User:Pumpmeup/Project
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[edit] Maintaining a Presentable Encyclopedia
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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. |
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This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia needs to become a presentable encyclopedia to readers. |
Something that many editors may have forgotten when being absorbed in their quest to improve Wikipedia, is that we are actually attempting to create a presentable, usable encyclopedia. Wikipedia will always be a work in progress, so for that reason we need to aim to make it as presentable and formal as possible whilst working on it. Reading a random article in the Encyclopedia Britannica, the user will not be faced with intrusive boxes telling them that the page is in need of in-line citations, for example. This disrupts the flow of a learning resource and instead turns into into a project, something end users of an encyclopedia are not looking for. One does not look up information on a subject for a school assignment with the end goal of improving the article, encyclopedia readers want the information.
[edit] Examples of "unpresentability"
- Tags at the start of articles
- Other Wikipedia maintenance issues issues presented to readers.
[edit] Goal of essay
To create awareness that the actual article page in the mainspace should only be used for presenting the article itself to the world, not for messages and the like on how to improve it. The talk pages should probably be the pages that are tagged with boxes telling editors what needs to be done/problems with the article.
