Mailing List Archive: [Wikimedia-l] Using excerpts to reduce maintenance and foster collaboration

Hi all! I would like to share a simple editing technique that's in use on
the Spanish Wikipedia and I think should be in use on other Wikipedias and
Wikimedia projects.

It's basically a template
<https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantilla:Extracto> that
transcludes the lead section (or any section) of a page into another page.

So for example, the Spanish article on Science
<https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciencia> transcludes the lead section of the
more specific articles on the scientific method, the history of science,
scientific laws, etc. Check it out!
<https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciencia?action=edit>

Currently there're 380 articles using excerpts
<https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categor%C3%ADa:Wikipedia:Art%C3%ADculos_con_extractos>
and
counting, on topics as diverse as science, philosophy, architecture,
history, countries, sports and TV shows.

Using excerpts could save tremendous amount of work, avoid inconsistencies,
funnel collaboration, and other benefits.

I created an English version of the template
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Excerpt> but I never got to use it.
There's also some English documentation on the technique
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Cascading_content>, for anyone
interested.

Kind regards,
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Hi! I just wanted to say that in principle, I'm a huge fan of this sort of
"refactoring" (as developers might call it). However I've often worried
about widespread use of it in the article space, because it makes it harder
for instance to fix vandalism, and it's more difficult to find attribution
of the visible content. I suppose that's a natural consequence, though, and
probably doesn't outweigh the benefits.

Kind regards,

~MA

On Fri, Sep 13, 2019 at 4:50 PM Felipe Schenone <schenonef@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all! I would like to share a simple editing technique that's in use on
> the Spanish Wikipedia and I think should be in use on other Wikipedias and
> Wikimedia projects.
>
> It's basically a template
> <https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantilla:Extracto> that
> transcludes the lead section (or any section) of a page into another page.
>
> So for example, the Spanish article on Science
> <https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciencia> transcludes the lead section of
> the
> more specific articles on the scientific method, the history of science,
> scientific laws, etc. Check it out!
> <https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciencia?action=edit>
>
> Currently there're 380 articles using excerpts
> <
> https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categor%C3%ADa:Wikipedia:Art%C3%ADculos_con_extractos
> >
> and
> counting, on topics as diverse as science, philosophy, architecture,
> history, countries, sports and TV shows.
>
> Using excerpts could save tremendous amount of work, avoid inconsistencies,
> funnel collaboration, and other benefits.
>
> I created an English version of the template
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Excerpt> but I never got to use
> it.
> There's also some English documentation on the technique
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Cascading_content>, for anyone
> interested.
>
> Kind regards,
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
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