It is approximately 9:44 PM where this user lives.
A few questions for you to begin this adoption:
1) Would you prefer to be called WelshWonderWoman or something else?
2) What is your goal in contributing to Wikipedia?
3) What time zone do you live in?
4) What do you expect to get out of this mentorship?
5) What picture would you like on this page to represent you? It can be a picture of anything, and it doesn't have to be one that you've uploaded yourself. For some examples, see User:Missionedit/Adoption/Molly's Mind or User:Missionedit/Adoption/Hisashiyarouin. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 23:56, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
Thank you very much for this. I appreciate you taking the time to help me out here. To answer your questions:
1) WelshWonderWoman is fine. I am female to it suits.
2) I hope to contribute to improve existing articles and hopefully add one or two myself.
3) I live in the UK so British Summer Time.
4) I'd hope to learn from you and eventually be able to navigate Wikipedia on my own. Advice is always welcome.
5) I'm not sure which picture. Any kind of basic avatar would be fine. WelshWonderWoman (talk) 07:05, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
Let's start off with a lesson in Wiki-etiquette to get you up to date, and then we can jump into improving your AfC submission/article. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 02:46, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
"Wikiquette" is a portmanteau of "Wikipedia" and "etiquette". It is something that you may already be familiar with, depending how much reading around the different wikipedia pages you've made.
Threading is an organized way of replying to comments by adding an additional indentation, represented by a colon, :. When you're responding to something I write, you use one colon. When I then respond to you, you use two colons. When you then respond to me, you use three colons. When you want to respond to the original post, then you just go back to using one colon. Think of it this way: whatever you want to respond to, preface it with one more colon than what it had already. Talk pages should something like this - Have a read of WP:THREAD to see how this works.
How's the soup? --[[User:John]]
:It's great!! --[[User:Jane]]
::I made it myself! --[[User:John]]
Let's move the discussion to [[Talk:Soup]]. --[[User:Jane]]
:I tend to disagree. --[[User:George]]
Avoid these mistakes which have been made by many an editor:
Don't create autobiographical articles or articles about someone close to you, company articles, dictionary-type articles (we have Wiktionary for that), or redundant articles. For the last one, it's easy to figure out if you're creating something redundant; just type in the search term into the search box and see if what comes up covers your topic.
Whenever you delete content, be sure you give an explanation as to why. Even if you revert vandalism, say that it's vandalism. Also, try not to delete valuable content just because it's poorly written and biased; instead, just rewrite it.
There are also Wikiquette rules for signatures. Some people like to customize their signature using CSS and other code. There are a few no-nos, though.
Do not copy another editor's signature. Even making it look somewhat like another editor's signature is wrong. Linking to someone else's user page on your signature is also a big mistake.
Don't make your signature too big. This can effect the way the surrounding text is displayed. Be sparing with your superscript and subscript, too. It can sometimes cause a similar problem. Don't make your signature too small, either, then we won't know who you are :) When you use different colors, make sure that color-blind people will still be able to read it without a problem.
Do not include images in your signature. It's wrong for a number of reasons, including server slowdown, distraction, comment displacement, and cluttering up the "File links" section every time you comment. You can use webdings or wingdings to get an image effect if you really want, because these are technically fonts and not images.
Keep your signatures short enough that they don't take up a whole line of text when you comment.
Make sure that your signature always links to at least your user page, talk page, and/or contributions page.
Don't include any external links at all or internal links that have no purpose to building the encyclopedia.
Assume good faith when approaching someone who has these problem signatures and be polite.
@WelshWonderWoman: I hope I didn't just overwhelm you with information :) I created your userpage for you. If you want to do some other stuff with it (which you don't have to), the WP:User page design center is a great place for ideas. Questions? ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 02:46, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
Thank you very much for explaining all of this to me, it's all very helpful and hasn't overwhelmed me at all. I'd like to pick File:Flag of Wales (1959).svg as my picture but I'm not sure how I'd do that. Maybe you could talk me through it soon. When it'd be convenient for you I wonder if you'd be able to help me with the article I've been working on. It's been rejected twice and I'd like to get it right for next time if I can. Thanks WelshWonderWoman (talk) 00:02, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
@WelshWonderWoman: I'd love to help you with your article :) I put File:Flag of Wales (1959).svg at the top of the page for you, we can do a little lesson on pictures when we have the time. For now, we can be working on getting your article in better condition. So, let's tackle the topic of reliable sources, which your article needs to pass review. I'm really busy today--I'll try to put the lesson up tomorrow. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 03:04, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
Thank you very much for the picture and the help. As I'm so new to this I had no idea you'd already seen my article so that's very useful. I understand that the sources that I used are classed as not being reliable, though I find it amazing that they don't think IMDb to be reliable as it's such a huge site. The main problem I have is the actor is very well known in Britain but has almost no acting reviews/mentions on any newspaper website ever as he keeps himself low profile. I am a fan of his work but I hope that isn't a problem as I'd imagine hardly anyone creates an article about any subject unless they had some kind of interest in it. Any ideas on how to proceed would be super. WelshWonderWoman (talk) 23:14, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
Yes, I have seen your article; you gave me the link to it actually :) The reason why IMDb is not considered a reliable source is not because it is well known, but because almost anyone can edit it. This means that the information may not always be reliable. I see your problem with referencing--but if he is well known enough to be on Wikipedia, we will be able to find some good sources on him. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 01:41, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
For more information on this topic see Wikipedia:Reliable sources. There will be test after this lesson just to make sure you understand it. The test shouldn't be too hard for you. If any specific questions do come up, we can do a lesson on it.
On Wikipedia, the word "source" can mean three different, interchangeable things: either a piece of work, the writer of the work, or the creator of the work. Therefore, a reliable source is a published material from a reliable publisher (such as a university), or an author who is known for the subject that they are covering, such as L. David Mech, a wolf expert, speaking about wolves, or a fiction author being interviewed about their own work. Or it could be a combination, like a book about wolves by L. David Mech published by the University of Chicago Press. And while a source may be considered reliable on one topic, it may not be on so with other topics. For instance, the book Wolves: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation by L. David Mech only talks about real wolves. While would be considered a reliable source when talking about wolf behaviors and conservation, it may not be the best authority for talking about Little Red Riding Hood :)
Self-published sources are considered unreliable because false information could be published this way. However, this rule doesn't apply to self-published sources talking about themselves. Let's say that Orson Scott Card wrote a post on his website about his inspiration for the Ender's Game series. Because it's coming straight from the horse's mouth, you could add that information in the section called "Creation and inspiration".
Mainstream news sources are generally considered reliable, like The New York Times. However, some of these news sources get information from Wikipedia, so it can get trapped in cyclic sourcing. Wikipedia cites an article that cites Wikipedia! Never cite a Wikipedia article in another mainspace Wikipedia article. Other sites that have an "anyone can edit" policy like Wikipedia are not considered reliable sources.
In addition, anything that is common knowledge (eg. the sky is blue) does not need to be sourced, just like in a reference paper. Saying that snow melts when it gets warm outside is not going to need a source.
@WelshWonderWoman: Did this answer some of your questions about reliable sources? Any questions before the test? Don't worry, it won't be hard :) ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 01:48, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
Yes I think you have answered my questions there. I'm ready for my test! WelshWonderWoman (talk) 07:22, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
Hello Anastasia, I believe you are available again now so whenever it'd be convenient for you, I'm ready for my test. I look forward to hearing from you :) WelshWonderWoman (talk) 22:55, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
1.) Q- A friend just told you that Mitt Romney has been appointed Chancellor of Harvard University. Should you add this to Romney and/or Harvard's pages? Why or why not?
I would first check that this information was both relevant and accurate then I suppose it'd be best to add it to both pages.
Y Since your friend is not considered a reliable source, you can't add this information to Wikipedia unless it is confirmed by a reliable source.
2.) Q- The New York Times has published a cartoon as part of an article which you think is blatantly racist. Can you use this cartoon on Wikipedia to support the fact that the New York Times is a racist newspaper? (assuming the cartoon is freely licensed with no copyright restrictions)
No. I wouldn't use it as it, in my opinion would be wrong.
Y You have the correct answer, but you didn't explain it :) You should not be using a source to promote your own opinion in an article in even if the source is reliable.
3.) Q- You find an article claiming that socialists are more likely to get cancer than capitalists, but capitalists are more likely to get diabetes than socialists. Should you include this information on the socialist, capitalist, cancer, or diabetes pages?
No. I don't think that would have any relevance to those subjects.
Y Quite correct.
4.) Q- Would you consider Apple Inc. to be a reliable source for information on Microsoft? Why or why not?
No because they are rivals.
Y Because Apple and Microsoft are competing against each other for customers, it makes sense that they may spread false or biased info about each other.
5.) Q- Would you consider Ben and Jerry's official Twitter page as a reliable source? Why or why not?
Yes because the information is about as close to a reliable source as you could get I'd say.
Y Actually, Twitter and other social media are not considered the best primary sources. They may only be used as sources of information about themselves. Using Twitter as a reliable source is an exception, but it is possible under a few conditions:
Another reliable source which presents the same information must not exist
They must be claims only about the company, and not a third party
The article is not based primarily on such sources.
6.) Q- An unnamed "forum official" from the Chicago Tribune community forums comments on the Chicago Tribune's stance on world hunger (on the forum). Is this considered a reliable source? Why or why not?
No, again because I'm not sure how you'd verify it.
Y There is no way of knowing if the forum official has the authority to make statements about the paper's views.
7.) Q- Would you consider the "about us" section on Burger King's website to be a reliable source for information on the history of Burger King? Why or why not?
Yes, but I guess Wiki might say that as Burger King themselves published that information then probably not.
Y This information may not be available anywhere anywhere else, so it can be used (along with other sources) to support an article on Wikipedia.
.
8.) Q- Everybody knows that the sky is blue except for one editor, who says that it's bronze. Do you need a source to prove to him the sky is blue? Why or why not?
No, I'd tell him to look up.
Y LOL The editor is probably color blind, so you may want to point him to a source about color blindness or about why the sky is blue. But yes, you don't need to put a source in the article.
9.) Q- Is Harrison Ford's IMDb profile considered a reliable source for his article on Wikipedia? Why or why not?
@WelshWonderWoman: Here's the test :) I saw that you submitted your article again, but to no avail. Since you really didn't add any more sources to it, that's no wonder. I hope you had a nice time in my absence. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 01:17, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
support your article draft? ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ([[User
I did change one or two things, but I submitted it the third time before I first 'spoke' to you so did not know what I do now. Thank you for the test, I hope I've answered the questions okay, but I'm still learning so I might make some mistakes. I look forward to starting work on improving my article. WelshWonderWoman (talk) 02:47, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
@WelshWonderWoman: Good job with the test :) Now, can you try to find some reliable sources to talk:Missionedit|talk]]) 02:26, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
@Missionedit: Thanks, I'm glad I did okay, but I see I made a few mistakes which I've taken on board. About the reliable sources, I have tried to find some but I haven't really had much luck as despite the fame of the actor in the UK, he hasn't often been the lead actor in most of his films meaning if the film is reviewed at all he isn't mentioned. I will keep looking though. Any tips? WelshWonderWoman (talk) 22:04, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
@WelshWonderWoman: What do you mean by his "fame" in Britain? He hasn't really been in any lead roles, and 99.999% of people who are famous have at least some decent coverage in the media. To put it plainly, if there aren't any reliable sources about this guy, he probably isn't notable enough for a Wikipedia article at this point. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 02:33, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
@Missionedit: I meant that he is a household name here because he used to be on UK Gladiators as a character called 'Trojan' which was extremely popular watched by many millions every week. He has had at least two serious lead roles and these have had media coverage, I just don't think the reviews were on the internet because one of the roles was eighteen years ago. He is even known in America because he played Action Man and did a movie with Jean Claude Van Damme. Plus he does have a page on the Italian version of Wiki, though I have been informed by another editor here that the rules of inclusion are different there. Many of his UK Gladiators co stars who have also gone onto become actors have Wiki pages with much less information than I put into my article, but I will keep looking for reviews. I found one mention on a magazines website talking a bit about him as an actor and as the character 'Trojan'; could I use that?
