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Signpost Opinion1

Excerpts: Content reuse within Wikipedia

First steps

[edit]

Almost three years ago, I thought it would be a good idea to merge the Metaphysics section of the Spanish article on Philosophy, with the lead section of the Metaphysics article, and then replace the section for a transclusion of the lead section. After all, they were both summaries of the same topic and had very similar content. So I merged them, created a simple template (based on the #lsth parser function) to transclude lead sections and did replacement. It worked wonderfully: both the Metaphysics section and the Metaphysics article had improved and improving one would now improve the other!

But why stop there? Why not do the same with the sections on Ethics, Logic, Epistemology, History and every other with a main article? Slowly but surely, one by one I merged the content and replaced it for excerpts. No one reverted, no one complained, it was clearly a win-win situation.

Visual representation of a small excerpt tree.

But why stop there? Next I went into the Metaphysics article. There I replaced the sections that had main articles (Ontology, Causality, etc) for excerpts of said main articles, after merging the content of course. Same with the articles on Logic, Ethics, etc. Slowly, a sort of tree started to emerge. I manually drew it on my sandbox and every week I helped it grow bigger. A wonderful process!

But why stop there? This was clearly not limited to Philosophy. Next, I tackled Science. Oh, the potential! History, Methodology, Branches, Community, every section had a main article, and every main article had its own sections with more main articles. Again, ant work, step by step I merged and replaced, and I watched the tree grow and flourish.

But why stop there? Next came Argentina (my country) followed by Climate change, Global warming and more recently COVID-19 pandemic. Somewhere along the path, I was made aware of Module:Excerpt, a module that offered much greater control of what elements to transclude. The template evolved to use this module and became more sophisticated and versatile. New users and uses appeared, such as reusing TV episode tables, election results and sports statistics.

But why stop there? This year I requested a Rapid Grant to help excerpts spread beyond Spanish. It was a difficult process, because the template and module were not designed to be cross-wiki, but now I'm happy to announce that they are fully available on the English, German, Portuguese, Italian and French wikis, and many more are likely to follow since the technology is now fully cross-wiki.

Next steps

[edit]

So what now? I think the next challenge will be to keep the technology the same across languages. I made a huge effort to adapt the template and module to the standards set out at mw:Multilingual Templates and Modules.

This page is a draft for the next issue of the Signpost. Below is some helpful code that will help you write and format a Signpost draft. If it's blank, you can fill out a template by copy-pasting this in and pressing 'publish changes': {{subst:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Story-preload}}


Images and Galleries
Sidebar images

To put an image in your article, use the following template (link):

TKTK
I understand the primacy of pure feeling in creative art.
{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Filler image-v2
 |size      = 300px
 |fullwidth = no
 |alt       = TKTK
 |caption   = 
 |image     = 
}}

This will create the file on the right. Keep the 300px in most cases. If writing a 'full width' article, change |fullwidth=no to |fullwidth=yes.

Inline images

Placing

{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Inline image
 |size     = 300px
 |align    = center
 |alt      = TKTK
 |caption  = 
 |image    =
}}

(link) will instead create an inline image like below

TKTK
The significant thing is feeling, as such, quite apart from the environment in which it is called forth.
Galleries

To create a gallery, use the following

<gallery style="float:right;" mode=packed | heights=200px>
|TKTK
|TKTK
</gallery>

Each line inside the tags should be formatted like File:Whatever.jpg|Caption). This creates:

If you want it centered, remove tstyle="float:right;" from the first line.

Quotes
Framed quotes

To insert a framed quote like the one on the right, use this template (link):

{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Filler quote-v2
 |1         = 
 |author    = 
 |source    = 
 |fullwidth = 
}}

If writing a 'full width' article, change |fullwidth=no to |fullwidth=yes.

Pull quotes

To insert a pull quote like

use this template (link):

{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Quote
 |1         = 
 |source    = 
}}
Long quotes

To insert a long inline quote like

The goose is on the loose! The geese are on the lease!
— User:Oscar Wilde
— Quotations Notes from the Underpoop

use this template (link):

{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/block quote
 | text   = 
 | by     = 
 | source = 
 | ts     = 
 | oldid  = 
}}
Side frames

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

A caption

Side frames help put content in sidebar vignettes. For instance, this one (link):

{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Filler frame-v2
 |1         = Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
 |caption   = A caption
 |fullwidth = no
}}

gives the frame on the right. This is useful when you want to insert non-standard images, quotes, graphs, and the like.

Example − Graph/Charts
A caption

For example, to insert the {{Graph:Chart}} generated by

{{Graph:Chart
 |width=250|height=100|type=line
 |x=1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8|y=10,12,6,14,2,10,7,9
}}

in a frame, simple put the graph code in |1=

{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Filler frame-v2
 |1=
{{Graph:Chart
 |width=250|height=100|type=line
 |x=1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8|y=10,12,6,14,2,10,7,9
}}
 |caption=A caption
 |fullwidth=no
}}

to get the framed Graph:Chart on the right.

If writing a 'full width' article, change |fullwidth=no to |fullwidth=yes.

Two-column vs full width styles

If you keep the 'normal' preloaded draft and work from there, you will be using the two-column style. This is perfectly fine in most cases and you don't need to do anything.

However, every time you have a |fullwidth=no and change it to |fullwidth=yes (or vice-versa), the article will take that style from that point onwards (|fullwidth=yes → full width, |fullwidth=no → two-column). By default, omitting |fullwidth= is the same as putting |fullwidth=no and the article will have two columns after that. Again, this is perfectly fine in most cases, and you don't need to do anything.

However, you can also fine-tune which style is used at which point in an article.

To switch from two-column → full width style midway in an article, insert

{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Signpost-block-end-v2}}
{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Signpost-block-start-v2|fullwidth=yes}}

where you want the switch to happen.

To switch from full width → two-column style midway in an article, insert

{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Signpost-block-end-v2}}
{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Signpost-block-start-v2|fullwidth=no}}

where you want the switch to happen.

Article series

To add a series of 'related articles' your article, use the following code

Related articles
Visual Editor

Five, ten, and fifteen years ago
1 January 2023

VisualEditor, endowment, science, and news in brief
5 August 2015

HTTPS-only rollout completed, proposal to enable VisualEditor for new accounts
17 June 2015

VisualEditor and MediaWiki updates
29 April 2015

Security issue fixed; VisualEditor changes
4 February 2015


More articles

{{Signpost series
 |type        = sidebar-v2
 |tag         = VisualEditor
 |seriestitle = Visual Editor
 |fullwidth   = no
}}

or

{{Signpost series
 |type        = sidebar-v2
 |tag         = VisualEditor
 |seriestitle = Visual Editor
 |fullwidth   = yes
}}

will create the sidebar on the right. If writing a 'full width' article, change |fullwidth=no to |fullwidth=yes. A partial list of valid |tag= parameters can be found at here and will decide the list of articles presented. |seriestitle= is the title that will appear below 'Related articles' in the box.

Alternatively, you can use

{{Signpost series
 |type        = inline
 |tag         = VisualEditor
 |tag_name    = visual editor
 |tag_pretext = the
}}

at the end of an article to create

For Signpost coverage on the visual editor see the visual editor series.

If you think a topic would make a good series, but you don't see a tag for it, or that all the articles in a series seem 'old', ask for help at the WT:NEWSROOM. Many more tags exist, but they haven't been documented yet.

Links and such

By the way, the template that you're reading right now is {{Editnotices/Group/Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue}} (edit). A list of the preload templates for Signpost articles can be found here.