User talk:Taming the hedgehog

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This message was delivered automatically by your robot friend, HostBot (talk) 01:22, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Step by step

Hi. I noticed that you asked for step by step help with creating your first article. I'm not sure who asked for your article to be deleted but I will see if I can help you. One of the points you mentioned was trying to add the correct wiki code, so I have provided a basic example of the code below. Try adding this code to your sand box and then inserting the text of your draft article. I'll pop back tomorrow to see how you are getting on and answer any further questions. Road Wizard (talk) 00:44, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Wizard

There are a lot of things i have found out over the last few days. Thanks for the offer of coming back tomorrow, but i need a bit more time to digest your letter and play in my sandbox.

So please give me two days -

I now know who deleted my article, and theres no problem -im not suprised, but i want to ask him the reason.

At present i am happy enough to have my ideas on the talk page, and i believe that on the TALK section no-one would delete a new idea unless there was a very good reason. Is this the case??

thanks - robinTaming the hedgehog (talk) 09:55, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Talk pages are for discussing the page that they are linked to. In this case User talk:Taming the hedgehog is for discussing things related to you, User:Taming the hedgehog. You have currently placed your draft article at Talk:Four Noble Truths, which is a page to discuss the Four Noble Truths article. If an editor decides that your text relates to a new article and not the Four Noble Truths article then they may remove it.

However your latest version of the text should be available from this permanent link, even if the text is removed from the current version of the talk page.

I'd suggest moving your draft text to your sandbox though as you have a lot more control over text in your user page area. Other editors are only allowed to remove text in your user area if it is in breach of one of our key policies. Road Wizard (talk) 23:04, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you - things were progressing wonderfully in the sandbox with your programming ... Then, the lead sentence stopped working. I felt sure it had been working but then it stopped and i dont know why - if you wish go and play in my sandbox please do.

I notice the colon: makes the indentations - is there a shortcut button?

About the deletion: I find things really very confusing, takes me hours to sort through the controls ... eventually i found contributions and eventually found diff and who deleted my article and the message was

Revision as of 21:00, 8 November 2012 (edit)

Joshua Jonathan (talk | contribs)

(Undid revision 522062332 by 59.182.130.125 (talk)Vandalism)

i clicked on the (talk) next to vandalism and wrote him a message there. or is vandalism meant to be my answer? oh dear what a first judgement ...

Do you have complete access to my pages? does everyone to everyone? i was never in a www community before.

Previously when i clicked on the talk next to his page it seemed to be a big open wikipedia page - which i did not feel very appropriate to write on, but what was confusing was three quarters down the page he had a link into all my controls ... he even had my logout button which i foolishly experimented with and logged myself out with a link on his site ... which just boggled me :-) .. i think its something to do with embedded sites or embedded pages which i havent really understood.

at present any light you can throw on these things would be welcome - (and please excuse the lack of CAPITAL letters i have one hand temporarily not working) thanks again robin

Hi again. First the easy question - almost every edit you make to Wikipedia is visible to anyone with an internet connection. You just need to find the page you edited and check the history tab to see the edits that took place. Editors can easily undo each others work, which is called reverting. The only exception to seeing every edit is when an Administrator deletes the whole page or permanently deletes a specific edit - at that point only Administrators can view the deleted material.

If the edits you thought were deleted were these and this on the Four Noble Truths article then your edits were only reverted, not deleted.

The next question is the edit by Joshua Jonathan. An anonymous user operating at internet address 59.182.130.125 made this edit. Joshua then undid that edit and described user 59.182.130.125 as a vandal. Your first edit to the article was made nearly 3 hours after Joshua, so you were definitely not the person being referred to. The talk page link you clicked on took you to User talk:59.182.130.125, the talk page for that vandal editor. As you were the first person to talk to the vandal you received a blank page to leave your message on. You would probably see the same screen if you clicked on this red link to User talk:Taming the hedgehog/test. I think you were always on Wikipedia while you were editing, so don't worry about embedded sites. It was probably just the different screen layouts that were confusing you.

The editors who removed your contributions were Editor2020 and Dorje108. Editor2020 did not provide a reason for undoing your edits though I can think of a few possible reasons why (though I don't want to bombard you with too much information all at once, so I will explain those later if you are interested). However Dorje108 explained that your edits appeared to be original research, which I will explain below.

As a core principle, Wikipedia only publishes information that is a verifiable fact. "The sky is blue" is a verifiable fact and "the President of America is Barack Obama" is a verifiable fact, however "Road Wizard thinks wearing roller skates while driving a car is silly" may be a fact but it is not verifiable. Who other than me knows if it is true?

That is the heart of our policy on no original research. You may believe something to be true, you may even know something to be true, but if it is based solely on your opinion or interpretation then you are conducting original research. For research or opinions to be included in Wikipedia they first need to be studied by an expert on the subject and published.