Also I did a quite big edit to an existing page a couple of days ago, I don't know if you can see what I've done on Wikipedia but I think the tips you gave me helped. Thank you WelshWonderWoman (talk) 22:58, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
@WelshWonderWoman: Well, in that case, maybe you can find some sources about him in print (magazines, newspapers, books). You can use almost any source on him that you can find, but only certain reliable sources will establish his notability. I saw the big edit you did to Obsession: Dark Desires. Nice job. Just wanted to make sure--you came up with the episode summaries yourself? I'll try to do a lesson on citations next. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 02:52, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
@Missionedit: The episode summaries were what I found online from various sources. I will make some changes to it. I guess I shouldn't have copied and pasted without citing sources. WelshWonderWoman (talk) 04:08, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
Back to my Mark Griffin article, I have made some changes to it and added various new references. I wonder if you think they might be sufficient for me to re-submit it to Wiki? Also I was thinking of creating another article but I don't know how to create a second sandbox space to make it in. Any advice? WelshWonderWoman (talk) 05:07, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
How about we do the lesson on citations first, so you know how to format those. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 17:51, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
As you have mentioned, there are many types of citations acceptable on Wikipedia. Here are a few of them:
Full citation: A citation fully identifying a reliable source. Let's use a source from Draft:Mark Griffin (actor) to demonstrate: Griffin, Mark. (November 16, 1995). Trojan: My Life with the Gladiators (1st ed.). Titan Books Ltd. pp. 55-6. ISBN 1852866934. You may notice that this citation is not in MLA or APA format. The format used for citations on Wikipedia is different and specific to Wikipedia.
Inline citation: An in-text citation added after the material that it supports. It is usually in the form of a footnote and placed after a sentence or paragraph. The actually citation is found in section near the bottom of the page under a heading like "References" or "Footnotes".
General reference: A citation to a reliable source given at the bottom of the article to support it as a whole, but is not linked to any particular piece of material. General references are usually listed at the end of the article in a "General references" section, similar to a bibliography. These may be found in underdeveloped articles, especially when all article content is supported by a single source. They may also be listed by author alphabetically in more developed articles as a supplement to inline citations.
Short citation: An inline citation with an abbreviated form of the whole source, like parenthetical documentation. e.g. Griffin 1995, pp. 55-6.. These are usually used when different pages of the same book are cited in different places, or as an alternative to named refs, which we will learn a little later in this lesson.
In-text attribution: This is usually used when citing opinions and quotations of individuals. An example would be a sentence beginning In his 1995 book Trojan: My Life with the Gladiators, Mark Griffin claims....
Wikipedia cites sources to maintain verifiablity. If a source is verifiable, that means that its facts can be backed up by other reliable sources to make sure that the source (in this case, Wikipedia) does not have faulty information. Sources should not be included for common knowledge (e.g. "If you jump off a cliff you will get hurt" or "The sky is blue"), but should always be provided for controversial topics. The idea is to write articles based off of sources, not to write articles off your own knowledge and then find sources to support them. This is really not what is supposed to happen; however, many people still do it.
Inline citations help Wikipedia become even more verifiable by linking directly to the information which specifically supports a line of text or a fact. As a general rule, an article should have more inline citations than any other kind, and the more, the better! The most simple and common way to an create and inline citation in a Wikipedia article is by using ref tags. To use this method, you put the full citation in the text of the article where you want the footnote to go and add <ref> before the citation and </ref> right after. Under a section at the bottom of the article called "References", we type {{Reflist}} and nothing else. This will automatically list the citations at the bottom in the order they are placed in the text. For example, we could write Mark Griffin played the character Trojan on the British TV show ''Gladiators''. <ref>Griffin, Mark. (November 16, 1995). ''Trojan: My Life with the Gladiators'' (1st ed.). Titan Books Ltd. pp. 55-6. ISBN 1852866934.</ref> Then we would put
== References ==
{{Reflist}}
at the bottom, and the article would show up like this:
Mark Griffin played the character Trojan on British TV show Gladiators.[1]
== References ==
1. ∧ Griffin, Mark. (November 16, 1995). Trojan: My Life with the Gladiators (1st ed.). Titan Books Ltd. pp. 55-6. ISBN1852866934.
Wikipedia has a different style of citation format, so it's best not to use MLA or APA. An easy way to make sure all citations are formatted correctly is by using citation templates. Template:Citation Style 1 contains a list of citation templates for different kinds of sources. For this example, let's use {{cite book}}. Go down to the section on the page titled "Full parameter set in horizontal format" and copy it. Paste it where you want the reference in the article to go, and then add the ref tags to both sides so that it shows up under "References" at the bottom. To create the citation, fill out everything you can in the template (you can delete the sections, called parameters, which you don't use). Voilá! The reference shows up correctly formatted!
To maintain text-source integrity, do not construe information so that that the information appears to come from a source it doesn't. Consider the following (assume the source is the one we've been using):
Mark Griffin played the character Trojan on British TV show Gladiators.[1]
Now consider the following sentence:
Mark Griffin played the character Trojan on British TV show Gladiators, and he also likes surfboard. [1]
Nowhere in the book does it mention that Mark Griffin likes to surfboard, so you would need to move the reference or the added information so that it does not appear that way.
Sometimes people add the same source citation over and over so that even though there are only a few sources to an article, the reference list is very long, full of repeated citations. Although this is technically acceptable, it is not very efficient. The "ref name" template shortens the reference list to only a few citations, each connected to multiple footnotes. It's much simpler than it sounds :) To use this style, replace the opening/front <ref> tag with <ref name="source nickname">. For the source we've been using, you could call it <ref name="Mylife">, or <ref name="Griffin1">, or really any name that helps you remember which source it is. After using this first citation, if you would like to use the same citation again for another sentence, you can put <ref name="Griffin1"/> (or with whatever other nickname you've given the source) and that footnote would lead to the first source. This can be confusing at first, so feel free to ask questions. Also, sometimes the best way to learn is to do it :)
I have showed you the most common referencing techniques in use on Wikipedia, but there are many other acceptable ways which are not used as often. Here are some pages which may be useful:
Oops! I forgot--if you want to make another article submission, the best place to do it is at Draft:Nameofyourarticle. Your sandbox is at User:WelshWonderWoman/sandbox. I can remove the redirect if you want to work in it. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 18:50, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
I hardly know where to start! Thank you so much for simplifying the information so that it's easy to understand. I have read everything you've said and I now realize I can easily change the whole article based on this and I actually do have the book so it'll be easy for me to use it for reference points. No one really made it clear to me before that I could use text from books that wasn't on the internet so I will get onto it right away. I don't think I have any questions now but I might think of some soon. Also I will try the thing you said about the sandbox, it sounds simple enough. Thanks again @Missionedit: for your help WelshWonderWoman (talk) 23:55, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
I have made lots of changes as you suggested and it works so much better now. I wonder if you could tell me if you think it's ready to be submitted again? WelshWonderWoman (talk) 01:04, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
So sorry to disappoint, but it still needs a bit of work. I'm amazed at how you got the named refs to work, because you formatted them in such a peculiar way. To clarify: after you have already put the full citation in once, when you need to cite it again, you only need to put <ref name="mylife"/> and nothing else. I fixed this for you. Also—minor thing—periods go before the footnote on Wikipedia, not after. I fixed this and some heading things as well.
The Big Sourcing Problem: The book that supports the whole article is written by Griffin. This is a problem, because anyone can write a book make up stuff about themself. You can use the book as a supporting source, but more sources are needed which are not written by Griffin. Whether he is well-known or not, an article based almost solely on a book written by the subject is not going to pass review. ~Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 22:04, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
Can you get page numbers for the information in the book? ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 22:22, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
Yes I can get page numbers for any of the bits of information I got from the book. I have to say Wiki confuses me. What a person says about themselves is not reliable, what the public says about a person is not reliable but what a select few who do not know the person, who work in the media can write something which is deemed to be reliable? I don't understand that rule, but I understand I must obey it so I'll try to get my head around it before making any more changes. Can I just ask why you put the 'Gladiators' bit below the acting bit, which you renamed 'career' when it was in fact three years before the acting career started, which is why I put it first. Also I honestly did try to do the <ref name="mylife"/> thing instead of the full reference but for whatever reason it didn't recognize it so I adapted it and it worked :) WelshWonderWoman (talk) 23:23, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
@WelshWonderWoman: I'll try to help you understand a bit: Let's say you wrote a book about yourself, and you decide to write a Wikipedia article about yourself citing only this and and your personal blog. This is not an acceptable article; although the sources may be reliable, they do not show that you are notable. Notability and reliability are two different things. If you are notable, the idea is that someone else will have written something about you. The whole notability and reliability thing is rather complicated, but once you get used to it, it does make sense :)
Gladiators is part of his career, so I put it under that section. I removed the biography section because the whole article is a biography, thus eliminating the need for a specific biography section. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 02:50, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
These are the five "pillars", or fundamental principles, of Wikipedia. I've reworded them a little from the original to further explain/simplify.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia.
Wikipedia incorporates various elements of reference materials such as encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers. Wikipedia is not for advertising, propaganda, or social networking. It is also not a dictionary, newspaper, or collection of source documents; there are sister projects for this. The goal of Wikipedia is to form a comprehensive online encyclopedia.
Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view.
Wikipedia strives for articles that document and explain the major points of view, giving due weight with respect to their prominence in an impartial tone. We present no such opinion as being "the truth" or "the right position" (in theory). Every allegation must be backed up by references, especially when concerning a controversial topic or a living person. Editors' personal experiences, interpretations, or opinions do not belong here.
Wikipedia is free content that anyone can use, edit, and distribute.
Wikipedia is free for others to edit, use, modify, and distribute. No editor owns an article, so everything you write is free to be mercilessly edited and redistributed at will. Respect copyright laws, and never plagiarize from sources.
Editors should treat each other with respect and civility.
Wikipedia has millions of editors who are bound to disagree on some topics. If a conflict arises, you should discuss your disagreement on the nearest talk page and remain level-headed without accusing. Just because another editor may be attacking you does not mean that you should to engage in similar behavior.
Wikipedia has no firm rules.
Wikipedia has policies and guidelines, but their content and interpretation can evolve over time. Their principles and spirit matter more than their literal wording, and nothing is carved in stone. Sometimes improving Wikipedia means making an exception to the rule. Be bold in your edits (but not reckless) and don't worry about making a mistake, as you can always fix it.
