User:Brambleberry of RiverClan/Adoption/Missionedit

Brambleberry of RiverClan/Adoption/Missionedit
Brambleberry of RiverClan/Adoption/Missionedit
Personal information
Horse(s)	Hardrock Z

Brambleberry's Adoption Homepage • Discussion || Current Adoptees: OcelotHod • Khan Tiger • Austinuity • Yashowardhani • CORREZE || Recent Graduates: Missionedit

Welcome, Missionedit! I have three questions right off the bat for you.

(1) Would you prefer to be called Missionedit, Anastasia, or something else? I personally would prefer if you called me Brambleberry.
(2) Do you have any specific questions right away or would you prefer that I just begin the traditional adoption course?
(3) What picture would you like to represent you?

Here are my answers, Brambleberry:

(1) I would personally like to be called Anastasia

(2) I have only a few specifc questions:

How long have you been editing Wikipedia?
I was wondering how you made those questions appear seperated from each other without putting an enter space between them?

(3) What do you mean by picture to represent me?

My answers to your answers:

(1) Thank you for letting me know.

(2) I have been editing Wikipedia for five years, one month, and twenty-seven days as of 21 February 2013, with a big break around 2010. You can make your questions separated without an enter space by using   right before the separation. However, when you indent with colons you don't have to. You just have to put the same amount of colons before each new separation.

(3) Take a look at the OcelotHod page. There's a picture of an ocelot there. That's how I think of that adoptee of mine. I would like to know what type of picture you would like on your adoption page.

I would like a gray/silver cat for my picture, similar to Silverstream of RiverClan from the Warriors series, if possible :)

Voilà! It may not have her blue eyes, but it's a silver tabby she-cat just like Silverstream. Now, are there any specific areas of Wikipedia you want to work out the kinks of, or would you say you just kind of want to know everything?

Thanks! The picture is great! Um, I think I would like to learn some of the basic WikiMarkup first and then maybe I can take everything alot better. lol
Also, on my User page, all my userboxes have all these awkward spaces in between them. Do you have any idea why?

Our first lesson is below, and the userbox problem can be easily fixed. You simply have them all in one little chart without putting rhyme or reason to it. I added a table that kept an orderly four to a row with cell padding to keep even spaces between them. It's going to look a little different, but you'll get used to it. This is pretty advanced and I learned it from another user, so unless you really want to learn we probably won't cover it. The idea is just keep three to a section and separate them with |-.

Lesson 1: Wiki markup edit

One thing that you should know about my lessons is that they are usually taken from detailed Wikipedia policies and are made so that a novice can understand them. It's not exactly dumbing down, but more like not hearing Wiki-jargon. This one is taken from WP:MARKUP. I don't touch on everything that the page does, only the basics that you'll probably be using. If you need something else, you're free to venture out to the page.

Headings edit

You can see how the Lesson 1 has two equal signs to either side of it and so it shows up big on the page. This subheading is a little smaller and has three equal signs. You can use anywhere from two to six equal signs to show different headings and subheadings. You can't get smaller than six, but there is no reason you should be using it in the first place. On any article, having at least four headings and subheadings of any kind generates a table of contents, which is why one shows up right now.

Line breaks edit

I explained this just a little already. Pressing "Enter" once changes nothing visibly, but can make it easier to see and change things when you edit. Entering twice causes a new paragraph. You can use   to create a new line without a new paragraph.

Indenting edit

Much like increasing the number of equal signs on either side of a word causes different levels of subheadings, increasing the number of colons before a response increases the amount of indentation. You use indentation (as I have) to respond to someone. For example, you use no colons. I use one colon before my response and it is indented. This means I respond to you. If you then respond to me, you would generally use two colons. If I were to respond to that, then I would use three colons. If a third party then decided to respond to the original question, they would use one colon. The idea is to always use one colon more than what you're responding to.

Lists edit

There are two main kinds of lists: bullet points and numbered. Numbered lists are generally for anything ranking or order-related, and everything else would be a bullet. You use an asterisk for a bullet and a number sign/pound sign for a numbered list. Like with colons, adding more asterisks or number signs will cause indentation.

Text formatting edit

This is probably one of the most helpful parts of the section. Adding two singular apostrophes to either side of a phrase will make it italic. Adding three single apostrophes to each side will make it bold. Adding five to either side will make it bold and italic. We generally use italics in lieu of underlines, so underlines are rarely, if ever, needed. I stress that you use single apostrophes, because some people put quotation marks when they think it will make italic text, and it doesn't. You shouldn't be using other text formatting on article space except in special circumstances.

