Wikipedia talk:Summary style

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I like the point that this article makes a lot, but it's a bit on the dry and awkward side. Is there any way it could be punched up a bit? Possibly by leading off with some examples, and cutting a little of the exposition? -- Doom 19:21, Jul 19, 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[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 19:58, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

A centralized good writing guide is a good thing. But please leave the detailed pages (such as this one) and summarize points in the central writing guide. --mav 22:17, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Disagreement concerning the mass blanking and redirects is part of a request for arbitration I have made. Maurreen 14:47, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] A challenge for summary style

I've noticed a few pages where summary style had led to problems (or been misapplied, if you like). It might be worth putting some comments here on how to solve/avoid these problems.

Nuclear weapon includes big sections on the effects of a nuclear weapon and on the design of a nuclear weapon. Both are more extensively covered in other articles (nuclear explosion and nuclear weapon design). Here the sections in the original article are huge (not quite as big as the specialized article) with many subsections. As a result, they receive a lot of editing.

Syria includes a section on the politics of Syria; there's also a Politics of Syria article. Unfortunately, the Politics of Syria article looks like a simple copy of some old version of the main article, with some tabular data pasted in the end. I think people are almost certainly editing the Syria article instead.

So how should this sort of thing be prevented/fixed? The danger, I think, is that people edit and expand the summary, rather than the full article. --Andrew 14:28, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

Montreal and History of Montreal have the same problem (but worse). --Andrew 04:49, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

If you see that, then summarize the section and expand the daughter article. Then leave an HTML comment in the section telling editors to direct expansion to the daughter article. --mav 22:15, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
I went ahead and did this for the Montreal articles. Will look at the Syria articles later. --mav

[edit] templates to make summary style explicit

I would like to start a discussion on the use of templates to make explicit the relationship between an article and its summary in another article. I believe this also addresses the above problem. Currently summaries are often marked by the template {main} (or {seemain}). The original intent was for the other template to go on the article. This way it is clear that information should be coordinated between these articles (for editors) and that additional detailed or background information is available (for readers). Because {main} and {seemain} were identically worded they were supposed to be the same and usually only the summary was marked with either one of them. To remedy this I proposed and created two new templates {{subarticleof}} and {{seesubarticle}}. Recently all four of these were nominated for deletion Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/Not_deleted/July_2005#Template:Subarticleof and Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/Not_deleted/July_2005#Template:Main / Template:Seemain. Some people have expressed concern about the word "subarticle" so the following wording might be more appropriate:

  • {details}: For more details on this topic, see the article {1}.
  • {background}: For more background on this topic, see the article {1}.

Please comment on appropriateness/desirability of using templates to indicate the summary/detailed article relation and the wording and naming of such templates. --MarSch 10:38, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

