User talk:Missvain

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Hello! Missvain, you are invited to the Teahouse, a forum on Wikipedia for new editors to ask questions about editing Wikipedia, and get support from peers and experienced editors. Please join us! --heather walls (talk)

Dear Missvain, thank you for stopping by the Teahouse. Wikipedia is a community of people working together to make knowledge free. You are an important part of that effort! --heather walls (talk)

Some rambling points, leading to a question, plus a separate question about Wikimania

Hello SarahStierch. I see that you are on vacation (color me jealous), so I'll understand if it takes time for a response.

I am getting more involved in copyright and paraphrasing issues. Some are clear cut, but many are not so easy. I just added an item to my user page to-do list to work on creating some case studies of paraphrasing. Wikipedia has an interesting challenge—on the one hand, we want editors to lean heavily on sources when they write material, and if a statement in an article cannot be supported by a source, it can be challenged. On the other hand, if the wording is too close to the source, even when not a copy paste, it runs into a different problem. Finding that middle ground is tricky, and trickier so because we as a community have not provide clear guidance to editors. It is my hope to take a small step toward providing that guidance.

An additional complication is my belief (based upon reading some of the discussions about these issues) that Wikipedia does not want to set the hurdle at the legal definition, but something more conservative. Of course, we always have to comply with the law at a minimum, but we have opted to draw the line a big tougher, which makes sense to me. However, that means we have to define the boundaries ourselves, we cannot look to legal cases as guidance, except possibly to provide insight into what issues are relevant.

I noticed that you used Feminists who changed America, 1963-1975 as a source in a number of articles. This reminded me of some edits I've done, and still wonder if I did OK. I edit women's basketball players and coaches articles, and I stumbled across David L. Porter's Basketball: A Biographical Dictionary, which has turned out to be a wonderful resource, and I've used it in a number of articles, for example, Hazel Walker. Because it is a collection of biographies, very similar in style to Feminists who changed America, one has to avoid the temptation to simply borrow material. I've always know one cannot copy and paste, but I've learned that one has to be careful about copying the structure (as SandyGeorgia warns). I also have some canned advice I give to new editors, to point out that relying on a single source creates a danger that one will unconsciously adopt the structure of the source, and run into the danger of paraphrasing too closely. I haven't heard any complaints about my edits, but let's be honest, I'm writing about women's basketball players, not pop stars, so I don't think the articles I work on get much traffic.

I am planning to look at some of the articles using Feminists who changed America as a source. Some are edited by you, others, such as Muriel Fox, were edited by others. I've only just started; at the moment, I don't have any specific concerns, but if I do see issues that deserve mention, I'd like to follow up. While it is normal practice to raise such issues on the respective article talk pages, I would prefer to start by bringing them to your attention. Let me know if you prefer something else - I have seen editors who do not like article issues raised on their talk pages, and request that the discussion go to the article talk page, so I'll respect whichever venue you prefer.

If I may, I'd like to raise a completely different question. I see that you attended Wikimania 2011. I saw the notice for Wikimania 2012, and I'm mulling over whether to attend. I spent a fair part of yesterday viewing some of the video summaries of the sessions. I fully expected that viewing them would convince me I have to go, but I'm still on the fence. One disappointing observation—most of the videos captured the presenter (understandable) but never showed the slides. In many cases, the message was heavily dependent on the slide content, so I was not able to follow some of the discussions. I note that the YouTube often had a link to a Wikimedia page, which had a placeholder for the slides, but none of the ones I checked had a copy of the slides (update, found some). Is it possible I'm simply looking in the wrong place? More importantly, as you are on staff, can you tell me who I should talk to about this? If I could write to the right person, who might be in a position to encourage the participants from last year to upload their slides, it might help some (OK, me) to make a decision about attending this year.) I looked again, and I now see some of the copyright material, but I don't see Samuel Klein's slides. I think the place for them is here. --SPhilbrick (Talk) 15:54, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi SPhilbrick, thanks for stopping by. Regarding copying and paraphrasing. I could see how unintentional paraphrasing could be seen in articles, mine and others. As many times, when writing about such specific things without many online resources, it can be hard to manipulate the text when biographies are written in a certain structure naturally and most resources follow that. But, I understand the concern. I have read up a bit on the concept, and I could see how perhaps I have made some mistakes. As a longtime editor, it's rather embarrassing to know I've potentially violated an area of Wikipedia that I care so passionately about (heck, I lecture on copyright). Is there anything I can do or begin to do myself? Feel free to bring things up on my talk page, thanks again!

