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There are several advanced techniques to help improve the editing of Wikipedia articles. Most of the tips given here involve using typical browser settings and standard text-editors, such as those for side-by-side editing. While special software packages to allow customized editing do exist, they are typically not available when using other computers for wiki-editing.
Faster displayedit
Setting user preferencesedit
Hide edit-toolbar – Turning off the edit-toolbar can make a short edit-page appear 2x-4x faster (right-click top option "My preferences", click tab "Editing" and unclick "Show edit-toolbar" option).
NOTE: Some article intro-sections do not contain every top image, so sometimes, editing just the whole article could be quicker for improving image placement.
Skipping slow parts of articlesedit
After clicking "Show preview", all cumbersome tables or navboxes must be reformatted during the preview, but can be skipped by adding comments or #ifeq.
Consider commenting out those massive, gigantic bottom navboxes that typically double (or triple) the S-L-O-W-N-E-S-S of article previews: just put "<!--" and "-->" around the bottom navbox-template codings. (Even with high-speed Internet, large navboxes take a long time to load.)
Consider conditional skip of text, using MediaWiki #ifeq-statements: using the markup language, surround omitted sections with "{{#if: skip |skip part 1|" and ending with "}}". Only "skip part 1" will show. Although HTML comments cannot be nested, the #ifeq-statements can be nested, as long as the spanned text does not upset the use of vertical-bar "|" or "}}" text.
Consider pasting troublesome sections of an article into a test-page for repeated changes and previews: edit as a user-space page (User:XXX/TestZZ) and copy/paste some text there for repeated changing and previewing. Perhaps have an "edit-TestZZ" window all the time.
NOTE: For broader testing, the copied part of an article often spans 2 or 3 sections, rather than having just 1 section for editing. Be sure to copy enough sections for an accurate preview.
Side-by-side editingedit
The Wikipedia article edit window is not designed for side-by-side editing, due to the formatted article preview usually being on the top half of the page, and the edit buffer being typically far below (near the bottom of the page). By the time various issues have been noticed, the user might have forgotten where each of them occurred within the edit buffer. When using two browser windows for side-by-side editing, however, the text (or image) is noticed in one window and can be located and changed in the other window, thereby allowing numerous precise changes to be made much faster without forgetting the minor details. The second window could show an edit preview, a diff, or the history tab list. Compared with the productivity of using only one browser window, using two windows in this way can be an improvement.
Using an external editoredit
Many text editors which can perform a variety of functions are available on all major operating systems, some of which can be found at the List of text editors. Some text editors can only edit plain text; others can handle rich text and provide features which can assist with editing, such as syntax highlighting (including for MediaWiki) and spell checking. Alternatively, word processors (see also List of word processors) can be used and generally can perform many of the same functions that text editors can, including string substitutions like those described below; however, the text formatting may not transfer (especially when editing the source) and other complications may occur.
One method of allowing side-by-side editing is to copy the browser edit window into a text editor and change text in the external editor but copy, paste, and preview the results in the browser edit window buffer. This can be dangerous, however, as it's possible to forget which buffer has the recent changes.
To avoid losing unpublished changes, one can always edit in an external editor (especially one with autosave) and paste into the browser window to preview. The final save would be made in the browser window when publishing the edit, but only after a final careful edit preview. The latter is important because a careful preview could save time that might otherwise be spent later finding and re-editing the changes to the article. As the saying goes, "a stitch in time saves nine".
A safer technique is to edit in a sandbox and transfer the changes to the article for publication after they are finalized. By saving the sandbox frequently no matter whether the changes are final yet, one can minimize the chances of losing one's work if, for example, one's browser or system crashes.
Effects on copyediting and proofreadingedit
Even when just copyediting or proofreading an article, the potential benefits of side-by-side editing can be significant. When initially viewing an article, a user might approach it with a "wait-and-see" attitude to whether there are enough issues to warrant editing it. A user in this situation may want to open the edit page for the article or section in a new window and then return to the article or section itself, for that way, the user will have the option of making changes in the second, edit window while retaining access to the current version of the article or section in the first.
With this set up, numerous improvements can be made that might have taken much longer if the edit window had not been available separately when first reading the page. This might seem like a trivial change, but sometimes significant time is taken up remembering and relocating the parts of an article one wants to alter; side-by-side editing can reduce this and accelerate the process.
Potential impact of side-by-side editingedit
The potential increase in productivity, using side-by-side as a new way of arranging edits, is almost a magical breakthrough in the ability to easily improve hundreds of scattered details. It is even more powerful than a WYSIWYG editor, for 4 reasons: (1) it allows users to see and edit underlying tables or infobox markup-language before becoming distracted by a wholly reformatted page; (2) the editing can continue while the preview-page is being formatted/displayed in the second window; (3) results do not demand verification; and (4) the diff-listing can remind users about all edits. Specifically:
WYSIWYG editors have the drawback that they insist on live, instant transformations, which can seriously distract attention from myriad other details, when ongoing reformatting occurs. In effect, side-by-side editing allows both levels of attention: either change a few details and reformat to see results, or step-by-step-change almost all details (top to bottom), uninterrupted, and then wait for the massive reformatting afterward. Again, WYSIWYG-editing could be very distracting if adding a small change distorted the output and shocked attention away from numerous other small details.