I think that the templates are too general, so they don't really fit with the "flow" of an article. It seems better for someone to just link to a subject within a sentence rather than stop what is being said to have the subarticle link there. For example (and I have no idea how this just came to my mind), if you were editing the article on Cheese and wanted to say something about Cheddar, a sentence saying, "Cheddar is one of the most popular cheeses in the world." can continue on much better than "Cheddar is one of the most popular cheeses in the world. For a more detailed treatment of this topic, see the subarticle [[{{{1}}}]]." Because of what this does to the article, I agree that the templates should be deleted - not because of any naming problems, but because they just aren't necessary. Vyran 14:19, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
I think that you're right that such a use of the template would be unneeded and disrupt the flow of the article, but that's not how the templates are (should be?) used. See for example, China, which has "main articles" for terminology, climate, demographics, etc. and a whole bunch for history. Since they're at the top of each section, they don't disrupt the flow and because they're separated, they're easier for the interested reader to find than a link to history of China would be if it were buried in the section.
Incidentally, the distinction between background and details seems like a good one to me. Dave (talk) 16:23, July 16, 2005 (UTC)
Often what is summarized in one article is merely an aspect which is more thoroughly covered elsewhere. It is not uncommon to have 1–3 paragraphs which summarize something, and I often find such templates useful in providing a link to an article with details relevant to all those paragraphs without distracting from the text flow. For example, in Cheese there is brief mention of colors of cheese and it is not hard to imagine there being a little more material about cheese colors, which might be covered in much more detail in Coloring in the food industry. Some styles would try to weave in a suitable word or phrase to link to Coloring in the food industry, while other editors would use styles such as these templates create. A difficulty is that the linked article may indeed have a lot of information relevant to cheese, cheese industry, cheese politics, and other topics which directly bear on cheese colors, there is no simple major/minor or summary/detail relationship between the two articles, other than their being co-articles on the topic of colors of cheese. We're dealing with many concepts and not always simple relationships between them. (SEWilco 03:41, 18 July 2005 (UTC))
  • I don't see any objections, besides some old and seemingly uncorrectable misinterpretations. I'm going to implement my suggestions in a few days. --MarSch 09:05, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
    • People may be not objecting if these "uncorrectable misinterpretations" have already raised their own objections, thus you can not ignore them. Whatever it is which you refer to. (SEWilco 20:20, 14 August 2005 (UTC))
    • You should correct these "uncorrectable misinterpretations", otherwise new users who make the same misinterpretations will be misusing the templates. (SEWilco 20:20, 14 August 2005 (UTC))
  • I'm not sure these templates would correct the problems that you mention--people would probably still edit the summary and ignore the larger article--but these templates might be useful to have. I'd support them as long as no move was made to have them replace templates {main} (or {seemain}). Then if people find the new templates useful, they would be adopted over time.--Alabamaboy 12:14, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
    • Sorry, I seem to have confused some comment elsewhere. I was too lazy to read everything again to check. Still that leaves no objections. Alabamaboy: I would have these templates replace the uses of {main} in summary style. All other uses of {main}, whatever those may be, can be examined afterwards. Touching {main} is however a usefull way of alerting people. I've tried to get people to this discussion by posting in all talk pages of the featured article procedure, talk of {main} and all related and also VP, but response is still low. Oh, I forget the TfD. That is pretty much every place I can think of that is relevant. Do you have any ideas how to involve some more people? The wiki way is to go ahead until you meet resistence. Then discuss. If we're all in agreement then we should go ahead again until people notice. Oh, one other way might be to include a link in {main} to this discussion, but I'm loath to do that.--MarSch 14:49, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Objections

"I was too lazy to read everything again to check. Still that leaves no objections."

  • You're saying you are not reading everything.
  • Despite admitting that, you claim there are no objections.
  • How do you know there are no objections if you are not looking for them? (SEWilco 15:44, 16 August 2005 (UTC))

"I don't see any objections, besides some old and seemingly uncorrectable misinterpretations."

  • If you're not correcting the objections, they are objections despite being old.
  • If something is being misinterpreted, explain better what is being misinterpreted so it will not be misinterpreted by future users. (SEWilco 15:44, 16 August 2005 (UTC))

"I'm going to implement my suggestions in a few days."

  • What "suggestions"? "Implement" what and how? (SEWilco 15:44, 16 August 2005 (UTC))
    • I'm not admitting to not reading everything. I had read everything, then when I checked a few weeks later I scanned everything to refresh my memory and all that happened is that I thought that something written elsewhere was written here. My suggestion as explained above is to specify that the templates {details} and {background} should be used for summary style and possibly only for summary style. I think it would be good to have templates for doing this. So if there are no objections I'm changing the project page to reflect this change. I would really appreciate some feedback however before I do this. --MarSch 15:27, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
    • For the record I also object per SEWilco's reasoning. --mav 00:48, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How to determine size for summary style