Regarding Wikimania, I'm not sure about the slides/presentation situation. Hmmm...oh, it might be a good idea to ask User:Deror_avi, as he was the general manager of the Haifa Wikimania? (I do think I uploaded mine, on Slideshare, at least). I'm only volunteering in a few areas of Wikimania, but I think Deror might be able to provide information about last year for you. I do hope you'll be in DC, I'm always looking forward to meeting passionate Wikipedians like yourself. Thanks for everything. Sarah (talk) 21:32, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

First off, let me say how happy I am at your attitude. As for what to do next, let me apologize for a timing issue, which has two aspects. First, one of my passions is March Madness basketball, which started today. It is not all-consuming, but between that and trying to squeeze in some work, plus the need to do some basketball related Wikipedia items, my other Wikipedia pursuits often lag a bit in March. Second, I see portions of Feminists who changed America, 1963-1975 on Google books, but as I went to look closely as one section (involving Muriel Fox, an article I think you have not touched), the key sections were not viewable. I went ahead and ordered a copy, but it is scheduled to show up April 3. That shouldn't stop me cold, but the combination of things mean I will be on the slow side for a some time. My hope is that we can treat this as a collaboration. AS you said, when sitting with a nicely written source, and not much else, it is challenging to make sure that the source material isn't reflected too closely. My plan is to pick a couple article, chat about what I see, and discuss whether there's a way or a need to rephrase or restructure.

On WikiMania, thanks for Deror's name, I'll check that out. I had listened to the copyright lecture, which frankly didn't do much for me, but I did find the slides, and re-listened, and the second experience was much better. It was also humbling. I've spent a fair amount of time reading about copyright, and while I was gratified that some of the material was not new, some of it was new, so a good learning experience, but yet another reminder about how tough the subject is.

Hope you enjoyed your vacation, I'll try to respond shortly.--SPhilbrick (Talk) 23:40, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Re: March madness. I'm from Indiana originally, so I totally understand your love (I went to Indiana University, actually, and grew up near the Butler University) for March Madness. :) Keep me posted on what I can do to help and how I can learn to "avoid" issues like this. I might even go look at a few articles of mine (generally the stubs/starts would seem to be prime real estate for issues like this) that might not even be oriented with that specific book, and take a look at them based on the paraphrasing documentation and see what I can do if anything needs to be done, if that's okay, of course.

Re: Wikimania. Keep in mind that a lot of the presentations are done by Wikipedians. Meaning that some folks don't always have the background or skillset in public speaking that others might have (i.e. public speaking is part of my work, when others are often tech-heads who have the confidence and feel comfortable giving a lecture for the first time at Wikimania) so you will find some that are not that great (trust me, I've taken a few unintentional naps at Wikimania :( ) and some that are mindblowing (woo!). You can also take a look at what is being considered for the conference this year [1]. This year we'll have a mix of Wikipedians, tech professionals, museum professionals, women in tech advocates, etc. And before the conference we'll actually be having AdaCamp coinciding with hackdays - it's an event thrown by an organization I'm involved with, the Ada Initiative. So that might interest you.. but don't let the occasional lame presentation throw you off. It's more than just the presentations - it's an amazing opportunity to meet people, have fun with fellow Wiki-people, brainstorm about new ideas, etc. Sunday the proposal submissions close, so you could always submit something too :) Later! Sarah (talk) 14:11, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Henry C. Kellers for DYK?

