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[edit] Lead discussion

There is an RfC on a dispute about content and structure for the lead section of an article on a movie, please join the ongoing discussion here: "What the Bleep Do We Know!?" - Lead discussion. Dreadstar † 21:12, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Length Examples

Um, what's up with the links to example leads? They are linking to some odd proxy login. Should I be this confused? -Watchsmart (talk) 18:13, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

There does not seem to be anything particular about the links (except that they are links to specific historical versions of the articles, which makes good sense for style guideline examples).
What does confuse me is that the links were apparently added without any prior discussion, and so it is not clear that they reflect consensus about what is a reasonable lead length. Personally I would consider Genetics to be a bit on the long side. It helps a bit that the article is rather long, too, but exactly therefore I doubt that it is a good example to present without any comments. –Henning Makholm 20:43, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Another editor fixed them. Two of them were linking like this: Genetics. Guess it doesn't matter now, but would that have happened because an editor was accessing Wikipedia through a proxy? -Watchsmart (talk) 21:26, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Current status in bio articles?

Is it appropriate to mention a person's current employment status in lead paragraphs? I have observed that the convention is usually to do so, but I specifically have this edit in mind. Bearing in mind that BLP articles are essentially an "ongoing" project, it is obvious that statuses of sorts will change with time. However, is it appropriate to list a status such as in this edit, in the lead paragraph? Ekantik talk 21:45, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

The only problem I see with that is your use of the word currently, a term that is certain to age. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 22:01, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Sure, but if the wording can be changed (especially over time) thee is no problem with stating the subject's current status right? Ekantik talk 18:15, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
There is a guideline for that. As pointed out on your talk page, Ekantik, Miss Bollywood is a recent event. The lead is here to summarise the article; it has to be relevant. We still don't know what the reception is, how it benefited her, how it contributed to her success, if that is notable, if that builds her image, if that is a milestone of her career or a major failure. It is still on going (and it has nothing to do with the fact that Wikipedia is an ongoing project in that context). Currently, Angelina Jolie works in 2-3 films or so. So what? Should we mention them all in the lead?
According to WP:WBA and this very policy: "...the first paragraph should be short and to the point, with a clear explanation of what the subject of the page is. The following paragraphs should give a summary of the article. They should provide an overview of the main points the article will make, summarizing the primary reasons the subject matter is interesting..."
Well, the quote speaks for itself. Is Shilpa (in our particular case) known for Miss Bollywood among others? And the answer is
  • A) No.
  • B) We still don't know.
Why should recent events appear in the lead section? Mention them in the body.
Best regards, Shahid • Talk2me 23:13, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Shahid, please get some more experience in writing biographical articles and edify yourself with the relevant MOSs'. Perhaps then we can have a reasonable discussion. WP:WBA is not a policy, it is a MOS. And while I'm at it, Wikilawyering as you regularly indulge in is preventing the improvement of several articles. Please stop wikilawyering and modify your reasonings to apply to all of Wikipedia, instead of narrowing it's scop to fit just one article. Regards, Ekantik talk 23:59, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Your attitude is disheartening. Please calm yourself and conduct yourself appropriately. WP:WBA, whether a MOS or a policy, is a guideline for writing, and in fact, you can find the same lines in this very policy. Go and check. Don't tell me "get some more experience in writing biographical articles". It's a personal attack. In fact, I have more experience than you have on here, my friend. I've gone through FACs and I can refer you to some great FA reviewers, and they will definitely agree with me on that. Your way of criticising me is quite laughable rather than offensive. You have more experience... I see...
For the record, I can quote this very policy, which states the same, "summarizing the most important points, explaining why the subject is interesting or notable". Thanks, Shahid • Talk2me 17:47, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] concise overview of the article???

After having tried to apply this guideline to multiple articles, I disagree with this. I think the lead should be a concise overview of the subject, not the article.

The problem with summarising the article is that the article frequently needs to contain reasonably peripheral things for comprehensibility, and if the lead has to summarise the article, then because of that, the lead tends to get relatively big, without any net gain of readability. I think that introducing the article should only really be done in the section after the lead and the TOC.

It may sound nitpicky, but it's helped cause huge problems in articles like Network neutrality.

Comments?- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 21:00, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

  • Agreed. The best lead articles are the shortest but packed with info. Kransky (talk) 07:58, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Agree - I have faced just this problem, and it makes a lot of sense to do this. MilesAgain (talk) 08:21, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Agree - per Kransky and MilesAgain. This will especially work in the context of medicine and psychology-oriented articles. Ekantik talk 18:17, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

The lede has both purposes. It is a standalone article which gives a very brief synopsis of the topic at hand, and at the same time an outline of the article to follow. Ignoring either of these purposes leads to an article that is less useful. But achieving both purposes requires significant work. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:39, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree. Primarily you need to consider the audience. I think that people come to a wikipedia article to learn about a particular topic; not to learn about a particular article. Learning about the article that follows can wait until after the lead. The lead often needs to be super-condensed summary, and anything that doesn't have to go in there shouldn't. The summary of the article doesn't need to.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 18:49, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Since the article is on the same topic as the lede, it is possible to both summarize the important points about the topic, as well as the important parts of the article, at the same time. Certainly the lede should not do one, and then the other. But, typically, each major section of the article covers an important aspect of the topic at hand, so covering as the lede covers those aspects it can also foreshadow the structure of the article below. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:10, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Right. But the lead shouldn't have to contain all of the information in the article.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 19:59, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
The lede is part of the article, and has to make sense when read as an introduction to it. The recommended length for a lede is not "as short as possible", but rather several paragraphs for an average article or longer for a particularly long article. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:10, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
No as a matter of fact. The recommendation is no more than 4 paragraphs. FWIW Network Neutrality is 65k currently, IMO 4 paragraphs probably isn't enough, and the topic seems to be difficult to split up into multiple articles.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 19:59, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. This seems to be an argument in favour of "Introduction" sections (as the Net example shows). Those have been deprecated since about '05. Marskell (talk) 19:36, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

No, for example it's an argument for not having to mention all of the article in the lead, provided it's comprehensible. A really well article may include things that aren't part of the topic, but might be expected by the reader to be, and those parts are needed to explain why. That needn't necessarily be included in the lead, since it's not actually part of the topic. You need to consider the audience. And don't forget the article and the lead are both on the same topic, so there are limits to how far you can cut things out of the lead.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 19:59, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Further data, Wikipedia:The_perfect_article says:

*starts with a clear description of the subject; the lead introduces and explains the subject and its significance clearly and accurately, without going into excessive detail.

It does not say article.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 20:15, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

  • The lead is here to summarise the article, not the subject. Does it make sense mentioning in the lead things which are not mentioned in the article itself? Shahid • Talk2me 23:35, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, it makes sense. The lead is part of the article, if the thing needs to be in the lead anyway, and is short enough that it can be covered 100% in the lead without any problems, then what's the point in simply repeating it later?- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 23:48, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Well said. Not only does it make sense, it is that most uncommon of things, common sense. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 23:56, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Since the lede is part of the article, one can't mention something in the lede without mentioning it in the article. Whether it needs to be stated twice in the article depends heavily on details and is dealt with by consensus of editors on a particular article. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:45, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
I disagree. The lead is better thought of as a mini version of the article I think. There is absolutely no reason why something mentioned in the lead has to be repeated elsewhere in the article so long as it is referenced if likely to be challenged, a quotation, etc. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 04:07, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
"There is absolutely no reason why something mentioned in the lead has to be repeated elsewhere in the article." Hm? Virtually everything I add to a lead I repeat elsewhere in the article, with greater elaboration. That's the point of the lead: prepare the reader for what's coming. Marskell (talk) 07:40, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Right, but the question isn't whether most or even nearly all things you have in the lead are elaborated in other sections, the question is whether you have to. Since not everything needs elaboration, the answer is no, and thus the lead describes the subject, not the article.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 13:58, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't know what you are trying to argue in favor of here. Has there been some recent issue that brought this up? I don't understand why you are so keen on arguing that point; it's clear enough, I think, that the lede is both an introduction to the article and a summary of the article. What effect does it have if the lede describes the subject, not the article? — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:31, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Abso-friggin'-lutely Oppose - The Lead is a summary of the article, not a substitute for it. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 15:39, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
... and by definition a summary need not contain everything mentioned in the article. Agreed? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 15:48, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
The lead doesn't have to summarize everything in the article -- that would often be impossible. It can also contain things that aren't mentioned again in the article, so long as they're not that important. These are editorial decisions that depend very much on context. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 15:59, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Right. But when there is conflict, which do you choose? Summarising the article or summarising the subject. The subject, because that's what the audience wants from an encyclopedia.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 16:12, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
I think this is a false dichotomy, Wolfkeeper. Summarizing an article doesn't mean lifting every major point out of it and putting it in the lead, if that's your worry. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 16:56, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
I claim that summarizing the article or summarizing the subject down to fit the 4 paragraph rule gives you a different introduction. WP:LEAD's lead is a good example of why they are not the same thing; So there is a difference, but it's not a dichotomy.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 18:01, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok, here's some featured articles that have introductions that IMO do not have a lead that summarises the article:

  • Crash test dummy - describes subject, not article
  • Butter - contains no history, no discussion of types, no discussion of worldwide consumption, no health and nutrition, in fact practically no overlap at all
  • Sarajevo - article is highly varied, introduction summarises topic, not article
  • Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve - article contains much that is not in any way summarised in introduction

These were literally just the first four I clicked on. In no case did the introduction seem to summarise the article, and they were all FA status, and the introductions seem to be reasonable introductions of the subject matter, not the article. I'm sure you can find articles where the introduction is an exact mirror of the article, but they are rare, and that they have to do that disagrees with the perfect article template as well as being difficult in many cases to physically shoe horn them in, resulting in impaired readability.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 16:12, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

There are many featured articles that fail WP:LEAD, often because they went through FAC a long time ago, but sometimes because FAC tends to focus on citations and copyediting, and other MoS issues. So what? At GA the lead is a major issue: articles that remain GA after a GAR usually have good leads that summarize both article and subject.
WP:LEAD is one of WP's best content guidelines precisely because the lead is (in the words of Carl(CBM)) "a standalone article which gives a very brief synopsis of the topic at hand, and at the same time an outline of the article to follow." It not only tells you how to write a good lead, but how to write a good article. In such an article, every substantial point of the article body is summarized in the lead (but minor points are omitted). If a point in the lead is not elaborated in the article body, it usually suggests either that the point is not important enough for the lead (and so should be moved to the article body, or removed) or that the article body could be improved to elaborate further on that point. Geometry guy 16:24, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Tell me, If that's the case, then why is the introduction of WP:LEAD itself a summary of the subject, not the article? If it's such a fantastic idea, why heck are we not following our own advice?- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 16:57, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Please relax a little. WP:LEAD is not an article, it is a guideline, so it cannot follow its own advice. Geometry guy 17:13, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
WP:LEAD is an article, it's just not in the main space; and irrespective of that, there is no reason at all that I am aware of that it cannot follow its own advice, it can and must do so.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 18:01, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

But whatever the empirical evidence says, fundamentally, I simply don't think that summarising the article is what the audience wants from an intro; they want a quick thing to get a top level understanding of what subject the article is about, not a top level understanding of the article. The two are NOT the same; and I actually think that making the intro mirror the article impairs the introduction.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 16:12, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Doing what your audience wants is the primary necessity of any work including an encyclopedia.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 16:12, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

What actual problem are you trying to solve? — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:18, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm trying to write difficult, relatively large articles like Network neutrality and these guidelines are making it even harder.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 16:24, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
As I suggest above, WP:LEAD should actually help you to improve the article body, not just the lead, so that the two roles of the lead work together harmoniously. Good luck with the editing though! Geometry guy 16:29, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

