User talk:Gentlemath

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{{help me}}

I put this question elsewhere but maybe I should put it here?

question about totally rewriting an article There is a featured article which generates reams of heated discussion. In my naive newbie innocence I think that I could improve it and perhaps clear up some of the heated disputes. I'd like to take it and do a whole rewrite. I certainly do NOT want to then delete the whole article and dump in my rewrite.I'd like to put it out there and let the community incorporate what (if anything) they wish. Is there any way to do that? I COULD make up some other head ("the common misconceptions about x") and then let somebody merge (or let people discuss merging).

I know a revert is easy but I'm sure that my work would disappear all at once. I won't be suprised if most or all of it disappears gradually but then it will have been looked at. I think appending a rewrite at the end would probably also not be well received.

Gentlemath 06:45, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

While we always recommend new editors to Be bold, I'm glad to see that you are approaching this one with caution.  :-) Featured articles generally have been gone over quite thoroughly, but if there is one that is causing a great deal of discussion then perhaps it could do with some major revamping. There are two ways you might consider approaching this. The first is to take the changes you contemplate one at a time, broken down by section, and discuss them on the article's talk page. For instance, you could say "The article states this, but I think it would be more appropriate to phrase it thus..." and see how others respond. The other way is to go ahead and do a complete rewrite using a subpage of your user space. Once you have it the way you think it should read, you could then link to the proposed version from the article's talk page and ask others to comment on your proposed changes. Either way allows changes to be discussed and agreed upon before being implemented. Drastic changes made to a featured article would likely be reverted immediately, but changes with discussion and consensus have a much greater likelihood of remaining in the article. SWAdair | Talk 07:01, 12 January 2007 (UTC)