal to me too. I hesitate using "Would you like to:" for two reasons: One is that as I understand it, colons should normally follow complete sentences. Although I don't always follow this, I feel that this text is "official" enough that it should be written more correctly. The other is, along the same lines, I feel like it is a question and should end in a question mark, which would look awkward. Let me think about other ways to reword it. — Knowledge Seeker দ 17:46, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I removed "yet". We may add "However, you can create one."--Patrick 12:44, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Removing the "yet" sounds reasonable. We shouldn't have an article for every single text string someone inadvertantly types into the Search box. --TenOfAllTrades (talk/contrib) 21:33, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Missing dot

The line "Search for <article> in other articles" lacks a dot at the end. I think this should be fixed. Meneth 15:42, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • Thanks; I added periods to the first two options. — Knowledge Seeker দ 16:49, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Namespace dependent

The German Wikipedia has de:MediaWiki_Diskussion:Newarticletext namespace dependent noarticletexts. This is a good idea: compare de:Bild:Stelvio.jpg and Image:Stelvio.jpg. How could this be implemented for the English language Wikipedia? Gerrit CUTEDH 21:58, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] bugzilla:2388

See: bugzilla:2388 – "handling: add a "purge" link to MediaWiki:Noarticletext" Regards Gangleri | Th | T 03:23, 2005 Jun 19 (UTC)

Good idea, done.--Patrick 13:57, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Link to deletion log

I thought it would be useful to suggest creating a link to the deletion log after the last line, so that new users can more easily find and contact the admin who's deleted the page. This might be handy in case something was speedy-deleted or just voted out. This would be done using the form:

Check for Noarticletext in the deletion log

[{{SERVER}}{{localurl:Special:Log|type=delete&user=&page={{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAMEE}}}} Check for '''{{PAGENAME}}''' in the deletion log]

At the same time, please bypass the redirect by changing "candidates for speedy deletion" to "criteria for speedy deletion". -- Netoholic @ 6 July 2005 19:56 (UTC)

Actually the CSD link is already skip-redirected (with pipe). I like the log search link, added it and added it as well to MediaWiki:Newarticletext, which is what people more often see when attempting to reach a deleted article through Go or links. I also added an AfD link, since for AfDed articles this will contain some good discussion of why it was deleted (much better than the deletion summary). Deco 03:45, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] no offense but...

The new version is quite ugly. --Ixfd64 10:29, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Remove frame

I'm impressed that no administrator has yet to discover that the frame around this message has been replaced by a frame in the CSS of MediaWiki, thus rendering the current message with a double ugly-bugly frame, could someone with power, please fix it. As you can see from the message above, it has been a looong time.... --Dittaeva 20:01, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, but I think they know, it's just that it isn't automatically generated by non-Monobook skins. --WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 19:43, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] candidates --> criteria

I changed the phrase "See candidates for speedy deletion" to "See the criteria for speedy deletion", as that is where the link goes. New editors might type the term in the searchbar and wonder why they aren't at the same page they got when they clicked the same phrase. Prodego talk 22:24, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wiktionary link to search?

Wouldn't it be better to have the link Wiktionary:PAGENAME replaced by Wiktionary:Special:Search/PAGENAME? I'll also put the opposite forward at Wiktionary. Vildricianus 15:51, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Different message for talk pages?

I've had some questions from users about the template messages on talk pages without content of existing articles, e.g. Talk:Raul. It states "Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name.", problem is that it does have an article with this exact name, just not a talk page. Can a seperate talk page template be made and used? -- Jeandré, 2006-04-24t12:15z

That's something to request of the developers (unless some sort of conditional, namespace-based construct could be devised). For the time being, I've reworded the message to broadly reference all pages. —David Levy 12:46, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
I believe ParserFunctions could be useful here. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 13:49, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
That's what I was thinking, but I'm not familiar enough with the syntax to suggest a specific implementation. —David Levy 14:12, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Done. I also hid the AfD link for non-article pages, and the Wiktionary and Commons links for pages that are neither articles nor categories. (Images are handled differently anyway.) I'm almost tempted to use the trick from Template:Exists to hide the AfD link entirely unless the target page exists, but I'm not sure how reliable it is. I also took the opportunity to remove hardcoded instances of "Wikipedia" from the text, and to fix a number of cases where article names were URL-encoded twice. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 15:31, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

The rest is fine, but somebody please get rid of the italics; they're really ugly. --Rory096(block) 03:03, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

The italicized text serves a syntactical function (comparable to quotation marks) in a manner consistent with other boilerplate messages. (See our merger/split templates.) —David Levy 03:12, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] No need for special cases for the Image: namespace

This message is not used for images at all; the noimage message is shown instead (example). So there's no need to add elaborate conditionals to test if {{NAMESPACE}} equals "Image" — it can't happen. (On the other hand, newarticletext can be shown for images if one tries to edit a nonexistent image page, for example by clicking a link like this. This is arguably a bug.) —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 11:00, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

