User talk:Bad Dryer

Welcome!

Hello, Brad Dyer, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions, especially what you did for Kevin Curtis (coach). I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:

• Getting started
• Introduction to Wikipedia
• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• How to edit a page and How to develop articles
• How to create your first article
• Simplified Manual of Style

Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{Help me}} before the question. Again, welcome! Falcon8765 ^(TALK) 22:27, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Please refrain from making unconstructive edits to Wikipedia, as you did at Paul Broun. Your edits appear to be disruptive and have been reverted or removed.

• If you are engaged in an article content dispute with another editor then please discuss the matter with the editor at their talk page, or the article's talk page. Alternatively you can read Wikipedia's dispute resolution page, and ask for independent help at one of the relevant notice boards.
• If you are engaged in any other form of dispute that is not covered on the dispute resolution page, please seek assistance at Wikipedia's Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents.

Please ensure you are familiar with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, and please do not continue to make edits that appear disruptive, until the dispute is resolved through consensus. Continuing to edit disruptively could result in loss of editing privileges. Thank you. Cwobeel (talk) 17:37, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Hello, I'm Prof. Mc. I noticed that you recently removed some content from Beer rating without explaining why. In the future, it would be helpful to others if you described your changes to Wikipedia with an accurate edit summary. If this was a mistake, don't worry; I restored the removed content. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thanks!

Hi! Can you explain why you are removing working wikilinks from the Beer rating page. The links are to existing pages and fall under the WP:BTW guidelines. Is there some reason to remove links relevant to the topic of the article? Prof. Mc (talk) 19:51, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Ugh. I see it now. My apologies. I didn't see your edit summary on the revert. Prof. Mc (talk) 19:54, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Hello, I'm Materialscientist. I noticed that you made a change to an article, South China Sea, but you didn't provide a reliable source. It's been removed for now, but if you'd like to include a citation and re-add it, please do so! If you need guidance on referencing, please see the referencing for beginners tutorial, or if you think I made a mistake, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you. Materialscientist (talk) 20:37, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Modi

No problem! If you could add its name in Greek and a couple good sources that would be a good thing. Best wishes, Eustachiusz (talk) 18:21, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Misuse of Template:Em

Please do not change Wikilinks into emphasized text. This misuse is specifically recommended against by the documentation for Template:Em. In general, do not overuse emphasis in Wikipedia articles, because it impedes readability. Look at how sparingly any emphasis is used in typical Good Articles as indexed in WP:GA, and edit accordingly. Cheers! Reify-tech (talk) 18:47, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

I have not changed any wikilinks into emphasized text. I fixed a problem that was called out in a tag at the top of the article - usage of bold text for emphasis. Specifically, the tag you have now restored says "The specific problem is: MOS:BOLD: bold face font should not be used within the article for emphasis. Please help improve this article if you can." - MOS:BOLD says to replace such instances with the em template, which is what I have done, and you have undone. Could you explain why you did this? Brad Dyer (talk)

Now I think I see what you were trying to do, in good faith. The problem with the article Overhead line really is that there is an overuse of emphasis all over the place. Simply mechanically replacing bold over-emphasis with italic over-emphasis was no improvement at all. Most of the stuff in bold should be changed to ordinary text; only things that need special emphasis or which are specifically mentioned in MOS:ITALICS should be italicized. The first appearance of a new word or technical term does not need to be over-emphasized; usually, introducing it in "quotes" without special formatting is quite sufficient. The article has several other stylistic problems, such as the inappropriate use of "&", and needs to be cleaned up by an experienced editor.

If you read MOS:ITALICS, you should have a much better idea of the correct style, and are welcome to give it a try. If you find this all too overwhelming, leave the article alone, and some other more-experienced editor will fix it eventually. Please don't take this personally, since you seem to be genuinely interested in contributing constructively to Wikipedia. It take a while to learn the "house style"; reading through a few Good Articles will give you a flavor of how things are written here, and repeated reference to the MOS, plus occasional questions at the WP:HELPDESK will help get you up to speed. Best wishes in your future editing! 23:33, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Ok, i think I got it. So you think the best approach is to simply de-bold the existing bolded words in the main article? Brad Dyer (talk) 23:44, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, mostly, for this particular article. According to MOS:BOLD, bold is used primarily for words that are synonyms (alternatives or equivalents) of the topic of the article. Italics are used for emphasis, but should be used very sparingly, and not on a widespread basis. As you work through the article, you may also want to watch for WP:OVERLINKING and remove any that you find. The overall goal is good readability, with special formatting used only to highlight the first occurrence of words that are significant (mostly synonyms of the article topic, plus Wikilinks to related topics that might actually be useful or of interest to a reader).

In actual practice, I have noticed that bolding and italics are used in some articles more freely than the MOS recommends, while still while preserving readability. Ultimately, editing decisions (and the MOS itself) are based on a consensus of active editors, after an open discussion and compromise. It all sounds a bit complicated, but this is what has evolved over the past decade, and it (usually) works.

It may be easier to get a feel for the Wikipedia style by looking at a few representative Good Articles (GA), such as Mercury (element), Vannevar Bush, HDMI, USS Massachusetts (BB-59), Bay Area Rapid Transit, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. You may notice some detailed inconsistencies among various GAs and the MOS. This is because both the articles and the MOS continue to change and evolve over time, and Wikipedia never will be finished, as long as the world continues to change. But there definitely is a "house style" intended to convey information in as readable and as clear a format as possible. Reify-tech (talk) 14:41, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

many thanks for the tips and pointers. I'll start workign on implementing them - fee free to look over my shoulder (virtually) and fix things if I mess up. Brad Dyer (talk) 15:40, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Nomination of List of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article List of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. AlanS (talk) 14:35, 11 July 2014 (UTC)