Hello, Sarah. Would you be expanding Henry C. Kellers, an article you recently started, soon? I am hoping that you would, and have nominated it for DYK before its eligibility expires. Pls see Template:Did you know nominations/Henry C. Kellers. Hope this helps. Cheers! -PFHLai (talk) 04:47, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, the two refs currently in use in this article cannot have the same URL. Please fix as needed. Thanks. --PFHLai (talk) 04:48, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Teahouse update and question

Hi Sarah! I finally got around to doing some invites, mainly off the database report sheet. It wasn't as bad as I had thought ;) I posted about three ideas that would make the invite process more efficient, at the Teahouse talk page, at Village Pump Technical, and at the Bot Requests page. Although other editors thought the ideas would be generally helpful, I haven't heard back from anyone with the ability (or time) to actually code them. So I wanted to run the ideas by you in the hope that you had access to some folks who might be able to whip these up in the near future.

Idea 1: Twinkle modification or userscript: I think what really would make the invite process effortless is a script which automatically posted a Teahouse invite to the talk page and then loaded the email user page if enabled, all the while preloading messages and usernames as it went along. I don't know how to code this myself, but I believe this is doable. It would could down each invite to only say 20 seconds rather than about 1 minute per which it's taking right now to change everything.

Idea 2: 'Invited' tracking: I would also like if the database reports had a column for 'has been invited which updated whenever a teahouse invite was on the userpage. This would save time and help us coordinate our efforts. A simple bot could be written which checked the userpages of those listed on the database reports page for the word 'Teahouse' and if present, updated a column on the respective report entry that the user had been invited.

Idea 3: Invite bot. If not now then after the pilot, we should look into an invite bot which could consider a number of factors such as rapidity of edits, absence of blocks, absence of warnings, as well as other sophisticated data such as WikiTrust or WP:STiki metadata which judges vandalism likelihood using a computer algorithm. Although part of Teahouse's charm is its personal connection with users, If Teahouse grows, it will be unideal if we have to continue doing this manually, i think. So we might start looking at intelligent machine assistance. This could still be done in a very friendly and intelligent way, and would make sure we didn't 'miss' anyone who could make a positive contribution.

I hope you like these ideas and know some people who might be able to work on them. Please let me know if I can be helpful in bringing them forward. Cheers! Ocaasi^{t | c} 15:15, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Ocaasi - I am on vacation right now (out of the US) but wanted to ping you real fast - I did ping User:Jtmorgan about your great suggestions, as he's the "bot/database/tracking/whatnot" guy for the Teahouse pilot :) So let's see what his input is (if he hasn't pinged you already or you two haven't connected on the Teahouse talk pages, I haven't had time yet to follow changes on those pages). So just an FYI and I'm so glad you're participating now =) Sarah (talk) 22:22, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I forgot about vacation... go back to the beach!! I did ask Jtmorgan and he said he wasn't sure he could do it. I'm sure people are out there who can, I'm just not sure if they're available or see it as a high priority. But it might be a high priority for the Teahouse pilot, so I figured you were the right person to ask. I'll keep digging around, and when you get back, you can too! :) Have fun. Ocaasi^{t | c} 22:38, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

female wikipedia editors survey

Hi Sara -

I just read your message inviting me to the female wikipedia editors survey. Thanks! Unfortunately, the link to the survey site did not work for me. Is your survey over?