Links edit

To link to something on Wikipedia, simply put two brackets to either side. Like if I want to link to Fiona Kelleghan, I would put [[Fiona Kelleghan]]. These are called internal links. Of course, sometimes what you want to link to isn't necessarily the same name as what you're linking to. For example, you wouldn't want to see the sentence: "Mammals are part of the kingdom (biology) of Animalia." There are solutions to this. You could put [[Kingdom (biology)|]] to make it show up as only "kingdom". Adding a pipe character between the last letter and right brackets will hide anything in parentheses. It also works for removing the comma and state or country when linking to a city or hides a namespace when linking to a user or Wikipedia space from something.

Don't worry about tacking on an extra ending; the link will just cover the whole world. For example, [[cougar]]s appears cougars and [[bus]]es appears buses. This doesn't work for words like "wolves" and "knives", where letters of the original word are changed when the ending is added. For that you would have to do something like [[Wolf|wolves]]. Something that I always find hard to remember is that the part on the left of the pipe is the original and the right is how it appears.

There are also external links, links to something outside Wikipedia. To do that, you only put one bracket to either side and paste the URL. Then you put a space and say what you want it to be called. For example, linking to the official Warriors page would mean posting [www.warriorcats.com Official website] on the "External links" section of the Warriors page. That would be the only place where it would be okay to post an external link to that specific place.

End of Lesson 1 edit

Pictures, citations, and templates will be covered shortly. Do you have any questions on these?

That was great lesson! It answered a lot of my questions. I was wondering how to make images a smaller size and what exactly is a template?

Images will be covered in lesson 2, which will be below in a couple seconds, and templates will be covered in lesson three.

Lesson 2: Pictures edit

This lesson is mostly taken from WP:PICTURE, which is already mostly for beginners, but I've only taken the really important stuff.

Adding pictures edit

Adding a picture on Wikipedia is a relatively easy thing to do. To get a simple picture, you simply put two brackets to either side of a file much as you would with an internal link and the picture will show up where you put it, much as your Silverstream-esque picture looks. When adding an infobox (which you will learn more about in lesson 3, though judging by your userbox you know how already) and you want to put a picture in, you generally find where it says "image" and add it there without the brackets or the prefix "File:" or "Image". You do, however, add the suffix ".jpg", ".png", etc. If an infobox is different, it will say so on the infobox page.

Thumbnails and adding a caption edit

Most pictures you see won't be plain. They will usually have a thumbnail on them that will add a caption. To add a thumbnail to a picture, simply add "|thumb" after the file name and before the right brackets. For example, if I were to make the Silverstream picture a thumbnail, I would put [[File:Kot22.jpg|thumb]]. This would put a light gray box around the picture and a double rectangle icon (

) to the bottom right. You can add a caption by putting another pipe after "|thumb" and before the right brackets and then putting what you want to caption it after the pipe. For example, to achieve the appearance to the right, you would put [[File:Kot22.jpg|thumb|Silverstream]].

Do not add a thumbnail to a picture in an infobox. To add a caption, there will generally be something that says "image caption" underneath where it says "image". That would, as it suggests, be where you put the caption.

Placement edit

When you add a thumbnail to an image, it automatically aligns to the right. If you do not add a thumbnail to it, you will have to put "|right" after the file name and before the right brackets. If you want it to align to the left, whether or not it is a thumbnailed image, you will add "|left" right before the right brackets. This will generally put it either right after the file name or right after "|thumb" depending on if you use it or not. It's important to make sure that not every image is aligned to the right, as if they all are it can lead to a stack of images messing up the text placement.

Size edit

If you add a thumbnail to an image, it will automatically be 220 pixels. The amount of pixels that we are referring to is width, not length. To change the size, you put "|(# of pixels)px" before the right bracket and then set it to whatever size you want. Typically it's good to use "show preview" to see how large the image is going to be. The "show preview" button shows how your changes will look. It will help you set the pixel size to whatever size you want.

Sometimes an infobox will have a separate area for image size where you wil type in the amount of pixels, e.g. 250px. Most don't, however. They will generally default to something, but if you're unhappy with the default, you will add "|250px" or whatever amount of pixels you want it to be after the file name in the "image" portion. For example, image = Kot22.jpg|250px.

End of lesson 2 edit

Do you have any questions?

