I don't think that's an issue, really. Present process:
- No article exists, google doesn't show anything, any redlinks are redlinked..... and user X or passer-by Y decides to write an article "off their own bat". Proposed process: - A draft (but not a mainspace) article exists, google doesn't show anything, any redlinks are redlinked..... and userX or passer-by Y decide to write an article "off their own bat". This time they find another user started a stub but it never went anywhere. Now they can start a new article anyway, or they have someone else to work with. Bear in mind a draft space is not intended to be for "all items unless superb". It's for starters, possible articles not yet ready for mainspace, etc. It has other advantages: - An article with problem statements is mainspaced, then spidered, and continues to propagate round the web while at AFD or after CSD. - There is less pressure to CSD an article; it won't be ranked for promotion nor spidered for harm, so articles under construction can be put there a bit longer than elsewhere. - If a user is working on an article in userspace (which we recommend a lot of the time), then a second user normally won't know about it, so collaboration isn't possible. This way all articles under construction have amuch better chance of being findable by collaborators, or patrolled by would-be improvers. But overall when you compare "userspace or deletion" to "draft space", then this actually might work *better* for collaboration. FT2 On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 1:27 PM, Surreptitiousness < [email protected]> wrote: > FT2 wrote: > > I'd be in favor of a "Draft:" namespace, which users could use for > drafting > > articles. Content to be non-spidered. That way we can tell a user to see > if > > some other user has started work on a draft already. > > > > This would possibly help collaboration, ensure only credible articles get > > mainspaced, yet retain "anyone can edit" and the gradual development of > > stubs without pressure to delete. > > > > Thoughts? > > > > What worries me about it being a draft namespace which is non-spidered > is that you'd lose the ability to grow the contribution base, because > people couldn't stumble upon it. You'd also lose the ability for > Wikipedia itself to grow. I'd rather have the stuff up front and > centre. After all, Wikipedia is always supposed to be a working draft. > I'd rather use something like a sub-standard tag, perhaps even so far as > to embed the tag in the article so that it can only be removed by an > admin or other form of gatekeeper, although how that would work I don't > know. I think there is lack of understanding that the "rules" work on a > gradient on Wikipedia, by which I mean rules apply more rigidly in some > cases than in others, and if we could ingrain that by having tiered > articles, that might be a way forwards. The BLP has been a step in the > right direction, but we haven't really formulated anything for other areas. > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