The opening paragraph says "generally 30KB of prose" is the limit. So what I'm wondering is what counts as prose? Some articles have extensive references, large tables, or lots of external URLs, all of which can bloat the article text size without adding much to the "prose" that a reader is expected to read. Is the intent of that statement to focus on the prose in the article, and not the actual text size of the article? This would mean not relying pedantically on the size warning, but rather focusing on the readable size. I think that would be the correct interpretation, and I'd like to change the wording to more clearly express this view, but I want to get input before making changes. – Doug Bell talk•contrib 12:49, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Summary style#Size, which links to Wikipedia:Article size. On that page there is, among other things: ">30KB - May eventually need to be divided (likelihood goes up with size; this is less critical for lists)".
Whatever the improvement you propose, I think consistency with Wikipedia:Article size would best be persued. If you feel that that page might benefit from updating, best to discuss at Wikipedia talk:Article size. --Francis Schonken 13:28, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I got to here from Wikipedia:Article size, but I was considering raising the same issue there. Since the technical issues behind the size are, I believe, largely a moot point now, I was looking for where to discuss article size from a style perspective. Neither this page nor the size page addresses the issue between the physical size and displayed size of the article. So maybe tomorrow I'll raise the issue at the size page, but I'm still looking for input on whether the style issue (summary pages style) should be base the size on a measure of readable size instead of physical size. – Doug Bell talk•contrib 13:48, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
"Interwiki links, along with external links, further reading, references, see also and similar sections should not be counted toward an article's total size since the point is to limit readable prose in the main body of an article." In short, you are correct Doug. -- mav 18:46, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 30kb of prose

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Summary_style

For people not familiar with computer technology this is maybe confusing. Should we add something like: "(roughly ... letters/words)" or make a link to a related article ?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.58.137.154 (talk • contribs) .

People are made aware of this through the warning which appears at the top of the page when you attempt to edit a page bigger than 30k, although whether that applies when editing sections I can't remember. It's a good point though, and someone must know what 30k of text equates to, roughly. I'll post a note on WP:VPT. Steve block Talk 19:27, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
  • It appears that roughly 4700-4800 words will be about right, based on a very small pool of two examples. Letter wise, you're talking 30 000, pretty much, I think a character equals a byte. Steve block Talk 20:46, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
  • ASCII characters are equivalent to 1 byte, but the extended set of Unicode characters can be 2 or 3 bytes each (e.g. € or 語). ~MDD4696 01:46, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reference to POV forking

Cut:

"Summary style" is a technique that is recommended to avoid POV splitting of articles, see: wikipedia:content forking#Article spinouts - "Summary style" articles.

This has nothing to do with Wikipedia:POV fork. A POV fork is an article (or article section) which is biased. The 'fork' asserts one point of view as being correct, instead of describing all points of view without labelling one "true" or "right".

Many articles are so long or contentious, that summarizing the disputed subtopic briefly and splitting out the subtopic into a separated (but linked) article can stop an edit war. The separation facilitates facilitates neutral description of the both subtopic and main topic.

There are some POV pushers at Wikipedia, however, and they frequently and adamantly resist any break up of their 'consensus' versions of biased articles. They use reverts to deter any additional contributors from editing these articles, which is IMHO violates Wikipedia:Gaming the system. Splitting off a contentious aspect of a topic makes it easier to describe it neutrally, provided a neutral summary is left behind in the paret article. --Uncle Ed 18:32, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

"Many articles are so long or contentious, that summarizing the disputed subtopic briefly and splitting out the subtopic into a separated (but linked) article can stop an edit war. The separation facilitates facilitates neutral description of the both subtopic and main topic." Um, what part of Wikipedia does not view article forking as an acceptable solution to disagreements between contributors is not clear to you? You've been trying to use that same old tired and bogus justification for justifying POV forks for months now Ed. In the view of many to push your own POV from what I've seen. So what make you think that accusing others being "POV pushers" will get you anywhere along with that reasoning? FeloniousMonk 22:01, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

It's not a POV fork, if the spinoff article is neutral, and if a neutral summary of the controversy is left behind. I just made a spinoff of Mel Gibson, with User:Friday's blessing (see Mel Gibson DUI incident). Although I did not make it just to prove a point, it does provide a good example of what I'm talking about.

