User:Danger/Adoption/Lord Castellan

The Basics

Wikipedia fundamentals

The Pillars – If you keep the pillars in mind, you cannot go wrong. Please read the pillars. If you have any questions about them, let me know. If you want to discuss them (ie what does verifiability really mean, why is copyright so important, etc), that's awesome too. I love Wikipedia and will happily talk about it pretty much forever. Note on markup: in this section, use a sharp (#) followed by an appropriate number of colons to indent a question or comment. Use the preview button to see what it looks like before saving and don't worry if it doesn't work. Danger (talk)
Neutral point of view – Please read this. Make sure you understand: what a content fork is, the difference between "NPOV" and "objectivity", what undue weight means. Questions to think about: can obviously biased sources (Mein Kampf, the Democratic Party's platform, a company's press release on its own product) be cited in Wikipedia? When? What is systemic bias and why is it important to Wikipedia? --Danger (talk) 20:55, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
My views/opinions;
Companies press releases could be referenced by a third party source, not by the company or a supporter, this way the page will show a neutral article in the product, such as specifications and facts, such as sales figures. This way there is no opinions. Also important is that both good and bad facts are chosen, so that it presents a balanced article.

Political parties work the same, they should be factual and present a even point of view, obviously not saying something like, "support us"

"Mein Kampf" should also be factual, but it is even important that it is balanced, and gas no opinions at all. For example if someone supports it you could imagine the outrage it would cause.
Thanks,

Lucas

Lord Castellan Creed (talk) 21:38, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure that I understand what you mean. Could you give an example of a sentence in an article that could be supported by a press release? (For example, "Plants are green because they contain chlorophyll" could be supported by a botany textbook.) Perhaps I should rephrase the question: what is a source in the context of Wikipedia? Could Mein Kampf or a press release ever be used as a source? If so, how and when? --Danger (talk) 22:26, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
Sorry about the delay in replying, I have had a busy couple of days.

The way I see it, a press release could be used only if it backs up some kind of fact. Ie a press release with sales figures could be used to back up facts about sales on a wikipedia page. Does that make sense? Mein Kampf could be used as a source, but only to back up a fact, not to show opinions.

Thanks,

Lucas,

Lord Castellan Creed (talk) 16:25, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
Broadly, yes. Obviously biased sources can be used to back up a very specific type of fact: what the source says. For example, an official PETa source could be used to back up the sentence "PETa holds that eating meat is morally wrong" but not "Eating meat is morally wrong". (I think that's what you meant?) Good sentences backed by biased sources are easy to recognize because they identify their source. (Note that I use "biased" in the sense of "advocating a position", not necessarily wrong. A company's press releases might be right; their product could in fact be the best thing since pizza delivery. From a Wikipedian's point of view, all promotional sources are questionable.) --Danger (talk) 00:04, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

And don't worry about replying right away. It's no big deal. Plus I'll be counting up those days to use against you if I have to have surgery soon. :-) --Danger (talk) 00:07, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
I will try to reply as quick as possible, but I tend to be fairly busy. I am off now to play around with my Userpage, make it look a bit better.

Thanks,

Lucas,

Lord Castellan Creed (talk) 19:22, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Note: Is there any projects you suggest I should have a look at?

Lord Castellan Creed (talk) 19:26, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
On your user page (which looks very nice by the way) you say that you have some pictures to upload. Why don't you read this and this and upload the images. (Note: if the images are under a free license, say, if you took them and are willing to release them under a Creative Commons license, please upload them to Wikimedia Commons. Everything else goes the same way, but I have to do less work later :-) (one of my upcoming projects is dealing with duplicate files).)--Danger (talk) 21:35, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
I will put them on Wiki Commons. As they are only taken for a hobby, I don't mind them being used. I will decide on which ones to upload tomorrow, as I am currently on my phone and unable to view any of them. How many should I upload? One for each engine or all I have?

Thanks,

Lucas,

Lord Castellan Creed (talk) 22:03, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
Whatever you think is appropriate. If the pictures are high-quality, you might want to upload them all. (Commons isn't just for use on Wikipedia; it also serves as a repository of free media that the rest of the Internet can use. Pictures that aren't useful on Wikipedia might be useful elsewhere.) If they're not particularly high quality, then just what would be used to illustrate the articles is probably fine. I really have no idea what the standards are for train/engine articles or how many photographs they usually use. If different photographs get different parts of the engine and that's interesting from an encyclopedic point of view, upload them... yeah, just use your best judgment. Extra images don't hurt, and you can always upload more if needed. --Danger (talk) 18:19, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Ok, in that case I will upload some tonight, as it takes a while for each photo as the laptop is slow and the photos are fairly large.

I have just had a look at the backlogs for articles, and there is a fair few. Do you mind if I try working through the Orphaned articles list, and see if I can clear some of the ones from 2006?