The same is true for MediaWiki pages as well; those just display a blank page if they don't exist. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 11:07, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] {{editprotected}}

To link "spam" to WP:SPAM, "deleted" to WP:CSD or WP:AFD, and "article policies" to whatever page that is. Thanx. 68.39.174.238 17:02, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the spam thing should be on MediaWiki:Newarticletext, shouldn't it? æ² ✆ 2006-06-16t19:13z
Frankly it looks ugly and I think it might be a bit abrasive sounding (Direct address, etc), however if nothing else it should probably link to the appropriate policies. However it may indeed belong somewhere else. 68.39.174.238 20:24, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
I also forgot, I'm surprised "is not" wasn't linked to every debaters favorite pages to begin with ;D "LOL"! 68.39.174.238 20:25, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Regarding removal of new paragraph

Hi all - although I appreciate your intent in adding the new paragraph regarding vanity pages, I don't feel this is appropriate. For one thing, WP:AUTO is only a guideline not policy; speedy deletion does not allow the deletion of such pages; and these pages comprise only some of the poorly-created new pages. I also feel that the wording is excessively verbose. If you can come up with something to replace it that is more true and less wordy I'd be happy to see it added. Deco 04:19, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Rather than removing it you should have proposed an improvement. We're now receiving legal threats from people who are angry that we've deleted content they paid to have inserted in Wikipedia. I can't disagree with your claim of some, since it would still be true if 99% of newpages were paid advertisements, but I don't see how the fact that not all of the newpages are garbage justifies removing the notice. :) --Gmaxwell 07:54, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
We have disclaimers, we won't get sued, there's no reason to have it in bold everywhere. It's m:instruction creep. --Rory096 17:41, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
we won't get sued .. if only that were true. ducks paddling furiosly under the water, and all that ... --AlisonW 20:55, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
Fine, we won't lose in a lawsuit. Do you really think somebody suing that something they submitted to a private website would win? --Rory096 04:12, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Caselaw suggests that someone doing so would win if they could show and traceback malice. WP is presently treading a very fine line to ensure as much freedom to edit (and create) as possible whilst protecting our users and good name. There aer, however, regular complaints about content, sometimes via lawyers with threats, which mean that if we can be seen to take sensible steps to reduce the likelihood of spam, etc. then we are in a better position to solve such complaints without actually finding ourselves in court. Someone who desires to create an good article will not be prevented or delayed by these few words, but tidying up after the person who is not here to "do good" will be easier because the status of such miscreations is far clearer. --AlisonW 11:50, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I'll put it back. If it needs to be trimmed was can talk about it. --Tony Sidaway 08:03, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, if you'd rather discuss it, can we first address the very serious problem that it makes the claim that we can speedy delete this type of information, none of which is eligible for speedy deletion? In fact, it is often retained in AfD, since it can be improved into an article. I suggest we simply say that it "may be deleted or drastically modified". Deco 08:16, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
He did. --Gmaxwell 09:06, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
Not exactly. He left in the part about speedy deletion. They will never be deleted in accordance with speedy deletion; there is no such criterion. They may be deleted via other means. Deco 09:08, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
Advertising copy and marketing material is routinely speedied. Would you like some examples? --Gmaxwell 09:10, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
Ah, I just added that text to MediaWiki:Newarticletext, not seeing this discussion yet, I do think it should be included, but I didn't want to seem like I was just ignoring other people's opinions. - cohesion 09:16, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
Such deletions are out-of-process. You can raise this on Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion if you want - I think consensus is on my side here (regarding the current state of CSD, at least, rather than what should be the rule). Deco 09:28, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
There is no reason for me to raise anything on the CSD page because I have no complaint to make there about current practices. --Gmaxwell 09:41, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
Let me make myself clearer. Currently this box asserts that such material "may be deleted without further notice in accordance with our speedy deletion policies." The policy named and linked there does not authorize or permit such deletions. Therefore, this is a blatant lie that will show up every time anyone creates a new article (the text was copied to MediaWiki:Newarticletext). This misrepresentation of our policies will spread distrust among our new users, encourage out-of-process deletions, and absolutely cannot be tolerated should be removed. I really don't think I'm alone in opposing this wording. Deco 09:44, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
Am I supposed to be convinced by your bold text? How about you propose revised wording here rather than just complaining? For example, the original version of this text did not include mention of the criteria for speedy deletion... Did you find it less objectionable? --Gmaxwell 09:48, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry that I wasn't more clear. I'd be happy if the reference to speedy deletion were deleted, and this was what I intended to propose above. I had the impression that you were asserting the truth of this statement and refusing to consider removing it - if you do not hold this position, then I apologise if I came off too forcefully. Thanks a lot for discussing this with me. Deco 09:56, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
Deco is correct—speedy deletion of vanity material and advertising is not policy. This problem could be solved by changing in accordance with our speedy deletion policies to in accordance with our deletion policies.. Spacepotato 10:04, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
Sensible change. Done. --AlisonW 10:23, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for your support and this change. I am fully in accord with the text as it stands. I apologize again for overreacting. Deco 11:09, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
No apology needed! The level of spam/SEO/marketing/advertising 'articles' we are getting is close to getting out of hand and we need something in there that might either stop them, or make clear to the creators that we will stop them. Hopefully thyese additional notices will work against the spammers but not put off good editors creating sensible articles ... --AlisonW 11:44, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I noticed the new paragraph a day ago or so, and just came across this discussion. I support the new paragraph (although Deco's point about speedy issues is a valid one), and I certainly believe we get a terrible mass of spam, but I'd be curious, if it's feasible, if someone would provide some hard numbers on this subject. i.e. how many spam pages we get per day/week/month, how they break down in terms of how they are dealt with, etc. JesseW, the juggling janitor 23:40, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Well there is a nontrivial number that gets missed... but it's hard to count that because it's not missed any more once you've found it. :) In general it's hard because people don't always agree on what is spam. Why not check for yourself. Open up Special:Newpages, jump back 10,000 pages or so and start clicking at random, or just walk through a bunch... There is a lot of okay stuff, but a lot of junk too... --Gmaxwell 23:55, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Will do, and will post the results. JesseW, the juggling janitor 03:47, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
I've looked through 40 (in order), starting with 02:56, 21 June 2006 ‎Melodious Thunk, and I find it nearly impossible to decide what's "spam" or not merely based on the content of them. I deleted a few as being obviously non-notable groups, and a few more I was very unsure about, and a few others were depressingly in need of massive cleanup (i.e. they were better than nothing, I suppose, but could hardly be considered articles) and many of the others were filling out members of a set, and some of the rest were excellent short articles.
I suppose, the question I was really asking was more like: What sort of content is being paid to be put in Wikipedia, how much of it do we get, and what sort of "legal threats" are we getting in regards to it? JesseW, the juggling janitor 04:21, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
People are paying to have content inserted in Wikipedia? Who/what/where/how/when? And they're making legal threats against US for that? Stifle (talk) 10:21, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Deco's original concern; I regularly encounter readers (not regular editors) who are baffled by the bold warnings and admonishments which begin to appear as soon as one tries to contribute to Wikipedia. This is an example of user interface recapitulating administrative needs; when it should instead address the needs of most users and find ways to best achieve the goals of the site -- not just ways to make administrative tasks easier. I changed the text to make it less frightening; we're not trying to keep people from contributing here, just clarifying what is and is not acceptable. +sj + 15:40, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Our readers need a Wikipedia which isn't unreasonably biased by commercial abuse and self promotion. Our editors need to be treated with the basic human respect that comes from not demanding they spend infinite amounts of time deleting content which we should have advised people not to post in the first place. Because your involvement with Wikipedia is mostly within the realm of speculating and talking to people who are pretty smart, you might not be aware... but many people are actually surprised that Wikipedia doesn't permit companies to write articles for advertising purposes. We are frequently offered money to host articles and links(you have an OTRS login no?), and we encounter people who think Wikipedia is funded, at least in part, by articles on products and companies. In any case, your changes are confusing because it implies that we don't want people writing articles on companies or people at all... which isn't the case, we especially want people to avoid starting articles on themselves or on companies who are compensating them.--Gmaxwell 15:58, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:BEANS

