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Creating empty pages

A

andysmith

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 24, 2004
342
0
West Mids, UK
I don't see much point in things like this.
If there's no content at all, it'd be better to leave it empty, so it shows up as a red link on other pages. (to make it easy to see that it needs creating)

Edit: It was empty when I first posted. But there's still a lot of pages like it.
 
andysmith said:
I don't see much point in things like this.
If there's no content at all, it'd be better to leave it empty, so it shows up as a red link on other pages. (to make it easy to see that it needs creating)

Edit: It was empty when I first posted. But there's still a lot of pages like it.
Click to expand...

We just started this - so give it some time and you'll see it fill up.

D
 
It also helps if people mark incomplete pages as {{stub}} so we can click on the stubs link and see which pages need work. Also, too many of the empty pages don't have categories. Adding categories would help prevent people from creating slightly differently named duplicate pages.
 
andysmith said:
I don't see much point in things like this.
If there's no content at all, it'd be better to leave it empty, so it shows up as a red link on other pages. (to make it easy to see that it needs creating)

Edit: It was empty when I first posted. But there's still a lot of pages like it.
Click to expand...

Creating blank pages is a good practice when you are editing a wiki and think that a page should be there. You just put the [[brackets]] around it and then if there isn't a page - it will show up red. No biggie. Someone else can make that page.

The more pages that link to that page, the higher up it shows on the [[Special:Wanted pages]] page - showing that it is a page that is in demand. It creates a good way to know what kind of supporting content needs to be created.

When I edit a Wiki, I usually just look at the wanted pages and start from there creating backfill to help support the other articles.

Rye Brye
 
Rye Brye said:
Creating blank pages is a good practice when you are editing a wiki and think that a page should be there. You just put the [[brackets]] around it and then if there isn't a page - it will show up red. No biggie. Someone else can make that page.

The more pages that link to that page, the higher up it shows on the [[Special:Wanted pages]] page - showing that it is a page that is in demand. It creates a good way to know what kind of supporting content needs to be created.

When I edit a Wiki, I usually just look at the wanted pages and start from there creating backfill to help support the other articles.

Rye Brye
Click to expand...
Yes, but if people actually 'create' that page (usually by following a red link), and only put a heading there, the page doesn't show up as blank. That's what I meant when starting the thread - not people linking to uncreated pages.

Here's an example of what I mean:
http://guides.macrumors.com/IMac_G3_(Revision_A)

The page is created (it showed up when I clicked Random Page), but there's no content. If I saw a link to it on another page, it would be blue, and I would think (without clicking on it) that it had content. Whereas if it was a red link, I'd know it was blank, and I'd probably go and fill in some details on it.

It's not a big thing, but it may help make it easier to expand the site.
 
Spank that person!

andysmith said:
Yes, but if people actually 'create' that page (usually by following a red link), and only put a heading there, the page doesn't show up as blank. That's what I meant when starting the thread - not people linking to uncreated pages.

Here's an example of what I mean:
http://guides.macrumors.com/IMac_G3_(Revision_A)

The page is created (it showed up when I clicked Random Page), but there's no content. If I saw a link to it on another page, it would be blue, and I would think (without clicking on it) that it had content. Whereas if it was a red link, I'd know it was blank, and I'd probably go and fill in some details on it.

It's not a big thing, but it may help make it easier to expand the site.
Click to expand...

I probably should have followed your link the first place to see what you meant.

Yeah, in that case it's not very smart to create the page. Someone <should> have marked it as a Stub - and at least put a sentance in there to get it started. Oh well. There should be a "spank person who started this" button.
 
As this whole thing just started, I think we need to give it some time to flesh out and form. There will be a lot of clean-up required, reorganizing and the like, but the end result is going to be great!
 
cube said:
I think creating a page just to add {{Stub}} is bad.
Click to expand...

Stubs are good to either point out topics which should be addressed, or are possibly used as temporary place holders by people who intend on filling out the content at a later date.

Give it time. People will eventually fill all the information in... ;)
 
~Shard~ said:
As this whole thing just started, I think we need to give it some time to flesh out and form. There will be a lot of clean-up required, reorganizing and the like, but the end result is going to be great!
Click to expand...
Yep! I'm really excited about it - it's amazing how much it's grown just in the last day.
 
If I might make a suggestion:

It might be a good idea for people to make themselves a little template that they can insert into pages that they are working on and then remove once the page is ready.

The one I use is [[User:Kalisphoenix/Don't Touch]], which is unprofessional and kinda rude but it works (you include it simply by typing {{User:Kalisphoenix/Don't Touch}}, for newbies). I include a ::~~~~ after it and the page is thus marked as being under construction as well as signed and dated. If the signature is more than a half hour old, it means that something wierd is going on.

That's messy, of course, and there's also the possibility that people will accidentally leave these templates inserted in the documents they work on. My solution was to create a category and include the category ([[Category:Stuff Nate is Messing Up]]), but then that showed up on the front page and made me look really stupid. I guess the best thing to do is just be sure to keep track of what you're working on and don't mess it up :)

If anyone has any problems with this activity, better/different suggestions, or whatever, I'd like to hear them.
 
Agreed. Far superior to mine. I'm not good with that <div> stuff -- all I know of HTML is what I hand-copied and used to create my sites in the mid-90's 8)

Thanks for that.
 
Another idea: follow the "Cheers :)" with a carriage return and then something like:
:::{{{1}}}

Then you consistently insert the template by typing {{User:Kalisphoenix/Don't Touch|~~~~}}.

That'll insert the the template and, at the bottom, a line break followed by three <TAB>s and your signature and the date/timezone/et cetera. :)
 
I posted a few of those blank pages, including the Adobe one. I've been refraining from doing that any more, though I think all the blank pages I did create at least were marked as stubs.

One problem with not creating the blank pages is that it seems like they won't show up in "Wanted" unless there's at least two proposed, dead links to that non-existant page. Sometimes that page might be necessary, though. Anyway, not proposing we should keep creating blank pages, just throwing that out there.
 
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