Because the edit-preview is processed in a second window, the user is able to continue editing in the first window while choosing to ignore the in-progress formatting of the display-page, if too distracting at the moment.
It is an utter myth that all changes must be verified (instantly or not). When making 57 changes to a page, it can be better to hope for 54 (of 57) successes, and move on to another article, rather than to carefully babysit each change and lose time for the next article. Total "perfection" is not necessary in this level of writing, where an article can later be edited by anyone.
During a side-by-side edit, a user can focus on changing the underlying markup language, so when it comes time to run a diff-listing (by pressing the "Show changes" button), the user is able to review each change (as before/after) and compare the text in the familiar markup style. New typos can appear as unexpected keystrokes in the diff-listing.
Quick editing is not just about fast edit and feedback, but about avoiding or limiting distractions and forced verification steps as well. In the long term, being quicker could depend on spotting edit-problems by using diff-listings in the second window while further editing continues in the first window.
For any wikilinks which already have double quotation marks, replace all "" with ".
Generally, however, any text editor or word processor can perform this function, as can the online rich-text editors already available on Wikipedia and most of its sister projects, which can be found under the "Advanced" section of the editor toolbar.
Avoiding accidental publication of an editedit
Wikipedia has a user preferences setting found in the Editing section which, when implemented, warns the user about a blank edit summary line and requests confirmation before publishing. When nearing completion of an edit, however, a user might be tempted to begin composing the edit summary text, which can lead to an accidental publication of a partial edit with a permanent partial summary line. A way to avoid this would be to compose the edit summary line as the last line of the page, using HTML comment tags <!-- and --> to hide that line. For example:
Putting that comment line at the end of the page allows the user to see and revise the whole edit summary text without the risk of accidentally publishing it, since any attempt will be stopped by the edit summary field still being blank unless the user manually confirms to proceed with publication. When ready, the user can copy and paste that bottom line as the edit summary and if the user forgets to remove that bottom line, it is only a hidden comment, so it can wait until that user (or another) deletes that comment when making further changes to that page.
Few things make editing worse than saving a partial edit, where other users see the unfinished change and either complain or change the page again, causing an edit conflict when one tries to finish and submit the incomplete edit which was accidentally published. To avoid this, one may want to publish an entire edit to a specific article only once, or wait 20 minutes after submitting an incomplete edit, because other editors may be alerted (such as through their watchlists) and might embark on their own changes to the article.
Showing double-brace markupedit
Although articles rarely contain the double-brace markers {{ and }}, these braces are common in wiki-template documentation pages. To avoid activating templates (except inside tables), the double-brace markers can be encoded by adding one HTML numeric character reference equivalent:
the left double-brace {{ is {{, with bar | as |; and
the right double-brace }} is }}.
When editing text inside of tables, then double numbers or nowiki tags should be used because tables look for a single left brace {. The double-number characters are simply {{ for {{ and }} for }}.
Far futureedit
Perhaps in the near future, a Wikipedia edit-window will have some type of side-by-side display with a scrolling area for formatted output. However, due to the complexity of simulating a formatted page in a scrolling region, it will probably be many years before such side-by-side editing can be implemented in a single browser page. It is being implemented for translations, though.
See alsoedit
WP:Contributing to Wikipedia
WP:Advanced footnote formatting
WP:Advanced template coding
WP:Advanced table formatting
WP:Advanced text formatting
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Wikipedia essays (?)
Essays on building, editing, and deleting content
Philosophy
Article content
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All Five Pillars are equally important
Avoid vague introductions
Be a reliable source
Civil POV pushing
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Competence is required
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Articles have a half-life
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BOLD, revert, discuss cycle
Build content to endure
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Children's lit, adult new readers, & large-print books
Citation overkill
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Creating controversial content
Criticisms of society may be consistent with NPOV and reliability
Deprecated sources
Dictionaries as sources
Don't demolish the house while it's still being built
Don't get hung up on minor details
Don't hope the house will build itself
Don't panic
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Editing on mobile devices
Editors are not mindreaders
Encourage the newcomers
Endorsements (commercial)
Featured articles may have problems
Formatting bilateral relations articles
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Fruit of the poisonous tree
Give an article a chance
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Identifying and using independent sources
History sources
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Primary sources
Science sources
Style guides
Tertiary sources
Ignore STRONGNAT for date formats
Inaccuracy
Introduction to structurism
Mine a source
Merge Test
Minors and persons judged incompetent
"Murder of" articles
Not every story/event/disaster needs a biography
Not everything needs a navbox
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Nothing is in stone
Obtain peer review comments
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Permastub
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Pruning article revisions
Publicists
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Source your plot summaries
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Run an edit-a-thon
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There is no deadline
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The deadline is now
Try not to leave it a stub
Understanding Wikipedia's content standards
Walled garden
What an article should not include
Wikipedia is a work in progress
Wikipedia is not a reliable source
Wikipedia is not being written in an organized fashion
The world will not end tomorrow
Write the article first
Writing better articles
Writing article content
Avoid thread mode
Copyediting reception sections
Coup
Don't throw more litter onto the pile
Gender-neutral language
Myth vs fiction
Proseline
Use our own words
We shouldn't be able to figure out your opinions
Write the article first
Writing about women
Writing better articles
Removing or deleting content
Adjectives in your recommendations
AfD is not a war zone
Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions
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Arguments to make in deletion discussions
Avoid repeated arguments
Before commenting in a deletion discussion
But there must be sources!
