This template would indicate that the article is a rewrite of another article that is unsatisfactory. For example, my (recently featured) article How to do Number Sense (Mental Math) was a rewrite to a useless article called Mental Math. I didn’t edit the Mental Math article because it would have required an entire rewrite to correct (with me not getting credit as the original author). I risked wasting my time on a rewrite that should have been deleted under the duplicate rules. It took a year for the original trash article to be removed. A rewrite template would allow the two articles to be judged under the NFD tool . The rules for approving replacing an existing article should consist at least of: Rule 1. The article would have to merit a rewrite because of vagueness or some problem that only a complete rewrite can solve. Rule 2. The author of the rewrite would have to self apply the “nfd|rew|name of original article” after completion of the rewrite. NABers won’t have to evaluate the duplicate articles for “rewrite” potential. Rule 3. The use of pictures in the article may not be used as a basis for a successful rewrite. If adding pictures to an article would make the origianl article ok, then the original would stand. More than once I have considered rewriting an article, but didn’t because of the high likelihood of deletion. This method would create a means to fix trashy articles without risking deletion simply because of the “title”.
Lojjik
2
too similar to dup, I think. Create the rewrite then nom the other as a dup if the difference in quality is tremendous.
The problem with that is timing. The article I spoke of above took a YEAR to remove, and the rewrite could have been nfd|dup itself. The idea is that it is not a dup but a rewrite, and should be judged as such.
Is this the main reason for this proposal versus regular editing to replace a poor article with a better one? If so, I disagree with it. There are a lot of reasons to avoid deleting things lightly, and having the most significant author listed as the original author doesn’t overcome them. Who cares if some guy gets a blue star on his userpage (or would have if he was registered and had a userpage) for starting this FA
. The rest of the story is all there in the history tab for anyone who wants it.
I’m not talking about deleting articles lightly, but getting rid of the trash articles. Maybe I should have suggested that we have nfd|tra . It is one thing to edit an article, it is another to have to completely rewrite a waste of space. The rewritten article has the nfd on it on this system. Either the original or the rewrite would be deleted.
Like with speedy and nfd|inc?
BTW any time someone wants to do a full rewrite of a low quality article and get initial author credit there is a way to do it. As a friendly service for folks I will make this happen. Here’s how other admins can do it: 1. Tell would be initial author to start a new article with any temporary title. And ask them to be an {{inuse}} tag on the article. 2. When they complete the article. Delete old, low quality article. 3. Move new high quality article to the old name and remove {{inuse}} tag. You now have a new, high quality article with hard working volunteer getting their name listed as the initial author. And the old title is retained. I’m generally happy to do that when the old article is truly trash / nfd type material. I’m not willing to do it when the old article is good or has received real love from someone in the community. In that case, I ask the person to edit the existing article instead.
Jack, sounds like a great idea. I completely agree that it should be done judiciously, to only replace articles that are truly trash. I suggested the NFD|REW method because it does not circumvent the two persons (with at least one admin) to delete an article.