Thanks,

Lucas,

Lord Castellan Creed (talk) 20:01, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
Go for it. Orphans are pretty self-explanatory, I think, and the help pages and instructions are decent. If you have any questions let me know.

I see that you've offered to work on WP:WPSCHOOLS. I think that's great. Not only is there a huge backlog of articles that need beginner level work, you have the opportunity to work with Kudpung, one of the Wikipedians I respect the most.--Danger (talk) 15:56, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
I will try to help where I can, I will do Ringwood School first as it is my own school, and is slightly lacking in detail. It also looks like someone from the Drama department made the article. As for the list I put on the Schools page, I will slowly get through them. I don't have any knowledge on any of them, but I will see what I can find on each of them and make them into better articles. Another note: with the questions section below, I found it hard to get the lines to line up, so I used the code &nbsp to do it for me. Is there a easier alternative?

Thanks,

Lucas,

Lord Castellan Creed (talk) 16:19, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
In short, no. Numbered lists are rare on Wikipedia and I probably shouldn't have used one here. The markup required to make them play nicely with a multiple paragraph item is apparently quite complicated and I don't know what it is. It's one of those things that almost certainly can be done, but would never appear in an article. For more details on lists, see here and Help:List. You may wish to ask this question at the help desk.

I strongly advise you not to edit the article for your own school until you have some more experience. It is tempting with subjects close to you to include what you know rather than what can be verified.--Danger (talk) 22:56, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
I fixed the markup for the below paragraph. I asked on the Irc and they said there was no way to easily do it. So I manually added inode to make it all line up." and <br/> have both been used.

Thanks,

Lucas,

Lord Castellan Creed (talk) 18:27, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
Verifiability – Things to think about: Would "verifiability, not truth" be a good motto for Wikipedia? Why or why not? When does something have to be referenced to a reliable source. Can sources that aren't in English be reliable sources on the English Wikipedia? --Danger (talk) 19:15, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
The way I see things. All facts should have a source where they come from, a reliable source. First hand information is only useful if it can be backed up somewhere. No matter if it is true or not. This can appear stupid in some ways, if you have information that is not available elsewhere, you still can't put it on. I believe any fact needs to have a reference. As for translating a source, there is no way to guarantee that it has been translated correctly, there will always be a human error in there. As words in different languages overlap slightly causing problems. Because of this there is no way to ascertain reliability, so the source should not be used.

Thanks,

Lucas,
Lord Castellan Creed (talk) 20:14, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
The language issue is an interesting one I think. What effect would it have on Wikipedia if we excluded non-English sources? Why don't we exclude them? --Danger (talk) 20:27, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
I imagine sources from different languages are used for one of several reasons:
There is no other decent sources available for that topic, meaning that nothing can be referenced, therefore affecting validity and reliability of articles.

If we did not include articles from other countries / language it could be considered racist, always a possibility nowadays.

Sources in other languages could back up sources in English, always a good thing.

I personally don't mind where the source comes from, but there always the issue of error through translating. Some words that have several meanings can be translated incorrectly, messing up the entire translation.

Thanks,

Lucas,

Lord Castellan Creed (talk) 20:38, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
I don't worry too much about translation issues in the use of non-English sources because in my experience when non-English sources are used they are used by multilingual Wikipedians who aren't doing word for word translations but rather reading in a language they are relatively fluent in. It's no more worrying, to me, than Anglophones basing articles on English language sources. We screw it up sometimes, but not because of a translation issue. Does that make sense? The reason that English sources are preferred is a literal verifiability one; in theory, readers should be able to go to the sources themselves and verify what is written in an article. Since this is an English encyclopedia, we know that our readers read English and can literally verify what is written in English sources, while they might not be able to do so in French sources. (This is an interesting issue in, say, the Kannada or Swahili Wikipedias, where material on many encyclopedic topics, especially academic ones, are simply not available in the local language.) But that's a side issue that you probably won't encounter very often. --Danger (talk) 15:28, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
No original research – Honestly, I think this is a pretty simple corollary of the principle of verifiability, but then I am a mathematician at heart. (Very sad, it's an incurable disease of thinking.) Others disagree and list this as the third basic content principle, so you should read it. Things to think about: Is it okay to cite one's own work? If so, when and why? How is the prohibition of original research related to the principle of due weight discussed in the NPOV policy? --Danger (talk) 15:40, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
Sorry about the delay, unfortunately I have had a bad week with deaths and such. I would say you could not cite your own work, unless it is either backed up by someone else, or part of a reliable source. If you cite your own source, you are obviously biased too your own source.