Confusing arguments mean nothing
Content removal
Counting and sorting are not original research
Delete or merge
Delete the junk
Deletion is not cleanup
Does deletion help?
Don't attack the nominator
Don't confuse stub status with non-notability
Don't overuse shortcuts to policy and guidelines to win your argument
Follow the leader
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I just don't like it
Identifying blatant advertising
Identifying test edits
Immunity
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Nothing
Nothing is clear
Overzealous deletion
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Relist bias
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Wikipedia is not Whack-A-Mole
Why was the page I created deleted?
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When in doubt, hide it in the woodwork
No Encyclopedic Use
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Edit at your own pace
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Enjoy yourself
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Most ideas are bad
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just madmen
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No, you can't have a pony
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You can't squeeze blood from a turnip
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Businesses with a single location
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Common sourcing mistakes
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Discriminate vs indiscriminate information
Don't cite GNG
Drafts are not checked for notability or sanity
Every snowflake is unique
Existence ≠ Notability
Existence does not prove notability
Extracting the meaning of significant coverage
Google searches and numbers
High Schools
Inclusion is not an indicator of notability
Independent sources
Inherent notability
Insignificant
Masking the lack of notability
Make stubs
Minimum coverage
News coverage does not decrease notability
No amount of editing can overcome a lack of notability
No big loss
No one cares about your garage band
No one really cares
Notability/Historical/Arguments
Notability cannot be purchased
Notability comparison test
Notability is not a level playing field
Notability is not a matter of opinion
Notability is not relevance or reliability
Notability means impact
Notability points
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Not every single thing Donald Trump does deserves an article
Obscurity ≠ Lack of notability
Offline sources
One hundred words
One sentence does not an article make
Other stuff exists
Overreliance upon Google
Perennial websites
Pokémon test
Read the source
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Run-of-the-mill
Solutions are mixtures and nothing else
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Trivial mentions
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What BLP1E is not
What is and is not routine coverage
What notability is not
What to include
Wikipedia is not Crunchbase
Wikipedia is not here to tell the world about your noble cause
Wikipedia is not the place to post your résumé
Two prongs of merit
Humorous essays
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Akin's Laws of Article Writing
Alternatives to edit warring
ANI flu
Anti-Wikipedian
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Articlecountitis
Asshole John rule
Assume bad faith
Assume faith
Assume good wraith
Assume stupidity
Assume that everyone's assuming good faith, assuming that you are assuming good faith
Avoid using preview button
Avoid using wikilinks
Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense
Barnstaritis
Before they were notable
BOLD, revert, revert, revert
Boston Tea Party
Butterfly effect
CaPiTaLiZaTiOn MuCh?
Complete bollocks
Counting forks
Counting juntas
Crap
Don't stuff beans up your nose
Don't-give-a-fuckism
Don't abbreviate "Wikipedia" as "Wiki"!
Don't delete the main page
Editcountitis
Edits Per Day
Editsummarisis
Editing Under the Influence
Embrace Stop Signs
Emerson
Fart
Five Fs of Wikipedia
Seven Ages of Editor, by Will E. Spear-Shake
Go ahead, vandalize
How many Wikipedians does it take to change a lightbulb?
How to get away with UPE
How to put up a straight pole by pushing it at an angle
How to vandalize correctly
How to win a citation war
Ignore all essays
Ignore every single rule
Is that even an essay?
Mess with the templates
My local pond
Newcomers are delicious, so go ahead and bite them
Legal vandalism
List of jokes about Wikipedia
LTTAUTMAOK
No climbing the Reichstag dressed as Spider-Man
No one cares about your garage band
No one really cares
No, really
No sorcery threats
Notability is not eternal
Oops Defense
Play the game
Please be a giant dick, so we can ban you
Please bite the newbies
Please do not murder the newcomers
Pledge of Tranquility
R-e-s-p-e-c-t
Requests for medication
Requirements for adminship
Rouge admin
Rouge editor
Sarcasm is really helpful
Sausages for tasting
The Night Before Wikimas
The first rule of Wikipedia
The Five Pillars of Untruth
Things that should not be surprising
The WikiBible
Watchlistitis
Wikipedia is an MMORPG
WTF? OMG! TMD TLA. ARG!
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Why not create an account?
Yes legal threats
You don't have to be mad to work here, but
You should not write meaningless lists
About essays
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Difference between policies, guidelines and essays