No questions. That all makes sense and I respect 'The Five Pillars of Wikipedia' and I'm trying to write the best articles I can. Thanks for this :) WelshWonderWoman (talk) 06:19, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
@WelshWonderWoman: Great--we can do a lesson on Wikipedia copyright next like you asked. Copyright is definitely not my forte, but you have to know at least some to get by around here. :) ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 00:51, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
Copyright is one most important lessons learn, because not adhering to it can lead to a ban from Wikipedia. We'll be focusing on images, but a lot of the same concepts apply to other media files and even text too! I'll mention a bit more about that at the end of the lesson.
Copyright is a serious problem on a free encyclopedia. To remain free, any work that is submitted must be released under the WP:CC-BY-SA License and the WP:GFDL. You can read those licenses if you want, but the gist is that you agree that everything you write on the encyclopedia can be shared, adapted or even sold and all you get in return is attribution.
There are basically two types of images on Wikipedia.
Free images are those which can be freely used anywhere on Wikipedia. A free image may be either public domain, or released under a free license, such as CC-BY-SA. Free images can be used in any article where their presence would add value. As long as there is a consensus among the editors working on an article that the image is appropriate for the article, it's safe to say that it can remain in an article. Free images can even be modified and used elsewhere.
Non-free images, however, are subject to restrictions. Album covers and TV screenshots are two types of images that are typically non-free. They may belong to a person or organization who has not agreed to release them freely to the public, and there may be restrictions on how they are used. You have to meet ALL of Wikipedia's strict conditions in order to use them. (Non free content criteria)
In practice, if it comes out of your head - is entirely your own work, you have the right to make that release. If you got it from somewhere else, you don't. That doesn't mean it can't be used though.
You can in these situations
If the work has already been released under a compatible or less restrictive license.
If the work is in the "public domain" - Very old items, 150 years is a good benchmark
If the work is not free in certain circumstances (Non free content criteria summary below, but actually a lot more detailed)
There must be no free equivalent
We must ensure that the owner will not lose out by us using the work
Use as little as possible (the smallest number of uses and the smallest part possible used)
Must have been published elsewhere first
Meets our general standards for content
Meets our specific standards for that area
Must be used. (we can't upload something under fair use and not use it)
Must be useful in context. This is a sticking point, if it's not actually adding to the article, it shouldn't be used.
Can only be used in article space
The image page must attribute the source, explain the fair use for each article it is used and display the correct tag
It's a lot, isn't it! Well, let's have a look at the non free stuff. I'm going to suggest two different images. One, a tabloid picture of celebrity actress Nicole Kidman, and the other, the cover of the album Jollification by the Lightning Seeds. The tabloid picture of Nicole Kidman will instantly fail #1, because there can be a free equivalent - anyone can take a picture of Nicole. The album cover on the other hand is unique - there's no free equivalent. It's discussed in the article too, so showing it will be useful in context (#8). The copy we show should be shrunk, so that it can't be used to create pirate copies (#2). I couldn't put it on my userpage though (or even here) (#9)
Get it? Well here are a few more examples.
I could upload a publicity picture of Eddie Izzard. Now, the photographer holds the copyright to that particular picture of the hilarious man. I can claim fair use, but the claim would be invalid because you could just as easily go to a performance Izzard is giving and take a picture of him yourself. (That's what happened here) The publicity picture is considered replaceable fair use and so cannot be used on Wikipedia.
Person X could upload a picture of the Empire State Building from a marketing kit they distributed. This image would likely be copyrighted, and so they claim fair use. But I happen to have been to New York and have a picture of the ESB. I upload that instead and release it into the public domain. The first, copyrighted picture, is also replaceable, and therefore can't be used on Wikipedia.
For the article on the Monterey Bay Aquarium, I want to upload an image of their logo (visible in no great detail here). I go to their website, take a copy of their logo, and upload it to Wikipedia. This fair use is allowable, because no matter where or how they display their logo, it'll be under the same copyright. Since the simple art of scanning or taking a picture of a piece of work is not enough to justify my ownership of the rights to the image, there is no way to obtain a free version of the logo. So, if it meets all the other criteria as well, it can be used on Wikipedia.
When people refer to Commons on Wikipedia, they're generally referring to Wikimedia Commons, a repository of free material. Images on Commons can be linked directly to Wikipedia, like that picture just to the right and above. Now, since commons is a free repository, fair use is not permitted. It makes sense to upload free images to commons, so that they can be used by encyclopedias in every language.
Let's see how copyright applies to text. All the principles are the same - you can only include text which has been released under CC-BY-SA. In fact, if you notice, every time you click edit, it says right there
By clicking the "Save Page" button, you agree to the Terms of Use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.
So you are in effect contributing every time you edit. Now, let's think about that non-free content criteria - "No free equivalent" means that you will never be able to license text under it (except for quoting) - as you can re-write it in your own words to create an equivalent. You always, always, always have to write things in your own words or make it VERY clear that you are not.
I don't think I have any questions. You have made everything clear, especially as you say copyright wasn't your area, so thanks. I think I'll see how I do in the test and then, hopefully I'll then have a better idea of how everything works. WelshWonderWoman (talk) 02:38, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
@Missionedit: I know you are very busy, but when you are free again, I look forward to taking the test you mentioned. Thanks WelshWonderWoman (talk) 22:07, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
@WelshWonderWoman: Here's the test. Don't worry if you struggle a bit with this one, but be sure to explain your answers. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 18:06, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
1.) Q- Is Wikipedia truly free? This is an opinion question
A- I'd say no because there are so many things that aren't 'free' to use.
Y A little more elaboration next time would be nice so I can see where you're coming from.
2.) Q- List three instances in which you can upload a picture to the Commons (Wikimedia Commons).
A- I don't understand this question. I'm not sure what the Commons is.
Y Take a look at the "Commons" section of the lesson and see if you can answer the question.
I may be being a little stupid here but I still can only name one instance where one could upload a picture to the commons and that is when the picture is free. I can't think of another two.
3.) Q- You find music displaying this licence [1] (non-commercial). Can you upload it to Wikimedia Commons?
A- Possible not, though I'm not sure.
Y You are correct. Wikimedia Commons is a collection of completely free media, so it does not allow music with a non-commercial use license.
4.) Q- A user uploads a collage of all the Phillies' 2008 players' official team photographs so the photos spell 08 (background: the Phillies won the World Series in 2008). Is this suitable for inclusion on Wikipedia? The user in question created it himself.
A- I'd guess yes, it is suitable because he created it.
N This work uses official team photos which are (assumed to be) copyrighted. This would be alright if the collage fell under fair use, but because it doesn't really contribute anything to Wikipedia, it doesn't. So the collage isn't suitable for inclusion on Wikipedia.
5.) Q- What is a derivative work?
A- Something copied from somewhere else I think.
N A derivative work is a copy of someone's work which someone else has changed. For example, let's say that you uploaded a photo of your flower garden to Wikimedia Commons. If I downloaded the photo and cropped it, or changed it in any other way, the photo that I edited would be a derivative work, because it is no longer identical to your original photo.
6.) Q- Can you upload a press image of Barack Obama?
A- No, because they belong to the press I guess.
Y Anyone can take a picture of Obama and upload it to Wikipedia, so we don't need to use the press picture of him. Fair use only allows us to use copyrighted works if there is no other alternative (among other things).
7.) Q- What about a press image of a man on death row?
A- That'd seem inappropriate to me.
N Because the man is on death row (meaning that he will soon be executed), it is unlikely that another picture of him which is not copyrighted can be found. However, the photo must meet all the other fair use criterion in order to be acceptable to use on Wikipedia.
8.) Q- What would you do if you found an image that was not released under a suitable tag for inclusion on Wikipedia (e.g., all rights were reserved and the work was not in the public domain)?
A- I wouldn't be able to add it.
Y You are correct. The one exception in this case is, again, fair use. If the image meets all the fair use criterion, you can upload it to Wikipedia.
9.) Q- Go have a snoop around some Wikipedia articles and see if you can find an image which is currently being used under "fair use". Come back and link to it (using [[:File:IMAGENAME]]. You must put a colon : before the File name, as we cannot display the image here!)
I hope I did okay, but I have to admit, I doing a lot of guessing so I may have failed badly here. Thanks for the test WelshWonderWoman (talk) 23:51, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
@WelshWonderWoman: It seems like you need some work in this area :) I completely understand; copyright is possibly the hardest part to understand on Wikipedia. Review the lesson again and see if you can understand some of the test questions you were shaky on. Feel free to ask any questions if something isn't clear. Just so you know, you can refer back to the lesson at any time while taking a test. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 15:23, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
@Missionedit: Thanks for the advice. I actually was trying not to refer back to the lesson in case it was cheating lol. I'm not very good at these kind of things. Frankly I think I'll just avoid uploading any pictures just to be safe. Do you think it'd be too tricky to upload a photo to the Mark Griffin article I created? WelshWonderWoman (talk) 22:26, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
@WelshWonderWoman: What I mean by examples of images that you could upload to Commons is something like this:
A photo of a dog that I took myself
An image of a painting that is in public domain
A picture I painted myself
You didn't understand the question, so that's ok :) What image do you want to put in the Mark Griffin article? ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 20:25, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
@Missionedit: There are lots of him that come up in a Google search but I'm not sure if I'd be allowed to use any of them. What about a still from a film? Would that be okay? I'm just trying to think where to get a photo from that isn't owned by someone else.WelshWonderWoman (talk) 23:09, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
@WelshWonderWoman: Most of the photos you find on Google aren't acceptable, and a still from a film is also copyrighted work. It is possible for you to use a copyrighted photo, but there is whole process that you have to go through and all sorts of criteria the photo has to meet. Take a look at the Wikipedia:Finding images tutorial. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 19:46, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
@Missionedit: Thanks for the link to the Finding Images Tutorial, I've just read it and I'm wondering, if I find a picture on Google, then ask the permission of the website that it came from and got that permission, then it'd be okay to use it right? Because as my article is about a person then I can't exactly go and take a photo of him with my own camera as that's not very likely to happen lol WelshWonderWoman (talk) 22:39, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
@WelshWonderWoman: Yes, that would be ok as long as the photo meets the requirements at WP:Non-free content criteria and you give the image proper attribution to the copyright owner. Also, if you don't want to find an image yourself, you can put {{Image requested}} on the page and some one will eventually come along and find a picture for you. But this may take a long time, and if you want an image now, you should probably find one yourself.
@Missionedit: I know I must be a pain with all my constant questions but where would I put the image requested thing on the page? Would it be in the box thing at the top of the page where an image would usually go? WelshWonderWoman (talk) 22:51, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
WikiProjects are best described as groups of individuals collaborating to improve every article that falls under a particular topic. There are many of these across Wikipedia, relating to many topics.
You can join a WikiProject simply by adding yourself to the member list. It's good to add a userbox that says you have joined that WikiProject as well. After you join, the WikiProject has a list of things you can do to help out in that area, as well as sometimes organized projects to participate in.
