Wikipedia talk:Supporting Articles

Purpose

Just to briefly explain my purpose for this page, it is meant to help bridge the gap that exists because of our duty of being an comprehensive encyclopedia, our goal of avoiding indiscriminate information through notability guidelines, and our distribution of information from size requirements and summary style approaches. This encompasses several recent discussions that basically can be attributable to the conflict between these three areas. It is not meant to make any absolute assessment of such articles, but only to caution when something is likely to be kept over those that will be deleted under present practice. --MASEM (t) 18:16, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

• i see what you are trying to do but i think that this is currently worded more like an essay than a guideline and probably needs to be re-organized... you state your conclusion at the end... really you need the conclusion (the guideline) at the start and the support materials after... i get that you need the essay to justify why this even needs to be here... i would even leave that in here temporarily... maybe a "justification for the guideline" part... or something... Arskwad (talk) 19:06, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
  • There is probably a lot of text wrangling to be done here; I don't propose this as final but only seek comments as to "do we even need this", "is this even current practice" , etc. Arguably, a lot of what is present is the type of stuff that WP:IAR applies to but, but these type of articles fall through the cracks of every other policy and end up core to many recent disputes. --MASEM (t) 19:51, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Consider term: Subarticles

I recommend to use the term "subarticles" to describe splitting articles into various major parts. There are several problems with the term "supporting articles":

• A "supporting article" could be considered like the "supporting cast" which supports more than one, so confusion would arise as to which article(s) the support refers.
• The plural (as "supporting articles") is likely to translate badly (for other-language Wikipedias), seen as a verb phrase: to provide support for articles. Some translations would see "supporting articles" as a verb/activity, rather than an adjective+noun.
• Some people are likely to claim that articles, which they personally do not like, should be considered "supporting articles" (aha!) of some other article, and now this guideline could be used to censor their contents and structure.

Those are some issues about using the term "supporting articles". Instead, the term "subarticles" would be limited to articles which are mainly topics split from a larger article. -Wikid77 (talk) 15:30, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, quite. What does an additional article "support"? "Supporting material" is an appendix; these aren't appendices, they are articles in their own right. An attempt to introduce the new concept of a "supporting article" isn't a good idea. Fences&Windows 20:40, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Each guideline becomes a minefield of conflicts

Please remember that many users will see a new guideline, and think, "Wow! That might be yet another way I can control those other people who seem to want to write articles with too much freedom". It is important to consider the endless debates and multiple thousands of users who will enter into the typical new, vicious, hostile, hateful, venomous, rude, and surly discussions with their fellow Wikipedians, while trying to write a more wholesome Wikipedia for the readership seeking the "sum of all knowledge". Also, some other editors might see a short guideline and think, "Wow! That guideline is so short, there is room for dozens more rules to restrict the underhanded actions of those other people who might split articles in the nefarious ways they are aways planning because almost everyone (but us) violates WP:Assume good faith". Beware how creating a new guideline will empower people to think about opposing the other users in those ways. A guideline can be, or can be mutated to be, a powerful new weapon for fighting with other users who aren't in any disputes yet. Consider if the guideline should, perhaps, be just one or two sentences in some other, larger guideline. -Wikid77 (talk) 15:20, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

The main problem with this proposal is that it invents a new concept, is unclear, and contains far too much prose. I can't see this becoming a guideline, there's no obvious need for it. What does it offer that Wikipedia:Manual of Style (summary style) doesn't? Fences&Windows 20:42, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

The big picture problem is notability. SS only suggests creating subarticles that are notable and goes on on how to maintain the split. It does not offer advice on non-notable subarticles which are necessary but an issue for some editors who insist notability is the only inclusion metric. At the same time, it does not offer significant advice when the best time to split out an article. --MASEM (t) 20:49, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Criticism

I think the proposal conflicts both in the letter and in spirit with WP:NOT#ESSAY which prohibits the type of sourced article this describes. Where a topic is well sourced, those sources are summarised, not put into standalone articles that have no notabiliy. Essay themes such as Criticism of Judaism are not notable topics in their own right, because the sources don't address the topic directly and in detail. It is fine to have a header in an essay with this title to facilitate the presentation of an article, but as standalone topics they fail WP:AVOIDSPLIT. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 15:54, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

There are no essays being discussed here. That is, this is not addressing articles that start "I believe that X is Y due to the following" or the like. Essays are personal opinions and written that way and very distinguishable from articles addressed here that otherwise meet V, OR, and NPOV but simply don't fit well into a larger topic. --MASEM (t) 16:17, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

That pretty much defines an essay. Within any particular article, there are many ways to present the sources, e.g. the article Stalin show his live as a chronological whole and is arranged in such a way that editors agree given due weight to a particular time or theme in his live. If an editor thinks that the sources should give more emphasis to a particular theme, e.g. Antisemitism and Joseph Stalin, then that is effectively a personal essay about a topic that is already givne due weight in the main article. The content of the article does not have to be personal; rather it is the theme that has been personally selected. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 16:42, 23 July 2010 (UTC)