Thanks,

Lucas,

Lord Castellan Creed (talk) 19:24, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
I'm very sorry to hear that. Take all the time you need and don't worry about it. Your instincts are basically correct, although do make sure to read the policy pages. Generally when one encounters a person citing their personal website, you're looking at something that probably isn't a reliable source and the situation often involves self-promotion. However, we do have experts contributing to Wikipedia and they are welcome to cite their own research when writing about their field. You are correct, though, that such editors may tend to rely too much on their own work and when dealing with those pages it's important to make sure that undue weight isn't put on the work of the contributor. Does that make sense? --Danger (talk) 23:30, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
Sorry about the delay, things have been hectic recently. Yes what you say does make sense.

I should be able to come on more regually soon,

Thanks,

Lucas,

Lord Castellan Creed (talk) 16:00, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
Civility – Strangely, to me anyway, the civility policy is extremely controversial. Take a read; the sections relevant to you are mostly about dealing with incivility. It is important to remember that there are rarely consequences for editors who are uncivil. Thus, when you encounter an uncivil editor, the onus is on you to deal with the situation calmly, without rising to the bait or responding in kind. Uncivil editors usually have other problems and, given enough time, will usually burn themselves out or violate one of the sorts of policies that is enforced, like not sockpuppeteering, making uncontroversially personal attacks, or making legal threats. This can take a few years though, so in the meantime, one just has to be patient. --Danger (talk) 02:33, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Questions

If you have any questions, ask them here. That way you'll be able to find the answers easily later without looking through talk page archives. You can also ask questions on my talk page and I will move a copy of the discussion here.--Danger (talk) 03:39, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

1. Thanks for setting up this page, I have one small question; with watchng pages, is there a way of doing it without having to edit it? Even if the contents of the edit box remains the same?
Thanks,
Lucas,
Lord Castellan Creed (talk) 07:43, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Yep, At the top of your browser, there will be a tab that you can select to watch a page. In the new skin (Vector) I think it's a star that's gold if you're watching and unfilled if you're not. In the skin I use (Monobook), there's a tab marked "watch" or "unwatch". Just one of the many reasons why I like Monobook better. --Danger (talk) 07:49, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Ah found it, thanks for your help. I'm just using the standard wikipedia skin.

Thanks,

Lucas,

Lord Castellan Creed (talk) 16:36, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Good, good. What do you think of the pillars? --Danger (talk) 01:47, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

They are mainly self explanatory, and fairly obvious,

Thanks,

Lucas,

20:33, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough. Still, read them again. I read them at least once every few months.--Danger (talk) 20:44, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

2: Have another question(s), how do you create sub-pages and what should they be used for. I.e; if I have a sub-page linked to my user-page, could I fill it up with a list of all the articles I have created?
Thanks,
Lucas,
Lord Castellan Creed (talk) 16:59, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Two methods of creating a subpage: make an internal link and save it (it will be red) like this: [[User:Lord Castellan Creed/Articles]], then click on the link and type away. Or you can just navigate to the page you want to create in your browser (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lord Castellan Creed/Articles) and you'll be asked if you'd like to create that page. Broadly, subpages can be used to store things related to Wikipedia. A lot of people write essays on Wikipedia, keep various sorts of statistics, records of what they've done, etc. It's become fairly common to write new articles in userspace (any page with User: appended) and then move them to the mainspace when they're "done". Something about this helping with getting Did You Know credit, I think. You can find out the official story here. --Danger (talk) 18:13, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. Once I've finished with my user-page I will have a play with sub-pages, I would like a list of all articles I have made or made major changes to, but I don't want my user-page littered with it.

Thanks,

Lucas,

Lord Castellan Creed (talk) 19:58, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

3: Next question; How do you create templates? I would like to have a play around with them.
Note with this section: normal mark up works except for the first post of each entry. As it requires all the to be inserted. Also with the first reply requires two (::) instead of the usual one (:)
Thanks,
Lucas,
Lord Castellan Creed (talk) 20:20, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Templates are pretty much just regular pages in a special namespace. (ie templates have "Template:" in front of their titles) Anyone who can create an article can create a template. They are used by transclusion or substitution. Putting {{title of template}} on a page calls up the code on the template page when the page is loaded and putting {{subst:title of template}} on the page puts the code from the template directly into the page code. (You can also use transclusion on other kinds of pages, but templates are the most common use of transclusion.) That there ends what I know about templates. You can find out more at H:T and WikiProject Templates. I don't know much about them because I've never been in a situation when I needed to make one; you might want to make something like a userbox for your userpage as an experiment instead of creating something that isn't needed. --Danger (talk) 20:39, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, I will have a read of the articles in a second. I just wanted to have a play around see how they worked. It would always be useful in the long run.

Thanks for your help,

Lucas,

Lord Castellan Creed (talk) 20:46, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Projects

If you have any projects that you'd like to tackle, tell me about them here and I'll see how I can help you.--Danger (talk) 03:39, 18 January 2011 (UTC)