Template talk:Expand

Briefs being published? I have no problem with articles being short, but having something published with a huge "expand this article" seems kind of amateurish to me. --MrMiscellanious – Merry Christmas – 22:56, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Some of the briefs that were more than a sentence or two but weren't really "article length" needed a tag. Someone proposed using a this tag... So I edited it a bit and someone added a picture. Basically, editors have been tagging short (but complete) news articles with this tag to encourage people to add more information. The "Expand this article" isn't that huge to me, but perhaps I've got a large screen... :D --Chiacomo ^(talk) 23:02, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't know. That sounds redundant with the Develop tag, which all articles should be under until the articles are as "publishable" as they can be. This tag is being used on quite a few articles that don't recieve any form of development that are in published stage - when they undoubtedly need to be developed more before being published. --MrMiscellanious – Happy Hanukkah – 17:48, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Is there a little too much vertical space after this template? Nyarlathotep 15:46, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry -- how do you mean? --Chiacomo ^(talk) 15:52, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I donno, it just seems like even if you following it immediately with the sources section, it may have slightly too much space. Maybe that can't be fixed, and we should just be more careful about not following it with a blank line. Oh, does MediaWiki have a way for templates to gobble the next line break? Nyarlathotep 19:36, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Contradiction with WN:NOT

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Wikinews articles are not works in progress. Developing articles are marked with the {{develop}} template. Once written and published they are historical documents; they should not continue to be updated or changed.

This template seems to contradict the entire notion of the statement on what Wikinews isn't. Therefore, tihs template should not be used in conjunction with published articles. --MrMiscellanious – Happy Hanukkah – 05:38, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

A article that covers the story factually can be published. If an editor wants to come along an hour or so later and flesh it out, that's good, right? Like it or not, there are published articles every day that are expanded and improved. This wouldn't be a wiki otherwise. --Chiacomo ^(talk) 05:43, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

The overall statement is that articles should be in development until they are as "complete" as they will be. I fear this template is steering away from the site guideline that has been enacted for a long time now; and in such ways, should not be supported in conjunction with published articles. --MrMiscellanious – Happy Hanukkah – 05:45, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I fear that we are not providing rounded news coverage because editors are too lazy to create a long detailed article while others (perhaps like myself) are quite willing to work on an article but don't have the initiative to pick a story to begin with. The template has been used sparingly and should be used sparingly, but... if it increases our coverage and and the quality of our product, I will support it. Incidentally, I'd like to see some "suggest a story" thing implemented again which would take care of part of the problem this template might be solving. Finally, the use of this template is not harmful to the project and seems to have been productive -- if it isn't harmful to the project and is useful to editors, I won't oppose it. --Chiacomo ^(talk) 05:50, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I think that the whole concept of a "published" article is questionable in the Wiki-world - however, we have it, and I certainly don't think it should be dismantled at this point. I do, however, think we need to take radical action to increase the number of articles we produce (and hence, drawing more contributors to the site) and briefs are a way to do this. A contributor should be able to write a couple of sentences describing an event, and not have that article tagged as abandoned and deleted. In my opinion articles should be highly visible (meaning published, or listed in "latest news", RSS feeds, etc) if they are not disputed, and we should recognise that a breif is short and succinct by definition. I agree, however, that this appears to be in contradiction with the policy "Wikinews articles are not works in progress." I will support a policy change that resolves this conflict, although I'm not sure yet what form such a change would take. - Borofkin 11:53, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Also, regarding Chiacomo's comment that this template "should be used sparingly", I disagree. I think we should create as many briefs as we possibly can. If we write them, they will come. - Borofkin 12:05, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

If there are several briefs that can be grouped together, they should be placed under one article heading. If one of them grows, while group thus, it should be brought out and created as a new article. We don't want dozens of little one paragraph articles floating around. --Chiacomo ^(talk) 14:50, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Having to take a brief out of a "grouped" article to create a new article if you want to expand it is a barrier to participation. Look at it from the perspective of a person who has been drawn to the site by a headline that is a brief - if they want to expand it all they have to do is click "expand" and they're away, rather than needing to read instructions on how to move the brief to a new article. Wikipedia has tens of thousands of one paragraph articles, which is part of the success of the site: all the information is there for people to see, even it it isn't as comprehensive as it should be. I'm not suggesting that one paragraph articles are as good as comprehensive articles, I just think that we should tolerate them - they shouldn't be marked as "incomplete" or "abandoned" and then deleted. - Borofkin 22:49, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I like briefs, its a stub for wikinews. I think there best as they're own seperate articles (not to say we can't group them as well) With that said, I beleive we should publish them as breifs, then if nobody updates them in ~3 days , we take the tag off and only allow grammer changes like a normal published article. This way its the best of both worlds. Bawolff ☺☻ 07:28, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

This will happen as part of the normal archiving process, won't it? - Borofkin 23:32, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Sort-of. normal archiving first of all is way behind schedual (by aproximatly ~8mos) Also ussual articles are open for a short period of time (acording to conventions ~2 weeks) for grammer fixes, but content is supposed to be fixed after being {{published}}. What I propose is that we allow content changes for up to ~ 3 days after its been published. Maintaining the idea of drawing them in through stubs and "after its written its over". Bawolff ☺☻ 00:10, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

One year on I see a lot of briefs, and several editors that enjoy expansion: the concept seems to have worked. I would suggest that briefs be given the same 24–48 hour grace period as other published articles. 3 days just feels too long. --InfantGorilla 09:11, 24 November 2006 (UTC)