CZ Talk:How to edit an article

Citation needed

Hi all! I am editing the article on Johann Sebastian Bach at the moment and I was wondering if there is a way to indicate that a citation or reference is needed for a certain claim or paragraph. I remember that something like this was possible in Wikipedia. Is there something like this on CZ, too? THanks, Matthias Röder 11:52, 9 August 2007 (CDT)

I personally find it a practice of disgust, and anything that requires a "citation needed" should be pulled from the article. It allows for fabrication, rumors, and hearsay.--Robert W King 12:04, 9 August 2007 (CDT)

I am not sure I understand what you mean. Sometimes a not so well-known statement or passage may be important to have for an article. In order for others to find out more about this statement a references or citation might be useful. If such a reference does not exist yet, and if I am currently not capable of providing such a citation, how can I make other editors aware of the fact that a citation is needed? Is there a CZ policy on this? Should I put a comment on the talk page? Matthias Röder 12:16, 9 August 2007 (CDT)

If a reference or a citation does not exist for a "not so well-known statement", then doesn't it seem like you can just about fabricate anything? For instance, I could say "Matthias Röder advocates the stomping of ants(citation needed)". I can't provide a reference for that, and it certainly could be a "no so well-known" fact about you despite it's truth or falsehood.

On Wikipedia, anything can be made up and slapped with a "Citation Needed" reference to ensure its inclusion, regardless of truth. --Robert W King 12:22, 9 August 2007 (CDT)

Let me give you a concrete example from Johann Sebastian Bach. The article states correctly: "The Art of Fugue, published posthumously but probably written years before Bach's death, is unfinished." I know that there are several articles by Bach scholars about this topic (among them Christoph Wolff) and I think it would be great to have those articles listed in a footnote for those readers who are interested in reading more about this. Since I cannot produce the citation myself at the moment (I'm travelling) I would like to bring this to the attention of other editors. Is there a shorthand that would produce a "reference to be added" flag into the text? Or is it better to indicate this in the talk page? All I want to know is whether there is a CZ policy for this situation? Matthias Röder 12:34, 9 August 2007 (CDT)

I would put it on the talk page.--Robert W King 12:56, 9 August 2007 (CDT)

Thanks, Robert! I also posted this on the forum, which I just discovered. Cheers, Matthias Röder 13:01, 9 August 2007 (CDT)

Links need cleanup

The links on this page badly need to be cleaned up. "Help:" (the namespace) is deprecated; the prefixes should be CZ: . --Larry Sanger 10:59, 10 September 2007 (CDT)

Re 'blockquote' -- minor question

If I use <blockquote>I shall return.<ref>xxx</ref></blockquote> to insert a direct quote, do I need to include double quotation marks, as

"I shall return."

? --Anthony.Sebastian 20:13, 20 February 2008 (CST)

Every style guide I know of drops the quotation marks from block quotes. Stephen Ewen 20:22, 20 February 2008 (CST)

Thanks, Stephen. I will drop them. --Anthony.Sebastian 20:56, 28 February 2008 (CST)

Changes

Editing tools in a wiki that help semi automate markup

Special characters and markup available for insertion in editing screen if clicked.

I've gone through this to simplify it a bit, remembering that this is mainly to help get people going. Some bits I've commented out (the dates section) - I don't think we want this, but others may disagree. I think we want to keep this page quite concise though and focussed on the most important things - too much is intimidating to newcomers.Gareth Leng 09:18, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Do we want to have a figure explaining this stuff (see two figures to the right)? I think other browsers might have different tools (possibly more)? Chris Day 09:40, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Many more, such as the framework of a table, appeared in Firefox 2, and I believe in IE 7. For me, FF3 had so many other improvements that I keep many "macros" such as table creation in my userspace. It would be nice to know why the other tools disappeared from (apparently) several users and how to get them back. Howard C. Berkowitz 15:53, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Agonies and Ecstasies: Metadata and clusters

Let me preface this by saying I don't have a good answer. Further, let me add that somewise industrial physicians may determine critical intervention is needed with a programmer that isn't complaining about the software.

I regret that I forget who said it recently, but, at an operational level, a CZ article isn't an article minimally until it is in a cluster, and preferably when it is strongly linked. The simplest example is finding that our goal to 10,000 in March is much closer, after perhaps several hundred articles, listed as uncategorized, now should show in the count (eagerly awaiting a new article count) now have a status that lets them be counted.

Metadata, for many reasons, is not user friendly. Good linking is not easy; I've worked with professional libraries who see that as a key part of their work. We aren't immediately going to have much friendlier cluster creation, or semi-automated Semantic Web-style ontology generation.

In the meantime, I would encourage Citizens, who certainly are better writers than I until I drink much more coffee, think about how to put some encouragement about cluster creation and linking — requesting and encouraging, not demanding — in "how to create an article" and "how to edit an article." Howard C. Berkowitz 15:51, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Clearly clusters and metadata are a big problem for new users. Not to mention what is the purpose of the Definition and Related Articles subpages. i have been trying to lead by example, but you're right that a well crafted explanation is long overdue. Part of the reason I think it has not be written is that it is still evolving but I think we have enough of a foundation now that we can write a user friendly version. Chris Day 16:34, 3 February 2009 (UTC)