Nope. Now I can add an image to my userpage! (come and see - User:Missionedit)

Why does it have words and numbers at the top and bottom?

I fixed the problem for you, but let me explain: as I said in the article: when you put an image in an infobox, you do not need the [[File: at the beginning or the ]] to the end. In your case, all you needed was |image = Digitalis purpurea 003.JPG. That's because the coding of the infobox has been set up that the other bits and ends are automatically provided for you.

OK Thanks!

Lesson 3 will be on citations.

Lesson 3: Citations edit

This lesson is mostly taken from Wikipedia:Citing sources.

Types of citation edit

There are five kinds of citation on Wikipedia:

Full citation: A citation fully identifying a reliable source. For the sake of this article, let's keep to one citation to illustrate the different points: Laufer, Peter (2011). ''No Animals Were Harmed: The Controversial Line Between Entertainment and Abuse''. Guilford, Connecticut: Lyons Press, pp. 144-5. ISBN 978-0-76276-385-6. You may notice that it is not in MLA or APA format. The format used for citations on Wikipedia is different.
Inline citation: Any citation added close to the material that it supports, usually in the form of a footnote and placed after a sentence or paragraph.
General reference: A citation to a reliable source that supports content, but is not linked to any particular piece of material in the article through an inline citation. General references are usually listed at the end of the article in a references section. They may be found in underdeveloped articles, especially when all article content is supported by a single source. They may also be listed by author alphabetically in a references section in more developed articles as a supplement to inline citations. You probably won't deal with these too much.
Short citation: An inline citation with an abbreviated form of the whole source, like parenthetical documentation. e.g. Laufer 2011, pp. 144-5. Usually when this is added there is a "Bibliography" section at the bottom of the article listing the books from which the author comes.
In-text attribution: This is usually used for opinions and quotations. An example would be a sentence beginning In his 2011 book ''No Animals Were Harmed: The Controversial Line Between Entertainment and Abuse'', Peter Laufer claims....

When and why to cite sources edit

We cite sources to maintain credibility on Wikipedia. Sources should not be included for common knowledge (e.g. "Snow melts in winter"), and should always be provided for controversy. We will go over this more in lesson 6, reliable sources.

Inline citations edit

We use inline citations so that we don't clutter up the actual article. All of the information is shown at the bottom in a section called "References". To make this succeed, we put <ref> before the reference and </ref> after. Under a level 2 heading called "References" we type {{Reflist}}. For example, we would put Studies indicate that providing a sense of "flying" for a fighting cricket increases its drive.<ref>Laufer, Peter (2011). ''No Animals Were Harmed: The Controversial Line Between Entertainment and Abuse''. Guilford, Connecticut: Lyons Press, pp. 144-5. ISBN 978-0-76276-385-6.</ref> Then we would put == References =={{Reflist}} (with a line break obviously, and it would show up like this:

Studies indicate that providing a sense of "flying" for a fighting cricket increases its drive.^[1]

== References ==
Laufer, Peter (2011). No Animals Were Harmed: The Controversial Line Between Entertainment and Abuse. Guilford, Connecticut: Lyons Press, pp. 144-5. ISBN 978-0-76276-385-6.

What information to include edit

Simply, anything that you can!

Citation style edit

Wikipedia has a strange style, so it's best not to try to use MLA or APA. Instead, look at Template:Citation Style 1. Pick the one that you need. Let's go with {{cite book}} for this one. Go down to where it says "Full parameter set in horizontal format". Copy that. Paste it where you want the reference to go. Add the ref tags to the side so that it shows up under "References". Fill out everything you can. Delete anything you didn't use. Voilá! You made a reference in the correct format!

Text-source integrity edit

To maintain text-source integrity, do not place information so that it is construed that the information came from a source it doesn't. Consider the following. Assume the source is the one we've been using.

Studies indicate that providing a sense of "flying" for a fighting cricket increases its drive.^[1]

Now consider the following sentence:

Studies indicate that providing a sense of "flying" for a fighting cricket increases its drive, especially the field cricket.^[1]

Nowhere in the book does it mention that the field cricket is especially affected by this, so you would need to move the reference or the added information so that it does not appear that way.

Citation overkill edit

Sometimes people add the same source over and over so that twenty instances of it in a row show up. That's when you use "ref name". In the opening ref tag, you replace it with <ref name="something short to call it">. So for the one we've been using, I'd probably do <ref name="Laufer">. For all the instances when you will next use that reference, you would put <ref name="Laufer"/>.