But the introduction is to the article, not the subject. It's useful to have a concrete example, because I'd say that the current lead fails to be either an adequate introduction to the subject or to the article. Just my opinion though. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 16:50, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, right. You would have a stronger case if WP:LEAD actually follows its own advice. But it doesn't. And everyone is saying how wonderful it is.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 16:59, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Content guidelines apply to article content, not to the guidelines themselves. If policies and guidelines applied to themselves, they'd all get deleted for failing WP:V, WP:NOR and WP:NPOV :-) Geometry guy 17:13, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
I admit that sounded good, but I just checked them over, and you'll have to point out which bits aren't verifiable, as all of them have references, they seem to follow WP:NPOV and to a fair degree aren't original research, and ultimately seem to all refer back to decisions made elsewhere, such as by Wales.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 17:24, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
There really isn't any excuse here.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 17:24, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Verifiable to reliable secondary sources? Hmmm, I don't think so... :-) (See also my earlier comment: WP:LEAD is not an article; content guidelines apply to articles, and guidelines are not articles.) Actually it might be quite fun to write an article on WP:LEAD! Pity about the lack of secondary sources, though. Geometry guy 17:43, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I've just thought of a workaround: in most articles on Wikipedia, Wikipedia itself is not considered to be a reliable source, because it is tertiary source. However, in an article on WP:LEAD (about its history, purpose, application, disputes over its wording etc.), Wikipedia itself would also be a primary source. Hence, on average, it would be a secondary source, and therefore okay :-) Geometry guy 17:48, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Not everyone says how wonderful it is. ;-) --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 18:05, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

So what's the general consensus on this topic? Has a need to change the wording of WP:LEAD arisen or not? Ekantik talk 21:53, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Emphasis vs redundancy sections

I moved stuff out from under 'emphasis' that had nothing to do with emphasis and had to do with overlaps between the lead and the article, and put it into its own section and tidied it up; please try not to delete entire sections containing pre-existing material.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 21:07, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

The new section may be a good idea, but it has been disputed, so I have reverted to the established version of Marskell, 19:40, 20/01/2008 (yesterday), which contains all pre-existing material. Now we can discuss whether the new section is a good idea or not. Geometry guy 21:10, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
OK, let's discuss, the following sentence contained in the 'emphasis' section:

Significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article, although specific facts, such as birthdates, titles, or scientific designations will often appear in the lead only.

is unrelated to emphasis. It is to do with what content is acceptable in a lead and what extent of overlap there may be with the rest of the article. It has a quite different character to the rest of the paragraph. Emphasis seems to be to do with how much text there is on a particular point, not to do with its total absence or presence (though some people do use it in that way, that's really an abuse of the term, and I don't see that such abuse is appropriate or necessary in a wikipedia style guideline.)- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 19:36, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
This may be a fair point, but I'm not sure.
I'd actually rather drop the second half of this sentence. The first two points ("birthdates" and "titles") apply only to biographies, and the second of these is surely wrong: if someone is given a title in the lead, then it should be elaborated in the body of the article how and when that title was acquired. I have no idea what "scientific designations" means, which suggests that they should also be explained in the body of the article. If it means something like the chemical symbol Cu for copper, then I would expect the body to mention its latin derivation.
Without this latter half, the sentence fits fine under "emphasis", which is also about what is mentioned and what isn't. Geometry guy 20:00, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Subject/article considered

I don't want to run up against 3rr myself, and this tempest-in-a-teacup needs some winding down.

A personal note: this is possibly the oldest guideline I've watched. When I edited it first, in late '05, it said "The lead should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article" [my emphasis].

The article is devolving. That's not the same thing as it currently reads, and even then: "The lead should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article". [MY emphasis, and yes it matters]- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 21:27, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Hopefully you mean evolving? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 21:30, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
No, I do mean the guideline is devolving. The original actually made more sense.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 22:31, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
But that may simply mean that you aren't quite ready to write the lead yet, before the article is finished. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 21:30, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Since then, I've always liked LEAD. I think it's a good guideline in theory and has been a stable guideline in practice. While, of course, the wording has changed, the idea that leads summarize articles is about as old as wording gets around Wikipedia.

That isn't what it said though. And I don't completely agree with the original either.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 21:27, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Wolfkeeper has a genuinely felt gripe, but canonical wording shouldn't be messed with easily. Wikipedians have been told that leads sum-up articles for years. The logic continues to hold: if your article summarizes the subject well, then the lead should summarize the article well. A good lead is like a good abstract (arts or science): it hits on the relevant issues and prepares readers for subsequent detail.

An article as opposed to the points in an article consists of headings, words, paragraphs, puncuation and images. A summary of an article is more like an outline. That is not what we want. The wording has devolved, and it wasn't even right to start with.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 21:27, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

But what if the article is bad? You don't want a lead summarizing a shitty article? I went around the block on that with SlimVirgin a year ago, and the "Poor articles" section was specifically added to cover it. (No, don't make a bad lead to cover a bad article.) That certain things—choice quotes, titles, birthdates—might be in the lead and not the body has been discussed. Not every word in the lead must be covered in the body, but the basic idea—leads summarize articles—is, at least now, a basic cornerstone on Wikipedia. Marskell (talk) 21:15, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you are arguing against. Of course leads summarize articles; that is one of their roles. Their other role is to serve as an independent, short account of the topic that stands on its own if the remainder of the article is omitted. This is described in Wikipedia:Lead_section#Provide_an_accessible_overview. Neither of these two roles is more important than the other. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:28, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
That's not quite what the guidline says. It actually says " ... the lead section should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article in such a way that it can stand on its own as a concise version of the article". Not the topic. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 21:33, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Carl, I was simply arguing against Wolfkeeper's replacing article with subject on this guideline. This subsequent extra threading just makes it too confusing to respond to. Marskell (talk) 21:40, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Re. Malleus Fataurum. I think you are missing the spirit behind that section, which is that lede should serve as an independent article on the subject at hand, if the rest of the article were deleted. This is important because, for example, the Wikipedia 1.0 people may literally delete the rest of the article in some cases to save space on released versions of WP.
I fear that your interpretation misses that function of the lede. The more I think about it, I am becoming more convinced of the need for the guideline to more accurately reflect this second role that the lede serves. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:45, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
No, I don't believe that I've missed anything, nor that what you call my interpretation is in any way inconsistent with a requirement that the lead ought to be able to serve as a mini-version of the article. But I say again, article, not topic. The difference in meaning between those two words is not a matter of interpretation. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 21:50, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
My point is that the spirit behind this guideline is that ledes have two complementary purposes: to summarize the body of the article, and to serve as a concise, independent treatment of the topic. If there is actually a difference between "concise version of the article" and "concise, independent treatment of the topic", it is the latter that is intended. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:57, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't have any problem with the spirit of any of the guidelines, but the detailed reading varies from that. The problems with serving as a concise independent treatment of the article are many, including particularly for new articles, the article body may even be all but non existent, but you would still wish for a good lead to guide the article forward. If the lead is a "concise, independent treatment of the topic" then that works, and it works right from the beginning, and it works all the way through to FA status. Trying to be concise treatment of the article basically means you're writing a guideline that nobody in their right mind would follow, since who wants a lead that has to be as bad as the article?- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 19:46, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Folks, I'll be perfectly honest that I haven't read your last posts. (Hey, I'm fair!--I don't listen to anyone!) But I'm thinking that, myself included, we should just not talk. We can debate leads (or LEADs) later, but I think now that this was a specific flare-up from a specific editor and we should take it easy. Marskell (talk) 22:23, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but this is a talk page, and we talk here.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 19:46, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A lead is supposed to be an outline???

An outline? Um no, no, not in a million years. Seriously, has anyone ever read this policy?- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 21:13, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

See Wiktionary, definition 5. (Also 4 and 7 are related.) Geometry guy 21:22, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Of course I didn't mean a bulleted outline, I meant a prose synopsis. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:24, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
I knew about that, but that usage is a technical term only used for screenplays.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 22:23, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, with my boring "historical overview" spiked in the above thread, I'd only note here that I think we're OK. "Guidelines" are terribly unstable and hard to reliably cite. This, stable guideline, is well watched. It seems to be a single editor issue. I'll leave a note for Wolfkeeper. Marskell (talk) 21:37, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
So you've just stated you intend to WP:OWN this article to hold it at this version.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 22:23, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Let's all be calm. I also think the lede would benefit from some editing, especially if the gerunds are removed from the second paragraph. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:27, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
While I am mostly happy with the lede, the lede of this project page doesn't seem to have anything on citations, physical layout or stubs, but they are contained in the project page article. Given that the guideline claims that this is supposed to be an outline of the article, that seems to me to be rather inconsistent.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 20:04, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Policies and guidelines don't include themselves in their own injunctions. (Our definition of verifiability is not actually sourced, for instance.) The P&Gs are directed at article space. I suppose the lead to WP:LEAD could summarize the guideline, but I hesitate over the idea. Marskell (talk) 20:46, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
If you don't eat your own dogfood then how can you expect anyone else to?- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 23:41, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Poor articles and stubs section

It seems to me that this whole section is only necessary because the claim by people here that the lead is a summary of the article, not the subject of the article; but apparently we don't have consensus on that right now, so, that aside, it's not very well worded; it reads like a mini-essay.

I've already reworded it slightly to remove the royal 'we' to this:

"One difficult content improvement situation is constructing a lead for an article that is in generally poor condition. The suggestions of this guideline are based on the assumption of reasonably well-written articles. It is undesirable to have a "concise overview" of an article that is unwikified or unreferenced. Similarly, relative emphasis in the lead should not reflect the body if the body is haphazard or missing critical information."

I'd like to change the final two sentences to:

"It is undesirable to have a "concise overview" of an article if the body is haphazard or missing critical information. Similarly, relative emphasis in the lead cannot be proven to reflect the important points of the body if the body is unreferenced."

I've removed the point about wikification, that's a good point, but covered by other policies, but the unreferenced point goes to a notability issue specific to leads; since the lead is a summary, by definition it only covers the most important points, but absent references saying that something is or isn't important, isn't putting something in the lead basically a subtle (or in some cases I've seen in Network neutrality a not so subtle) form of OR?- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 12:00, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Copy edit

I've done a light copy edit and introduced some more section headers. I think the only part I removed entirely was the bit about writing leads for poorly written articles, as it didn't seem to say much and was oddly written. Otherwise, it was just a copy edit. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 17:15, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

For clarity's sake, this is the bit I removed -- it was either repeating material elsewhere in the text, or was unclear:

One difficult content improvement situation is constructing a lead for an article that is in generally poor condition. The suggestions of this guideline are based on the assumption of reasonably well-written articles. It is undesirable to have a "concise overview" of an article that is unwikified or unreferenced. Similarly, relative emphasis in the lead should not reflect the body if the body is haphazard or missing critical information.

SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 17:18, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
This was added, Slim, precisely because you complained about the fact. Marskell (talk) 18:23, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Can you remember where, or what I said? I can't imagine I'd have supported anything that started: "One difficult content improvement situation is ..." :-) SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 19:10, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Although I agree there is a shift in register that makes it read oddly. Marskell (talk) 18:25, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
You said something to the following effect (I'm not going to look it up): a biased editor can use the lack of information in a weak article to exclude information from the lead, if the lead is supposed to be summarizing the article. Thus (I added): a good lead is not necessarily summarizing the article, if the article sucks.
"One difficult content improvement situation is ..." is a shift from the imperative to the observational; it does read badly, on a Wikipedia guideline. The point holds, however. "This should not be taken to exclude information from the lead, but to include it in both the lead and body" immediately above may already cover things. Marskell (talk) 20:49, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Ok, I see now. I'll try to think of a way to get that back in without it looking odd. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 22:03, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Query

Wolfkeeper, you seem to be a man on a mission, but it's very unclear what your point is. I removed this from the lead: "The lead section defines and summarises the topic that the article covers for the reader." Could you explain what you mean, please? SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 18:15, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

The lead can't be entirely a summary for the article, because what is it that defines and identifies what subject that the article is on? The users don't first read the lead for an overview of the article, they read it to find out what subject the article is about, then they read to find out more once they know that they're at the right article. It's important that the lead should act as an overview of the article itself, but it's primarily important that the lead, particularly the first paragraph of the lead, defines what subject the whole article is talking about. That's not a summary, that's a definition.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 18:28, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
I think you're making a distinction without a difference. But regardless of that, the writing on this page had deteriorated considerably, and we need to keep it reasonable. We can't have a page that says, in effect, "write like this," then have it contain poor writing.
I think the difficulty you're having in expressing your point is a sign that the point is not a clear one, Wolfkeeper. I mean no disrespect by this because it happens to us all. I'm just trying to point out that often the struggle to express ourselves signals that the concept we're trying to put into words is not as solid as we think, because if we were thinking about it clearly, clear language would follow. If it doesn't, we need to let that tell us something. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 18:40, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
On the contrary, I use words very precisely. There's something missing from the lead guidelines, and it is the word 'define'. For example the section 'The lead as a concise overview' talks about establishing context. No, that's wrong. Context is the stuff surrounding something, not the thing. If you take words out of context, you are removing the words from their surroundings, that doesn't change the words, but it changes the impression of words, surely. I very firmly believe that that is not what the first paragraph must do, it must define the subject of the article, and by extension that is the single most important thing in a lead.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 18:47, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Why are you using the word "define"? SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 19:09, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Because we are defining what the article is about. The article Bird is about:

Birds (class Aves) are bipedal, warm-blooded, vertebrate animals that lay eggs. There are around 10,000 living species, making them the most numerous tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Birds range in size from the 5 cm (2 in) Bee Hummingbird to the 2.7 m (9 ft) Ostrich.