Thanks for this lesson and I'll have a think about if there any topics that I'd like to help work on :) WelshWonderWoman (talk) 21:02, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
@WelshWonderWoman: So, think of some things you are interested in, and join some Wikiprojects! This is a great way to find something else to do on Wikipedia. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 00:12, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
@Missionedit: I haven't yet. I've been so busy recently that I haven't even had a chance to think about which kind of subject I'd like to contribute to. The previous suggestions were helpful though. WelshWonderWoman (talk) 22:38, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
@Missionedit: I'm figuring that I'd be best suited to adding updates to pages of subjects that interest me. That being said things have usually been updated by the time I get there lol WelshWonderWoman (talk) 05:23, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
@Missionedit: I do like films which is why I tried to make the page for the movie Dragons of Camelot, plus it was filmed in Wales and starred Mark Griffin (it all tied in pretty well lol) but apart from that mostly I'm interested in fitness/bodybuilding etc. I know that's a kind of limited field so to speak. WelshWonderWoman (talk) 22:22, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
Wikipedia assesses its articles on a scale according to how much information they provide and how well the information is presented. This assessment scale is largely unofficial, with the majority of assessments made by WikiProjects who claim jurisdiction over the articles. There are, however, two official ratings which are given to those articles which are nominated by editors and reviewed to see if they meet a series of criteria. The full ranking is as follows:
Featured articles are examples of Wikipedia's best work. These provide in-depth information with brilliant prose and superb attention to detail. All information is neutrally presented, well sourced, and informative. Articles are promoted to FA status by consensus at WP:FAC after discussion of several editors.
A-Class articles are considered "completed," although edits will obviously continue to be made. They provide a wide range of neutrally presented information that is well sourced and shows a wide background of sources. Articles at this stage should be sent to Peer Review for further improvement and preparation for an FA nomination. Note: An article need not have been listed as a "Good Article" to reach A-Class
Albert Einstein(As of August 22, 2007; promoted to FA January 13, 2005; demoted November 16, 2007)
Good Articles are not as complete and useful as A-Class or FA-Class articles, but are well on their way to becoming so. They are well written, stable, accurate, well-referenced, and neutral. If they display any images, they are freely available or meet all fair use criteria. While not as complete as higher-class articles, they do not skip over any large facet of the topic. These articles are nominated by editors at WP:GAC and then reviewed by a single editor for GA status.
Elephant(As of August 22, 2007; listed April 5, 2006)
B-Class articles have most of the information needed for a comprehensive article, but are lacking one or more key points. It is useful for general purposes, but not for in-depth research on the subject. It may have problems with editing, neutrality, copyright, or verification.
C-Class articles are substantial, but is still missing important content or contains much irrelevant material. The article should have some references to reliable sources, but may still have significant problems or require substantial cleanup.
Start-Class articles are, as the name implies, just getting started. They have a meaningful amount of content, but lack large areas of information about a topic, possibly even key areas, and may have several problems with neutrality, verification, and/or copyright. They are in need of expansion and someone researching that topic would definitely need other sources.
Stubs are very short articles that, at most, provide simplistic background information about a subject. They may be useful to someone who didn't know what the subject was previously, but otherwise don't give much help. Articles shorter than this may be at risk of deletion under CSD A1 or A3.
Other types of pages are graded outside this criteria, including:
Lists, which are just long lists of topics that all relate to the main theme of the list. Lists don't provide any prose, and any references are there simply to confirm that the topic does meet the criteria for inclusion. Each list must provide a specific criteria for what is considered a member of that list. Usually this is clear in the title, such as in List of current heads of state and government, and only needs a little more background as to how the list should be organized. Other lists don't at first glance seem as exclusive, such as List of people affected by bipolar disorder, and require some strong referencing to merit inclusion.
Disambiguation pages: These are designed to help people find the right article. Some topics share names with other topics, leading to confusion. For example, if you were to search for George Washington, you're probably looking for George Washington, but you could also be looking for George Washington the inventor, George Washington the pioneer, George, Washington, or perhaps one of theGeorgeWashingtons. That last sentence contains a total of 8 links, all of which lead to a George Washington of some variety, and I certainly could have included more from George Washington (disambiguation).
@WelshWonderWoman:Assignment: Now that you've seen the different kinds of articles and how to review them, take a look at some articles using Special:Randompage and tell me what you think they should be graded as. Don't look at the talk pages or what they are already ranked as, just read the article and give it your own assessment. Give a short reasoning of why you have graded it such. If you believe an article is worse than any of these rankings, mark it as a "sub-stub". Just do your best. Good luck! ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 00:08, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
@Missionedit: Thanks for the lesson. Using the Special:Randompage link you put, it took me to a page for Tupu Inka in the Andes and from what I can tell it seems to me to have a lot less than my article and I'd imagine it'd struggle to be a Stub, so maybe and sub-stub would be about right. There was also one for the 4th Tank Division (Imperial Japanese Army) and I'd say that may be a start as there was a picture and more information. WelshWonderWoman (talk) 07:40, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
@WelshWonderWoman: Take a look at 3 more articles, I want you to get more of a feel for article grading. I should have given you an exact number to begin with :) Sorry I haven't responded, I've been really sick for the past week. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 01:08, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
@Missionedit: Firstly really I hope you are feeling better and it's not a problem if you take a little time to respond. The Randompage thingy came up with these three...'Emmanuel Tetteh' -Ghanaian football player, which I think is a start-class article mostly because it has a list of his career stats. The second one was for 'Jack Osbourne' and I'd say that one would be either B-Class or GA probably as there is loads of information and reference sources. And the last one was 'List of minor planets/81601–81700' which could only be described as a list page surely. I hope I've done okay. Take care. WelshWonderWoman (talk) 10:12, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
@WelshWonderWoman: Thanks for the well wishes :) Good job! Here's my rankings/the rankings of other editors of the articles you "reviewed". Tupu Inka is classified as a stub; even though it has very little information, it just is a very small stub. 4th Tank Division (Imperial Japanese Army) is a start-level article; good job ranking that one. Emmanuel Tetteh is actually only a stub, and not a start-class article, because it even though it has all his stats, it just doesn't have enough information in the article body to be start-class. Jack Osbourne is a B-Class article; some of the wording and content is a little too iffy for a GA. List of minor planets/81601–81700 is...a list! Ta-da! Awesome job overall.
As for Mark Griffin (actor), what you need to get the article promoted to start-class is more information to add to the body of the article. If there is none to be found, then the article might be stuck as a stub for a while :) We'll do a lesson on the basics of Wiki Markup next. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 03:16, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
I look forward to it and I'm glad I did okay with this test. I will keep trying to add bits to the article and maybe it'll get there eventually. :) WelshWonderWoman (talk) 23:15, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
This lesson mostly is taken from WP:MARKUP, so you can also take a look there if you need some more help. I know you probably know most of this stuff, but we'll go over it all just in case.
If you edit this page, you can see how the "Lesson 1" heading above has two equal signs to either side of it, like this: == Lesson 1 ==. This subheading, titled "Headings", is a little smaller and has three equal signs (=== Headings ===). Incidentally, enclosing text between equal signs turns the text into a section heading. You can use anywhere from one to four equal signs on both sides for differently sized headings, however, level one headings (with only 1 equal sign on each side) are not permitted in articles. If a page has more than three headings of any kind, a table of contents like the one above is automatically generated.
Using the Enter/Return key once changes nothing visibly on saved page, however, this can help the page code look more organized. Entering twice creates a new paragraph. You can use <br> or </br> to create a new line without a new paragraph.
Instead of using the tab key or spacebar to indent on Wikipedia, colons (:) are utilized. I know you've already figured out how to use this in responding to posts on talk pages, so no need to go on about that :)
There are two main kinds of lists: bullet points and numbered. Numbered lists are generally for anything ranking or order-related, and everything else (such as bibliographies or award lists) should be bulleted lists. You use an asterisk to (*) produce a bullet character and a pound sign (#) to produce a numbers for a numbered list. Like with colons, adding more asterisks or pound signs will cause indentation.
Adding two singular apostrophes ('') to both sides of a phrase will make the text within italic. Adding three single apostrophes (''') to each side will make the text bold. Adding five apostrophes to both sides will make the text both bold and italic. Wikipedia uses italics in lieu of underlines, so underlining almost never needed. I will stress that you use single apostrophes, because some people use quotation marks thinking it will create italic text, but it doesn't. For the most part, you won't need to use other text formatting in article space besides bold and italics.
Enclosing text between <big> and makes the text big. HTML tags such as <s>, <small>, <div> and <font> are all allowed in Wiki Markup. However, I believe some HTML tags are not supposed to be used. If you want be sure, check out Help:HTML in wikitext just in case.
To link to a page inside Wikipedia's domain name, simply put two brackets to either side. For instance, if I wanted to link to the Wikipedia article about Wales, I would put [[Wales]], and clicking on that link would bring me to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wales. These shortened links are called internal links. Of course, sometimes the page that you want to make a link to isn't named in a way that would make sense in the text. For example, this sentence is not grammatically correct: "Dragon are legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that are featured in the myths of many cultures." One solution to this is to place the page name on the right, a pipe int the middle, and how you want the link to appear on the left: [[Dragon|Dragons]]. This will make the sentence look like this: "Dragons" are hidden messages or jokes left in games by developers that are not part of the main game."
This will work even if the text on the right side is unrelated to the link, for instance, if I wanted to make the word "apple" link to the "Pumpkin" article, the code would appear as follows: [[Pumpkin|apple]]. It is important to remember that the text on the left of the pipe is the title of the linked page and that the text right is how it appears when saved.
There are also external links, which link to pages outside Wikipedia. To do that, you place only one bracket on each side of the URL. Then you put a space and type in what you want it to be called. For example, linking to the official Marvel Entertainment website homepage would mean posting [http://marvel.com/ Official website] in the "External links" section on the Marvel Wikipedia article. This would produce this: Official website. It is important to note that the External links section is the only place that you should put external links on Wikipedia. All other links should be internal.
@Missionedit: So sorry it's taken me a week to reply, but for whatever reason I don't get a notification when you do a new lesson. You totally explained everything in a way I can understand and while I knew some of this stuff, some of it is new to me and I'm sure will be very useful. Recently I've been doing a few little bits of editing, like if I'm on a Wiki article and I notice something to be wrong, I'll try to fix it. I'm enjoying contributing in my own little way. Are there more lessons? I do enjoy them :) WelshWonderWoman (talk) 00:41, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
@WelshWonderWoman: That's great! I'm so glad you've found a way to contribute that fits your style :) We can do a lesson on templates next; that will be a little harder than this one. Just so you know, if I take while to respond, it's because recently I've lost a lot of my editing motivation and I'm trying to take a break and get it back. Nothing to worry about; I'm just operating at a lower editing rate than usual. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 02:13, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
Templates allow you to post large sections of text or complicated sections of code while only typing a few characters. All templates have "Template:" as a prefix (eg. Template:Cite web or Template:User Sandbox). Templates work similarly to regular links, but instead of using [[double square brackets]], you use {{curly brackets}}. To "call" a template, just type the title of the template between the double curly brackets. Whenever you call a template, all the content on the template page will be displayed. You don't need to include the "Template:" prefix; the MediaWiki software automatically searches within the Template namespace for what you're looking for. Only if the page you're looking for is in a different namespace (has different prefix), such as "User:" or "Wikipedia:", do you need to specify it. See below:
This calls Template:User en. Everything on that page (that is marked to be included, see below) appears where I type the page title between double curly brackets.
