Common Major Interventions with Examples

Key Intervention Types

The desired interventions for this assignment fit the kinds of editing overviewed in the Particular Kinds of Editing section of Part 1. Here we provide examples of some of these interventions. In order to make this list more manageable, we have kept our descriptions short and directed towards the intervention. Readers are encouraged to examine the before and after states of the pages linked to see the changes.

These major changes include the following:

Remember that, while successful implementation is ideal, successful intervention on the part of a student might take the form of communication or otherwise bringing attention to an issue. This is particularly the case with changes such as removing content, which often requires confirmation and implementation by other editors. In some cases, other editors might even make unexpected yet useful actions as a result of the student calling attention to issues.

Changing or Refining the Content Focus

As discussed in the stalled articles section on Nuances in Notability, entire articles must sometimes be refocused. Refer to the following, for example:

  • Desilo (Before and After): This edit refocused the lead and content to be about the archeological site rather than the geographical location.
  • Marching (Before and After): This article's organization didn't leave space for a wide range of content that might be about Marching. The student provided some structure and opened up some sections in order to make space for other kinds of content.
  • Erik the Red (Before and After): This article needed some reorganization, but it also had a particular problem: It had a whole section about Erik's father that was written as if it was in an article about his father. The student successfully resituated that content to focus on Erik the Red himself.

Removing Content

Removing content should only be done diplomatically and with good reason. Often doing so can clear away space for other kinds of content. Sometimes, removing content can be done simply through condensing and trimming unnecessary information, sometimes in conjunction with addressing other issues (e.g., NPOV or original research (OR)). The removal of large amounts of content needs to be noted in talk pages, with time given for others to express opinions.

  • Rowing (Before and After): In addition to a new structure, this student cleared away some content that was less appropriate while creating some sections for new content.
  • Fascism in Italy ( Before and After): In the process of reorganizing the article, this student also cut a lot of superfluous content.

Splitting, Moving, or Recovering Content

Often a section of an article will expand so much that you need to break it off into a new article. Such cases should follow Wikipedia's instructions for splitting articles. In some cases, one might also move or copy content across such articles. Copying within Wikipedia is allowed with appropriate attribution as is discussed in this editing guideline.

In some instances, students can find older content through the edit history and recover it in a more appropriate form. This move is valuable as long as the issues given for their deletion are at least identified or, even more ideally, addressed by the student.

  • Public Speaking (Before, Edit, and After): In looking through the history of this article, the student discovered and recovered some old content that had been lost in previous edits.
  • Little Mermaid (Before and After): In addition to other work, this student recovered some old content about themes and interpretation, which had been deleted previously likely due to OR concerns.

Reworking the Lead

The Lead is the portion before the table of contents in a Wikipedia article. The lead is particularly important since it sets up the article's purpose and provides the basic information about the article's subject. Many kinds of intervention start by intervening in the lead.

  • Podcast (Before and After): The lead of this article had expanded to include far too much information rather than reflecting a general summary of the major points of the article. The revision more appropriately summarizes the article in the lead.
  • Zachary Karabell (Before and After): In addition to basic tone and WP:OR problems, this one puts most of the information in the lead rather than in the appropriate sections.

Reorganization (Global)

Often the whole article needs to be reorganized, with new sections and subheadings defined. Sometimes, this will lead to content being significantly redistributed in new ways; sometimes the headings will just be adjusted to match an implicit organization.

  • 2009 Swine Flu Pandemic in Australia (Before and After): In addition to work resituating this article as a historical event, this student created a new organization and broke the content into the appropriate sections.
  • Deaf President Now (Before and After): The original structure was almost entirely organized around the described protest. The new organization makes room for other kinds of content and directs the article into a more productive form.

Reorganization (Within Sections)

Sometimes, successful reorganization takes place within existing sections:

  • 23 Blast (Before and After): Here, the standard organization for a film article was already present, but the student reorganized the production section significantly.
  • Fantasy (Before and After): This article was quite extensive, with a relatively appropriate structure in place, but with content disorganized within that structure. The student spent a good bit of time moving that content into more appropriate locations.