Caffeine is about:

Caffeine is a stimulant drug. It is a xanthine alkaloid compound that acts as a psychoactive stimulant and a mild diuretic (at doses higher than 300 mg- see Relative content: comparison of different sources)[2] in humans. The word comes from the French term for coffee, café.[3] Caffeine is also called guaranine when found in guarana, mateine when found in mate, and theine when found in tea; all of these names are synonyms for the same chemical compound

We are defining for the reader (and also for other editors incidentally) the purpose of the article. It is not simply a summary of whatever happens to be in the article; there is an intention behind it, that this is what the article is about. This happens particularly in the first paragraph.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 19:19, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, this isn't an article on some pop band or whatnot. Please make sure you have a pretty solid consensus before heading out to change the article. That just seems far more reasonable than destabilizing the article and inciting a low-grade edit war. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 19:35, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

WK, you're making distinctions such as "defines the subject the article is about." First, that's an incorrect use of "defines,"
Absolutely, not. From dictionary.com define:

4. to determine or fix the boundaries or extent of: to define property with stakes.

We are defining the topic the article is on; we are setting the boundaries of the article.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 06:20, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
and secondly it's not clear what the difference would be between the subject and the article.
I say again, the article is a collection of text and images. The subject is the real world object, and the lead gives the criteria for knowing when you have an object or scenario that the rest of the article talks about. I don't think this information is usually repeated again in the body, and so I don't think that it's even a summary of the rest of the article. And it's always there in an encylopedia article, right upfront.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 06:20, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
I take it from your recent flurry of interest in this page that you had a bad experience somewhere that you feel this guideline contributed to. Can you show us what it was? SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 19:53, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
If I write an article about SlimVirgin, then you are the subject of the article. The article would be a collection of words on a page, possibly with images, possibly with audio; clearly the article is not SlimVirgin. The lead would define who or what the term SlimVirgin refers to in the article sufficiently so as to disambiguate from other SlimVirgins there may be, perhaps on other websites or other kinds of things (perhaps there's a fish called a SlimVirgin who knows); and in this way define the scope of the article, what the article covers. Probably you would be defined as an editor of the English wikipedia or something.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 20:09, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Subject:

4. the theme of a sermon, book, story, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wolfkeeper (talk • contribs) 20:21, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Saying that SlimVirgin is an editor of the English Wikipedia isn't a definition. But that's a minor point. And the lead would give an overview of the article about SV, not an overview of the subject, SV, which would include lots of stuff not in the article. But that's another minor point. These are all minor points -- distinctions not worth making (especially if not accurate). SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 20:53, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
The proximate problem was, I think, Network neutrality. I objected to what Wolfkeeper was arguing above, in part, because s/he seems to be advocating "Introduction" (or "Overview") sections immediately after the lead. (That particular article has been somewhat fast and furious, with a section immediately after the lead repeatedly incorporated into the lead and then removed.) I don't like secondary "Overview"s; the lead is the overview. That said, different topic areas present different demands. Marskell (talk) 20:39, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Okay, thanks. I agree that the overview is the lead, and shouldn't be in a section underneath the lead, but you're right that maybe in some topic areas it would make sense. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 20:53, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Secondary leads were and are not my intention, I was trying to solve the many issues there are with that particular article with respect to lead, but it didn't really work and I quickly reverted it. The difficulties with Network neutrality are that a) the term is used by different people in pretty different ways b) the size of the article is twice that of the ideal size, yet we should have no more than 4 paragraphs in the lead c) the lead guidelines say that the article lead should be a summary of the article, rather than the topic; that actually makes a big difference, not just for this article. All in all, the chances of this article meeting the letter of these guidelines is 0.0%; but I had and have absolutely no intention of changing the guidelines to match what can be achieved in the article, on the contrary we've tried hard to keep the article's lead to the general spirit of WP:LEAD.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 20:57, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
It was more that I noticed inconsistencies within WP:LEAD while trying hard to work out what the best thing to do with Network neutrality.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 20:57, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for that explanation. That lead size seems fine (or even a tad longish) for 65 kilobytes including footnotes. If there are issues with definition, these can be raised in a separate section. Really, these things boil down to common sense, and this guideline should be applied with common sense too. One size can't fit all. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 21:03, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
There was one other gotcha we found with Network neutrality and it was pretty massive. It used be more like 80+k, and there was a problem that was specific to WP:LEAD that made life pretty horrible. Because the definition of the lead is in terms of summarising the article rather than trying to define the term and scope of the article, it meant that because we had a section on the legal implications of Network neutrality then we had to add that to the lead, and in a fairly big way. That pushed the number of sections in the lead up to maybe 6-8 or so. And to add insult to injury, some of the editors were trying to make it look like NN was purely and simply a legal term; and due to the emphasis and summary guidelines we didn't really have a leg to stand on to minimise this much, even though the emphasis was barely sourced.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 22:37, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
The way we got around it was to move the legal section into another article which was mostly about the legal aspects in America, and then the lead of that article reflected those issues, and the remains of the article are more or less as you see now. The only reason I could do that was because the lead was so long, and the article was so long, so it had to split, and nobody could come up with a better way to split the article. After that, things quieted down.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 22:37, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
But I was mostly forced into doing that by WP:LEAD, and I could tell that it was a logical error in this project page at the root of it that was exacerbating our problems; it really does seem to be a bad idea to make the lead a summary of the rest of the article. It doubtless seems like an irrelevant point to most people here, but it's only when you try to use something in 'anger' that you find out what's really up.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 22:37, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
If the lede is too long, that means you need to be more ruthless in summarizing. That may mean that each section of the article only gets one or two sentences in the lede - that's fine. The point is for the lede to be short and sweet. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:11, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
That only works if everybody agrees on how much emphasis each point should get. They didn't, there were people who more or less didn't think any point except their own should go in the lead at all. Ultimately some degree of shared values are needed for an article to converge.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 17:42, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
And I don't agree that simply being ruthless works in all cases either. Logically, summarisation is related to compression. It's not always possible to compress something further without losing the essence of what it is. You can't summarize down to one word, there's always a point above that where summarisation loses too much.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 17:42, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
If people disagree about content, then discussion is necessary. I have yet to see a situation where is was actually impossible to give a three-paragraph summary of the article. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:51, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
You can discuss it all you want, but if there are widely varied values involved, then no convergence of the article text occurs. And convergence, rather than providing a reasonably decent definition and summary is most often the real problem.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 18:47, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] While we're talking...

I'd like to take the BLP comment, and expand to a mid-sized section on two things that I think are clear and present problems:

  • Recent deaths.
  • A recent, well-publicized, but non-controversial BLP event. I'll use an example here: so-and-so won the New Hampshire primary.

Both of these impact more than the lead. But WP:LEAD is a well respected page, IME, and some guidance here wouldn't hurt. I have more opinions, but will save them pending comment on whether this guideline might be useful on this. Marskell (talk) 21:01, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd have no problem with that. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 21:05, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
I'll add it in the morning, and others can rework. Marskell (talk) 21:10, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tagging

I've reverted Miles Again's addition that if we see a lead that's too short or too long, and we don't have time to fix it, we should add the too short/too long tag. (Sorry about the messed up edit summary, MA -- "please on discuss" meant "please discuss on talk." :-)

I would prefer this guideline not to mention these tags, or if we do, to discourage their use. Tagging in this way suggests we have two classes of editors -- regular editors who do the actual writing, and über editors who arrive to offer their opinions by disfiguring the page with a tag before moving on, because their time is so precious. :-)

I don't think we should say anything in here to encourage that. If you see a lead that you feel is the wrong length, you can fix it, leave a note on talk, or just walk away. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 20:52, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Concur. Marskell (talk) 20:58, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Firstly, my edit was not accurately characterized above. I added, "If you don't have time to correct the problem, mark articles using the over-long lead sections with the {{Intro-toolong}} article message box template." (Sorry about the typo, swap "using" and "with") I added that because I was looking for the name of the tag and couldn't find it. Is trying to engineer editing behavior really more important than providing the uncensored facts about common practice? Do we really prefer that an article with an overlong lead is not tagged for improvement? Of course not, I would hope, on both counts. Who thinks that amboxes are "disfiguring the page"? That's a new one to me. MilesAgain (talk) 21:16, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Tagging, by itself, accomplishes nothing. The edit encourages another box at the top of the page, not article improvement. If you're tired, move along to something else that wakes you up. If you can manage it, try to improve the lead a little. It's often easier done than said. Marskell (talk) 21:29, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
It encourages other people to help. MilesAgain (talk) 21:46, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Such utility remains unproven. If you don't like a lead, improve it or ignore it. Marskell (talk) 21:57, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
The fact that some consider them "disfiguring the page" clearly shows that they encourage those people to address the problem. How much proof do you need that a sign saying "this needs to be fixed" doesn't encourage people to fix it? MilesAgain (talk) 23:40, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
What tends to happen is that the page languishes with the tag on it, looking even worse than it did before, or people remove the tags without changing anything. You'd need actual evidence that these tags ever lead to improvement. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 23:44, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Not a problem, I was able to find these by searching for "intro length" on article talk pages: [1][2][3][4][5] The average time to intro shortening was only 16 days (those were all I found; I didn't omit any that took longer to shorten.) Any further objections? MilesAgain (talk) 02:45, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
One, three, and five show leads that are too long becoming much too short. If people are interpreting the tag to mean "cut the lead to two sentences" then I oppose it even more strongly. Two and four show no reduction. Marskell (talk) 08:53, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
You think 1,3, and 5 are better articles before than after? I don't, and I doubt anyone else looking at them would either. They all have detail moved to section(s), not deleted. 2 and 4 have merged single-sentence paragraphs in accordance with the Manual of Style. MilesAgain (talk) 14:50, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
It seems clear that, certainly in the case of 1 (I haven't looked at 3 or 5) that all that's happened is that a long poor lead has been replaced by a shorter poor lead. Is that an improvement? I can't see how. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 20:41, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Honestly I don't see what's wrong with [1]. Most of the overlong "before" lead was incorporated into the article, and I'm not a doctor, but the "after" looks fine to me. MilesAgain (talk) 17:53, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
When I'm bored, I sometimes surf the categories created by tags like these and fix the articles if I know enough about the topic to do so. So I would definitely agree that tagging can help (but I also agree that sometimes it doesn't). Karanacs (talk) 19:35, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
That could be achieved by adding the article to a category without the tag, or by adding the tag to the talk page. The problem with these tags is that they deface the article. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 21:33, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm in two minds on this. On the one hand I do really dislike the defacing tags, but on the other hand, to pick up on Karancs' point, if I come across an article the I'm interested in with one on it, I'm motivated to do whatever's needed to be able to remove the tag in good conscience. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 21:59, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

How about this:

When you find an article with a lead section that is too long or too short, you are encouraged to help correct the issue. However, if you feel you are unable to fix it because you don't know enough about the subject, or don't have time, etc., you may mark articles with the {{Intro-toolong}} or {{Intro-tooshort}} article message box templates.

Is that a reasonable compromise? MilesAgain (talk) 17:51, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] An article is not an essay, a lead is not a summary

Somehow you guys have got the wrong end of the stick here. Look, if we were writing an essay for each article, then the lead would have to summarise the many points that are covered. The lead would usually be written after the essay/article, and would summarise the essay/article or the main points in the essay/article.

The articles in the wikipedia are not essays.

The articles in the wikipedia are on a single topic.

