Good point. Posts with a bad summary in the wiki are a lot like posts with no summary, except it’s harder to see which ones they are.
We have a few options for dealing with them. What I hope will happen is that people will write better summaries and add them to the wiki in advance. That way the posts can go live with good summaries, plus we’ll be improving the wiki.
Another option is to not include summaries in the posts. I think that some people will find the summaries useful (e.g., in deciding whether to go read the post), so I’d rather have summaries if we can.
Option 3 is to require the person who makes the post to write a summary. I’d prefer to make it as easy as possible to make each day’s post, so that there’s as little friction as possible in getting & keeping this thing going. I’d also like to avoid the situation where one person puts some thought & work into preparing the day’s post, only to have someone else make the post first. That’s why we made it a simple template to fill in.
A fourth option would be to have people write summaries after the post is made and leave them in the comments. Then the post could be edited to include the best summary from the comments. That could work in combination with one of the other options, but I think it’s generally better to try to get a summary done in advance, even if we sometimes replace it with a better summary from the comments.
I’m willing to write summaries of the articles, since I seem to be good at that kind of thing. I’ll start adding them alongside the links on pages like this. It will look a bit messy at first, but we can reformat the summaries that others and I add, and then perhaps add them to the top of the articles (with credit to the summarizer).
Thanks to jwhendy for pointing me to this unmet demand.
The wiki has post summaries in two places. There are pages for summaries by year (like this for 2007) and there are summaries on the sequence pages like the one you linked. Right now, it looks like the same summaries appear in both places. So your summaries (and anyone else’s) should get added to both places on the wiki.
The summaries by year have every post in chronological order, which matches how we’ll be doing the sequence reruns, so we’ll probably be copy-pasting most of our summaries from there.
Giving credit to the summarizers could be tricky since the wiki doesn’t identify who wrote what. I guess there’s information about who made each edit available in the article history, but that would take some work to dig up. Is there a simpler way to do it?
One way is that, if you add a summary, sign it (with ~~~~). I went ahead and did that with the summary I added today. Others who think they can offer an improved summary can append and sign theirs.
The disadvantage is that it adds clutter and breaks the convention of keeping signatures on the discussion pages and off the main. And assigning individual credit for summaries isn’t strictly necessary, but it’s a great motivator.
Another thing that we could do is make a thread in the discussion section about this, which will give people someplace to post their summaries and receive plaudits. That could also attract more attention and encourage more people to get involved.
The summaries on the wiki are on the whole no good, you shouldn’t cite them.
Good point. Posts with a bad summary in the wiki are a lot like posts with no summary, except it’s harder to see which ones they are.
We have a few options for dealing with them. What I hope will happen is that people will write better summaries and add them to the wiki in advance. That way the posts can go live with good summaries, plus we’ll be improving the wiki.
Another option is to not include summaries in the posts. I think that some people will find the summaries useful (e.g., in deciding whether to go read the post), so I’d rather have summaries if we can.
Option 3 is to require the person who makes the post to write a summary. I’d prefer to make it as easy as possible to make each day’s post, so that there’s as little friction as possible in getting & keeping this thing going. I’d also like to avoid the situation where one person puts some thought & work into preparing the day’s post, only to have someone else make the post first. That’s why we made it a simple template to fill in.
A fourth option would be to have people write summaries after the post is made and leave them in the comments. Then the post could be edited to include the best summary from the comments. That could work in combination with one of the other options, but I think it’s generally better to try to get a summary done in advance, even if we sometimes replace it with a better summary from the comments.
Any better options that I’m missing?
I’m willing to write summaries of the articles, since I seem to be good at that kind of thing. I’ll start adding them alongside the links on pages like this. It will look a bit messy at first, but we can reformat the summaries that others and I add, and then perhaps add them to the top of the articles (with credit to the summarizer).
Thanks to jwhendy for pointing me to this unmet demand.
Edit: My first attempt at a summary.
Great! Your first summary looks good.
The wiki has post summaries in two places. There are pages for summaries by year (like this for 2007) and there are summaries on the sequence pages like the one you linked. Right now, it looks like the same summaries appear in both places. So your summaries (and anyone else’s) should get added to both places on the wiki.
The summaries by year have every post in chronological order, which matches how we’ll be doing the sequence reruns, so we’ll probably be copy-pasting most of our summaries from there.
Okay, I’ll put such additions in both places, and I recommend others do the same.
Edit: And here’s Silas summary #2.
Giving credit to the summarizers could be tricky since the wiki doesn’t identify who wrote what. I guess there’s information about who made each edit available in the article history, but that would take some work to dig up. Is there a simpler way to do it?
One way is that, if you add a summary, sign it (with ~~~~). I went ahead and did that with the summary I added today. Others who think they can offer an improved summary can append and sign theirs.
The disadvantage is that it adds clutter and breaks the convention of keeping signatures on the discussion pages and off the main. And assigning individual credit for summaries isn’t strictly necessary, but it’s a great motivator.
Another thing that we could do is make a thread in the discussion section about this, which will give people someplace to post their summaries and receive plaudits. That could also attract more attention and encourage more people to get involved.