Chapter 10. The Life Cycle of an Article

Table of Contents

1. Birth of an Article
2. Deletion
3. Maintenance Tagging
4. Editing Improvements
5. Potential Merge
6. Discussion and Content Tags
7. Categories
8. Bots Arrive
9. Incoming Wikilinks
10. Artie Is Moved
11. In Good Times
12. In Bad Times
13. Bad Times, and a True Story
14. Search Engines Find the Article
15. New Relatives
16. Getting the Picture
17. Good Article
18. Summary
19. Conclusion to Part II

So far, we've broadly examined Wikipedia from the perspective of readers and editors. Of course, a Wikipedia reader can come and go as he or she pleases, and even the most ardent Wikipedia editor abandons his or her computer from time to time. But a Wikipedia article is always on the website, day in and day out.

So, how do things look from that article's perspective?

Let's follow Artie the Article, created by Eddie the Editor. Perhaps Artie's title is [[Gingerbread cottage architecture]], the title used previously in Chapter 6, Good Writing and Research.