For this reason, another encyclopedia says that the lead (they call it introduction) should contain:

Introduction

The Introduction should contain a brief definition of the subject. This may take one or two paragraphs, and if possible, these paragraphs should contain some statement of the subject's interest and significance. The main topics to be covered in the body of the entry may be mentioned here, so that the reader will get some idea of what is to follow. Plato Guidelines and Policies for Entry Content

So, unless you have a reference to another encyclopedia's lead guidelines which match your ideas, then tomorrow I will be correcting the wikipedias to be inline with Platos.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 07:01, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Wolfkeeper, Wikipedia is perfectly entitled to develop unique guidelines to match its unique structure. And as it is, what you quote above isn't terribly different than what we have here. Marskell (talk) 10:42, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
What's the difference between "develop unique guidelines" and OR? Are we trying to invent the encyclopedia here? Isn't there a particular way of writing encyclopedia introductions that is encyclopedic? What are the Encyclopedia Britannica's guidelines on this?- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 13:38, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
On wikipedia, the lede has the dual roles of introduction and summary that I mentioned long ago. I don't see what's surprising or problematic about it. Could you explain again exactly what your motivating problem is here? That might help people understand where your thoughts are going. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:29, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Developing unique guidelines isn't OR in the way you interpreting it, Wolfkeeper. These policy and guideline pages are monumentally important to the regular maintenance of the Project's content, and altering them requires a lot of back and forth before we agree to any changes. And often, the Monkeys with the Bigger Shopping Carts have to approve the wackier stuff. So, while OR (as you are interpreting it) might be a part of the equation, its that which is agreed upon by both the people driving the bus as well as the people in the bus. It's when one or two folk determine that the bus is a sub-compact (or demand at the point of a keyboard that the bus should go to Funkytown, Goofyville and then an extended trip to Denny's for lunch) that some ideas become original research.
Marskell is correct in noting that Wikipedia doesn't have to follow the formats of other encyclopedias, and that we are allowed to determine our own branding.
But all of that is besides the point. You have been insisting - repeatedly - that the Lead be an overview of the subject, and not the article. It seems rather clear that this is a minority opinion at this time. The Lead is currently an overview of the article it introduces, not the entire breadth of the subject. Perhaps you are confusing the insterpretation of the word 'subject'. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 19:30, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps. However, when I was 15 I was tested on vocabulary comprehension and I have done similar things since then; I test at around the 99% percentile level on vocabulary meaning, so there's about a 99% chance that you're the one confusing the various meanings of the word 'subject'. I've also actually checked it in multiple dictionaries as well as looked at guidelines for other encyclopedias, including the French wikipedia and Plato; the English wikipedia seems to be taking the most extreme position of any of them.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 15:47, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
'On wikipedia, the lede has the dual roles of introduction and summary that I mentioned long ago.' I don't even agree that that matches the current way that editors are writing leads in the wikipedia; it seems to me the guidelines are trying to impose this, but nobody is really listening. And you have no references to back up that this is what should be in an encyclopedia lead. That's OR, right there. We're not writing English Essays, we're not writing books of fictions, we're not reporting for a newspaper; all of these leads are subtly different types of leads, no, we're writing articles on single topics, that are referred to be by article names and that are expected to be defined in the lead for the readers of the wikipedia. This is basic, obvious and non negotiable; people come along to the article and say, 'what is XXX' and they expect to find out what it is from the lead; they do not expect some possibly rambling introduction to an article. It's the difference between Aeroplane: "In this article we will be describing the features of aeroplanes, where they fly from, how they work and what dangers they present" (which introduces the article great, but doesn't tell you what an aeroplane is) to Aeroplane: "An aeroplane is a heavier than air vehicle that is capable of leaving the ground and flying in a sustained manner" which tells you what an aeroplane is and doesn't introduce the article at all. I'm saying of the two, if they were given only the choice between the two the reader wants the second. That's because this is an encyclopedia; they do not expect to have to read the entire wretched article to find out what something is.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 15:47, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
This is primary and not negotiable in a lead. And if it's primary and not negotiable then it must be mentioned as such in the lead of wp:lead itself.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 15:47, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
It's impossible for the first three paragraphs of an article not to be viewed by readers as an introduction to the article. The fact that the lede can stand alone should be invisible to a reader, who can treat the entire article as a single text. To put it a different way, a lede is not an abstract.
I can address one other point briefly. Issues or original research are not relevant outside the context of writing articles. Moreover, Wikipedia develops its own style inspired by other encyclopedias, but does not aspire to duplicate their style. So while it is useful to look at how other encyclopedias are written, their practices are not controlling here.
Let me ask, again, what is the actual motivation behind your concern here. Perhaps we can address that and put the matter to bed. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:01, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
OK, I messed that bit up slightly; there's a difference between 'introducing the article' and 'summarizing the article', but there's an insistence here that they are the same thing. They're not the same. I'm saying that there is always necessarily in an adequate lead a definition of the topic. If you take it away, it's a rotten lead. In WP:LEAD it's the bit where we say the lead is the bit between the title and the first section. That defines what we are talking about, the topic; that bit does not in any way summarize the article.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 16:16, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Um, excuse me, but you are not at liberty to redefine 'encyclopedia'. The primary purpose of the wikipedia is to create an encyclopedia, that's a core value. You cannot write a guideline that tries to change what an encyclopedia is.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 16:16, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Please place your comments below those you respond to, not in the middle of them. We are at liberty to set our own practices here, if we believe they are useful for achieving our goals. There is indeed a difference between introducing the article and summarizing the topic; the lede serves both purposes. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:20, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
That's not what our lead says.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 18:26, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Regardless what the guideline says, the lede will still have the dual role. It's easy enough to point out the dual role in this guideline. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:33, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
If it is so easy, then shouldn't our lead, which you claim is a summary of the article say that?- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 18:52, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

(←dent) Is it your contention that it doesn't? And I have to agree with Carl here; I am unclear as to what it is precisely you are aiming to do here. Are you seeking to change policy, refine it or clarify it? Please, if you can, be specific. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 19:37, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Just clarify really, the idea that the lead should identify the topic seemed to have been systematically removed from our lead here, but has always been present in the article.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 20:54, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Wolfkeeper, please read this. Our leads give an overview of the article, ideally -- the article, not the subject. However, sometimes (or even often), the lead will given an overview of the subject before the article has caught up. So in that sense some leads will summarize the subject area, while others will summarize the article. But in a well-written article, the lead will be a summary of the article's most important points. Not in the sense that an abstract is an overview of an academic paper -- we are not that strict, and we want our leads to be enlivening prose, not dull summarizing. But broadly speaking, a lead will summarize the key points of the article.
The key words here are "broadly speaking." You're splitting hairs about the meaning of words then trying to apply those hair-line definitions of your own to a creative, non-algorithmic activity, where leads ideally emerge from the structure of a narrative, suggesting themselves to the writers once the article is more or less complete; but where, in fact, reality almost always falls short of that ideal, with people doing their best to give readers an idea of what the article says or will say. That's about as precise as we can get. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 19:56, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
I think we mostly only disagree on emphasis, but I do hold it as self evident that a lead that doesn't identify the topic is inherently non encyclopedic, and this is backed up by the reference I gave, as well as common sense. I also hold that a lead should contain a summary of the article, but it's wrong to claim that the lead is a summary of the article. It is an introduction to the article. These are fine distinctions, but they are important none the less, as the many reversions there have been only illustrate all to well.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 21:24, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
I think we understand the distinctions, but simply disagree as to your interpretations and applications of them. I agree that crafting a Lead that is a summary to the article is difficult, but it is the goal nonetheless. If that summary is engaging enough, it is an introduction to the rest of the article for those who want to read more details touched upon in the Lead. That appears to be the current interpretation of the policy, and I tend to agree with it. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 16:59, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, what makes you say that making the lead a summary to the article is a goal. Where's that written?- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 02:41, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Articles on Wikipedia are essays. They are furthermore argumentative essays that ought to have thesis statements. The type of argument they make is different from the type of argument made in a normal persuasive essay, but it is still an argument and should still be thought of as such. The lead should introduce the topic, provide a general overview of what will be said, and provide a summary statement at the end. Phil Sandifer (talk) 01:14, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

The idea that articles are essays seems to be inconsistent with WP:NOT. It says that 'Note: Wikipedia pages may not be used for advocacy unrelated to Wikipedia, but pages in the Wikipedia namespace may be used to advocate for improving or organizing Wikipedia itself. So essays, portals, project pages, etc. are part of what Wikipedia is.' Which very strongly implies that essays are only to be part of Wikipedia in Wikipedia's own namespace. Additionally an essay implies a degree of OR; and in any case personal essays are banned.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 02:41, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
You do not understand what essays are. Or, rather, you are using a very particular meaning of essay on Wikipedia instead of a more general use of it as "a somewhat lengthy written document that makes an argument in a relatively formal manner." Phil Sandifer (talk) 03:06, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Isn't an essay supposed to be original, such as making an original argument? If you're merely stating somebody elses argument, isn't that more of a summary or a simple report than an essay? I think the fact that articles aren't allowed to make an original argument in the wikipedia means that it isn't an essay in any normal sense.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 03:36, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Certainly summaries are routinely given as "essay" assignments in universities. But this largely sidesteps my main point - whatever you want to call an article, it is still an argumentative structure based around a thesis that is supported with evidence, and the lead section functions just like any other introduction to an argument-based piece of writing. Phil Sandifer (talk) 04:36, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
No. Articles do not have a thesis. That would constitute WP:OR: "Articles may not contain any new analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position not clearly advanced by the sources."- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 05:21, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
And to pre-empt your next question, the argument is that the subject of the article is worthy of note. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 04:41, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
No, that's why the topic requires a notable source that says it is worthy of note by talking about it.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 05:19, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Exactly. Which is why a lead section starts with an overview of reasons that the subject is worthy of note, and the remaining sections proceed to expand on these reasons with evidence of the various significant things about the person. Phil Sandifer (talk) 04:45, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
An interesting theory, but not one I can subscribe to without multiple clear examples and/or a good reference that this is desirable. And I think you'll have difficulty finding even one good example. All article leads I have read end with notability, not start with that, for sound practical reasons.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 05:19, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Look at today's featured article (Dookie) - notability is laid out in the first sentence. Seventh and eighth words, in fact. Phil Sandifer (talk) 05:59, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Ok, I am finding that the articles start with a declaration of the topic for practical reasons, so I was wrong to some degree, because the topic has to be notable anyway to be here, then the first sentence does pretty much have to imply notability in the vast majority of cases. But that seems to me to be an accident, rather than a deliberate idea, and basically every fact everywhere in the wikipedia has to be notable and verifiable anyway ;-). But still, the basic idea that you are forming a thesis that makes it notable has to be wrong, because that would be OR, whereas really people here have to find somebody else that says it is notable. Really when you write an article you collect facts from wherever, and collate them and wordsmith them together, more like a reporter. Collation is not normally considered to be OR, since you are not forming new ideas.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 07:02, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Your ideas are incompatible with the prevailing thought in rhet/comp at the moment - have a look for the book Everything's an Argument. It's one of the most popular rhet/comp books in use right now, and might help you better understand what's going on here. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:41, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
It's not that articles don't contain arguments. On the contrary, we collate other peoples arguments. We're essentially trying to collect all the notable arguments that are within a particular articles scope. That also means we aren't writing essays.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 18:58, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

