User:Forseti/Good and fair article

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Qualities of good article

  1. Veracity
  2. Accuracy
  3. Context
  4. Completeness
  5. NPOV

Realization of that qualities

Here is what can be done to achieve that goals:

  1. Cite your sources - should be more strongly emphasized - now it is adviced, should be obligatory, except for most trivial cases. In particular, should be obligatory if there are statistics (demographics, votes, production) cited and/or article has a chance to be disputed.
  2. Establish context - the first paragraph should contain links to all articles necessary to estabilish a context for article. See Werewolf: The Apocalypse's first paragraph for example.
  3. Provide internal links - there is no need to repeat information; instead use links to other Wikipedia articles for all the terms that need detailed information. In referring article provide only basic (or most relevant) information on link.
  4. Provide external links - as we have no quality enforcement system except goodwill of Wikipedians, the links to other sources are both mark of care for content's quality and a tool for ascertaining the veracity and accuracy of article. Should be adviced and obligatory if there is document cited and/or article has a chance to be disputed.
  5. Be neutral - your role here is to provide neutral information to reader. It is <korzystne> that reader would count on Wikipedia as reliable source of information so follow NPOV guidelines. Please do not submit extremist, contested and/or in any way dubious views without marking them as such and attribute them (with link) for appropriate person/organization.

Articles on territories

For articles on territories (especially contested on Wikipedia):

  • Provide tabular history of territory. Example for Wroclaw:
Period Name Allegiance Cause of ownership switch
Prehistoric - 955 Unknown Various celtic, germanic and slavic tribes  
955 - 990 Vratislavia Premyslid Dynasty Battle of Lechfeld
990 - 1335 Wrotizla Piast Dynasty Annexation by Mieszko I
1335 - 1526 Wretslaw Luxemburg Dynasty Pact between Henry VI the Good and John of Luxemburg
1526 - 1741 Presslaw Habsburg Dynasty Ferdinand Habsburg inherits Hungarian and Czech lands after death of Louis II of Hungary at Battle of Mohacs
1741 - 1945 Breslau

Kingdom of Prussia
German Empire
Weimar Republic
Third Reich

Prussian war on Austro-Hungary
1945 - Present Wrocław

People's Republic of Poland
Republic of Poland

Potsdam conference after World War II


  • Do not allow multiple articles on the same territory - the only version should be that using current name. The other names of region (perhaps in other languages or names of past organizations, nationalities etc.) should be made redirects to that version. If multiple versions exist, merge them. Retain all the information presented in the articles before merging but remove bias.
  • Present information in chronological order. If territory was owned by multiple nations in different periods, divide information into separate sections, each named with name of territory in given period. Title of each section should be anchored to relevant row of tabular history and automatic TOC should be disabled (so as not to duplicate entries).