Wikipedia talk:Your first article

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Notice This is a discussion page for a page about writing your first article, not the place to actually write it! If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox or your user page. If you would like to see the page for which this is a discussion page, click here: Wikipedia:Your first article

[edit] Help with this page

After discussion, I have gone ahead and forked this page from WP:Starting an article. I think this one should be more encouraging of new users, and only focused on what we really need from them. I also think it makes sense to have some samples of first article "types" (bios, companies, music): perhaps we can engage some WikiPorjects in this? Thoughts, help and assistance all of course welcome. UnitedStatesian (talk) 03:10, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

This is a good start. I reworded and reordered a bit at the top.
Another avenue to simplify things is to better split "show notability", "add references", "use reliable sources". These are interrelated but distinct topics. Each one of them are difficult for the new writer to grasp.
And the more concise we can make the intro, ideally fitting onto a single browser screen, the more plus-good. Franamax (talk) 05:01, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Great ideas, and thanks for your help so far. I have to turn in, but will tackle again tomorrow. Hopefully we'll attract some more help. UnitedStatesian (talk) 05:56, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I have read it —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sinostrong (talk • contribs) 05:22, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Passing comment

The history of this page is somewhat amusing, although a little disturbing. People are clicking on "edit this page", and then right next to the piece of text saying "PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE EDITING THIS PAGE" followed by "...NOT the correct place to start writing one." they do what? They start writing their first article!!! I mean, holy RTFM batman! I was previously advocating being nice to the newbies, I'm now standing in limbo for an attitude correction. Is there something more we can do, other than big flashing purple boxes? At the least, we're taking some load off the new page patrollers since the new pages aren't being created in mainspace, they're getting written here. Ideas are welcome :) Franamax (talk) 03:56, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

At one point, I put that invisible notice in several sections, though I don't know if it helped at all... Would it be possible to make the one visible on the page 24pt font and bright purple, lol? One thing that I just did on someone's talk page wouldn't stop it from happening, but might stop the repeat offenders (it's amazing how many people see their attempt at starting an article reverted, and then do it all over again!). I basically left a notice box, similar to the one at the top of the page but modified to not say "this page", on their talk page. Hopefully they'll at least see that one. Might it be worth making a template for that very purpose? {{subst:uw-yfa}} or something of the sort? --Icarus (Hi!) 04:01, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
That screwed it up for me. Is it monitor or browser that makes a diff? Phlegm Rooster (talk) 05:31, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Looks like it's a browser thing. I have a dual boot, and it looks fine when I'm using IE on the Windows partition. Since IE is much more common than Safari, which was what I was using when it looked off, let's keep it the way that looks right on IE. --Icarus (Hi!) 10:51, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Especially among the non-tech-savvy. Phlegm Rooster (talk) 10:57, 5 June 2008 (UTC)