I oppose the creation of POV forks. I support legitimate, neutral spinoffs only. If an article I've created in any way violates NPOV guidelines, please explain why. Here, I make it easy for you: show how it exalted one point of view over another; or asserted that one POV was 'true' and that another was 'false'; or concealed the existence of a real-world dispute (outside of Wikipedia) on a controversial issue. Any of these would clearly violate Wikipedia:Content forking. --Uncle Ed 17:16, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Your history tells a different story. It's an easily verified fact that far, far more of your personal spin-off articles have been deleted from Wikipedia through WP:AFD] for being POV-forks than those that remain as acceptable content forks. So forgive me and the many others who doubt your opinion as to what constitutes a legitimate content fork here. FeloniousMonk 21:14, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, since you give no examples to support your wild claim, I'll have to take the burden of proof on myself. Here are a few spin-off articles I've been involved with lately. Let all judge for themselves whether the results abided by or violated NPOV:

What does everyone think of these? --Uncle Ed 14:49, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] SubArticle template

Please note I changed the guideline to include inserted the new SubArticle template. Any thoughts? --Ephilei 00:54, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I removed it, I don't think this a good idea. --Francis Schonken 07:03, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
But there is definitely a need to ensure co-ordinated editing between a summary section and the subarticle that was spun off into its own article. This type of template would ensure that this would happen. Or at least remind more conscientious editors that there are two places that may need updating/changing. The subarticle and the summary back in the main article. The "synch" template can be used if things are out of synch, but there should be permanent links between the summary section and the subarticle expanding that summary. Carcharoth 22:47, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Style?

Is this concept (and the "Sync" template) supposed to mean that summary sections and the full articles they link to should share the same writing style and wording? What I mean to say is, should summary sections be derived directly from the full article, or is it alright to simply present accurate information in a different style and manner? Is the summary section a direct quoted excerpt from the full article, or is it written separately, using different wording, style, and organization, but containing nevertheless the accurate and relevant information? Am I being clear? LordAmeth 22:47, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

The summary section and the daughter article expanding on that summary section should always be synchronised, with everything in the summary mentioned in the expanded section. There is no need to directly quote. You can paraphrase things instead. But it is important in the summary to accurately present the overall balance of the information in the daughter article. I believe the summary section should be subservient to the daughter article, and should be rewritten as the daughter article grows and changes. One possibility is to use the lead section of the daughter article, but there will be differences. The lead section of the daughter article needs to cater for the reader who comes to that article from somewhere else, rather than from the parent article (though a hatnote directing people "upwards" to the parent article helps). The summary section back in the parent article needs to be written for the reader of that article, so it might be written slightly differently to fit into the flow of the article. Also, the reader who reads the summary section, and only then goes to the daughter article, will have to mentally adjust as they realise they can probably skip past the lead section and go straight into the main part of the daughter article. Carcharoth 11:04, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
All well said. But the summary in the parent article should be significantly larger than the lead section of the daughter article. The lead section is supposed to give a quick summary of the article while the summary in the parent article needs to go into a bit more detail, but not nearly as much detail as the body of the daughter article. So yeah, readers should be able to skip the lead section of the daughter article. --mav 00:16, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Valley

I'm not sure what to do here. There is a whole paragraph that is far too long explaining about an area of The Bronx called The Valley. It deserves really its own article or should be shortened as it does not belong on that page. Btw The Valley is meant to be a disambiguation page. I also do not know about areas of the Bronx as i'm not from the US. Simply south 10:48, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:How to break up a page - redirects here

I recently discovered that Wikipedia:How to break up a page redirects here. The talk page was left behind, and should be moved somewhere or linked from here, so the discussion there doesn't get lost. Also, I found that page useful for cases when a page is broken up completely, prior to a redirect being implemented. The 'Summary style' page assumes that a parent article is always left behind, but there are cases where badly designed articles are best managed by splitting the sections off and merging to different articles, and leaving the original title as: (a) a redirect to one of those pages, and (b) a repository for the edit history of the content merged elsewhere. So in effect, breaking up a page has a wider meaning than just the one covered here, and spinning off new pages in this 'summary style' is just one example of why breaking up a page might be needed. So I propose to resurrect Wikipedia:How to break up a page to cover all this. Does that sound OK? Carcharoth 13:51, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Looking at the page when it was merged, it is clear that the page never covered the case you refer to in the first place, and had almost no original content of its own, nor was it even a true "How-to" guide (compare the explanations at Wikipedia:Footnotes or Wikipedia:Did you know/Guide). As is, I see little material on the talk page that needs salvaging, and the redirect is still available for use would someone want to take the time to actually write a guideline. Circeus 14:13, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
You are right, it didn't cover that case. Sorry if I implied that. Just wanted to check you didn't mind someone (maybe me if I have time) writing up a guideline there. Carcharoth 14:44, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
No problem, just make sure to properly link and and respect the various guidelines that apply,and make it an actual how-to (otherwise, it'll just be a fork). Circeus 15:53, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "main"

The word "Main"is being used in WP in two opposite meanings.