<outdent

A Wikipedia article is still structured as an argument - it is not just a collection of other people's arguments. It is an argument-structured account of those arguments. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:20, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
But arguments are expected to come to a conclusion and have a main contention. AFAIK the only main contention that articles come to is, at best, 'the following facts/opinions/arguments are currently known to be notable on this subject'. But that's really just collation. While you can argue that it's a form of OR, it's a very weak one, and it's explicitly disclaimed in the OR policy. And anybody can come along at any time and add more notable facts, so it's an argument that can never conclude, if you want to look at it like an argument.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 20:57, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
It's more accurate to say that the argument is "These are the important things to know about this subject," or "this is why the subject is important." It may be that the argument can be improved - more facts, better facts, better presentation. But the argument should, in any given version of the article, be well-structured. That said, I don't think I even understand what you're objecting to anymore. Collation is still a form of argument. Argument and OR are not synonyms. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:57, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
My point is that a collation argument cannot form an essay. An essay is not simply a collation of notable facts, even though a collation of facts may be considered to be an argument, it's not the right sort of argument.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 22:27, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
OK. Putting aside the term essay, as it's not the point, a collation argument still depends on an introduction that summarizes the major points of the argument. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:28, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Well, you say it's not the point, but read the heading of this section, I'm actually trying to stay on the point. The point is that the introduction is not of the form of an essay summary, because the article is not of the form of an essay.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 23:18, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
The issue about the introduction being a summary or not is multifold. First there can be trivial elements of the introduction which don't appear in the body of the article, such as dates and so forth, but that's minor. Also the very first few sentences which define context and declare the scope of the article are not normally repeated elsewhere in the article, so are not summaries either. Secondly, the emphasis of the article and the emphasis of the introduction are not the same. The introduction emphasises interest and conflict, whereas the article tends to be more of a collation of notable facts, and the introduction misses out quite a lot of notable facts to make room for the conflict and interest and so forth. A true summary would have to have similar emphasis.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 23:18, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
My original contention, which I stand by; but that I am not planning to edit the guidelines based upon; is that the introduction and the article are both descriptions of the *topic*, and that they look similar because they are based on the same data that was discovered by the same editors that wrote the article. And if you look at it that they are on the same topic, then building a semi-reasonable lead for a non existent or stub article is fairly straightforward, whereas if you look at it that one is a summary of the other, then the introduction is only written after the body.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 23:18, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
That seems to me to depend on treating the lead and body as two separate things instead of as a unified document. That does not make sense as an approach. Phil Sandifer (talk) 00:01, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
That's like saying that the wheels on a car are entirely separate things. Wheels are free to move somewhat independently, but they're still attached to the same car. And front wheels and back wheels do different things. The guidelines for wheels don't include demands that the back wheels follow the tracks of the front or vice versa, because they don't, but the front wheels surely do steer the car where it is going.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 02:23, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
That metaphor is too mixed for me to follow. My point remains: the introduction of a Wikipedia article is not substantially different from the introduction of any other argumentative document. It serves the same purposes, and follows the same rules. Phil Sandifer (talk) 03:57, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

<outdent An introduction lets people know if they found the right article, and gives them a quick summary in case they want to know very briefly what something is. It's also useful to establish the tone or serve as a roadmap for the important points to be discussed. Personally, I'm not terribly fond of leads that grow into a several paragraph mini-article because they don't serve the purposes as effectively anymore, and that also creates a content fork. It's often useful for the lead to establish the context of the subject in terms of other, more familiar things, and also to explain notability. But it's not necessary in all cases. It really depends on the type of article. For example, the Luisa Tetrazzini lead is deficient and could benefit from a little context and an assertion of notability - as is, it doesn't tell people why they should care, so I'll bet many people ignore the article who might enjoy reading it. Maria Callas has a much better lead because it brings the reader in. By contrast, I think the lead sentence's assertion of notability and context in the Water article that "water is a common chemical substance that is essential to all known forms of life" is obvious and unnecessary to the point of absurdity. I think the Hydrogen lead sentence that "Hydrogen (pronounced /ˈhaɪdrədʒən/), is the chemical element represented by the symbol H and an atomic number of 1" is more appropriate - no need to say "and it's also an extremely important element and part of nerly every chemical compound." Wikidemo (talk) 01:47, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Context?

Context is[6]:

con·text /ˈkɒntɛkst/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[kon-tekst] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation –noun

  1. the parts of a written or spoken statement that precede or follow a specific word or passage, usually influencing its meaning or effect: You have misinterpreted my remark because you took it out of context.
  2. the set of circumstances or facts that surround a particular event, situation, etc.
  3. Mycology. the fleshy fibrous body of the pileus in mushrooms.

So how does:

"The first paragraph needs to unambiguously identify the topic for the reader."

Describe any of these things? Why are editors repeatedly moving it into this section?- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 19:13, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, thanks for the exercise in pedantry. It was a redundant, two sentence section. No one is going to be confused by "The first paragraph needs to unambiguously identify the topic for the reader" under the heading "Establish context." Marskell (talk) 20:24, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
What the "context" part means in practice is that the lede should identify the broader subject area in which the topic is located. For example "In the theory of music, harmony is...", or "In chemistry, an acid is...". — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:52, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree, that's the original intention of the section. And it looks to me that as a group we're being confused by our own section so what on earth is the reader going to think?- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 21:14, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Lead section length

It would be more useful if the recommended lead section length and the article length used the same units. The lead section is measured in paragraphs while the size of the article is measured in bytes. Using a ratio, for example saying the lead section should be 1/6 the size of the article avoids the units issue. BradMajors (talk) 22:55, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Use of "to be" in opening sentences

On 2008-01-25 at 10:45 a fellow-editor added the recommendation:

In most cases, the first sentence should use the verb to be so that readers knowing nothing at all about the article's subject immediately find the answer to the simple question: What is it? or Who is he/she?.

I propose removing this limiting recommendation. The disadvantages of using forms of the verb "to be", as detailed in the E-Prime article, apply. And our readers may just as readily come to a Wikipedia article with simple questions like "What does this do?" or "Where does so-and-so fit in?" or "What does a such-and-such look like?".

In the context of Wikipedia, opening an article with the bland claim that "X is ..." smacks of the a dictionary definition -- something to avoid. But worse, providing a simple "X is..." opening may unwittingly undermine a neutral point-of-view. "Is" statements tend to lay down the law, to restrict the scope of discussion, to highlight one aspect of a subject at the expense of others, excluding alternative viewpoints and angles. Avoiding the verb "to be" can result in more dynamic, active and interesting openings. Above all, we can discourage lame sentences of the type "The Internet Protocol is a protocol...".

-- Pedant17 (talk) 01:13, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how we should encourage people to write their leads in e-prime. Your points on WP:DICT and WP:NPOV are not sustainable as WP:NPOV must be followed in all cases anyway, and WP:DICT is mostly about not having articles about a word, instead they must be about a single topic, and it's not about not defining the subject in a dictionary-like definition, indeed I think that is encouraged in one of the policies somewhere or other.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 02:08, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
I too do not see "how we should encourage people" to use an E-Prime style -- but the proposal to stop recommending using "to be" leaves the matter open so that editors can vary their style as they find most appropriate. -- I agree that WP:DICT emphasizes not having articles about words, but I note that "Wikipedia is not a dictionary" has become a mantra, and that we have the resource and flexibility to avoid dictionary-like formats.-- I also agree that all editors should follow WP:NPOV rules at all times -- and I therefore propose making the achievement of a neutral point-of-view easier and more natural by not encouraging editors into the straitjacket of potentially biased statements using the verb "to be". -- Pedant17 (talk) 00:18, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
The use of 'is' is not mandatory anyway.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 02:08, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree that the current text does not actually make the use of "is" mandatory. But it strongly encourages that usage, stating: "In most cases, the first sentence should ..." [my emphasis]. Such prescriptiveness appears restrictive and unnecessary. -- Pedant17 (talk) 00:18, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Making that change would seem to be part of advocating for the use of e-prime. Since advocating for e-prime or anything else not directly involved in creating an encyclopedia violates WP:NOT, then I don't see that this change should be made.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 05:56, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
The proposed change forms no part of advocating for the use of E-Prime. It merely references the E-Prime article in support as pointing out some of the deficiencies of using the verb "to be". The proposed change advocates only the removal of explicit encouragement of the "to be" forms. -- On the other hand, the change of 2008-01-25 advocates -- virtually mandates -- the use of a single limiting formula: X + 'to be" + Y. If advocacy of "anything else not directly involved in creating an encyclopedia" does indeed violate WP:NOT, then we should remove this stricture. -- Pedant17 (talk) 11:07, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Not really the same thing, I don't think that the people that wrote it were deliberately advocating a cause, they were just trying to write a guideline that would help build an encyclopedia. However, provided that the change improves the guideline, and doesn't explicitly or implicitly advocate e-prime then there's no particular reason you couldn't change this. What particular phraseology did you have in mind?- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 17:04, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
As stated on 2008-02-04, I propose simply removing the sentence:

In most cases, the first sentence should use the verb to be so that readers knowing nothing at all about the article's subject immediately find the answer to the simple question: What is it? or Who is he/she?.

This removal would improve the guideline by encouraging a greater diversity of compliant opening sentences and by eliminating restrictive advocacy of use of the verb "to be". -- Pedant17 (talk) 07:26, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree. That advice is very restrictive. We're not baking a cake here. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 08:15, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Agreed also. There are a variety of ways of fulfilling explanatory requirements. Tyrenius (talk) 09:57, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
I can see the potential for rampant nonsense, but with all change comes a period of rampant nonsense. I agree too, bc there is room in my life to love The Crazy. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 17:35, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Hm, somebody even created a template {{intro-tobe}} which demands a "to be" in the first sentence of an article. I have removed it from the handful of articles it appeared on. Would have listed it on TfD too, except that I need to run now. Perhaps later. –Henning Makholm 23:01, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, now you've crossed two different lines simultaneously:
  1. you've edited articles purely to espouse a (frankly slightly weird) cause
  2. the articles in question still have horrible leads, but you've completely removed all record of this; they used to be in Category:Wikipedia introduction cleanup, but no longer are
I wouldn't have minded if the article leads had actually been sorted out...

- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 00:14, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

No other response? Oh well, I thought I saw consensus that requiring a specific verb is not a productive way to prescribe how to start with a good definition – it is neither strictly necessary for one, nor does it guarantee that one will result. One of the articles in question did actually use the verb "to be".
I am impressed with how you were able to review the articles I removed the template from, even after I removed all record of which they were. I must have been insufficiently thorough in my destruction of evidence. I will investigate ways to do it better. The fools, they will cower before me yet! –Henning Makholm 04:10, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "clearly, continued discussion is needed"

This edit called for discussion: (reverting Wolfkeeper - clearly, continued discussion is needed. Rather than disrupt a guideline page in edit-warring, perhaps find consensus FIRST on the page set aside for discussion) (undo)

But to be honest the only thing that made it clear was the fact that it was reverted, and anyone can revert anything any time, but the material had been on the article page for almost a week from [7] to about [8] until it was removed on the grounds that it was supposedly redundant with the context section; but as Carl says above, there is no actual redundancy, it is a different sort of context there entirely, so how can it have been redundant?