Adding a "don't advertise" clause seems more likely to increase than to decrease advertising/marketing efforts in the medium term. Not sure about the short or long term effects. +sj + 15:48, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

WP beans only applies if the subject wouldn't have thought of it in the first place. If you're already at the new article page, thats probably not the case... although with your weaked and confusing new text (can we not have articles on companies at all?) perhaps I could see where it might cause problems. --Gmaxwell 15:51, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Repair it, please

Please... I'd like to ask someone (admin preffered) to revert the changes made by Gruch tooday. It causes crash on empty sites - there's no text visible in template and there are some problems with links... MonteChristof 18:44, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Odd, it worked fine for me. I also tested it while logged out without any custom CSS. Could you be a little more specific? – Gurch 01:06, 12 November 2006 (UTC)


OK, I've reinstated the change I made in August as it seems unlikely that there is a problem with that. I will leave the other changes for now and possibly reintroduce those that don't cause a problem at a later date when I am confident as to which ones they are – Gurch 21:42, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Preload

At MediaWiki talk:Newarticletext#.22Please_make_a_GOOD_new_article.22 I've suggested adding a pre-load template, Template:Noarticletext preload, to the "Start the article" link on this notice. Uncle G 17:16, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good. Is it this easy to implement? —Centrx→talk • 17:51, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
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