Wikipedia:Beef up that first revision

This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

Shortcut WP:BEEF

This page in a nutshell: New page patrollers judge the articles by their first mainspace revisions; they prefer these to already contain basic context, assertion of notability, and sources.

New page patrollers are frequently confronted by articles that are only a few dozen words in length. What are we to make of them? It's almost impossible to determine the potential of such an article. Articles for deletion discussions frequently involve authors asking those in the discussion for time to improve the articles. We can agree or disagree upon whom the onus rests in this struggle, but hopefully this essay will illuminate one point of view a little more clearly.