I wish to revert this edit, I consider that it weakened the guideline, please vote here, its non binding, I just want to see how far or near we are to consensus on this: —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wolfkeeper (talk • contribs) 16:13, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think we should be footnoting other collaborative encyclopedias as authorities on what we should be doing here on Wikipedia. Further, I think the scope of the article is a determined as a matter of ongoing consensus, logic, and editorial decisions that are up to the individual editors of the article, not for someone to lay out in a lead in the expectation that others will follow. So I would terminate the sentence "The first paragraph also helps declare the scope of the article for other editors and assists in deciding what material should be covered" after the word "article." Wikidemo (talk) 18:41, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree with both parts of that. For the first statements of Wikidemo's, WP should be allowed to determine its own style. As for the latter statements, I likewise concur. In its current state, it leaves the impression that consensus cannot ever change, and puts a bit too much power in the Lead to control the article when in actuality it is supposed to be the other way around. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 18:56, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't consider that external links are to be determinative here, but I think that we should include them because they are material that back up our choice of guidelines- if a guideline is very different to others guidelines that can be a signal that we are off-base; external links have a normative effect. I wouldn't be opposed to moving into an external links section for example, and adding other similar guidelines if they can be located, whether or not we follow them.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 17:10, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
As pointed out earlier, we don't need them to be material to our choices. Wikipedia is allowed to determine its own structure without having to justify its actions through the use of external links to other encyclopedias. I realize its frustrating to you that there are no apparent handrails to help guide you, but they aren't necessary. We aren't lemmings, falling of a cliff. there are enough of us with the absorbed experiences of other encyclopedias that keep us on point. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 18:28, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
That amounts to hypocrisy, since WP:LEAD doesn't follow its own guidelines. It says: "The emphasis given to material in the lead should roughly reflect its importance to the topic according to reliable, published sources." You don't have any reliable published sources, and you're arguing that they completely aren't needed, and that you that you get to make up what's important and what isn't. That is so far from the spirit of the wikipedia it isn't even funny.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 08:14, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
We don't need external references to define the construct of our rules. Just because some other website does it in some way doesn't (and shouldn't) have any bearing on whether we do it too. — BQZip01 — talk 20:05, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
I understand where you're coming from, and the wikipedia clearly is and should be able to define its own rules according to a decision process. However, the traps of most decision processes in general tend to be things like groupthink; but you would hope and expect that by skeptically looking at others work, you can help kick out of any 'consensus' traps which might not truly based on any real evidence for their utility. For something like an encyclopedia introduction- which has been around for centuries, you would expect that by now there would be good guidelines that we could examine.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 20:57, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
This guideline (and its mention of WP:RS) only applies to articles, it does not apply to policies and guidelines, which are obviously written in a much different way, subject to a different kind of consensus process, for a different purpose and audience. We source articles so we and our readers can verify that the content accurately reflects the mainstream of knowledge in the world, as opposed to opinion, non-mainstream beliefs, propaganda, fraud, or simple error. Truth and believability simply are not issues on most non-article pages. Wikidemo (talk) 00:10, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Allow me to suggest that you re-direct your energies to the Village Pump. Clearly, you are advocating a philosophical stance that is not in current use in Wikipedia. Perhaps, in changing the world, the Pump would be a more appropriate launching point. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 22:13, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
No, look, let's take a concrete example, take the article Diamond. Is that a good lead? It's featured, but it featured more than two years ago. It seems to me that it covers the main points in the article; but I don't think it's a good lead. What do you think?- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 23:45, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
It's okay. It does cover the main points, but it fails to bring the issue alive, or make people want to keep on reading.
Yes, I agree but for example it doesn't even actually identify what diamond is in any functional way. If it said 'diamond is an allotrope of carbon where the carbon atoms are arranged in a isometric lattice' then at least I would be able to do an x-ray diffraction on it and tell that the rock in my hand is diamond. The fact given is that it is 'third hardest' when it doesn't tell me what 4th hardest is so I couldn't (from the lead) actually even in principle check that the a stone in my hand is harder than 4th and softer than 2nd. You don't completely know what it is the article is talking about, and yet this seems to be more or less in accordance with our guidelines. And the whole lead is sort of vague like that. It should be boom, boom, boom, precision. The lead should be such that the subject of the article is not in this general area it's ->here<- and nowhere else. And if you can't do that, it's likely to be a poor article.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 16:21, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
It also covers the main points in the wrong order, I would say, although that's obviously a very subjective judgment.
I don't think it's purely subjective; the article can be massively improved on objective grounds.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 16:21, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Can you give us an example of what you see as a good lead? SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 00:02, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
I checked through the recent WP:FA articles and all have leads that are perfectly acceptable and very much more precise, they rather outclass WP:LEAD ;-)- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 16:21, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Is this guideline under the right article name

A lede is a term primarily from journalism, and is usually just a paragraph or just a very few sentences, but an introduction is very typically a whole distinct section. Isn't this guideline really on article introductions? Given this, shouldn't we really move it to WP:Article introduction?- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 16:27, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Anonymous edit 72.196.30.196

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Lead_section&oldid=189991436

Somebody just made an anonymous edit, it actually seems to me reasonable, but I've temporarily reverted it, do we have consensus that that edit should be made?- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 18:13, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] That the lead should contain a definition is policy

From Wikipedia:Not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_dictionary it states:

Wikipedia is not a dictionary, usage or jargon guide. Wikipedia articles are not:

1. Dictionary definitions. Although articles should begin with a definition and description of a subject, they should provide other types of information about that subject as well. Articles that contain nothing more than a definition should be expanded with additional encyclopedic content, if possible. In some cases, a word or phrase itself may be an encyclopedic topic, such as old school, Macedonia (terminology), or truthiness. Articles about the cultural or mathematical significance of individual numbers are also acceptable.

And Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_not_a_dictionary#Good_definitions states that:

"A definition aims to describe or delimit the meaning of some term (a word or a phrase) by giving a statement of essential properties or distinguishing characteristics of the concept, entity, or kind of entity, denoted by that term." (Definition)

A good definition is not circular, a one-word synonym or a near synonym, over broad or over narrow, ambiguous, figurative, or obscure. See also Fallacies of definition.

- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 20:46, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't see a policy requirement in there but an explanatory aside. Duplicating the material here in this guideline is unnecessary and just dilutes the meaning here. Wikidemo (talk) 16:03, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
You can't continue to pull this garbage, it just doesn't fly. You've repeatedly removed my edits, which are completely in line with consensus policy, as well as even references to consensus policy. This guideline now doesn't reflect these very, very, very well established policies in any way. If you don't believe in these policies you need to bring them up on that applicable page, not attempt to edit them out of the guideline. You don't have a leg to stand on.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 16:17, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
I'll give you a warning here on WP:CIVILITY and WP:AGF. You've been actively trying to modify this page, making more than half of all the page edits for the past month or so, and you seem to be taking it personally. I've reverted you a grand total of twice now, two weeks apart, for a couple of your less useful contributions. Please take a Wikibreak before this ends up on WP:AN/I. Wikidemo (talk) 16:30, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
The other way around is true also, you and some other admins here have been desperately editing this guideline for a month to maintain a non consensus policy position. Odd that, the nice thing about the wikipedia, is that it's a giant database, and I checked back, and this non consensus editing by admins has been going on here for quite a while, with other editors also; so this isn't all about me. Odd that also.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 16:44, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
I've made four edits to this guideline page, ever. That's not desperate. As to your main point, you are arguing argument that the content of this guideline as edited by many different people is non-consensus because it contradicts your own interpretation of what policy is. That's kind of backwards. I would give it a rest. Wikidemo (talk) 17:08, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
What is in the guideline that is contra-policy? Nothing that I see. And there is consensus—you're the only one, Wolfkeeper, who's upset with it. Your addition is largely redundant with what we have. Marskell (talk) 17:14, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
In no way. And you're only making it worse for yourselves. The wikipedia contains extremely detailed records of what has been in the guideline, and what you have removed (i.e. all the policy). And even if you continue to remove it from here, it's still in the policy, and it's very, very, very old policy, and very, very good consensus, so any attempt to remove this from the wikipedia in general, and here in particular can't succeed. What you're doing here is futile; and because of the detailed nature of the wikipedia database, it can only turn back on you- most people will not agree.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 17:31, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't know what you're saying, Wolfkeeper. This guideline contains no policy violations. You almost seem to be suggesting that it asks us to not define the topic. But of course it doesn't. It says "The first paragraph needs to unambiguously identify the topic for the reader. It should establish the context in which the topic is being considered, by supplying the set of circumstances or facts that surround it"—i.e., define it. What you added was redundant with this. If you want to change the verb "identify" to "define," feel free. But you have not articulated any serious problem with the wording. Marskell (talk) 17:47, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
So you're seriously claiming that a single sentence adequately covers multiple paragraphs of policy?- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 18:19, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
And it seems to me that the edits by the admins here over the last month is consistent with systematically removing statements of policy. Why is that? Perhaps you would care to explain? They were all just coincidentally bad English were they. Odd that, don't you think?- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 18:19, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Wolfkeeper, I really don't know what to say or do. You're not describing, in any concrete way, why this guideline violates policy. Marskell (talk) 20:31, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but you haven't answered my question. The guideline, as with the wikipedia is supposed to follow policy, it doesn't. Why not?- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 20:38, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Please explain why it doesn't follow policy. Marskell (talk) 20:40, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps he/she doesn't understand the difference between "should" and "must"? --WebHamster 00:26, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Please explain why any attempt to reference or include policy gets removed from the guideline.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 01:35, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
It seems to me that you shouldn't expect others to answer your questions when you won't answer theirs. Give a little to get a little has always worked for me. --WebHamster 01:41, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Purely as a technical consideration, we don't normally duplicate policy statements on guideline or policy pages because this is redundant and creates a content fork. That in turn can cause the two pages to diverge over time, confusion over which is the real source, and a few other problems probably that I cannot remember. Guidelines are things that add on top of policies, not recitations of policies from elsewhere. For other reasons we generally don't use citation / footnote format to refer to policies, but wikilinks or a template:see-type template. The other issue, though, is that the WP#NOT family of policy pages just doesn't seem to be all that relevant to this guideline. They are about completely different subjects than the layout style for articles. Similarly, when a policy page attempts to define the word "definition", and links to the definition article, it's incorrect to read that as a policy provision that whenever the word is used in a guideline project-wide that particular definition applies.Wikidemo (talk) 02:32, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

we don't normally duplicate policy statements on guideline or policy pages because this is redundant and creates a content fork
sounds like a guideline to me, where's that guideline written then? If you don't have a guideline, then I propose an alternate guideline that we at least reference the relevant policy- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 02:48, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
It's just an observation. Without any guideline on the subject of what policy and guideline pages should look like, there is nothing other than consensus. I tried to create such a guideline once ( here) but it was quickly shot down as WP:CREEP. It would be nice if policy and guideline pages could be written in a consistent fashion. There may be essays on the subject. I don't know. Wikidemo (talk) 03:03, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
The other issue, though, is that the WP#NOT family of policy pages just doesn't seem to be all that relevant to this guideline. They are about completely different subjects than the layout style for articles.
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but WP:LEAD mostly doesn't read anything like a layout guideline, it reads like a content guideline, and it reads like content policy in Wikipedia:Not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_dictionary.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 02:48, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Similarly, when a policy page attempts to define the word "definition", and links to the definition article, it's incorrect to read that as a policy provision that whenever the word is used in a guideline project-wide that particular definition applies
an interesting theory, but why is it there, in the policy page, rather than just wikilinking out. The reason is IMHO probably because the people that wrote it didn't want other people redefining what the lead must contain; it's a really, really bad idea to link out from policy pages to pages that can change at any time for anything important.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 02:48, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
It's all very odd and indirect. The part of Wikipedia:Not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_dictionary you've cited is quite recent, and intended to be a summary of Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary, which in turn tries to define the word "definition." That section seems out of place - it's not clear why the "Good definitions" section is in that policy page at all because no other part of that page is about definitions (other than saying we avoid them).Wikidemo (talk) 03:03, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
The part of Wikipedia:Not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_dictionary you've cited is quite recent This turns out not to be the case at all: [9] "an article can and should always begin with a good definition", that was in 2002!- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 04:11, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
I think it was within the past few month that the present version of that section arose. Anyway, I don't see that as a controlling statement of what a lead should look like. Wikidemo (talk) 04:57, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I don't understand your point. Could you explain how the 'article can and should always begin with a good definition' which is word for word from 2002, and is still consensus policy, doesn't refer to the lead?- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 05:18, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
I have changed the verb: "identify" --> "define". I have no idea what we're doing here. A simple question was asked: how does this guideline violate policy? No answer has been given. Marskell (talk) 08:12, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
I have changed the verb: "identify" --> "define". Fair enough.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 15:36, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Facts in lead not repeated in article

Is there any policy/guideline on including information in the lead which doesn't appear anywhere else in the article? --jwandersTalk 06:53, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

This guideline states: "Significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article, although specific facts, such as birthdates, titles, or scientific designations will often appear in the lead only. This should not be taken to exclude information from the lead, but to include it in both the lead and body: in a well-constructed article, the relative emphasis given to information in the lead will be reflected in the rest of the text." Marskell (talk) 15:10, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
One point, I think, is to allow a reader to choose between scanning the lead and reading the full article. Some leads are mini-articles in their own right, and it seems unnecessary to make people read both the lead and the entire article - which they would have to do if the content in the lead starts to fork off and diverge from the rest of the article. Another thing that happens with a fork is that contradictions arise. Wikidemo (talk) 16:06, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Opening sentences in articles that are part of a series: Uniformatting vs. Significance

If I am successful, I will not reveal my side in this dispute, but regardless, I am interested in others' viewpoints.

I recently became engaged in a discussion on opening sentences in articles that are naturally part of a series of articles. To illustrate my point, consider the articles written on each American Presidential election. As we see it, there are two ways to approach the leads of these articles:

Type 1. One way is to format them all uniformly, as follows:

  • The 1932 US Presidential election was between the Republican Herbert Hoover and the Democrat Franklin Roosevelt; Roosevelt won.
  • The 1940 US Presidential election was between the Republican Wendell Wilkie and the Democrat Franklin Roosevelt; Roosevelt won.
  • The 1944 US Presidential election was between the Republican Thomas Dewey and the Democrat Franklin Roosevelt; Roosevelt won.
  • The 1948 US Presidential election was between the Republican Thomas Dewey and the Democrat Harry Truman; Truman won.

Type 2. The other way is to format them with an attempt to provide recognition to whatever (if anything) makes that event in the series unique or somehow significant.