In that last example, I get a {{{1}}} where a number should appear. This is due to the fact that I did not specify a parameter in that template. A named parameter looks like this:
|(parameter name goes here) = (value goes here)
and an unnamed parameter looks like this:
|(value goes here)
You've probably seen parameters before in infoboxes. Parameters allow you to change certain aspects of a template. One template you can use to welcome new users, Template:W-basic, has several parameters which can customize its appearance. Most of those parameters are named, meaning that you have to specify what the name of the parameter is when you use it by putting something after the equal sign. If you set the parameter "anon" to "true" in this template: {{w-basic|anon=true}}, the template will generate a message directed especially towards anonymous users, rather than just the normal message. The advantage to named parameters like these is that they can be placed in any order (eg. both {{w-basic|anon=true|border=color}} and {{w-basic|anon=true|border=color}} work), however, they must be spelled exactly right or they will not work. Templates also use an unnamed parameter, a parameter which does not have to be specified. Templates automatically assign a number to unnamed parameters when they are used, starting with "1". {{w-basic|message}} sets the unnamed parameter "1" to "message". The userbox above can specify the number of states visited with that same unnamed parameter. Unnamed parameters must be in sequential order to work properly.
There are two ways to call a template. Transclusion is simply calling a template as I showed you above: {{exampletemplate}}. This displays the template where you put the call for it, but leaves the curly bracketed call in place so that it's easy to remove. This also causes the template to update every time the page is loaded. Substitution, or "subst'ing" a template, causes the opposite effect. To substitute a template, add the code "subst:" at the beginning of the call: {{subst:exampletemplate}}. When you save the page, the MediaWiki software will replace that call with the template's code. This causes all the content in the template to be copy-pasted to your page. This makes it more difficult to remove, because instead of the simple template call, you've probably got lines of code now on your article/page. Depending on how the template it written, it may require subst'ing to work properly, or it may require transclusion. The page at WP:SUBST gives details on what templates should, must, or must not be substituted.
Code
Displays
Comments
{{CURRENTTIME}}
20:44
Template is transcluded, so updates every time you load the page.
{{subst:CURRENTTIME}}
02:37
Template is substituted, so is stuck on the time I saved this page.
@WelshWonderWoman: I know this is a lot to absorb and understand, especially if you have no experience with computer coding. If you completely drowned in the jargon in this lesson, please tell me (we can do some extra hands-on work). It helps you understand how templates work if you actually work with them, rather than just reading. These are only the basics of templates. We can cover more advanced stuff later, but only if you really want to. Any questions? ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 02:37, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
@Missionedit: That's complicated! I wouldn't say I drowned in the lesson but I'm not swimming either. To be honest, if I read this a few times I think I'll understand all that I really need to know because I can't see me using code much as I get by quite well without it. My only question is do I need to use Templates? As I've never really had the need before. WelshWonderWoman (talk) 05:22, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
@WelshWonderWoman: I think you've used templates without realizing it before. Like I said, actually using templates is much easier than explaining and understanding how they work. Here is a summary of the most common templates:
Infoboxes, short for "information boxes", are little boxes to the side of articles that give quick details about the article. For example, on Justice (sculpture), the box to the side shows a picture and tells you the artist, year, type, material, dimensions, location, and owner. On José Maria Larocca, the box to the side shows a picture and tells you his full name, nationality, discipline, birth date, birth place, height, weight, and horses. You can find a grand list of every kind of infobox at Category:Infobox templates, where you can narrow it down to a specific type of infobox. For example, the infobox for a specific species would be Template:Taxobox. Template:Infobox animal is for a specific animal.
Navigational boxes, or "navboxes", are templates placed at the bottom of a page that allow you to easily jump between related articles. Some examples are Template:Welsh folk music, Template:Harry Potter, and Template:Arthurian Legend. These are also the easiest to create. You can follow the instructions at Template:Navbox to create one by filling in the parameters and then putting the result at [[Template:Name of the navbox]]. Then you put {{Name of the navbox}} at the bottom of all the articles listed in the navbox.
If you see a problem with an article, e.g. it has no citations, bare urls, or contradicts itself, you can "tag" it with one of the article message templates provided. These go at the top of the article, and need a |date= parameter to be sorted properly.
These are only the most common templates; there are many others that you can use. Do you understand what templates are now? ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 20:25, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
@Missionedit: Yes I think I do now. I guess I have used them :) I'm going to read some of these links and I think this is really helpful. I often see articles that have errors so the 'tagging' articles thing you mentioned might be useful. Thank you WelshWonderWoman (talk) 00:35, 20 June 2015 (UTC)
What we're going to do now is start learning how to do some basic vandalism patrols. This is by no means something you will be obligated to do as an editor; many people prefer to do other things. But it is something you should know how to do due to the high risk of vandalism on Wikipedia, and you are likely to run into some. Should you ever wish become an administrator, you will be expected to deal with vandalism at least in some respect.
Wikipedia is, as you know, a wiki, meaning anyone can edit virtually any page. This is both a blessing and a curse: while it does allow a wide range of information to be added and shared, it also allows people with malevolent intentions to come in and mess around with stuff. It requires a fair amount of work being done 24/7 by well-intentioned editors to ensure that this vandalism does not run rampant and destroy Wikipedia. Fortunately, with the enormous amount of volunteers across the world, we can keep it under control. Various tools can aid our cause and help us "revert", or remove, vandalism within seconds.
Vandalism is an edit to an article or other page which deliberately attempts to harm the encyclopedia. Most commonly, these are pretty blatant - replacing a whole page or section with curse words, simply removing entire sections, and so forth. Occasionally, it's less obvious, like changing key words in a section to completely alter the meaning. Basically, anything that isn't helpful at all to an article is considered vandalism. However, you should always remember to assume good faith in questionable cases.
The tool most commonly used to combat vandalism is Special:RecentChanges. Recent Changes is a special page that lists every edit made across Wikipedia within the last few minutes. You can find a link to it in the toolbar to the left of any page on Wikipedia. The page is formatted similarly to a page's history, with a few differences. Here's how a standard entry generally looks:
A "diff" is the difference between two revisions. Wikipedia has a special feature that allows you to compare revisions to see exactly what was changed. This is particularly useful when on vandal patrol, as this is the best thing available to tell you if the edit was or was not vandalism. Clicking on the link above will only take you to the help page on diffs, unfortunately, however an actual diff link will bring you to a screen that looks like this one, an actual diff of another article. Content removed appears in red text in a yellow box on the left; content added appears in red text in a green box on the right.
The "hist" link will bring you to the page's history. You can click on the "hist" link above to get to the help page for this feature. A page's history lists all edits ever made to a page, something which is required under the terms of the GFDL, Wikipedia's licensing.
The next link is the article that the edit was made to.
The time stamp will indicate when the edit was made. The time will appear in your time zone, as you have it defined in your Special:Preferences. Note that this is different from signature timestamps, which are always in UTC/GMT time.
The green or red number after the timestamp will tell you how much was added or removed to the article in the edit. A green "+" number shows the number of bytes added to the article - a red "-" number indicates the number removed. In general, the number of bytes is equal to the number of characters, however this is not always the case: Certain special characters can contain more than one byte, and templates can completely mess this number up. Templates will be covered in another lesson later on, however you will be using some in your patrols later. This number will be in bold if a very large number of characters were removed, which is usually a good indicator of vandalism.
The next part is the name of the user who made the edit, which will link to their user page. In this case, an IP address made the edit, so the link will instead go to their contributions. Since most vandalism comes from these anonymous editors, this serves as another convenience to those on patrol. The user name is followed by a link to their talk page.
The last part of a RC report is the edit summary. When editing a section of an article, the title of that section will automatically be included in the edit summary, as you see above. Other special edit summaries include "Replaced page with..." and "Blanked the page". In general, these last two are dead giveaways for vandalism edits, however you will occasionally see an editor blank his own user or user talk page, so be careful about that.
Now that you know how to use Recent Changes, I want you to go and find some vandalism edits. I don't want you to remove the edit yourself just yet - we'll get to this shortly and chances are, another editor or bot will beat you to it. So before you go on, go to Special:RecentChanges and find three vandalism edits. So that I can check your work and we can discuss things, I want you to copy the links to the diffs of these three edits into the brackets you see below. (This is most easily done by copying the URL from your address bar while you're viewing the diff.)
Due to the very nature of vandalism on Wikipedia, it is possible you will encounter something that will offend you. I take this time to point out Wikipedia's Content Disclaimer, which basically says that you can find just about anything on here and it's not WP's fault. While you may find something offensive in your searches and subsequent vandal patrols, it is best to simply brush it off and not take it to heart. Later on, when you are actually reverting vandalism, it is possible that your own user pages will be vandalized. Here the same thing applies - ignore, remove it, and simply warn the user on their talk page. I don't tell these things to scare you, or to imply that it will happen. I am simply pointing out that it is possible. In many cases, these attempts to attack you can be somewhat amusing. If these do occur, just remember how intellectually superior you clearly are to the vandal and be glad that you have something better to do than insulting people. Please add your signature here (~~~~) to confirm that you have read and understand this warning:WelshWonderWoman (talk) 00:59, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
Well, If you're using any web browser but Internet Explorer, I would suggest using Twinkle. You can turn it on by going to My Preferences --> Gadgets --> Twinkle. Then save your preferences and refresh the page. Suddenly you have new things to play with! Each diff gives you 3 options to roll back - more information can be found at WP:TWINKLE.
To revert vandalism, you go to "View history" on a page. Now click the "Compare selected revisions" button and find the vandalism reversion. Since you now have Twinkle, you should see three options: "Rollback (AGF)", "Rollback", and "Rollback (VANDAL)". The first one you shouldn't use unless it's obviously good faith (hence AGF, Assuming Good Faith), and we're not talking about that. The third one you should only use if it's a repeat offender who has a significant amount of vandalism under their belt. Usually for new editors you will use the second one.
There many different templates available to warn vandals after you've reverted their edit. I would recommend using Twinkle. If you are, the first step will be under the "Wel" button, while the rest will be under "Warn":
If this is a new editor's first edit, you welcome them and use either {{welcomevandal}} if they have a username or {{welcome-anon-vandal}} if they are an IP editor. You always link the article that you found the vandalism on.
If, after their welcoming, they are still vandalizing, you use a "General notice (1)". {{uw-vandalism1}} is the general, though if you can get more specific, try.
If they are still vandalizing, you use a "Caution (2)".
If they continue to vandalize, you use a "Warning (3)".
If they still continue their vandalism, you use a "Final warning (4)".
If, even after all your warning, they continue vandalism, you've warned them long enough. You report them to administrators using "APV" on Twinkle. Fill in as much as possible and send the notice on your merry way. The admins will do what they have to afterwards.
If someone has a level 3 warning on one charge (such as vandalism), but doesn't have one on another (like using a talk page as a forum), start with a level 1 warning on the new charge. I've found that some vandals have multiple charges.