  1. The stem article, the one that provides a summary of the more specific articles
  2. For the link to the detailed articles, , for the main article in this subject,

when it should be For details on .... There are probably hundreds of articles in WP doing it wrong. I'm not sure what can be done about it except changing them all, for I do not immediately see how a bot could distinguish. It might help to have some clear statement of this at the top of this page to refer to, or --better yet--a template to put on the talk pages explaining the change.DGG 18:00, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

It's been discussed before that the first sense is a completely inappropriate use of the {{main}} template. "Overview article" is a far better term for that sense. Circeus 20:02, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree with you. "main" is obviously ambiguous, though we may not agree exactly on where it should be used. Should the template be changed? or added? DGG 22:47, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Guideline in a nutshell

The "nutshell" summary of this guideline says that "When articles grow too long, longer sections should be spun off into their own articles and a several paragraph summary should be left in its place." Shouldn't that be "a several sentence summary"? The section that was split out was probably several paragraphs long, and one would hope that the summary could be shorter. --David Cohen 17:58, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Usually, no. Might unbalance the article where you're splitting from. --Francis Schonken 19:01, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, assuming it's a good summary that doesn't change the thrust of the original (and of course isn't a POV fork), I guess the length of the summary depends on the amount of material that's being split out. The guideline does state that "The summary in a section at the survey article will necessarily be at least twice as long as the lead section in the daughter article." That sounds like fair guidance, considering the recommendations on lead section length (1-4 paragraphs). Thanks. --David Cohen 23:49, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notability

How does this apply to stuff that's "notable enough for a section, not enough for an article" where either the material to be split is too long or too numerous (in terms of how many sections) to be fully described in the larger article? I've seen discontent on this point in AFDs. --Random832(tc) 07:11, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copied vs. Moved

I disagree with this change [1], which I think goes against WP philosophy, and would only serve to embolden contentious editing, and the removal of new material as a presumption. If anything, I think material should be copied, if appropriate, and the respective sections edited, if appropriate. Mackan79 16:37, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

