Academic Kids talk:Guide to writing better articles/Integrate changes

Supporters of this rule include:

• Larry Sanger
• Linus Tolke
• Pinkunicorn (strongly)
• Koyaanis Qatsi
• sjc
• Janet Davis
• drj
• Mike Dill (hard isn't it?),
• Damian Yerrick (who personally doesn't think it's that hard),
• GWO
• tbc
• AxelBoldt, 24,
• Enchanter I agree strongly! If the text you want to add flows logically it's so much easier to read the article
• Karen Johnson
• Rotem Dan (This is a significant characteristic of brilliant prose)
• r3m0t 10:29, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)
• Loisel 03:37, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

No opponents

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You can and should add disjunct comments to an article. Over time, these comments will accumulate, and eventually there will be enough so that you or some other Wikinaut can junct them into beautiful prose.

Are you really saying "Don't ever add add comments to the bottom of the article. Always integrate your comments." ?

However, comments relevent to the existing beautiful prose should be integrated into the flow of the article rather than tacked on. The rule, as presently formulated, is correct for such cases, but is harmfully restrictive with regards to comments not relevent to the prose as it currently exists.

There's nothing "harmfully restrictive" about it: if you are a good writer and you understand the subject, you will easily be able to figure out where in the article your comment fits. But this much is true: if you feel motivated to add a paragraph but you don't feel motivated to put it anywhere in particular, sure, go ahead and tack it onto the bottom. Just realize that you're creating work for other people, who will (or won't) use your contribution in updating the article properly later on. If you feel at all motivated, please do update the article properly, i.e., integrate your contribution with the existing entry. --LMS

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It is harmfully restrictive, in that if the rule were consistently followed it would restrict how people comment in a way that is harmful to the growth of Wikipedia. It would prevent people from adding information that cannot be integrated into the material already written, without adding a substantial amount of new material. In cases when people do not wish to add a substantial amount of new matieral, they would leave nothing. Adding new information to the bottom of the page is preferable to adding nothing.

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Well, I agree 100% with the latter paragraph. But this is consistent with what I said. I've edited the rule so you ought to be able to agree with it now, Tim. --LMS

What should I do when I find (someone else's) disjointed comments at the end ?

Perhaps we could change

• please place and edit your comments so that they flow seamlessly with the present text.

to something like

• Go ahead and append comments at the end of the article. But please move and edit such comments -- even those written by others -- so that they flow seamlessly with the present text.

?

If this were really a hard rule -- ""Don't ever add add comments to the bottom of the article." -- then the proper thing to do would be to post to the User_talk page of the user who added that comment, telling him Don't ever do that again.

But I think "integrate changes" is a much softer rule -- sort of like the "spell correctly" rule. If I see a typo, I quietly fix it. --DavidCary 15:14, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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See also Tim's Refactoring as the essential Wikipedia process.

Proposal to consolidate advice on writing better articles

At present there are many articles in the Wikipedia namespace that seek to give guidance on how to write better articles. I propose consolidating these into a much smaller number. On User:Jongarrettuk/Better writing guide I propose how these could be consolidated. The proposal is not to change advice, just to consolidate it. If I have inadvertently moved what you consider to be good advice that is currently in the Wikipedia namespace, please re-add it. I'm hope that the proposal to merge all these articles, in principle, will be welcomed. Of course, it may be preferred to have 2, 3 or 4 inter-connected articles than just one and would welcome advice on how this could be done. (In particular, perhaps all the guidance on layout should be spun off into one consolidated article on layout.) I'm also aware that putting lots of different bits of advice together may throw up anomalies or bits that people now disagree with (including bits that I myself disagree with:) ). I ask for support for the consolidation. Once the consolidation has happened, the advice can be changed in the normal way. Please feel free to improve on the current draft consolidation, but don't remove or add advice that is not currently on the Wikipedia namespace. If all goes well, I'll add a new Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles page on the 19th, though maybe some bits of the new article will need to be phased in over a longer period. I'll also take care to preserve all the archived discussion in one place. jguk 19:47, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)