Weaving Together or Framing Disconnected Content

When information is contributed piecemeal or content has been moved around, work needs to be done to rewrite content to weave it together into a more coherent form.

  • Super Bowl Curse (Before and After): The content here needed a better frame that made it appropriate for Wikipedia. To do so, the student had to rework the organization a bit, but mostly rewrite the lead and first part of each section to be more appropriate. This could also be considered a remedying of WP:OR.
  • Forestry in Russia (Before and After): When the student began, this article was skeletal in form with random information. The student not only reorganized it into more sensible headings but wove that content together more coherently. It's not perfect, but at least gets the article into a more coherent form for others to work on.

Integrating Quotes into Wikipedia Form That Also Avoids Original Research

In some cases, editors will have gathered quotes about a topic but not integrated them into an article in the way described in WP:QUOTE. Students can then integrate these quotes into an appropriately informative style.

  • African-American Representation in Hollywood (Before and After): Among the many other improvements, this student attempted to integrate quotes more seamlessly into the text.

Coordinating Across Articles

Students have often coordinated content across multiple articles, sometimes in a very extensive way. Note again that moving content across Wikipedia pages is allowed if proper attribution is given in the edit summary.

  • Christian Prayer (Before and After): Although a lot remained to be done, the student successfully examined the content across three articles (this one, an article on Prayer in the New Testament, which they merged into this one, and another article on Prayer, Meditation and Contemplation in Christianity) in order to determine what might be done across the three. Since the student finished, Prayer, Meditation and Contemplation was merged into the Christian Prayer article, a change that the student thought should occur but did not have sufficient time to see through.
  • Traditional Animation (Before and After): A lot of the reorganization here came from coordinating the content with other articles about animation, including Animation and Computer Animation.
  • Intrapersonal Communication and Internal Monologue (Before and After + the deleted Internal Monologue article): There was originally two articles about these similar terms, with slightly different content. The student successfully merged these two articles.

Addressing NPOV

NPOV problems can be widespread or localized into a few sentences. Addressing these issues can sometimes mean rewriting, sometimes it means broaching discussion, sometimes it means just deleting obviously inappropriate content.

  • Human Rights Education (Before and After): Among the edits that push this article forward is some careful reworking of sentences such as this one, which contains overly editorializing language: "Governments must see to it that it must be exercised without bias to race, gender, color, religion, language, national or social origin, political or personal opinion, birth, or any status."
  • Food Blogging (Before and After): Similar issues here of nonneutral assessment of the topic: "Food and travel is a particularly compelling type of food blogging because it involves the engagement of different cultures."
  • StarKid Productions (Before and After): This was a classic example of major NPOV issues related to WP:Promo.

Addressing Original Research

Original research is a nuanced yet important aspect of Wikipedia. Addressing OR issues can be difficult, and often require resituating the probfematic text or just adding tags about citations. The following provide examples of OR, but the solutions are often simply to point that a citation is needed to support a claim that might, in another publication, simply be taken as a thesis.

  • The Kiss (Klimt) (Before and After): As is often the case in works of art, this article contained claims that need to be substantiated by research of experts and adequately situated in their voice rather than Wikipedia's. Thus, "Love, intimacy, and sexuality are common themes found in Gustav Klimt's works" needs a citation, but it also needs to be positioned in relation to whomever made that claim.
  • Achilles and Patroclus (Before): Sometimes article leads can clue you in to look closer for more OR in the article. The lead in this article contains claims made by the article's writer. Note that the student didn't solve this issue, but they did inspire renewed discussion of it.

Rewriting for Tone

On the sentence level, students will often need to spend some time rewriting for tone, not only in terms of NPOV, but in terms of informative style.

  • Basic Life Support (Before and After): In addition to reorganizing this page, the student extensively rewrote the content to be more appropriate for Wikipedia.
  • Women in the Enlightenment (Before and After): This was an example of an essay-like article, which had to be both reorganized but then rewritten for appropriate tone.