Best Regards, Suzanne Suzannejb (talk) 13:52, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Suzanne. Yes, the survey ended quite a while ago and I'm sorry you were unable to participate! You can read the results, here. Glad to see you log in and stop by :) Sarah (talk) 14:04, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Teahouse

Hello,

I often edit (as now) using a mobile device when I have a few minutes to spare when working. The type of work I do in construction keeps me away from a desktop computer for long periods of time. I like to give a quick answer to a student or make a comment on an AfD when I have a chance. But I can't easily cut and paste or work with templates with an Android device. So it seems that I can't easily comply with the Teahouse rules. I will try to participate a bit on those occasions when I have access to a desktop computer, but those are the times when I usually write Wikipedia articles. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 17:55, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I just responded to a Teahouse question and used the talkback template for the first time. I will try to develop the skill of inviting new users as well. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 22:21, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the confidence you've shown in me, Sarah. I will do my best, but I need to get back to "real world" work now. Maybe I can get started this evening. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 22:26, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I hear you =) Trust me! And I understand, totally. I do hope you can do as much as you can, without comprising your life, of course. Wikipedia isn't life.......just a major part of it ;-) See you there (and hopefully at Wikimania - great work you also did at the recent SF edit-a-thon!!) Sarah (talk) 22:29, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation link notification for March 18

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Your note to me re Teahouse--I'm a bit confused

Sarah, please understand I'm not complaining. I'm just new to all this, and trying to figure out how things work. I posted a question on the Teahouse Talk page. Then I got a notice on my own Talk page that said you'd answered the question. When I click the link, it takes me to my question. But the only answer I see is from one Mlm42, Mark. Am I missing something? Uporządnicki (talk) 12:39, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Response posted at User talk:AzseicsoK#You have a response at the Teahouse! Banaticus (talk) 05:44, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Teahouse talkback

Hello, Missvain. Your question has been answered at the Teahouse Q&A board. Feel free to reply there!
Please note that all old questions are archived after 2-3 days of inactivity. Message added by Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 00:28, 21 March 2012 (UTC). (You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{teahouse talkback}} template).[reply]

Jiminy Cricket

Hi Sarah. I like the graphic. It's going very well and I'm finding my way around the site which is interesting and sometimes surprising. I'd like to get involved in some of the maintenance activities when time allows but first I'm concentrating on article work and have picked up a couple that were in poor shape to see if I can expand and improve them. At some point I'll have them reviewed and maybe try to put them up for good article. That's in the longer term as there's a lot of work to be done first. But, yes, I'm enjoying the site and I only wish I had more spare time to spend here.

I hope you are well. I see you are busy in real life too so you must have the same availability problem re the site. Very best wishes to you and thank you for writing to me. With wikilove, --Brian (talk) 05:22, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Section [edit] links on the Teahouse question page may not go to the right question, because new questions are added at the top instead of the bottom

I just posted that Teahouse question [edit] links on individual questions may not go to the right question, because new questions are added at the top of the page instead of the bottom at Wikipedia talk:Teahouse#Section .5Bedit.5D links on the Teahouse question page may not go to the right question.2C because new questions are added at the top instead of the bottom. Banaticus (talk) 05:42, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the heads up. Sadly, I don't have the technical skills to take care of the problem, but, I pinged User:Jtmorgan and User:Heatherawalls who have the ability. Hopefully we'll figure it out soon! Sarah (talk) 05:43, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your message :)

SarahStierch: "Wikipedia can be a jungle out there......a rabbit jungle! How is your editing doing Jon? :) I hope well. Just a reminder that we're here to help, on talk pages or at the Teahouse. Any upcoming animal articles you plan on working on? Sarah (talk) 03:39, 21 March 2012 (UTC)"

I am writing an article on rabbit digestive system. Summarizing and paraphrasing the highest quality sources I have and hooking it up to relevant articles in physiology and biochemistry and also getting citations down so they are in the correct form. Every fact will be supported by references from the highest quality sources :)

Cited Wikipedia several times yesterday in my online newspaper article.

Thanks for your message :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fernquestjon (talk • contribs) 07:14, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sarah, thanks for cupcake:) Just learning for now... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Diodeo77 (talk • contribs) 08:26, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sarah. Thanks for following up! :) Alacenski (talk) 15:16, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks ...

