jjcogliati-wp wrote:

This patch adds a new system message newtalktext to fix bug 948

Attached:

I don't understand what's supposed to be wrong with the existing text. Marking as WONTFIX pending more information.

jjcogliati-wp wrote:

There are two reason for this change:

1. If you had just clicked a link to a discussion page, would the default text

make sense to you? As in does it tell you that you are creating a dissusion
about another page, not a new article? (I will admit that my text is not
optimal for this purpose either.)

2. As it is used in the English wikipedia (and I believe the German wikipedia

and others), the newarticletext is used as if it was only shown when creating a
new article. Here is what I saw when I went to create a new discussion to an
existing article:

Wikipedia does not yet have a Talk page called Scarcity.

• To start the article, begin typing in the box below. When you're done,

press the "Save page" button. Your changes will be visible immediately.

• Please do not create an article to promote yourself, a website, a product,

or a business (see Wikipedia:Policy).

• If you are new to Wikipedia, please read the tutorial before creating your

first article, and only use the sandbox for editing experiments.

• Search for Scarcity in Wikipedia

Either this text needs to be made generic ( see my comment at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Newarticletext#Doesn.27t_make_sense_for_talk_page
) or the software needs to be made so that there are seperate messages for new
articles and new talk pages. I would be happy if either happened, but I was
unable to think of a consise message that worked for both, so instead I created
this patch so that different messages could be created for each.

I still see nothing wrong with the default text. The English Wikipedia text has
the minor problem that someone inserted the word "article", other than that
I don't see a problem.

jjcogliati-wp wrote:

I think that the default text is reasonable for both talk and articles (I think
that it could be better for talk pages however).

Here is my comments for the wikipedia text line by line:

Wikipedia does not yet have a Talk page called Scarcity.

• To start the article, begin typing in the box below. When you're done,

press the "Save page" button. Your changes will be visible immediately.
--That is fine except for the article bit.

*If this page is in the main namespace:
--Which is fine, but how many new users know what a Wikipedian means by main
namespace, so the comments about the if part are relevent. Do we really want to
have to explain namespaces to a new user just so that they know if it is safe to
create a talk page? The software can easily determine if this is a main
namespace, so why shouldn't the software be the one to do this?

• Please do not create an article to promote yourself, a website, a product,

or a business (see Wikipedia:Policy).
--Mostly irrelevent for a talk page. In the context of a talk page, I think
that this might discourage comments more that I would like.

• If you are new to Wikipedia, please read the tutorial before creating your

first article, and only use the sandbox for editing experiments.
--Ridiculous in the context of a talk article. Does anyone seriously think that
we should in anyway imply that commenting on an article requires someone to read
an eleven page tutorial? If you are a brand new user, you might very well think
that.

• Search for Scarcity in Wikipedia

--This is there for the article page to make sure that you are not creating a
duplicate article.

The German text requests that people look in the german wiktionary (again,
illrelevent in the context of a talk page).

The English Wiktionary requests that users see the help page if they are new,
and calls a talk page an entry, not an talk page:

• To start the entry, type in the box below and click "Save page". Your

changes will be visible immediately.

• If you are new to Wiktionary, please see the help page, or use the sandbox

for experiments.

Some of the more useful comments that I have recieved for articles have come
from new users who have never made any contribution to wikipedia before. I
think that they should be encourage as much as possible to comment on articles
(and if you find the article confusing, editing the page is not a reasonable
alternative). As I read the text in the english wikipedia newarticletext
message, I would be discouraged from commenting if there was no existing talk page.

So, the system message that is entitled newarticletext (note that it is
newARTICLEtext, not newPAGEtext), is generally being used as if it was only
displayed for new *articles* in the English Wikipedia, the English Wiktionary
and the German Wikipedia and probably more that I lack the language skills to check.

The patch that is attached allows the software to determine if the article is in
the article namespace, or the talk namespace and present different text, which
the actual use of the message implies is a needed function in the software.

jjcogliati-wp wrote:

I asked a non-wikipedian what they thought about the English Wikipedia
newarticletext message. Their comments were:

1. What is a namespace?
2. I thought I was going to a discussion.
3. What is a sandbox?
4. What is the definition of an experiment? I am new to wikipedia, so

everything I do including typing in a box is an experiment.

5. The whole thing (including more than just the new page text) has been so

discouraging that I am never going to do anything with Wikipedia even though I
have enough knowledge to edit some things.

Is this what we want people to think who have never used wikipedia before? Or
should we encourage new users (in the context of this bug 948 to comment, but
the point extends to more areas)?

rowan.collins wrote:

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 626 ***