User talk:Seeksreal

Cole Tucker

Check out the references I added to my recommendation (which I changed to a Weak Keep from a Weak Delete, by the way) on the Cole Tucker AfD page. There's the beginnings of a good first paragraph on him in my comment, including references. You might want to spend some time cleaning up the article as further evidence that it should be kept.—Chidom ^talk 01:55, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your input. As you might have guessed I'm pretty new to this, but I will do my best to improve the quality of my contributions. I incorporated your notes on Cole into the article and I will rework the text off line and come back with an update soon. I hope it won't get deleted in the meantime as I still think there is relevant information in the current article.

You're welcome. I think if you work on it offline and come back with a better article, it won't be a worry. A couple of things about "talking" on the pages, though. Notice that I indented your response under mine - it makes it easier to read. To do that, just start the line with a colon. The more colons, the further the indentation.

Also, please be sure to sign your comments on talk pages and in discussions. To do that, touch the tilde ~ four times in a row: it looks like this: ~~~~ . When you save the page, it translates into your name and the time you saved the page. Just makes it easier to know who said what and when instead of having to go look at the page history.

Sandbox

You should create a sandbox for you to "play" in. To do that, click in the search box to the left and type User:Seeksreal/Sandbox. It will bring up a list of instructions and options; to create the page, go ahead and click on the Start the User:Seeksreal/Sandbox page option and start editing. The Sandbox is a great place to bang out articles without having them seen by others (unless they come looking out of curiousity; you can't hide the page. But like your main User page, others shouldn't change things in your Sandbox unless you invite them to.

Now go into edit mode on a page. Take a look at the toolbar at the top of the edit window. Test how the buttons work by selecting text and then clicking the button after you've selected the text. Reading from left to right, starting with the bold "B", they do the following things:

B : Bold selected type

I : Italicize selected type Ab with underscore: Turns the selected text into a wikilink so when it's clicked on it takes you to that page. It puts the two left brackets and two right brackets on either side of the text to turn the text into a link.

Globe : puts single brackets on either side of the selected text to creat an external hyperlink. Be sure the hyperlink starts with "http://"; it won't work without it.

A (big one) makes the selected text a Level 2 headline - what is used for the start of each section. ("Cole Tucker" and "Sandbox" are Level 2 headlines.) Level 1 is the title of the page; Level 3 is a sub-section, etc. This is controlled by the number of equal signs on either side of the text. Generally, don't use single equal signs on either side - that size is reserved for the names of pages.

If you click the picture, you get the format for inserting an image into a page. Wait a bit on that one; there are all sorts of ownership/copyright issues around images; be sure and ask for help on that one, or your image is likely to disappear.

The next two I've never used - the Media file link and the Mathematical formula. Again, if you select the text you want to use these on, it puts in the appropriate wiki commands.

The next one, the W behind a circle with a slash mark in it, is really handy. Us this when you want to put wiki commands on a page to illustrate the commands, not to have them execute. Select the text and click this link, and it puts commands on either side of the text that tell it to ignore wiki equivalents of anything in between the tags.

The next one is probably the most important. It's the signature button. If you don't want to type the four tildes, clicking on this will do it for you. (Some folks are more mouse-oriented and clicking is easier than typing - nice to be able to do it both wasy, I think.)

The next one - the heavy horizontal line, shouldn't be used very often. It inserts a horizontal line on the page; the preference is to start a new section, not to use the lines. There are places where it's justified, but for now, don't try to figure it out.

The last button - #R makes the text a redirect link. This is used for re-named pages or pages that exist to let people search with alternate spellings. Again, don't worry about this one right now.

Take some time to review the various pages about policy (start at Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines). Then click the link at the bottom of the editing box that says "Editing hel (opens in new window). There's all kinds of info on how to format text, etc., so it looks like the rest of the articles on Wikipedia.

And there's a place to go for help - see Wikipedia:Help desk for info on how to get someone else to help you. Follow the directions at that page and you'll get a response as soon as someone can get to it. (There are folks monitoring all the time, but they stay pretty busy - so be patient.

Finally, don't get overwhelmed - take it in easy chunks. You don't have to learn it all at once; it'll come as you stick around and work on more articles.

Don't hesitate to ask me for help, either - just leave a message on my talk page and I'll respond as soon as I can (if you need a quicker response, follow the directions at the Help Desk.)

Be aware that my "status" box isn't very accurate; I just installed it a day or so ago and I keep forgetting to set my status as I'm arriving or leaving.

Hope this is helpful. Take care, and have fun!—Chidom ^talk 09:18, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for all your input and help! I will sure do what I can to improve the quality of my contributions.Seeksreal 00:42, 26 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]