Wikipedia:Main article fixation
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This is an essay; it contains the advice and/or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. It is not a policy or guideline, and editors are not obliged to follow it. |
Main article fixation is an effect observed in many Wikipedians. Especially on highly visible and already reasonably complete pages, such as Human, Islam, Hinduism, Sex, World War II or George W. Bush, people are likely to insist that their contribution appear in the main article rather than in a sub-article where it may be better suited, such as
- Human evolution, Human migration, Human anatomy etc. rather than the main Human article,
- Islam and other religions, Apostasy in Islam, Islamic eschatology etc. rather than the main Islam article
- and, conversely, Islam in France, rather than the more specific but also (at the time of writing) more visible 2005 French civil unrest (see also Wikipedia:Recentism)
- haggling over a "demographics" image on the India article instead of working on Demographics of India, Adivasi, or Scheduled caste.
The explanation for this behaviour is the natural desire of the author that his or her contributions be seen by as many readers as possible. Similar to this is lead fixation: Article leads get by far the most attention from editors, and especially if an editor has a political or religious agenda, he or she will insist that their point appear in the intro, where it will get more attention, sometimes without noticing that the same point is already present in the article body.