  • The 1932 US Presidential election was held in the midst of the greatest economic crisis in American history, the Great Depression.
  • The 1940 US Presidential election, held while much of the world was at war, was the first in which an American president won a third term to that office.
  • The 1944 US Presidential election was held while the United States was deeply engaged in World War II; in that election, Franklin Roosevelt won an unprecedented fourth term.
  • The 1948 US Presidential election is regarded by most historians as the greatest upset in American political history, as President Harry Truman defeated New York Governor Thomas Dewey.

[edit] Arguments

[edit] For Type 1

  • Preserves POV. Just the facts.
  • Helps the reader because as he moves from one article to another he knows what to expect, will find the information easily.

[edit] Against Type 1

  • Fails to provide context. The reader should know, for example, that what is memorable to most people about the 1948 race is its surprise ending. Or in an article on Richard Nixon (not his elections), for example, the reader should immediately learn that what is unique about his presidency is that he was the only president to ever resign.
  • It's boring.

[edit] For Type 2

  • Good expository writing generally requires the writer to start out with his most significant points. We are not writing novels with surprise endings.
  • It helps the reader because he is more likely to quickly identify if this is the article he is looking for.

[edit] Against Type 2

  • It's not NPOV. Who is to say that Nixon's resignation should be the first thing the reader learns about him? Why not instead mention his trip opening up China, or his incredible political comeback in 1968?
  • Articles should be uniform to eliminate disputes over style. While many subjects have infoboxes that lend uniformity to their information, many others do not. If every article is written with an opening cloned from other, related, articles, we can better concentrate on the content of said articles.
  • Some articles in the series may not have anything special about them. Sure, it's easy to mention unique things about Jefferson, Lincoln, & Nixon, but what about Pierce, Fillmore, and Hayes?


This topic affects literally thousands of articles. Articles on presidential elections, presidents themselves, monarchs, sports teams, cities, et cetera (almost literally). I've never seen it discussed before, but then again, I don't hang out on policy pages. I'd be very interested in all points of view. Unschool (talk) 02:14, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Replies and comments

Type 1 is absurdly stupid. Good writing triumph uniformity for the sake of uniformity.--165.21.154.91 (talk) 05:22, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
You are using an IP address that has been associated with vandalism in the past. I strongly suggest that you create a user name if you want your comments to be given due consideration. Unschool (talk) 17:00, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Type 2. We're not robots, and the first sentence should grab the reader as much as possible. Marskell (talk) 13:12, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Questionably applicable to short articles

The advice in this guideline is not really appropriate for short articles. I don't mean stubs, which often consist of nothing but a lead, I mean articles of the size of Kelly pool. The entire article can be read (by a fluent and literate English speaker) in a matter of maybe 2-3 minutes. A lead as described by WP:LEAD would simply be redundant and annoying. The one that is there presently is already redundant and annoying, yet Kelly pool's WP:GA bid has been derailed because it doesn't adhere to WP:LEAD. It is unlikely that the article in question is ever going to be much longer than it already is, because so far as the major editors of it can determine, there simply isn't any more published material on which to draw for sources. What can be said has been said. So, adhering to WP:LEAD's "stand-alone summary" advice with regard to an article of this length is rather pointless. I think WP:LEAD needs revision to account for this. For short articles, the lead needs to be a highly compact precis of only the most salient points, without getting into details. In particular, the squishing of all alternate terminology into the lead, where almost all of that terminology is obsolete and rare, is completely pointless. For this case in question, something like:

Kelly pool is a pocket billiards game (long associated with gambling) with numerous variations, played on a standard pool table using 15 numbered markers and a standard set of 16 pool balls. An early version of the game, kelly rotation, is the origin of the common expression "behind the eight ball".

would be entirely sufficient (with some corresponding adjustments to the main prose). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 18:39, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Rather than continuing to tweak the guideline to accommodate all the possibilities, I'd prefer to see a statement along the lines of the anon's suggestion in the section above -- that good writing triumphs over uniformity for its own sake, and that the advice in this guideline should be approached with common sense and good editorial judgment. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 18:49, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, it seems that in this case, the way that WP:LEAD is written is making achieving GA harder. I'm glad to be able to tell you that WP:LEAD is written in this way for a good reason.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 19:53, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
In practice, articles that reach GA or FA follow the policy and Good definitions, not necessarily lead, and in case of disagreements between the two, policy takes precedent.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 19:53, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Just write the lead the way it says. I've done it for shorter GAs than that, even, such as Robin Starveling. Wrad (talk) 20:01, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Ya, taken in sum, I don't think the guideline provides bad directions for short articles. The lead should summarize the article, but the size of the lead should be appropriate to the size of the article. A short article will have a short summary. Marskell (talk) 20:10, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Etymology in a box?

The word etymology [...] comes from the Ancient Greek ἐτυμολογία (etumologia) < ἔτυμον (etumon), “‘true sense’” + -λογία (-logia), “‘study of’”, from λόγος (logos), "speech, oration, discourse, word".
[citation needed]

In many articles, e.g. Ethics, the etymology in brackets in the lead sentence is distracting from what the lead needs to do. Any support for moving etymology into a right aligned box if there is no dedicated section for it? -- Jeandré, 2008-03-02t10:47z

Absolutely, but in fact I see no mention of a need for etymology being in the lead in the guideline here. It could just as easily be in the body, depending on the article. You bring up a good point though, regarding parenthetical information in the lead. There are many cases where this trend for parenthetical naming disrupts the lead, is against the spirit of this rather elegant, extremely functional guideline, and puts off the reader. One article as Wikipedia is now will have English, Arabic, French, and Berber, with IPA guides beside each. Another will have English, simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, pinyin and Wade-Giles, potentially with IPA guides beside each. In cases where parenthetical information would be excessively lengthy, editors should be free to decide to place that information in a box or better still a footnote beside the first mention of the article name.
Having read through the IPA talk page archives, and the Chinese names MoS likewise, and a few others, it seems the initial drive for including the information in brackets after the initial subject mention came purely and somewhat reflexively from looking at dictionary practice, where of course there are no leads and which we rather famously are not. A survey of encyclopedias shows that some use no parenthetical information at all after the initial mention of the subject, some use IPA, yet some others use wade-giles, some use footnotes etc. Finding an encyclopedia which uses more than two instances of parenthetical information is difficult. And limited though the usage is even there, I would contend that such usage suits print far better than hypertext (do people still say hypertext?) 86.44.6.14 (talk) 13:54, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
I like the idea of having it in a box. It could be mentioned here as an option. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 08:02, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
1st draft. -- Jeandré, 2008-03-06t13:06z
How about "can be used ... rather than parenthesis"? We don't need standardization in this area, do we? This way editors can decide which works best. 86.44.6.14 (talk) 16:40, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Question about alternate spellings

I am editing the Dysmenorrhea article, and I would like to know if there is a policy which delineates how to go about including alternate spellings of a word in the title, in the article's initial sentence. Dysmenorrhea is spelled dysmenorrhoea in British English, but I am not sure how much detail as to the reasons for the different spellings should be included in the article. Is it enough to simply place it in parentheses? Or should a notice be given as to the reason for the other spelling? Thank you for your assistance. 98.217.45.69 (talk) 22:51, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

It's probably enough to just put the other spelling in parentheses, or set off by commas. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:21, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Thank you, Carl. 98.217.45.69 (talk) 01:02, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
See WP:LEAD (on bolding, etc.) and Coeliac disease. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:11, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Revert

I just tidied the writing in one sentence in the lead, and was reverted by Wolfkeeper. WK, can you say why? SlimVirgin talk|edits 16:03, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Because I disagreed with it, and further I disagreed that it was, in any way, a minor edit. You were self-evidently trying to remove agreed on material surreptitiously, and your edit changed both the emphasis as well as the facts of the paragraph.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 16:31, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
What was the material being removed surreptitiously? It was evidently so surreptitious that I didn't notice it myself. :) What I was trying to do was slightly improve the writing, which isn't very good e.g. "The lead serves a dual role as both ...": "The lead serves a dual role both as an introduction to the article below and as a short, independent summary of the important aspects of the article's topic." SlimVirgin talk|edits 17:02, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Would you care to say why you were making significant edits with the minor edit flag set? This does not seem to have been an accident.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 16:31, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
No, it was not an accident. It was a minor edit. SlimVirgin talk|edits 17:02, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
You were self-evidently trying to remove agreed on material under a minor edit. Arbcom generally takes a dim view of this kind of thing, and you are an admin.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 17:21, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Well, I'm going to fix the sentence again, so please tell me what the "agreed on material" is, and where it was agreed, so I know not to touch it (even surreptitiously). SlimVirgin talk|edits 17:36, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
I've got a better idea. How about you don't 'fix' it? And I don't raise a fuss with arbcom over this and other issues about how this article differs from the policies?- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 17:53, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
This is typical of Wolfkeeper: you ask a direct question, and get a complete deflection. My advice: don't worry about it. Geometry guy 20:47, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Leading the way- what the "lead" policy should say.

Is there really any point in a lead that repeats the same points already made? users seem to think that just because something is "wiki policy" it is correct. A lead is a good thing providing it adds something new to an article, but if it is repeating information for the sake of it, you have to question the point of it. Shouldn't the lead policy be, that a lead is only added to a page if it is providing new information? as opposed to simply repeating information on a similar page? And wouldn't it be better to state "more information can be found at..." in replace of repetition?

You know it makes sense, so let's build up a consensus a change this illogical policy. Edito*Magica (talk) 10:57, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Um, no. The Lead is a summary of the article, a synopsis of the full piece. Its like the abstract of any academic paper or journal entry, and the leading paragraphs of any lengthy non-fictional writing. Almost all do not just "add new information" they summarize what the reader will be reading, and for those who don't want to read the whole article, it gives them the overview and highlights. Lead is fine just the way it is. Collectonian (talk) 13:47, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean by 'new information', but if you mean it shouldn't summarize the rest of the article I completely disagree as per Collectonian. If it had new information it wouldn't be a lead, it would just be the beginning of an article, and the reader who didn't want to have to read the whole thing would be up the creek without a paddle. Richard001 (talk) 01:13, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Something like: "this is a list of episodes, each with a synopsis, for the British television sitcom Keeping Up Appearances. The showed first aired between 1990 and 1995; for further information click: Keeping Up Appearances", is far better than repeating the same thing twice. It is good to summarise an article, but not twice, and for somebody who has visited the main page and then for example an episode page with the same paragraphs they've just read, it's very tedious for them. Edito*Magica (talk) 21:51, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Um no. The episode list is also considered a stand alone article. Look at any featured article and featured list related to it. They have repeating information. Many related articles will. Summary Style doesn't mean only one article has any one piece of information, we include the pertinant information in both. I really wish you would stop trying to go against consensus and what has already been explained to you multiple times by multiple editors, though I thank you for at least just discussing instead of starting yet another edit war. Collectonian (talk) 22:00, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
If an article actually started with "this is a list of episodes, each with a synopsis, for the British television sitcom Keeping Up Appearances. The showed first aired between 1990 and 1995; for further information click: Keeping Up Appearances", it would be a pretty lousy lead. For one thing, it should never say "click" (that would be a self reference), though I imagine this is just your version of what it might look like. If you want to give an actual example please use an [[internal link]]. Richard001 (talk) 10:36, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Length of lead - the problem of paragraphs

I don't like the 'length' being given in paragraphs. Paragraphs can be one sentence long or ten. An amount in kilobytes would be more useful as an indicator of length, if perhaps slightly harder to judge. We could give both, but point out the problem with paragraphs and then give a kilobyte amount as well. I don't like the idea of someone splitting a paragraph into two to make the lead 'longer'.

