RationalWiki talk:To do list/Suggestions
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[edit] Is this helpful at all?
Is this helpful at all? it just says, "hey, write this article for me." Perhaps if people want an article they should write it themselves. Sophiebecause liberals 18:02, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- And what is with the pointless voting? ТySerious Business Guy 18:03, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- It is not doing any harm, Wiki is not paper and all that. And if it can help spark something for someone, why not? Tmtoulouse (talk) 18:05, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- I think it does do harm, cause i think it sparks stubs. People see the suggestions and write one hit wonders "Chai is a tea from india with milk" and never return to it. redlinks should be sufficient, right? and yes, i'm whiny today, so ignore me if you want.
GodotGrow a vagina 18:07, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- Why is a stub worse than no article? Tmtoulouse (talk) 18:09, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- Ohh, my pet peeve, stubs. Why are they worse than no article? 1) the look lazy and bad. You click on "tea" to find what you already knew. nothing more and probably less. 2) They almost universally require more work on the part of people cleaning them up, than if the person just started from scratch - if only cause most editors respect the voices of prior editors and try to keep some of their voice intact. 3)they remove red links, so we think the article is done, and no one goes and fixes it. I spent the first 2 months of my return, just fixing stubs in the abortion section. There were some stubs that were actually perfectly fine starts, cause they were more than one liners. but the majority really are just I know one or two facts about X so I'll write that down and not look into anything else. That's my two cents, or given inflation, 20 bucks worth.
GodotGrow a vagina 18:14, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- I tend to agree with the above. I'm not sure if the claimed effect of this page exists, though - the only people who seem to read this page and blueify the links are the ones who add links to it in the first place. Perhaps we can add a warning, "A stub is not enough" or "This is for wanted articles, not wanted stubs" or something? --ZooGuard (talk) 18:18, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- Or, "if you're not sure if a topic is article-worthy, ask about it at the saloon bar." That's how that sheriffs' association thing happened yesterday. Sophiebecause liberals 18:21, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- I guess part of it comes down to what a stub means, uh just pulling from some of the stub articles I have written look something like Scientific validity (minus some formatting done after the fact). Compare to some of Ed Poor's work. Tmtoulouse (talk) 18:23, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- "not as bad as Ed Poor" doesn't do it for me. Sophiebecause liberals 18:24, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- Then yeah, we have a definition problem. Those were "stubs" i found useful when redoing the abortion stuff. they had a good place to spin from. But the last 2 days have been a constant battle over somepeople writing something with one or two sentences, and others saying "that should be deleted". I think there have been 5 created in the last few days, that all generate (as sophie said) "more information than the article". Howard Stern for example.
GodotGrow a vagina 18:26, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- I think that that was the only one that was linked from here. I've seen a few others (e.g. History woo), but they seem to be drive-bys from BONs.--ZooGuard (talk) 18:29, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- That stuff falls more into the category I was calling "very short articles" back when I was running stubbot. When the VSA category was created it was encouraged to expand the articles or if no one was willing or able to delete them. We even had a precedent policy of not needing voting/discussion to deal with VSA articles. This was a while ago though. Tmtoulouse (talk) 18:30, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- (this is mostly a joke, mostly). I"m for a new rule, we have a rule that if your article is less than 2 sentences, it gets dumped and you get blocked for a day. ;-) (Zoo, i'm not really thinking of a BON, but this is not about one particular editor, just how we are addressing topics that should be written).
- Ultimately, part of this problem is that we don't have any real way of knowing what's out there, what should be written, etc., and having a real way to address it. I'm sure this is what the suggestion list was for, but it's not really doing it's purpose. The highest voted articles are things we all say "oh, that needs to be written", but know is too daunting or complex to actually want to write, so we ignore it. As I said elsewhere, most editors feel they are good at a few topics (religion and women's issues, for example) and that's where we focus. we write about things we want to see here, and have our opinions about those topics in our articles or our edits. Something no oen wants to write, no matter how important, won't get written. I'm just not convinced that this is working as an answer. as zoo said, only people using it, aren't necessarily giving us useful places to start.
GodotGrow a vagina 18:38, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- Then yeah, we have a definition problem. Those were "stubs" i found useful when redoing the abortion stuff. they had a good place to spin from. But the last 2 days have been a constant battle over somepeople writing something with one or two sentences, and others saying "that should be deleted". I think there have been 5 created in the last few days, that all generate (as sophie said) "more information than the article". Howard Stern for example.
- "not as bad as Ed Poor" doesn't do it for me. Sophiebecause liberals 18:24, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- I tend to agree with the above. I'm not sure if the claimed effect of this page exists, though - the only people who seem to read this page and blueify the links are the ones who add links to it in the first place. Perhaps we can add a warning, "A stub is not enough" or "This is for wanted articles, not wanted stubs" or something? --ZooGuard (talk) 18:18, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- Ohh, my pet peeve, stubs. Why are they worse than no article? 1) the look lazy and bad. You click on "tea" to find what you already knew. nothing more and probably less. 2) They almost universally require more work on the part of people cleaning them up, than if the person just started from scratch - if only cause most editors respect the voices of prior editors and try to keep some of their voice intact. 3)they remove red links, so we think the article is done, and no one goes and fixes it. I spent the first 2 months of my return, just fixing stubs in the abortion section. There were some stubs that were actually perfectly fine starts, cause they were more than one liners. but the majority really are just I know one or two facts about X so I'll write that down and not look into anything else. That's my two cents, or given inflation, 20 bucks worth.