... for inviting me to the teahouse! I'm sorry I couldn't join you in the initial stages, and hope that I can add something now! Worm^TT · (talk) 08:35, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Huzzah! Glad you can join us now! Sarah (talk) 13:13, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

WikiLove

Thanks for the gift, but I am not a beer drinker. If, and that is extremely rare, I drink, my beverage of choice is Smirnoff Ice. Anyway, thanks for the cookie in advance. Chocolate chip sounds great! Allen (talk) 10:53, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And done! :) Sarah (talk) 13:12, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sarah

Thanks for making the outsider feel welcome, hope things are going well for you. I'm still getting the hang of some of the controls and gizmos, but I think I'll find plenty to do around here. So far my only contribution has been a hefty tidy up on a video game plot, so I'll probably be one of the guys who goes around doing the tidying up ;-). Hope I get this signature thing right, I'm just copying the other guys, haha. User:BluesHarpGuy (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 11:26, 21 March 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Hey! Ah, many Wikipedians are or were outsiders. Heck, I feel like one online and offline, but, Wikipedia is a good place for outsiders. Yes, gizmos, even I can't figure those out most of the time. Sounds cool about the video game, and yes, tidying up is awesome - while we can always use new articles, we *really* need people helping to clean up articles, so thumbs up to that. You almost got the signature right. When you go to sign your talk page comments, all you have to do is type four tildes: ~~~~ and voila! :) Sarah (talk) 13:11, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I need your help

i need your help about this page : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Othmanebenjelloun/Ryan_Belhsen — Preceding unsigned comment added by Othmanebenjelloun (talk • contribs) 12:32, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Othmanebenjelloun. Perhaps you can explain what you need help and share your need and link here at the Teahouse. The Teahouse is a super great place to request fast help with articles, and since I'm not really sure what you need exactly, I can't help! Thanks for coming by my talk page! Oh, and don't forget to sign your Wikipedia talk page comments with four tildes ~~~~ so everyone knows it was you who wrote the comment. :) Sarah (talk) 13:08, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you

Thank you for the barn star Wikiworld2 (talk) 13:58, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My pleasure! You deserve it! Sarah (talk) 13:59, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Sarah

Infact I am a very beginner at wikipedia just wrote an article Badar uz Zaman and edited some Music of Pakistan. looking forward for some more action in wikipedia. :p Umerali2204 (talk) 15:01, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hey! Nice job Umerali! I'm impressed =) Keep up the great work and see you on Wiki. Sarah (talk) 15:03, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Timestamp

Your timestamp on your signature seems about four hours out, like on this edit here. Rcsprinter (chatter) 17:31, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much for the Barnstar!

Thank you very much for the Barnstar! It feels great when someone notices my efforts to protect Wikipedia against vandals!!! I did move the Barnstar from my talk page to User:WheresTristan/My Barnstars. Just to keep everything organized. Once again, thanks! WheresTristan (talk) 19:06, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sara!!

Editing is going good. I have recently started a draft article about Meanwhile by Jason Shiga.YodaFan67 (talk) 19:53, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Sarah

Thanks for the Barnstar Sarah, I appreciate your encouragement.

The Sara Niemietz bio has been an interesting project, with an interesting subject and overlapping achievements in such a young life.

It looks like the article has been rated pretty fairly and added to categories, which knocks off one thing on my learn how todo list. I had just started going through the sections for who,what,where,why and how. Also. checking for Neutrality, so I'm not surprised if the article has earned that tag at the moment.

I'm not sure which article will be next, there are some old(e) English words I'd like to see brought back into the common vernacular -- I don't have the chops for that yet

Steve 009o9 (double o nine o nine) 009o9 (talk) 23:28, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank yuh ver' much

Thanks for the kind words! I've yet to take on anything substantial, but a comment like your certainly helps me feel more comfortable at Wikipedia. Thanks, and see you around! StandardSwan (talk) 01:44, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]