User talk:Almudo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ok, instead of sniping away at the current article on "Street Children" I've decided to write it from scratch. All advice appreciated.
Street Children article now moved to sandbox User talk:Almudo/Streetchildren
[edit] Review request
Sorry, but I'm currently too busy to help with additional article reviews at this time. Good luck with the project, though! – Scartol • Tok 00:59, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi Scartol, thanks for taking the time to reply.17:45, 5 February 2008 (UTC)Almudo
I too I'm afraid am snowed under but may be in a position to help in two-three weeks. In the meantime, may I suggest that you move this article to a sandbox User talk:Almudo/Streetchildren or similar and perhaps start illustrating it? It looks much better than the existing version and I prefer the mixture of qualitative and quantitative content. --ROGER DAVIES talk 12:41, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi Roger, Thanks for your reply - even a remark like "looks much better" tells me I'm at least on the right track. I'll see if I can find another volunteer editor to look at this but I would appreciate it if you are able to check it again when you have time. In the meantime, I have moved it to a sandbox User talk:Almudo/Streetchildren as you suggested and will begin to write the concluding sections and negotiate for photos to illustrate it.Almudo (talk) 17:45, 5 February 2008 (UTC)Almudo
- Sure :) With pleasure, --ROGER DAVIES talk 18:39, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
- Incidentally, while I remember it, you may wish to consider using short citations/full references for citing sourcing (example at Hamlet). It means the text isn't cluttered up with {{cite web}} and {{cite news}} templates, which makes it much much easier to copy edit and expand. It's a bit of extra work cross-referencing but well worth it for ease of use. --ROGER DAVIES talk 07:45, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Enthusiasm/faith/patience/life-force waning
Zero response. I know wikipedians are busy, but I'm not one of the idle rich either.... To have a major edit reverted without even a single word of explanation is not encouraging. Where do I go from here?
{{helpme}}
You are doing the right thing by moving the discussion to the talk page. Also you should ask the editor that reverted your contribution why he/she did that. I will add that your version seems to be written more like an essay then an encyclopedic entry and that might be one problem but again the talk page is the place to take it. You can also place a request on WP:RFC to have other editors come and look at it. GtstrickyTalk or C 14:46, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks Gtstricky but I've been talking on talk pages for months without any response. So as far as I am concerned, this is not much help. I still feel like a blind man in a dark room searching for a door or, at this point, even a window. {{helpme}}
Put your page up there again and as an edit summary put something like "being WP:BOLD with a rewrite. please discuss on talk page" GtstrickyTalk or C 15:22, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Good idea! I've done as suggested. Hmmm. almudo (talk) 16:27, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Hi Almudo
I saw the note you left for another editor. We have met at ODP I think. Anyway yes the street children article needs a serious rewrite but I am about to go away for a week. Lets try together on my return --BozMo talk 13:28, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Hi BozMo - Yes - I think we have met before - but through a brief correspondence with your SOS persona. A week is fine - at the rate this is moving a week seems nearly instantaneous.almudo (talk) 13:45, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
- Almudo, I'm very sorry that I was away. I was unexpectedly away from my computer for almost all of March and have just now returned to the swing of things. I agree that completely reverting your edit was completely unacceptable and have said as much on the talk page. I'm sorry that this happened, because I think you made the right steps here, but I'm confident that with a little bit of patient discussion we can ensure that your efforts are not wasted! As I said, very sorry I dropped the ball previously, but I'm on board now, have added the page to my watchlist, and hopefully we'll be able to get this process moving productively! --JayHenry (talk) 02:56, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Hi JayHenry, glad you're on board. One thing you can help me with is where this discussion should take place. There seem to be quite a few potential pages - the article's talk page, the re-write's page, this page, your page, - for now, I will assume further discussion will take place on the current article's talk page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Street_children I have added a little discussion there on the current article's structure.
I have not made any remarks about the introduction to the current article. I find it hard to believe that it has been read very closely by any Wikipedia editor since it has a number of fairly obvious problems. I would rather defer discussion of the introduction to the article until after the body of the article has been determined.
You may also note that my article does not contain any links to any individual NGOs. I have done this specifically in order to avoid this article appearing to advocate for a particular NGO or approach. This seems to me more in keeping with the spirit of NPOV than the current article.
Finally (for now), how much Wikilinking must be tolerated? For example, the first Wiki link in the current article is "parks." If the reader doesn't know what a "park" is in this context, I cannot imagine he or she will be able to comprehend much of the article. Same for "begging," "vending" and "school," etc. These words are not specialist jargon and these links seem to me to be more of a distraction than an assistance. Surely an article about street children should not be treated as an exercise in learning basic English.
- The talk page of the article is the best place for discussion of content. If you want to leave a personal note just for me, you can of course do that on my talk page. I agree with what you're saying, by the way, that the article needs a completely new structure. The only reason I introduced the numbers section by itself is because I think that it demonstrates that it wasn't reasonable to revert the entire edit. Don't worry, we'll get to the rest of the article as well!
- There's a guideline somewhere on linking although I don't remember where. Your instincts are correct, though. Not everything should be linked like this, but once the new content is in place we'll have a new intro anyways. I'll look over the article some more soon (and leave my thoughts on that talk page where they belong!) --JayHenry (talk) 06:11, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