Occasionally, you'll get an editor who won't stop vandalizing even after the final warning. When this happens, there is no choice left but to block them, which is something only an administrator can do. AIV, or Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism is just for this specific purpose. You can report them using Twinkle, as Twinkle has the option "ARV", which allows you to fill out a form that get sent to WP:AIV. Once it gets sent, there is no more left for you to do; let the admins handle it. However, if I were you, I would keep track of the editor and what the admins decide on for punishment.
Scared vandals. There are those kinds of vandals that make one kind of unhelpful edit (like replacing a heading with "muahaha" or some type of gibberish) thinking that everyone on Wikipedia does that. They then get a warning and are scared straight immediately. They either choose not to edit ever again or become upstanding editors.
Repeat vandals. The repeat vandals are bored and looking for a little fun. Once again, most of their vandalism is gibberish replacing good text. You can give them as many warnings as you want, but they won't bother. Once you get past the level 4 warning for them, you report them to WP:AIV and the admins deal with them.
Belligerent vandals. These vandals are similar to the repeat vandals, except the belligerent vandals will often leave a nasty note on your talk page or vandalize your user page when you give them a warning. Then you can give them two warnings: one for vandalism and one for personal attacks. If something like this happens, you just have to take it in stride. Personally, being a Christian, I find vandals forgivable. But without that factor, I guess you just have to remember that there will be mean people in the world, and that you can't let them get you down. Just revert their offence and hand them a {{uw-npa}} warning of whatever severity you deem necessary.
Malicious vandals. These are hardest to notice, because their edits aren't immediately recognizable. They will seem to be improving the article at first glance, when really they're replacing true information with false, often libelous parodies. Others replace valid links with shock sites, or add hidden comments with offensive information. This last version doesn't actually appear in the article, but is there waiting when someone comes to edit it. A similar type of vandal, the "on wheels" vandal, is here for the sole purpose of destroying the encyclopedia. The namesake, User:Willy on Wheels, replaced dozens of pages with the text "{{BASEPAGENAME}} has been vandalized by User:Willy on Wheels!" The BASEPAGENAME variable is a magic word that displays the name of the page. After his blocking, Willy continued to create hundreds of sockpuppets for the same purpose. This sort of vandal is clearly here to vandalize, as such actions are not accidental. With them, you can safely assume bad faith right from the start and slam them with a more severe warning. You don't have to escalate level warnings in all cases - if there is no doubt that the edit was made with bad intentions, you may start with a higher level than normal. In this case, you can give them {{uw-vandalism4im}}. If they continue vandalizing (which they probably will), report them to WP:AIV.
@WelshWonderWoman: Tah-dah! You have just successfully read through one of the longest and most tedious lessons of this course. If you have problems with Twinkle or any other questions please tell me. The point of your assignment is to get you familiar with finding vandalism. After you find a couple instances, we can then move on to reverting vandalism. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 19:13, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
@Missionedit: Gosh! That's a lot to take in. Before I start, can I ask, do I have to do this? I only ask because, first, I don't really want to change my settings to this 'Twinkle' thing as I'm happy with how things are now, second, I'd imagine it'd take ages to find acts of vandalism on here and I'm limited on time, third because I really don't want to put myself in a position where I may get targeted on here by the vandles as I only came here to try to contribute and if that were to happen then I'd have to leave and lastly I don't think I have it in me to be an admin or anything so is there any point of me doing this? If you say I must learn more then I will. Thank you WelshWonderWoman (talk) 00:59, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
Changing the settings on Twinkle won't affect your everyday editing on Wikipedia; it only adds a small tab to the article toolbar, and provides a revert button when you are checking page history. It's very simple and easy. In fact, Twinkle can be very useful for tagging articles and lots of other things. But we'll cover Twinkle in another lesson.
It is actually fairly easy and quick to find vandalism at Special:Recentchanges; just to prove it I just looked and found 3 instances of vandalism within 5 minutes. Some clues to find vandalism are no edit summary, edits by IP addresses (these look like long strings of numbers), edits tagged as "Mobile edits", and edits by users with red links to their user page. Don't worry, you can take your time looking.
Despite what I said in the lesson, if you don't deal with vandalism all the time, it is very unlikely that you would be targeted by a vandal of any kind. And even if you are, by some rare chance, the vandal will either be warned and stop, or they will be blocked from editing. There is no need for you to stop editing because one stupid person doesn't understand how Wikipedia works :)
Every editor on Wikipedia comes across vandalism somehow, and when you do, it's best to know how to deal with it. Say, for example, someone vandalises the article Mark Griffin (actor). You need to know how to warn them and fix the vandalism in the right way. I'm not an admin, nor do I ever plan on becoming one, but I do occasionally deal with the vandalism I find in articles I'm working on.
All I'm asking is that you find 3 instances of vandalism at Special:Recent changes. If you are really that uncomfortable reverting vandalism, I won't make you do anything you don't want to. But it would be best if you also turned on Twinkle and did some reverting, just for practice. You may like it; who knows? This is just to show you another part of Wikipedia and how to quickly remove rude/unhelpful edits. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 18:35, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
@Missionedit: Thank you for explaining all this. I have turned on Twinkle and I do get what you're saying so I'll take this test really seriously now. I've been finding it hard identifying vandalism even though you've told me what to look out for so I've only been able to find two that I think are vandalism so far, but I can keep trying :) WelshWonderWoman (talk) 23:54, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
@Missionedit: I've definitely found the third incident of vandalism and I think someone needs to do something about it really soon. It's very disingenuous to the actor in question to say the least! I hope I did okay :) WelshWonderWoman (talk) 23:28, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
@WelshWonderWoman: I'm back from my vacation! Great job finding all three ;) They've all been reverted now, so nothing to worry about. Now, if you're comfortable with it, I want you to find one other incidence of vandalism and revert it yourself. Ask if you run into any problems :) ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 18:55, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
@Missionedit: I hope you had a nice vacation :) I will do my best to revert any vandalism I find but it might take me a few days as I don't have much time at the moment. WelshWonderWoman (talk) 01:44, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
You're about half way through the course (congrats!). Before we start the next lesson, it's time for a personal break. These questions won't be graded, I just want to get to know a little more about you as a person and a Wikipedian.
1.) Q- Why did you begin editing Wikipedia? Why did you decide to become adopted?
A- Mostly because I saw there wasn't a page for the actor Mark Griffin so I thought if I began editing Wikipedia, then I could make a page. I wanted to be adopted because I needed help to find my way around and I couldn't have found a better adopter than you @Missionedit: :)
2.) Q- Give me a little background on your username. Is it a derivation of your real name, from a show, sports team, game, book, etc.? Is it simply a random conglomeration of letters?
A- I guess it's quite simple really, I'm Welsh and I like Wonder Woman. It made sense.
3.) Q- What are your major interests? What type of things do you like to do on Wikipedia?
A- Major interests would be reading books, working out and exercise and films/TV I guess.
4.) Q- Do you have any future goals as far as something you'd like to do on Wikipedia?
A- Just maintaining the page I made and hopefully improving some others along the way.
Deletion theory is one of the most discussed and contentious issues on Wikipedia. There are two primary factions, the inclusionists and the deletionists. The full policy on deletion is located here.
While Wikipedia does strive to include as much information as possible, there is a practical limit as to what we're going to include as an article. Just because you think your pet cat is the cutest thing on the planet, that does not mean you should create an article about it. There's a whole list of things that Wikipedia is not. Some relate simply to style or formatting, such as Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia or Wikipedia is not censored. Most, however, relate to the content of the encyclopedia, and what is considered encyclopedic and what isn't. WP:NOT is an official policy, which means that all articles must adhere to it. If they don't, they're at risk of deletion. This lesson will have a test.
WP:CSD, short for "Criterion for speedy deletion", is, in its most practical form, a tag which you place on articles that need to be deleted "speedily", or as soon as possible. These are the following criterion for speedy deletion in article space (you rarely need to use it in any other space):
G1. Patent nonsense: Basically total gibberish or words that seem like they're supposed to mean something, but make no sense at all.
G2. Test page: A page used for Wikipedia testing. It can be hard to distinguish between this and G1 sometimes, but test pages are usually something like only bold/italics marks, a user's name written all over the page, an empty page that looks like it was created accidentally in article space, etc.
G3. Pure vandalism and blatant hoaxes: Anything that is obviously vandalism or a hoax.
G4. Recreation of a page that was deleted per a deletion discussion: A identical (or almost identical) copy of a previously deleted article.
G5. Creations by banned or blocked users: Pages that a banned or blocked user try to create under their block or ban. This one is pretty rare.
G6. Technical deletions: Pages that serve no purpose, like a disambiguation page with one link.
G7. Author requests deletion: If only one person has edited a page and the talk page and wants the article to go, they file it under G7. Page blanking by the author falls under G7 too.
G8. Pages dependent on a nonexistent or deleted page: e.g. a redirect that redirects to a deleted page.
G9. Office actions: The Wikimedia Foundation requests deletion. Extremely rare -- neither you nor I can request CSD per G9.
G10. Attack pages: Pages intended to put down or harass someone else-- e.g. "Missionedit and Scribbleink SUCK!!!!"
G11. Unambiguous advertising or promotion: e.g. "Come to JIM'S DISCOUNT FURNITURE! Crazy prices! Unbelievable furniture condition!"
G12. Unambiguous copyright infringement: Complete and obvious plagiarism from copyrighted source(s).
G13. Abandoned articles for creation submissions: An Articles for Creation submission that hasn't been edited in over 6 months.
A1. No context: A very short article that doesn't tell you who/what the article is about.
A2. Foreign language articles that already exist somewhere: E.g. an article written in French that already exists either on the French Wikipedia or (in English) on the English Wikipedia.
A3. No content: There is no actual prose here, only links/templates/images.
A5. Transwikied articles: E.g. a dictionary definition that is already at Wiktionary.
A7. No indication of importance: Any article on an individual, individual animal, organization, web content, or organized event that does not tell you why the thing is notable.
A9. No indication of importance (musical recording): An article about a musical recording that has no article about the artist and does not indicate why the recording is notable.
A10. Duplicate article: An article already covered somewhere on the English Wikipedia that does not give any further information, and the title is not a plausible redirect.
You should wait at least ten minutes after an article is created before tagging an article with either A1 or A3, because the author may add more information in that time that would render the CSD templates void.
PROD, short for "Proposed deletion", is what you use if the page doesn't fall under a CSD, but you're pretty certain it can be deleted without too much discussion on the issue. Someone can always contest your PROD, in which case you should take it to AfD. To PROD an article, add the template {{subst:prod|reason}} to the top of the article. YOU MUST include the "subst:" code at the beginning of the template.
This adds a little blue box at the top of the page to indicate that the page is being considered for deletion. If the box remains in place for five days, the article will be deleted. However, anyone can contest the deletion by removing the template. If you still believe the article should be deleted after this happens, you should open a debate at WP:AFD, which I'll explain how to use in a moment. PRODs also come with a notice for the author, {{subst:PRODWarning|Article title}}.
WP:XFD (XfD stands for Anything for Deletion) allows users to debate the merits (or lack thereof) a particular article and decide by consensus what to do with it. This does not involve voting - sheer numbers have no effect on the outcome of these debates. Only reasoned comments are (or should be) considered when concluding the debate. We will do the next lesson specifically on this subject, "votes" and consensus, an interesting topic in itself. The template to the right shows all the different types of deletion debates. Each XfD page outlines the process for each, which often is somewhat complicated. Deletion review is where users can appeal a deletion debate, and follows similar procedures. The most frequently used XfD is AfD, Articles for Deletion.
