PageLifeCycle

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A page, like many things, changes. This page discusses the various phases a page might go through during its life cycle. Perhaps that will make it easier to identify what phase a page is going through in a particular moment, and it might make clearer what the next steps are.

Essay: Good pages start with an essay. It may be short, one or two paragraphs are sometimes good enough to introduce a new idea or describe a new thing.
FactFinding?: If a new page has been created and it inspires other people, they will want to add content. If the page is young and hasn't settled yet, many authors will use ThreadMode to add new pieces of information to the page. As these additions are in turn discussed, more threading is used. This is not a problem. Let it continue, and when everything is said, something will get done. Rework the page.
HomePage: Some people need public space for notes and rough drafts. Your homepage or namepage is where you can brainstorm. This is useful raw material for pages. Perhaps other people will be inspired by your ideas as well.
ShallowPage: Some pages start shallow. Shallow pages are not interesting, and we try to discourage them. If the title is interesting enough, however, there is a short time-window in which it may accrete interesting content.
DeletedPage: Sometimes shallow pages are marked for deletion. Good. Maybe check for backlinks and unlink the references.
EditWar or FlameWar: If a page is controversial, and the way contributions are made is controversial as well, tempers rise. If arguments turn into attacks, stop before a flame war errupts. If people start to delete controversial content before a consensus is reached, EnlargeSpace and move controversial content to separate pages. Wait before reworking the pages back into one page, if at all.
JargonProblem: When a new member to the community starts writing new pages, it is often difficult to adapt the new text to the intended audience (the existing community members). If too many new names and concepts are introduced, your readers have to translate the jargon into plain language (or their own jargon, as the case may be). Unresolved, pages full of jargon will seem shallow, or will seem to require many shallow pages to define the new jargon. Since jargon can always be reworked later, this is a temporary problem.
ForestFire: If the central idea of the author is interesting and inspiring, but the initial page was not very clear and focused, then the idea will affect many other pages as well. New (maybe shallow) pages are being created to hold related nodes of thought that should be worked into the central page, or existing pages are changed to refer to the new (supposedly) great idea, sparkling an EditWars all over the site.
HitAndRunRefactoring: When a page is stable, it sometimes attracts small edits anway. Some random visitor hits upon the page and fixes a typo or some other minor mistake, or another community member decided to add a subtitle to make clear where the essay ends and the discussion starts.
Reworking: When discussion calms down, the page disappears from RecentChanges. It may take a long time before it is reworked. Maybe PageChurn turned it up again, and people remember the old issues. Somebody deserving a BarnStar goes and reworks the page, splitting it up if too big, summarizing view points, cutting away the slack, maybe archiving the rest.
ReworkingProblems: Reworking is hard. Do it anyway. If anybody feels some statements you removed are worth preserving, they can always add them back in.

PageLifeCycle

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