It's only logical that a summary must summarize the entire work, and therefore cannot contain unique material. Moreover, one cannot properly summarize material unless one sees it all in context. This is just common sense, and mirrors what is said in WP:LEAD; a lede is a summary for an article in the same way as a summary section is. Jayjg (talk) 21:57, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
I think there are reasons why a section in one article might want to stress material differently from a general article on that topic. A lead is very different, where you're dealing with a single page. Moving material in a page is one thing, but removing any new material from a "summary section" to the "main article" as a matter of policy strikes me as overly restrictive. This could be used to place the onus on an individual bringing in material that he first go edit the "main article" before making any changes. I don't think that's appropriate or necessary. Asking that material be copied, and then adjusted, seems to me the wikier way of doing it, than requiring that the material be "moved" (read: deleted). If a specific addition needs to be deleted, plenty of policies handle that. Mackan79 23:04, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
Why would a summary not want to accurately reflect the main article? That's a very strange assertion. Jayjg (talk) 23:15, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, for one, I'm not sure it's always clear what is simply a summary and what's not. In many cases, though, I think a summary might want to tie the broader subject in with the topic of that article. For a silly example, in an article about a hamburger, you might have sections devoted to each component. The section on the lettuce, then, wouldn't simply be a summary of lettuce; it would discuss lettuce as it relates to hamburgers. Without looking around, I'd think this could be the case in many instances, to varying degrees. In any case, I simply think "copied" is a nicer way of saying it, which fully allows that material would also be removed under specific policies. Mackan79 00:20, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm still thinking that maybe a more strict wording is still a good idea. I wonder if the kind of situation you describe above really is a case of WP:SS, it seems more like a related article, where a {{see also}} link might be appropriate. Perhaps this guideline should focus on the case of real subarticles, where recommending stricter synchronization is a good idea. --Merzul 01:29, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
Alright, well see my concern below. I just would rather the policy not be phrased to suggest that material should be "moved" as a presumption, since "moved" effectively means "deleted." The possible sentence we could add to make it stronger, then, could be that material in a summary section should always appear in the main article. As I said above, though, this actually strikes me as somewhat problematic, due to the incremental way WP tends to be improved, and because "always" is an awfully strong word. Unfortunately, I think that probably has to make synchronization a serious ongoing task, which probably can't be solved so simply. If you'd like to see the extended context of this discussion, incidentally, it's here. Mackan79 01:58, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
Ok, I will out of curiosity look into the context, but you have already convinced me! Thank you for your patience in explaining, I'm a bit stubborn and get over-excited about things that don't actually solve the real problem, but my intentions were sincere :) Thanks. --Merzul 02:20, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
Material should be moved because the summary has to summarize the main article, not just repeat whatever was most recently added. Copying would give undue weight to the most recent material, and inevitably unbalance the summary. Jayjg (talk) 03:37, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, this was a very important argument, but could I humbly suggest that we ask for a third opinion? I'm too inexperienced and, frankly, both of you are too persuasive. I think a third opinion is very important when there is a complicated content dispute behind this. --Merzul 04:19, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for listening, Merzul, I appreciate it. Jay, you're simply assuming something which isn't necessarily true, which isn't a good way to make policy. First, copying does not create undue weight; it simply doesn't presume to fix issues of undue weight, which should be dealt with directly by the undue weight policy. Ironically, through our entire disagreement, I've been trying to get you to argue under the undue weight standard, but you have refused, trying to rely exclusively on this policy instead. This is exactly the problem. Second, what you are suggesting will create many arguments as to what is strictly a summary and what isn't. It will also lead to contentious editing, as people will simply delete material and tell the contributor to go add it to the main article first, which the average editor will not likely care to do (read another entire article, see how it is put together, see how to best implement a particular single sentence or single point there so that a change can be made to the summary). Of course, this is exactly what you have just tried to do also, and are now trying to turn into a matter of policy. I think we should leave this policy the way it was, which was fine, harmonious, addressed the issue of synchronization, but did not give an implicit authorization to simply delete specific material without another reason. Mackan79 14:27, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
Just about everything leads to "contentious editing" on hot topics, moving isn't deleting, summaries should summarize an entire article in context, not give undue weight to the entries of the most recent editors. Jayjg (talk) 16:03, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
Except that my concern isn't hypothetical; the fact is you rewrote this in the middle of a content dispute to support your insistence that I rewrite one article to edit another. Thus you've tried to create a presumption that material should be moved, which will only allow future wikilawyers to make themselves more of a nuisance. At the same time, you've provided no support for the change, other than through a second presumption that people will add material to summary sections by accident, and consequently that we should start by reverting them until some undisclosed further time. You're not hurting me with this edit, but you're definitely throwing another kink in WP. Mackan79 23:33, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
The application of "summary style articles" guidelines is quite specific and it was designed to avoid POV forks. We should endeavor not to allow such forks, as to minimize undue weight and keep our articles well balanced. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:06, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree with this; I also believe the intent was that critical material not simply be removed from articles without summarizing it in its previous place, however. The transformation of this into stating that "summary sections" then may not be altered before without rewriting the general article on that subject strikes me as a large jump away from that intent, and unfortunate. Mackan79 23:33, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. For a summary to be a summary, it has to summarize the complete article. Otherwise, so-called summaries will end up as POV forks. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:08, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
So you're really saying any material added to a "summary" section should be deleted pending a rewrite of the larger article on that general topic, then followed by some kind of formal evaluation of whether the material is appropriate? The problem with Jay's proposal is that it doesn't actually change the policy, but simply sets up a series of hoops that one editor will think he can force another to jump through before reaching the same ultimate decision: "does this belong here"? I'd say we should avoid writing policies in such a manner. Mackan79 23:19, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
I think it closes a loophole that some editors might have used to create POV forks. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:40, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
A loophole? By stating that new material should be copied rather than moved? If you can explain that argument, I think you win a prize. Mackan79 00:24, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