- Why is a stub worse than no article? Tmtoulouse (talk) 18:09, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- I think it does do harm, cause i think it sparks stubs. People see the suggestions and write one hit wonders "Chai is a tea from india with milk" and never return to it. redlinks should be sufficient, right? and yes, i'm whiny today, so ignore me if you want.
I didn't say that. Also, note that I'm one of the people using it (adding links, writing stuff, mainly doing maintenance work). I think that the list is useful in some cases:
- People who are bored and don't mind learning something new. "Hey, this sounds interesting, I can research it."
- Newcomers that may have some specialized interests or knowledge but don't know where to begin. "They don't have an article on X? Really?"
- As a centralized bookmark repository. "I'm going to write an article on X, but I don't have time right now. Someone else may have, though." (And this is the original meaning of a "to do" list.)--ZooGuard (talk) 18:47, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
This is a very useful page, I keep an eye on it, and stubs are great. A stub is a vast improvement over no article. If you want RationalWiki to look like a finished product, you can't have it be a live site as well. You just can't have a polished and finished-looking wiki that's alive. That just isn't how wikis work. - David Gerard (talk) 19:18, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- I have an idea. when someone clicks on a redlink, there are links offered to Help:New Article and RationalWiki:What is a RationalWiki article? these don't seem to get followed much. Is there a way of saying a brief version of those pages on the new page screen? Sophiebecause liberals 19:25, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- You need to edit MediaWiki:Newarticletext.--ZooGuard (talk) 19:41, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- Which requires a Mod or Tech, though I like that idea. Тyrannis 19:42, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- I've got to say that this page doesn't seem to be particularly useful. If somebody wants to write something why don't they just create a stub? I've got nothing against stubs - I created many in my more productive phase many of which are now big articles.--BobSpring is sprung! 21:46, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- As you can see above, we have people who think their mission in life is to cull the fresh shoots because they look untidy - David Gerard (talk) 22:19, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- I've got to say that this page doesn't seem to be particularly useful. If somebody wants to write something why don't they just create a stub? I've got nothing against stubs - I created many in my more productive phase many of which are now big articles.--BobSpring is sprung! 21:46, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- Which requires a Mod or Tech, though I like that idea. Тyrannis 19:42, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- You need to edit MediaWiki:Newarticletext.--ZooGuard (talk) 19:41, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
[edit] I would like to make a suggestion
But I can't, because the page is protected from editing. I think there should be an article on John Willke, a pro-life activist who was apparently responsible for the "can't get pregnant from rape" myth.--Tanis (talk) 05:20, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
- It's a mediaeval myth, but he is the most prominent current vector for it - David Gerard (talk) 07:40, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
[edit] What to do with nuked suggestions?
Do we leave them on the list, remove them, or archive them?--"Shut up, Brx." 17:08, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Suggestion: Computer science woo
Hi. I can't seem to figure out how to edit the list directly (I assume I'm lacking some sort of privilege) and the various guides are of no help, so I thought I'd put this here. Basically, although there's some mention of this in Engineers and woo, there seems to be no article about the sort of woo that shows up in CS or IT from time to time, although the field certainly doesn't lack its rattlesnake oil salesmen (cloud computing will solve all your problems, HURD as a historical example, whatever the hell this is) or its entertaining obscure cranks (e. g. SpectateSwamp). Think it might be worth a try? --Yukabacera (talk) 16:13, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Does anyone actually use this?
Does anyone actually use this page to start potentially popular articles? Daylight Saving Time has an upvote of over 20, Causality over 10, but they're still redlinks despite being on the list for months. SophieWilder
08:11, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
- Yes, but very slowly. I deleted the original archive because all the suggestions were already completed. Osaka Sun (talk) 08:20, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
- Sorry, I meant do you write article that somebody else suggested? I also wonder if it might be more helpful to have our own list of things to do that you know about (but don't have time to do right now), and ask someone else who we think knows (eg Tweenk on nuclear energy, or me on...er...um... ooh isn't it a nice day?) SophieWilder
08:27, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
- Sorry, I meant do you write article that somebody else suggested? I also wonder if it might be more helpful to have our own list of things to do that you know about (but don't have time to do right now), and ask someone else who we think knows (eg Tweenk on nuclear energy, or me on...er...um... ooh isn't it a nice day?) SophieWilder
[edit] Ervin László
What happened to the poll about Ervin László? I could have sworn I added it to the list...--Кřěĵ (ṫåɬк) 18:20, 26 October 2013 (UTC)
[edit] Susan G. Komen for the Cure
I'm sitting here pondering it. Since we have the ribbon thing up, is there enough dirt on how a charity feels like an industry? Zero (talk - contributions) 01:50, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
[edit] "Non-binary identities"
Please don't make a separate article on this until sexual identity is actually worth reading. FrizzyCatPotato (talk/stalk) 00:23, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
- Sexuality and gender are two different things. How does one article have any bearing on the other? Abed Nadir (talk) 00:59, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
- Whoops, misread the suggestion as being about sex. Instead, the article gender identity should be made and what would be in that article should be incorporate into it. FrizzyCatPotato (talk/stalk) 01:36, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
- It may be worthwhile to merge gender dysphoria into gender identity, if it ever gets made. FrizzyCatPotato (talk/stalk) 01:37, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
- Whoops, misread the suggestion as being about sex. Instead, the article gender identity should be made and what would be in that article should be incorporate into it. FrizzyCatPotato (talk/stalk) 01:36, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
[edit] Vatican II
I made a Vatican II page, but all this poll/poll id mumbo jumbo is confusing hell out of me, especially with the ominous "DON'T MESS THIS UP" warnings, so... could someone move that entry for me? PacWalker 00:33, 3 April 2015 (UTC)