Perhaps a ratio of the article's length (without references etc - the main body) to that of the lead would be a good idea as well. It's basically a linear relationship (although for very large articles a maximum amount or 'leveling off' might be desirable?) Richard001 (talk) 01:09, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Version 1.0

copied from Walkerma's talk page, with permission:

WP:Lead has a sentence that is over 1 year old: "For the planned Wikipedia 1.0 — a static version of Wikipedia distributed on CD, DVD, or paper — one recommendation, not currently implemented, is that the articles will consist of just the lead section of the web version. Summary style and news style can help create a concise intro that works as a stand-alone article." That sentence is a bit surprising; I'm wondering if it's true, and if so, to which articles it would apply. (Standard disclaimer: feel free to reply here, on my page, or not at all.) - Dan (talk) 03:44, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it is true. Although Version 0.7 will be full articles, there has been discussion on doing this. In fact, just this week someone I know started to set up a chemistry mirror using data from chem articles together with the lead paragraph from each one - see this. We could very easily produce something that could be (for example) a "Dictionary of Military History" containing leads from the articles - there are almost 40,000 such articles of Start-Class and higher, 65,000 total - and that would make a very nice release (if the quality control were done carefully).
As I see it, once we have got a reliable system for producing offline releases quickly and easily, we can start to have WikiProjects designing custom releases, and we could either have a small encyclopedia release (e.g., 3000 organic chemical compounds) or a large dictionary-type release such as the one I mentioned. Both could fit on a CD and be easily downloaded. Walkerma (talk) 05:33, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, that was helpful. I'll pay more attention to leads when doing "well-written" checks! I will also, with your permission, copy your reply on the talk page of WP:LEAD. - Dan (talk) 12:12, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, by all means add it. It should be clear that we don't have any firm proposal at this point, only an intention. Cheers, Walkerma (talk) 13:11, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The opening sentence

Is there a general consensus that generally (and I know it must only be generally—its next to impossible to have rules/policies which cover all contingencies) the opening sentence of an article should indicate noteworthiness of the subject of the article? I see some editors here (and I've just read through the entire archive of this project page) indicating that they feel that opening should either meet WP:N or at least motivate the reader to read more. But at least one editor has written that this leads to violating NPOV. What do most people here think? Unschool (talk) 06:59, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I tend to think that notability should be established in the first paragraph, but it does not necessarily need to be the first sentence, if it will inhibit good prose. You'll find with a lot of biographical articles that at least one of the person's achievements or accomplishments will be put right up front; this is generally good. Take Billy Crystal for example: "William Edward “Billy” Crystal is a Golden Globe Award-nominated and Emmy Award-winning American actor, writer, producer, comedian, and film director. " ... that's basically perfect. It's succinct, hits all the important points, and mentions awards relevant to Crystal's field without engaging in superlatives or peacockery. Consider also an article like John Tesh: "John Frank Tesh is an American pianist and composer of new age and contemporary Christian music." ... this is certainly accurate, but notability isn't asserted here; we have to look at the beginning of the second sentence: "He is also a nationally syndicated radio host, ..." ... at which point we're back in the land of perfection. Sure, this could be re-written to all be in one sentence, but it might be difficult to write a sentence that can encapsulate a career that covers all the fields Tesh has been involved with. If someone can do it, great, but if nobody does it, it shouldn't be considered "wrong".
NPOV can indeed become difficult to achieve when there is a rush to assert notability at the beginning of the article, because if an editor can't find a well-accepted measurement of success like, "Nobel Prize-winning mathemetician" or "columnist for The New York Times" or even something like "best-selling author", they might end up putting in phrases like, "most popular" or "widely regarded as", which are subjective at best. -/- Warren 06:27, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I find your thoughts well-considered. Yet are you aware that there is a movement now to remove "Academy Award winning" from the opening sentences of relevant articles? It's happening all over the place. The argument is that doing this inserts POV into the article's opening. I myself am uncertain how I feel about this issue.
I actually broached this question because I am concerned about another issue—sterility being forced upon articles by editors who pride themselves on having the uniformity of bots. If you could, take just a moment to look at the opening sentences of the following articles: NEP01,NEP02,NEP03,NEP04,NEP05,NEP06, and NEP07. Two of the editors on these pages are arguing that only uniformity guarantees NPOV; I think it guarantees sterility. I see some uniformity as being desirable, but I see that coming from infoboxes and charts and stuff. I personally think that there's something seriously wrong with this philosophy of opening; every fiber of my being as a writer tells me that this is just horrible writing, but I want to know if anyone else sees it like this. And if it was just this one area (the articles on a sports team's seasons) I wouldn't worry too much, but I'm starting to see this creep into other teams and even some non-sports areas. I really fear that Wikipedia will become much less readable if these editorbots gain sway. Unschool (talk) 03:34, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bold title in lead for road articles

There is a debate over the lead for the article Interstate 70 in Utah. The two proposed leads are

  1. Within the U.S. state of Utah, Interstate 70 (I-70) runs east–west for 232.15 miles (373.61 km) across the central part of the state.
  2. Interstate 70 in Utah is the portion of Interstate Highway 70, commonly abbreviated I-70, that runs east–west for 232.15 miles (373.61 km) across the central part of the U.S. state of Utah.

The first is the lead before the article went to FAC and has since been restored. The second is the lead as passed at FAC. There are larger implications, as this is the first of many articles about as single state portion of a national highway to reach FA, and the precedent established here will be used for the others that are approaching (Interstate 15 in Arizona is at FAC now)

The discussion is taking place at Wikipedia_talk:USRD#FA_and_USRD if you have opinions one way or the other, please opine there. Dave (talk) 01:35, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Edits by User:Teratornis related to "editing the lead section"

This editor added the following section to the article:

[edit] How to edit

{{Shortcut|WP:LS#EDIT|WP:LS#HOWTOEDIT|WP:LEAD#EDIT|WP:LEAD#HOWTOEDIT}}

By default, the lead section has no section edit link. This can confuse new users. Here are several ways to edit the lead section in a Wikipedia article:

  • Open the entire article for editing by clicking the "edit this page" tab at the top. Cautions:
    • On very long articles, this may cause problems in some Web browsers.
    • On popular articles that receive many edits, opening the entire article for editing at once increases your chances of getting an edit conflict if another user edits and saves any section on the page before you save your changes. You may want to check the article's history to see if other users have edited it in the last few minutes.
  • If you have created an account, you can select Special:Preferences > Gadgets > User interface gadgets, and check the box: "Add an [edit] link for the lead section of a page". This allows you to edit just the lead section, on any article, exactly as you can edit any of the other sections.
  • A somewhat more complicated method that works for all users is to click the edit link for any other section, and in the resulting URL, replace the trailing: &section=n with: &section=0.
    • For example, if you click the edit link for the first named section in an article (which should be just below the lead section, if it exists), when the edit window appears, the resulting URL should end with: &section=1. Change the 1 to 0, so the URL ends in: &section=0, and press the Enter key on your keyboard to tell your Web browser to refresh to the new URL. Then you should see the wikitext source of the lead section in the edit window.
  • There are some user-written scripts that enable you to edit section 0.

Unfortunately, the style of prose in this new content is at odds with the remainder of the article. It moves away from the paragraph-oriented approach and introduces a series of bullet points where it doesn't seem to be necessary. Also, the use of the second-person narrative which clashes with the third-person objective approach commonly used in MOS and policy documents. Generally speaking, we want to promote the same kind of prose that we expect editors will write in Wikipedia articles, which means we don't address the reader directly. For example, instead of saying, "This allows you to edit the lead section", something more like "This allows the lead section to be edited" will match the correct tone. -/- Warren 03:49, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate your comments and I respect consensus. If a consensus develops that we don't want the WP:LEAD page to clearly explain all the options for editing the lead section, perhaps I can relocate the material to the FAQ. In this specific instance, I edited the WP:LEAD page in response to a question on the Help desk. The Help desk gets a fair number of questions from users who don't see how to edit the lead section. In this instance of the question, the questioner seems to have read the WP:LEAD page, without learning how to edit the lead section. I checked the page and I didn't spot the instructions on my first quick glance; I had to read through the page carefully to find them. While the instructions are sort of there, it's hardly surprising that a new user wouldn't understand them. Given the frequency of confusion about how to edit the lead, I thought it would help to call attention to the instructions by giving them a section heading. As I began disambiguating the existing instructions, and extending them to include all possibilities, I decided a list format would be the easiest for new users to understand. In general, I follow the advice of usability and communication experts such as Jakob Nielsen and John Brogan (reference: Brogan, J.A. (1973). Clear technical writing. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0070079749.  - it's unfortunate this book is out of print; I wish I could force everyone who writes anything I have to read, to read it).
I won't repeat all their arguments here, but I'll summarize their advice on the passive voice and lists. I used to write habitually in the passive voice, without knowing what it was, until I read John Brogan. At first I could not understand why Brogan advises against it, but after I worked through the exercises in his book, I gained an insight which, sadly, most technical people have not yet gained. I will summarize briefly here; I don't know anything about your background, so bear with me if this is all old hat (but if it is, I'd appreciate hearing how you refute Brogan).
Writing in the passive voice with missing actor introduces unnecessary ambiguity (for example: "allows the lead section to be edited" by what or whom?). The new user will not magically know who or what all the missing actors are, and thus the passive voice makes a document unnecessarily hard to understand. (The writer could, of course, specify all actors with "by..." phrases, but in practice many authors get lazy and omit some actors.) This is one reason why so many people detest reading computer manuals - because they tend to be full of verbs in the passive voice with missing actor. The reader often cannot tell whether the manual is describing some action which the computer (or another person) does (or did) for the user, or the manual is telling the user to do something. The writer who picked up the passive voice habit (often, like I did, without really understanding it) tends to be unaware of the ambiguities, because subconsciously he or she knows the identity of the missing actors and doesn't think about the other possibilities the grammar allows. The active voice eliminates this ambiguity by clarifying actors, actions, and the objects they act upon. Writing in the active voice is a healthy corrective to unclear thinking, because it forces the writer to determine all the actors.
Wikipedia is not a how-to guide, i.e., not a general respository for procedural knowledge, but that refers to the encyclopedic articles. In contrast to the articles, Wikipedia's internal project pages and help pages are one of the largest how-to guides visible to the public - they teach the world how to build the world's largest collaborative encyclopedia. Wikipedia's internal documents are different than encyclopedia articles; encylopedia articles tell the reader about things, whereas many internal documents tell the reader to do things. I subscribe to the technical writing experts who claim that the most direct and understandable way to tell the reader what to do is to use "you (understood)" (the imperative mood). Internal documents (or sections within documents) which prescribe actions for the reader need a different style than documents (or sections within documents) which describe the nature and attributes of objects, concept, people, etc. After all, this is what we do in everyday life. If we want someone to do something, we tell them what to do: "(Please) make me a sandwich." We don't (I hope we don't) create word puzzles such as "The sandwich is to be made." The latter sentence does not actually tell the hearer to do anything. An equally valid interpretation is that the sandwich is to be made by someone else. On Wikipedia, we are writing for vast numbers of strangers around the world, so if our writing allows for multiple interpretations, readers will tend to distribute themselves among all possible interpretations. If we create word puzzles, we make our message less effective - we haven't made the Internet not suck as much as we could have.
Although Wikipedia:Style of policy and guideline pages has an {{historical}} template which might mean it no longer necessarily applies, the page does say:
  • Putting rules in list format is strongly encouraged. (Ugh, more passive voice with missing actor, but I agree with the point about lists.)
In the "How to edit" section, I described four distinct ways to edit a lead section. The logical structure of the procedural branches maps visibly onto the list layout. I'm unable to imagine how a prose rendering could possibly be easier to understand. The reader has four distinct options, and the list format conveys that directly to the reader, in a way that minimizes impact on short term memory. If the same information appeared in prose, the reader would have to plow through it, and then mentally construct the equivalent list. If we wanted to be empirically rigorous, we could conduct usability tests of the type for which Jakob Nielsen charges clients $20,000/day: write instructions in various styles and formats, let experimental subjects read them, and test their comprehension.
Unfortunately, on Wikipedia we don't seem to run those kinds of usability tests. Perhaps the nearest thing we have is the Help desk. I spend a lot of time answering questions on the Help desk, because I have an interest in how people learn to use complex systems, and what causes them to have questions that the systems do not answer. The Help desk is kind of where the rubber hits the road on Wikipedia, and I see the roadkill - folks who read the instructions and didn't get it. When the instructions fail, I try to fix them, using what I have learned from people who make their living by telling people how to tell other people how to do things. --Teratornis (talk) 07:05, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Lede?

The article here lists 'lede' as a possible alternative spelling. Is this vandalism, or is it some jargon I'm unaware of? Just thought I'd better check before removing it... --Plusdown (talk) 19:23, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

It's journalist jargon see Lede (news) or the wiktionary definition--Cailil talk 20:23, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks! Well, as my grandmother liked to say, you learn something new everyday... --Plusdown (talk) 20:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)