The edit seems so sensible and uncontentious I just do not understand any objections. Summaries of linked articles are just that: summaries ... of ... linked articles (henceforth article A). If one can change a summary in article B and just copy the change to the main article, article A, then the tail is wagging the dog. The appropriate place to work on the topic of Article A is in Article A, not other articles. Editors working on article A should have a chance to review the change and if they deem it appropriate delete it, reword it, or expand it. Only when it is certain that the new edit is relatively stable should it be accounted for in summaries of the article. This only makes sense. If new material is added to a summary and only copied rather than moved to article A, there is a real danger that people working on article A will rewrite or reject the new material in article A without removing it from article B. This is the path to real contention and confusion. Note: I and others are speaking 'only of the summaries of other articles. The issue of adding contextual material appropriate to article B is another matter. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:27, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

When editing the article containing the summary, it's obvious (to experienced and observant Wikipedian editors) that it's a summary, because it says "Main article..." at the top. When editing the main article, is there anything to make it obvious that there is a summary somewhere else that needs to be kept updated? Might there be more than one such summary (e.g. lettuce as it related to hamburgers, lettuce as it related to salads, etc.) that need to be kept in sync with the main article?
Rather than "copied" or "moved", the policy could state that the material needs to be reworked to fit summary style (i.e. that the two pages need to be synced somehow). Perhaps usually this would mean putting the new material on the main article page, and replacing it with a summary of itself on the summary page. In some cases, it could mean finding more related information and adding it to the main article page so that the new edit is a summary (if the new information is sufficiently important to warrant the emphasis). There could be other solutions.
I don't see one article or the other as controlling the content of the other article. As long as one is an accurate summary of the other, it doesn't matter which one was written first. It's a reasonable technique to begin with the summary and expand it into a full main article -- or vice versa. --Coppertwig 17:20, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I think that's exactly the issue: the order and relationship between these articles is simply nowhere near as uniform as is being presumed here. I was just looking through the Sweden article, which contained a jumble of "main articles," "see alsos," "for more information sees," etc. In fact, nearly every single section had such a link. So the idea here is that to clean up Sweden, I first have to go write the individual articles on each of those sections, many of which are in significantly worse states of repair? Never mind the fact that which tag had been placed where seemed to be almost entirely arbitrary.
Of course, it's one thing to say it would be nice if people would do that; it would be nice if I would go and write individual articles on each aspect of Sweden (although even then, I have no idea why I should do that first before editing the Sweden article; I'd think getting Sweden in order would be the first step). But to require this? Mackan79 00:59, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Jayjg, please don't claim concensus where there isn't.[2] Are you saying a person should always move new material from a "summary section", and never simply copy it and edit it as appropriate? I'd like to acknowledge that deleting new material in a summary section is not always the right answer. Also, did you consider Coppertwig's suggestion that people may appropriately want to build a section in its larger context before trying to write or rewrite the independent article on that subject?

If you look at User:Jimbo_Wales/Statement_of_principles, number 3 states "'You can edit this page right now' is a core guiding check on everything that we do. We must respect this principle as sacred." Consistent with that principle, if you look at WP:Cite, it makes clear "If you don't know how to format the citation, provide as much information as you can, and others may fix it for you. Cite It!" Could we not do better to respect that principle here? Mackan79 04:36, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

