User:Rcsprinter123/Adopt/Ace10
Hello, Ace10000! Welcome to your adoption page. We are going to work through a course of lessons, the first one of which is below. You can ask questions at any time (at the bottom!). Rcsprinter (talk) 11:09, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
The Five Pillars
|
---|
The Five Pillars[edit]One of the most important essays in Wikipedia is WP:FIVEPILLARS which is designed to eloquently sum up what we're here for.
Once you get your head around these five pillars, you will be a Wikipedian and a good one at that. All 5 are covered in my adoption school, though at different lengths. Be aware that I don't know everything and I would doubt anyone who said they did. How articles should be written[edit]The articles in Wikipedia are designed to represent the sum of human knowledge. Each article should be written from a neutral point of view – personal opinions such as right and wrong should never appear, nor should an editors experience. Neutrality also means giving due weight to the different points of view. If the broad scientific community has one set of opinions – then the minority opinion should not be shown. An example is in medicine – if there was an article on say treatment of a broken leg, a neutral article would not include anything on homeopathy. To ensure that the information in an article is correct, Wikipedia has adopted a policy of verifiability. Anything written in Wikipedia should be available to confirm by looking at the associated reliable source. Wikipedia should not include anything not verifiable by seeing it is published elsewhere; in other words, it should not contain anything original. Reliable sources[edit]So what is a source? Wikipedia uses the word source for three interchangeable ideas – a piece of work, the work's creator or the work's publisher. In general, you would expect a reliable source to be published materials with a reliable publication process, authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject, or both. This doesn't mean that a source that is reliable on one topic is reliable on every topic, it must be regarded as authoritative in that topic – so whilst "Airfix monthly" may be a good source on the first model aeroplane, I would not expect it to be authoritative on their full size equivalent. A source that is self-published is in general considered unreliable, unless it is published by a recognized expert in the field. This is a very rare exception – so self publishing is generally considered a no-no. This means that anything in a forum or a blog and even most websites are considered unreliable by default. One interesting sidepoint is on self-published sources talking about themselves. Obviously, a source talking about itself is going to be authoritative, but be careful that the source is not too self-serving – the article really should not be totally based on a direct source like that. Mainstream news sources are generally considered reliable... but any single article should be assessed on a case by case basis. Some news organizations have been known to check their information on Wikipedia – so be careful not to get into a cyclic sourcing issue! There's a lot more about what makes a source reliable here. Questions[edit]Any questions or would you like to try the test?
Sure. Now, I wasn't saying you hadn't read it, but we can't skip the test. So here it is: Five Pillars[edit]This test is going to be based on questions. Some questions will have right or wrong answers, whereas others are just designed to see if you are thinking in the right way. There's not time limit - answer in your own words and we'll talk about your answers. Also - you do not have to do the entire test in one edit. 1) Q - You have just discovered from a friend that the new Ford Escort is only going to be available in blue. Can you add this to the Ford Escort article and why?
2) Q - A mainstream newspaper has published a cartoon which you see is clearly racist as part of an article. Can you include this as an example of racism on the newspaper's article? What about on the racism article?
3) Q - You find an article that shows that people in the state of Ohio eat more butternut squashes than anywhere in the world and ranks each of the United States by squashes per head. Interestingly you find another article that ranks baldness in the United States and they are almost identical! Can you include this information anywhere on Wikipedia? Perhaps the baldness article or the butternut squash article?
4) Q - Would you consider BBC news a reliable source on The Troubles? What about on ITV?
5) Q - Would you consider Ben and Jerry's official Facebook page a reliable source?
6) Q - A "forum official" from the Daily Telegraph community forums comments on Daily Telegraph's stance on world hunger. Would this be a reliable source?
7) Q - Would you have any problem with http://www.hopsandpips.com being used in a beer related article?
8) Q - Would you have any issue with using the About Us page on Xerox as a source for the history section of the Xerox article.
9) Q - Everybody knows that the sky is blue right? An editor doesn't agree - he says it is bronze, do you need a source?
5½/9 - Not bad. Ready for the next lesson? |
Wikiquette
[edit]WP:Wikiquette - or the etiquette of Wikipedia is something that you may already be familiar with, depending how much reading around the different wikipedia pages you've made.
I'm just going to highlight some of the important Wikiquette items that you should try and remember. It may help you out.
- Assume good faith - This is fundamental and I'll be going over it again in dispute resolution. Editors here are trying to improve the encyclopedia. Every single member of the community. EVERY ONE. If you read a comment or look at an edit and it seems wrong in some way, don't just jump straight in. Try and see it from the other editors point of view, remembering that they are trying to improve the encyclopedia.
- Sign your talk posts with four tildas ~~~~. The software will stick your signature and timestamp in, allowing the correct attribution to your comment. I have a script that reminds you to do this if you think you'll forget.
- Try and keep to threading, replying to comments by adding an additional indentation, represented by a colon, :. I cover more about this in my basics of markup language lesson - let me know if you'd like to take it. 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]] |
How's the soup? --John Let's move the discussion to Talk:Soup. --Jane
|
- Don't forget to assume good faith
- There are a lot of policies and guidelines, which Wikipedians helpfully point you to with wikilinks. Their comments may seem brusque at first, but the linked document will explain their point much better than they may be able to.
- Be polite, and treat others as you would want to be treated. For example, if someone nominated one of the articles you created for deletion, I'm sure you'd want to know about it, so if you are doing the nominating make sure you leave the article creator a notification.
- Watch out for common mistakes.
- Did I mention that you should assume good faith?
- Comment on the edits. Not the editor. I'll cover this more in dispute resolution.
Questions
[edit]Any questions?
test please--Ace10000 (talk) 11:42, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
- OK, here it is:
Test
[edit]Have a look at the conversation below:
What's the best car in the world? -- Rod
|
Well, the Passat lover clearly loves his Passat, but who is he replying to? In
1) Position A?
- A- freddie
- No, Rod's Mate.
2) Position B?
- A- jane
- No, Rod.
- See with these first two, indents reply to the one one indent less. 0, I'm afraid.
3) An editor who has a low edit count seems awfully competent with templates. Should he be reported as a possible WP:SOCK?
- A- no, after he makes a couple of templates gently guide him into editing but don't stop him making templates that way they are productive in templates and editing
- If you were assuming good faith, you would realise that there are any number of reasons a person could be good at templates, they could have worked on other wikis, be an IP editor with a new account, just be a natural coder... Although your answer is correct in essentials, I'll give you ½.
4) You come across an editor that has made 5 edits to articles, yet 85 to userspace. What do you think you should do with him? (Bolden your choice)
- A- Volunteer him for mentoring
- B- Report him to admins
- C- Nothing
- D- Your own choice - .....
- 1 Bang on. I designed this question specifically for you, and hope we get somewhere with this. Final score for this test is 1½ / 4. Anything you'd like to ask about these?