For example, Creationism is the belief that the universe was created by a supernatural being; while the article refers to people's opinions, the issues have been studied and officially published (one source quoted in the article is "Ian Barbour, When Science Meets Religion, 2000, Harper SanFrancisco). Wikipedia does not report on people's opinions directly but instead reports on how the opinions were studied by another source. The original opinion is a primary source, the study of the opinion by a third party is a secondary source and the article on Wikipedia reporting on the study is a tertiary source.

I hope I haven't lost you in all that detail. Basically, your text currently looks like your own opinion, which makes you a primary source. If that is the case then we can't include your text in Wikipedia. If you are summarising the opinions of others then you are acting as a secondary source - we may be able to include your text in Wikipedia if we act carefully. If you are summarising third party studies made of other people's opinions then you are acting as tertiary source, so your writing should be exactly what we are looking for in our role as a tertiary source - we may be able to reinsert your text after a few tweaks.

Now that is a lot to absorb all at once. Again, feel free to ask questions. Road Wizard (talk) 22:35, 15 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I find that illuminating - you havent lost me in the detail ... and i would like to know all the details.

The first thing is to find out why "Basically, your text currently looks like your own opinion, which makes you a primary source.". i had thought the comment from Dorje on original research refered to me using more than one source which according to the wikis original research guidelines means i made a synthesis. So i rewrote the article with just one reference. The point is i have studied 6 different translations and 4 of them are modern full translations, 3 of which are English. Are more quotes necessary to show that: yes it is my opinion and it is not the normal opinion, but i can debate it based on modern translations of the original text. I have revised my sandbox version.

I have looked at the history of the pages, but its like cold water at the seaside, first is the big toe, then up to the knees ... etc etc - i have now discovered the easy way of using the previous edit next edit buttons : My article was actually deleted twice : first the 80 word abstract by editor 2020 editor 2020 - i didnt realise someone had deleted it already, i had thought i hadnt programmed it correctly. So, then when i put up the article in a fuller form it was deleted again by dorje (Dorjes delete). i now think Joshua Jonathon is merely the person who created the whole section because it says (Reverted edits by Taming the hedgehog (talk) to last version by Joshua Jonathan) but the edit was made by editor 2020.

Have i understood correctly. Many thanks for the help its really appreciated robinTaming the hedgehog (talk) 16:12, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again. Multiple references are a good thing. In general, the more sources support an article the higher we consider its quality. If your text is based on third party sources then we just need to tweak the wording. When dealing with opinions in Wikipedia we need to know whose opinion it is. For example, "I think the world was created 10,000 years ago" is not acceptable as it is clearly my opinion; "The world was created 10,000 years ago" is a little better but we don't know whose opinion it is; "According to J Larkin, the world was created 10,000 years ago (source Phil Thomas, A study of the writings of J Larkin, 2008, Random House publishing)" is a very good statement as it both tells us whose opinion it is and it is supported by a source written by a third party. The key point to work on now is to identify your opinions and the opinions of others that you are repeating. Your own opinions should then be removed.

In terms of the history, each person who edits the article creates a new version of it.

Buddhikadissanayake saved a version on 6 November;
67.173.118.232 saved a vandalised version on 7 November;
ClueBot NG restored the version saved by Buddhikadissanayake on 7 November;
59.182.130.125 saved a vandalised version on 8 November;
Joshua Jonathan restored the version saved by ClueBot NG on 8 November;
Taming the hedgehog saved a version on 8 November;
Taming the hedgehog saved a version on 9 November;
Taming the hedgehog saved a second version on 9 November;
Editor2020 restored the version saved by Joshua Jonathan on 9 November;
Taming the hedgehog saved a version on 10 November;
Dorje108 restored the version saved by Editor2020 on 10 November;
86.169.227.128 saved a vandalised version on 13 November;
Skizzik restored the version saved by Dorje108 on 13 November.

So you are basically correct. Editor2020 was the person who undid your work the first time and Joshua Jonathan's only involvement was that he happened to be the last person who saved the article before you. Road Wizard (talk) 13:36, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

hi again Wizard! This is good information - Now its going to take me a few days maybe a week maybe more, to rethink how i present the ideas, also to check through all the controls and buttons and all the links again - just so i really know the technology ... i dont want to rush so it might even be a month - and then i would like to contact you when i am ready for the next step. I presume that simply by writing in this same thread you will automatically receive notice - or what is the best method of notifying you? thanks again robin.Taming the hedgehog (talk) 16:40, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The best way to contact me is to write on my own talk page; User talk:Road Wizard. I'll then get a little alert at the top of my screen saying that someone has added a message. Road Wizard (talk) 17:04, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]