If you want to edit an article do so right now. But make sure you are editing the correct article. I see no good reason to edit summaries of other articles for contents (rather than style) unless it is to more fully represent the main article. Mackan79, what you are suggesting is merely a way to side-step and subvert thw whole collaborative nature of Wikipedia. Let's say there is a paragraph in the Evolution article on "genes" linked the the genes article. There are a number of people who actively edit the genes article because they are up-to-date on the science of genes. Some of them may not ever look at the evolution article. If you edit the summary of the genes article in the evolution article, you are evading the review of the people working on "genes." And if you copy it (rather than move it) to the Genes article, this is what will happen: within a few weeks someone may edit or even remove the edit to the Genes article, and the summary in Evolution will remain untouched. The result? first, the summary is no longer a real summary. Second, it contains possibly false information. It seems to me that your wish to work on edits to an article summary and then export that work to the main article is a huge demonstration of bad faith, bad faith in the editors working on the main article. Mackan79, I want to take you at good faith. Please, please can you explain why you are fighting so hard for this? I really cannot come up with a good or good faith reason though I hope you have one. Jimbo is clearly saying (for example) if you want to edit the article on evoulution, edit the article on evolution. But do not edit the summary of the Gene article (except for style that is fine), if you want to work on the Gene article, damnit, just go to the Gene article and work on that! No one is stopping anyone from editing. We just want to collaborate (meaning: work with others) onj creating a high quality encyclopedia. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:29, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Slightly related to move vs. copy

I'm very glad that this has been brought up, as I've been posting everywhere about a highly related issue. I think Wikipedia is great, but Summary Style is Failing (not an essay)! So I don't think there is a need to say I strongly support Jayjg's edit! While the summary style should slightly contextualize the matter, the current situation on Wikipedia is that there is too often almost no synchronization. So not only is Jayjg's edit highly needed, I think some co-ordinated effort is needed to get things back in sync. --Merzul 00:37, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, actually I'm not sure these two things are related, Jayjg's edit would probably not change the actual situation of synchronization :) I probably need to think before I post! --Merzul 01:05, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
(Ah, I see your update now, but wrote this first): Doesn't copying accomplish the same thing, though? To me the problem is not so much synchronization as it is changing the policy so it can be used to simply delete material for no other reason. I would actually agree with the general need for synchronization across articles; I'd only suggest it's a bit more delicate of a task than simply authorizing the removal of any material that doesn't first come from the "main" article. I think the way the article was written previously encourages synchronization, but in a more artful way, which leaves the question of what specifically to delete to other policies. Mackan79 01:37, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
Sorry for double posting, I see you point, and probably these are two different issues, as maybe yes copying does accomplish this. I understand the concern with abuse, although since this isn't policy, I'm not as worried as you are, but still legitimate concern. In any case, you are probably right that even the current wording does strongly encourage synchronization. I'm just a bit concerned about the current state of affairs, I was essentially distressed with the situation on religion-related pages, but when I wanted an example of this, the first page I visited was the first sub-article of evolution and I found something like a 10 day old copyright violation. It seems sub-pages are just neglected. --Merzul 01:53, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] RfC: Should Guideline Require New Material Be Added to Main Articles Before Summary Sections?

Disagreement focuses on this edit. [3].

In favor: To promote synchronization and avoid POV forks, guideline should require that editors first add material to a main article before adding material to a summary section. Otherwise editors could try editing one while knowing they lacked consensus on the other; also, adding new material to a summary is likely to result in undue weight. Summary sections should be made sure not to contain material not found in the main article.

Opposed: Previous version already says to synchronize, but through a better process. Wiki-theory suggests editors get to edit any part of WP, and should be presumed to have done so intentionally, not required to edit other articles first (such articles may be in disrepair, not of interest, some other problem); bad material should be removed directly under other policies. This change would encourage wikilawyering, create red tape, and prevent the incremental betterment of WP, without greater good.

Previous discussion starts here. 03:00, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:SS isn't stub sorting?

Am I the only one who types in "wp:ss" trying to get to the list of stub types? Xaxafrad 20:22, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Problem at History of the Yosemite area

Note that the example used here, History of the Yosemite area, seems to be under attack from the verifiability zealots [4] ... William M. Connolley 22:30, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm a zealot now. Terrific. The problem is that the article isn't using the summary style. It's simply an article based on original research, albeit fairly competent original research. Still, Wikipedia does not allow it. Why do you bother arguing against such a fundamental policy that is the backbone of Wikipedia? It stands, and shall remain so, that Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. ~ UBeR 03:29, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
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