WP:AFD, short for "Articles for deletion", is where you go if you think something should be deleted but want to be sure. You can list it at AfD using Twinkle under the XFD button and then say why you think it should be deleted. Then the usual consensus debate process is followed. If you ever want to become an administrator, AfD is a great thing to be involved in.
Hello @Missionedit: Sorry I have not responded sooner but I didn't know the next lesson was up. I'm ready for the test whenever you are, I can't guarantee I'll understand it all but I'm ready anyway lol WelshWonderWoman (talk) 11:31, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
Questions 4-7 are hypothetical scenarios. Answer what CSD/PROD criterion (if any) you would tag these articles under.
1.) Q- Explain a scenario in which you would use PROD.
A- If I found a page that didn’t come under the CSD thingy
Y Well, just because an article doesn't fall under CSD doesn't mean you should use PROD. The most common scenario in which PROD is used is when an article about a living person has no sources.
2.) Q- You tag an article for CSD under A7. The creator then blanks the page. What should you do?
A- File it under G7 maybe
Y This is a tricky one, but tagging the page with G7 is probably the best way to go. Technically, you could revert the page back to the pre-blanked version and continue with the A& request, but usually that's just asking for trouble.
3.) Q- Why should you wait before tagging an article for A1 or A3?
A- In case the editor is about to add content
Y The creator of the article may not have finished with the article yet, so you should wait at least a few hours before tagging it for any problems.
4.) Q- You find an article which says: Mike Smith is so nice and awesome and the best person I've ever met! He always has a beer and a hot dog for you! His fiancée Ashley is really cool too!
A- I think that’d come under G11
Y It could also fall under A7, since Mike has no real claim to fame.
5.) Q- You find an article which says: ajdflajsdlfjalghaiefjalsfj
A- That sounds like it’d be a G1
Y Exactly.
6.) Q- You find an article (with no sources) which says: Joe Garrison is a trumpeter in the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. He used to be in the Boston Pops. He likes to read and swim when he's not playing the trumpet.
A- I’m not sure on this one. Maybe an A7
Y Sorry, I phrased the question wrong. In this example, there are no sources supporting the text. So A7 might be appropriate, but tagging it under PROD may be better, since the article is about a living person with no sources. My bad :P
7.) Q- You find an article which says: On the night of 22 April 1941, during the the blitz, over 70 civilians were killed, including a mother and her six children, when a bomb fell on the shelter near the Planetarium. The bomb shelter consisted of a series of underground tunnels which many had long-presumed lost but were rediscovered in 2006. The bomb blast was so big that human remains were found in the tops of trees. In 2006 an appeal was made to raise money for a public sculpture to honour those who lost their lives. (This one's a tricky one, but ask yourself: do you know what the article is talking about?)
A- To me this doesn’t seem to fit any of them. Could it be that it’d just need verification and sources for the information?
N It falls under A1 (no context). Even though the article talks about stuff that seems important, you have no idea who was involved, where this took place, or what the article is really about.
8.) Assignment- find an article worthy of deletion (CSD, PROD, or AFD), and tag it/begin the process. Please explain what you did and why you did it below.
A- I honestly wouldn't know where to start. Can I not answer this one?
One easy way to find deletion-worthy articles is to visit Special:NewPagesFeed. This is a list of the pages that have just been created; the ones that have red exclamation marks next them have not been reviewed and may be eligible for deletion. Just try to find them-don't give up so easily :)
I've just nominated an article for deletion. I hope I've done it right.
@WelshWonderWoman: I'll try to remember to notify you on your talk page when I put up a lesson so you know about it :) Sorry about last time. Good luck on the test! ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 15:53, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
Apparently you did something right, because the page Bhagwanpur,jaunpur no longer exists :) Please explain what you did and why you did it, as stated in the assignment above. Good job :) ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 17:10, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
I forgot to explain lol. I searched through the list of new un-reviewed pages, like you told me, and I found one that had been there for hours and still had no content at all and there was mention of a bot somewhere so I used the thingy at the right of the screen and nominated it for deletion for being blank, though I forget now which I nominated it under. Sorry, I'm not very good at this lol WelshWonderWoman (talk) 22:37, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
That's OK; you did fine for your first time :) We'll do a lesson on consensus, a central part of Wikipedia, next. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 15:06, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
Since Wikipedia is a collaborative encyclopedia, when we have a disagreement on something, we go by consensus. According to Dictionary.com, the definition of consensus is "majority of opinion" or "general agreement or concord".[1] You can add your opinion to the debate by "voting". However, this type of voting is not like voting in an election or a poll. It is more like in a debate, where each comment contributes a new idea to keep the discussion going so that a consensus can be reached. (Interesting fact: WP:Articles for Deletion used to be called Votes for Deletion, but the name was later changed as a result of consensus.)
As you may know by now, a "vote" usually begins with Support or Oppose. However, just saying "Support" is very different than saying "Support: - User has been a loyal host at the Teahouse since its inception, shows a good article track record, and has enough experience in the administrative work they intend to participate in that I have no concerns with them using the tools." You see, it is necessary to explain why you have "voted" support or oppose; otherwise, it will just be a stack of votes with no reasoning behind them.
These are the following "votes" that you can use in RfAs and RfBs, as well as other community discussions:
Support - User would make a good administrator or bureaucrat.
Oppose - User would not make a good administrator or bureaucrat.
Neutral - User might make a good administrator or bureaucrat, but there are some concerns.
You can add "Strong" or "Weak" to "Support" and "Oppose". Or you can also go for a more humorous approach, eg. "Oh my goodness yes". It's usually in better taste to have a humorous vote for a support than an oppose :)
Okay, but can I participate as and when rather than all at once? I found one to participate in but I'm not sure about any others yet. WelshWonderWoman (talk) 00:28, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
Yes, just do it whenever you have the time :-) ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 02:02, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
@Missionedit: I can't be sure but I think I've participated in 3 AfDs now as I did one today. What's next :) WelshWonderWoman (talk) 02:49, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
@WelshWonderWoman: Good job at getting the assignment done, but I think you could have been a little more thoughtful with your contributions the the AfDs. Saying things like "it seems like an interesting article" and repeating what others have already said will not help the discussion move on. Deleting an article is not about whether it is interesting or not, but rather if the subject matter is worthy of Wikipedia, and if it has enough sources. So, next time you participate in a discussion, try to stop and ask these questions:
"Am I saying something that will help other better make a decision?"
"Am I supporting my point of view with evidence? (Am I telling people why I am voting Keep, Delete, Support ect.?)"
"Has what I am saying already been said? If so, instead of restating my opinion, can I add to what the other person has said?"
Thank you for doing the assignment, though :) I won't ask you to do more work on this, because I want to keep moving with our lessons. We'll do one on semi-automatic tools next. I'll try to get it up within the next two days. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 19:17, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
@Missionedit: The thing is I only participated because you asked me to, otherwise I wouldn't have and am unlikely to do so again. I really didn't join Wikipedia to take part in decision making, I just wanted to create the article that I did, and I stay involved because I want to maintain it and a few others. I hope that doesn't make me a bad Wiki member or whatever, but I simply don't know enough about any of the articles that came up on there for me to really give any kind of opinion that was original. I wasn't copying what other people said as such, I was giving a basic opinion based on looking at the pages and they seemed interesting to me based on no other knowledge of the subject. I hope this makes sense. WelshWonderWoman (talk) 23:56, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
@WelshWonderWoman: Hey, I'm not trying to bash you :) You are great person and a valuable part of the Wikipedia community. I only want you to do your best at what I assign you to do, so that you can learn more about how Wikipedia works and get the full adoption experience. Since you are volunteering like the rest of us editors, you only have to ever do the stuff you like to do here, and no one's the worse for it. No one's forcing you to do anything you don't want to. As your adopter, I'm only trying to make sure that you experience all the parts of Wikipedia, see if you find anything new that you would like to participate in, and get what you signed up for. That's all :) ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 21:16, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
@Missionedit: Thank you and I really appreciate everything you do to help me and the only reason that I've not been as fast in responding as I'd have liked recently is that I'm starting a new job and trying to learn to drive and it's a busy time but I'm totally committed to learning from these lessons and I'm looking forward to the next one :) WelshWonderWoman (talk) 01:46, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
@WelshWonderWoman: Great! Don't worry about getting the lessons done quickly; you can just do them when ever you have time :) ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 17:31, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
A semi-automatic tool is basically a computer program designed to make certain repetitive tasks easier and less complicated. Don't worry, using these tools is a lot easier than it may sound, and it can make some things on Wikipedia, such as tagging articles, much easier. There's no test for this lesson, just an assignment. I want you to go to the "Preferences" button at the top of the page, and then the "Gadgets" tab. There are two gadgets that I want you to enable. The first is Twinkle, fifth from the bottom under "Browsing". The second is HotCat, fourth from the top under "Editing". Just check the boxes to enable them on your account. These two tools are some of the most common on Wikipedia, and are very easy to utilize. Even though you now have these tools, you don't have to use them unless you want to. I only want you to try them out in case you ever feel like using them.
Twinkle is a handy little tool that's been around for awhile. It allows you to easily tag articles and mark them for deletion, as well as some other useful things. After you enable Twinkle, you should see a tab with the letters "TW" to the left of the search box at the top of any page. Click on that tab and you'll be presented with a variety of options:
Unlink backlinks (This allows you to remove certain kinds of internal links from the text. This is a rarely necessary tool, so I would encourage you not to to use it unless you know what you are doing)
When viewing the last revision of a page (the top 4 appear in colored lettering on the page itself)
Rollback (meaning revert all the edits by that user on that page) for good faith
Rollback general
Rollback vandalism
Restore a different revision of the page
Under the TW tab, there are also multiple options to see other diffs compared to each other
User talk
ARV (Report a user to administrators)
Warn (Warn or notify a user)
Wel (Welcome a user)
TB (Talkback)
I encourage you to experiment a little bit with these as long as your edits are responsible (see "Responsibility", below)
HotCat is a tool that makes adding categories easy. Once you have it enabled, look at the categories at the end of a page. They should now look something like this:
The double-plus next to categories allows you to add several categories at once. The (-) after French equestrians allows you to remove that category, while the (±) allows you to modify it. The (+) at the end allows you to add one new category. This tool comes in very handy if you work with categories a lot.
I encourage you to explore with Twinkle and HotCat, but don't forget to be responsible with them. As you know, you should not tag articles just because it's fun or to annoy people, but to better the encyclopedia. User talk:Sandbox for user warnings allows you to test out warning, welcoming, and talkback. You are fully and completely responsible for all of your actions using or regarding semi-automatic tools. Please add your signature here (~~~~) to confirm that you have read and understand this warning:WelshWonderWoman (talk) 02:48, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
@WelshWonderWoman: Twinkle and HotCat are only a few of the many semi-automatic tools on Wikipedia. Any questions? Having trouble enabling/using these tools? ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 19:22, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
No, I don't think I have any questions. I have enabled Twinkle before and now HotCat and I'll try to use them to see how they work. WelshWonderWoman (talk) 02:48, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
No matter how well you edit Wikipedia, no matter how simple and obvious your changes may seem, you are very likely to end up in a dispute. This is especially likely to happen if you take to editing in the more contentious areas of Wikipedia. The higher the number of page views and the more evocative the subject - the more likely the area is going to be considered contentious.
Stay in the top three sections of this pyramid.
I'm going to go through the different methods of dispute resolution there are on Wikipedia. They are all covered at the dispute resolution page and the tips there are really worth following through. This lesson will have a test.
I'm not expecting you to back down. You obviously believe in your side of the argument, and there is nothing wrong with that. What you should do, though, is attempt to resolve the dispute.
First, assume good faith: remember the person you are in a dispute with is (most likely) also trying to improve the encyclopedia. They are not trying to deliberately damage the encyclopedia. Try to see things from their point of view and see if you can both come to a compromise.
Keep calm. There's no urgency to the change you are trying to put in or take out, and it will wait until the discussion is complete. If you try to make your point by editwarring (repeatedly reverting someone else's same work) to keep your preferred version there is a chances that you will get nowhere and face a block. So, instead, follow the Bold, Revert, Discuss rule - one editor makes a bold edit which they feel improves the encyclopedia. A second editor reverts the edit because they disagree. Then, these two (or more) editors discuss the matter on the talk page until they come to an agreement or proceed along Wikipedia's dispute resolution process.
When it comes to discussion, I want you to try and stay in the top 3 sections of the pyramid to the right. Well, this pyramid explains the different forms of disagreement. Something you should never do is use personal attacks to try to get your way. Attacks on the character of an editor will only make thing worse. If an editor is "attacking" you, don't respond in kind - stay focused on the editors argument and respond to that. If it continues, report them to admin.
If you think about what you are saying and how the editor you are talking with is likely to respond, you realize that you have a choice. Your comment will generally go one of two ways:
1) It will address the editors argument and put forward a counterargument which the opposing editor will be able to understand.
2) It will not address the situation, thereby infuriating the other editor and escalating the drama.
Accusing the other editor of attacks, bad faith, ownership, vandalism, or any number of negative things are going to fall into (2). If there are issues with one of these problems, use the following dispute resolution process and try to keep a cool head. If needs be, walk away and have a cup of tea. Play a game of racketball. Whatever you do to calm down and just not be on Wikipedia.
If you want someone to talk to but not necessarily step in, there is an WP:Editor Assistance notice board. The editors there are experienced and can offer suggestions about how to resolve the situation.
You can get someone uninvolved to step in and give an opinion on a content dispute. Third opinion has instructions on how to request a third editor to come in and discuss the situation. Another option to get a third opinion is to go to the project noticeboard associated with the article to ask for an opinion (the talk page lists which projects are associated with the article). Finally, you could leave a message at a relevant noticeboard - WP:SEEKHELP
If the issue won't go away, even after a couple of people have weighed in, you can try the more formal route of Requests for mediation. The editors here specialize in sorting out debates.
You can use Request for Comment to draw community discussion to the page. You are likely to get a larger section of the community here than with a Third Opinion request. Request for comment is rarely necessary and should not be taken lightly. Only after almost every other route of dispute resolution has been taken should this happen - and it requires at least two editors having the same problem with one editor to be certified.
I really hope you'll never have to go this far with a dispute. It's the last resort; the community has elected its most trusted willing volunteers to preside over the most complicated and serious cases. Have a read of WP:Arbitration Committee if you like, but try not to end up there.
You could be acting against consensus! But as long as you are open to the possibility and have been sticking the top 3 sections of the pyramid, there's nothing wrong with disagreeing. Just make sure you are aware that at some point you might have to realize you are flogging a dead horse.
@WelshWonderWoman: I'm putting up this lesson in case you have time to look it over. This is a tricky area, so take your time. Any questions before the test? ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 19:05, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
I thought I'd start a new area to discuss my new article which is about a film called Dragons of Camelot. I thought it'd be easier to keep track of things to start here. I wondered if you could tell me if it's okay and what kind of citations/references I should use for a film. I'm not 100% sure that the ones I've put are going to be enough. Also a bot has said that I might be violating copyright in the article but I didn't copy anything, I wrote it from scratch (it took ages!) so I hope it'd be okay to remove the alarming notice at the top of the article before I submit it? Thanks WelshWonderWoman (talk) 10:04, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
@WelshWonderWoman: You should definitely use more sources, otherwise the submission will be declined for lack of notability. You can look at WP:MOVIE for specific criteria. You can use the movie itself as a source, too. Yes, you can remove the bot copyright warning. Did you use http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f703ekqCB6o as a source (I'm assuming you didn't, but just checking)? Because you didn't just copy-paste and then change a few words, you should be fine. After all, the copyvio detector says it's not likely a violation :) Take a look at the bottom of the citations lesson where I responded to your post if you haven't yet. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 21:49, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
@Missionedit: When you say I can use the movie as a source, what exactly do you mean? I have watched it so I know all about the film and I got all the cast information from reading the end credits. No I did not use the YouTube version of the film as a source, that confused me actually being as I wrote the whole plot bit myself, but it was a 'bot' so it must have made a mistake. I'll try to add more sources ASAP. I spent a while today editing an existing page and making it a little bit more as it should have been before, so I'm getting a better idea. Maybe I'm just not very good at making new articles. WelshWonderWoman (talk) 23:34, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
@WelshWonderWoman: If you watched the movie, you can cite the credits/anything else in the movie you saw using Template:Cite av media. Writing an article takes a long time, and so far you have picked some difficult topics :) ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 02:37, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
Super. Do you think, when you have a moment, you could do a little example for me in the article so I can fully understand what you mean? Then I'll be able to use it properly. WelshWonderWoman (talk) 02:43, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
@Missionedit: Hello again, as I couldn't find a great deal of information about this film to back up the article I'm not sure how to proceed with it, though I am missing editing a bit lol. I only really had in mind to create the article I did (Mark Griffin actor) and now I'm not sure what to do on Wiki with my new found editing 'skills'. Any tips? WelshWonderWoman (talk) 22:44, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
@Missionedit: Again I'm making this separate section to discuss my other article. I have made lots of reference changes since we last communicated and I hope I've made it better and understood what you've told me so far. I have also resubmitted it and it says that there are 728 articles awaiting review so I should know soon if it's been successful, but if not then I'll continue to work on whatever is still wrong with it. Also when you made the little changes to it the other day, I noticed you removed the bit I put in about him having written a book and I wondered why that was? as it seemed quite relevant to me. Surely it can't be because we're now using it as a reference point? I hope to here what you think about it soon :) WelshWonderWoman (talk) 01:33, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
@Missionedit: Well I guess you can ignore what I said less than an hour ago above as my Mark Griffin article has just been approved! I'm so pleased! Thank you for your help with it, I know it wouldn't have happened without your help WelshWonderWoman (talk) 02:21, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
@WelshWonderWoman: Sorry I haven't been responding—I am drowning in work right now. I'm so happy for you! I know you worked really hard. The reason why I removed the "Further reading" section is because you are citing the book throughout the article anyway, so you don't really need it. Further reading sections are not usually in biographies; but, if you really want to include the bit about him writing a book, put it under the "Career" section. Congrats on your first article! ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 02:34, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
Thank you very much! I'll probably do that soon. I understand you must be very busy and appreciate the time you give up to us 'adoptees'. Have a good weekend :) WelshWonderWoman (talk) 02:39, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
I wonder if you may be able to help with something @WelshWonderWoman:. I have read all about adding pictures to articles and I see there is so many complicated rules about copyright which I do understand but I'm curious if you think it'd be possible to add a photo of Mark Griffin to the new article? You may want to do a Lesson about adding photos which I'm sure would help, but really I just don't want to end up putting a photo there that is going to be removed so your help would be very welcome on this one. Thank you WelshWonderWoman (talk) 21:21, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
@Missionedit: Hi, I wonder if I can ask for your help again. The page I created about Mark Griffin as classed as a 'Stub' and I wonder if we can get it promoted to whatever is higher quality (I think it's Start or Class C possibly). I added some good quality reviews of his recent acting today and I'm hoping that'll make it a better article. Any help would be super. Thanks as always WelshWonderWoman (talk) 00:33, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
@WelshWonderWoman: Never feel sorry to ask for my help :) I think the article is properly classified as a stub, but it could also be start-class. There's just not enough information to make it a C class article. We can do a lesson on reviewing articles/article ranking next if you're up to it. Have you joined any Wikiprojects yet? ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 20:36, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
@Missionedit: I have decided not to join any Wikiprojects yet as none of the ones I've read about so far have jumped out at me as something that interests me and I don't think I'd be able to contribute anything to them. If we could do a lesson about article ranking that'd be great. Also you mentioned that there isn't enough information to make it a C class article so what would it need to improve it? Or what might make it a start-class in the mean time before a C class perhaps? WelshWonderWoman (talk) 05:35, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
@WelshWonderWoman: We'll do the lesson, and then see what we can do about the article after that. Knowing definitions of the classes will definitely help matters. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 01:07, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
@Missionedit: I look forward to the lesson. I'm interested to learn more about article ranking as I'd like to make my article as good as it can be. WelshWonderWoman (talk) 05:10, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
@Missionedit: I wondered if I could ask a question (I've started a new section for this, I hope that's okay) as I was reading an article about an actor and I see that his name is wrong; is it possible for me to change the article's name and therefore also changing the article URL? WelshWonderWoman (talk) 00:49, 20 June 2015 (UTC)
@WelshWonderWoman:Yes, it is possible. What is the article? I see you were trying to turn the other sections on this page into tables (?). I fixed it for you, but I left the tables pulled down because I wasn't sure how you wanted it. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 20:25, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
@Missionedit: Thanks for fixing these sections, I wasn't sure if I should add the green line for them or not as they weren't lessons. The article I was talking about is for the actor/bodybuilder Mike O'Hearn, as his article is titled Michael O'Hearn and that's not his name in any professional way. I know as I am a big fan of his work and I wondered if this could be fixed? WelshWonderWoman (talk) 12:24, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
@WelshWonderWoman: Yes, you can fix it, but you have to be careful with changing article names; it involves moving the article to an entirely different location. Always check the talk page first, to see if there's been any discussion about the title so far, and if there isn't, you'll want to see if the title you want to change it to is available. If everything's good, you can go ahead. At the top of every page next to the little star icon is a pull down tab titled "More". Click on this, and since you don't have any other software enabled, the only option should be "Move". Click on that. This will bring you to the page that allows you to move the article. Make sure to add your reason for moving the article in the "Reason" field. Make sure to tell me if you have any complications. Good luck! ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 17:31, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
@Missionedit: Thanks for talking me through everything in such a simply way, it really helps me and I've just renamed the article and it worked perfectly :) I think that's one of my favourite parts about Wikipedia, when people contribute to make sure that information is accurate. I am enjoying making small contributions, with your help WelshWonderWoman (talk) 23:15, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
@WelshWonderWoman: Thank you for making all my help worthwhile. Your kind comments and hard work make me feel very much appreciated :) I also enjoy making small edits which make a difference, even though they are rarely noticed. We'll do the next lesson on vandalism as soon as I can put it up. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 04:20, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