End of lesson 3 edit

Any questions? It can be confusing, I know.

This lesson helped me a lot. So where do you put the <ref name="something short to call it"> ?

I learn a lot of stuff from watching how people do things. That <code><nowiki> thing is pretty interesting.

I'm glad that you're learning. You would put <ref name="something short to call it"> where you would normally put <ref>. That lets the computer know that whenever you use <ref name="something short to call it"/> after another sentence you are referring to the first instance of it.

Another thing: you don't have to use   when you're indenting. It will automatically break for you.

Can you teach me some stuff about copyediting next?

Of course I can!

Lesson 4: Copyediting edit

This lesson is mostly taken from the GOCE (Guild of Copy Editors) page.

Guild of Copy Editors edit

The Guild of Copy Editors (which I can see on your user page you have already joined) is a collaborative effort to copy edit everything that needs it. To "copy edit" basically means going through and checking spelling, grammar, wikilinks, formatting, etc. etc. It means that you're making an unreadable page readable.

How to copy edit edit

The best way to copy edit is to fix all of the spelling, grammar, and basic formatting first. Then you look at the Manual of Style (which we'll talk about later) page for that topic to see if every heading is in the proper order. For example, if I was copy editing a novel, I would go to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Novels to see what order the headings were supposed to be in. The "Manual of Style" is basically a guide for how the ideal article of that topic would look.

The order in which to copy edit edit

Start at the lead section (the section before the headings start) and scan that for errors. If you find any, fix them.
When you are fixing them, put "Copyediting" in the edit summary. Unless you're only doing things that are obvious (e.g. putting periods at the end of sentences, capitalizing a person's name), don't mark "minor edit".
If there is nothing wrong with the lead, move down to each section and do the same thing.
Change the order of the headings to the order that the Manual of Style suggests (see above).
When you have finished everything, remove anything that was "tagged" that you fixed. A "tag" is a notice at the top of the page that something is wrong with the article.

Different kinds of English edit

Sometimes you'll see {{Use British English}}, {{Use American English}}, or {{Use Australian English}} in the lead when you edit. This is only shown when you edit it; it is invisible to the public. There are other types of this, like Irish English or South African English, but the three I showed you are the three that you'll come across the most often. When you come across Use British English, that means use mdy (12 March 2013) dates and British spelling. It's the same thing with Use Australian English, but with Australian spelling (obviously). When you come across Use American English, that means use dmy (March 12, 2013) dates and American spelling. If none of these, and neither a {{use dmy dates}} or {{use mdy dates}} is present either, I've found that it's most widely accepted to use dmy dates and American spelling.

A quick reference for these different kinds of English is available at American and British English spelling differences.

Things you don't need to fix edit

Although using a passive voice, splitting infinitives, using the restrictive which, beginning a sentence with a conjunction, and ending a sentence with a preposition are all big no-no's in the professional grammar world, they do not have to be fixed if they would cause consequences. For example, changing a passive voice to an active voice can inappropriately change the topic of a paragraph.

GOCE special requests edit

The Guild of Copy Editors has a list of requests people made for copy edits. Pick one that you like, tell me which one you picked, and I'll monitor your copy editing and tell you how you did at the end.

I picked Parineeti Chopra‎ because it didn't look too long and exausting. I put down underneath the request that I was working on it. Was I suppose to do that?

Yes, it is always good to let the other members know that you are taking on a specific request with either a {{doing}} or {{working}}, which I saw you did. I looked at the couple of edits you made so far, and they are wonderful. Keep up the good work!

Today it says on the editing Parineeti Chopra page that all edits to the page are subject to review because of a violation of the biography of living persons policy. I'm pretty sure this wasn't there yesterday. Is this something is should be concerned about?

You shouldn't be concerned about anything. I noticed that was happening when I first looked at your first couple of edits. Sometimes people add libellous information to articles of living people, so all changes are put under review to make sure it doesn't happen again. Since you're just copyediting, you have nothing to worry about. öBrambleberry of RiverClan 17:55, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

It looks like I'm mostly finished. What do you think?

You were so awesome! I am SO sorry I didn't see this before!

That is totally OK! I knew that you were on vacation so I figured that you would respond eventually :) Oh bother though, because when I finished, I accidentally deleted the Parineeti Chopra request on the GOCE page. Whoops! But I guess someone fixed it as you can see on my talk page (under GOCE requests). Then I put a notification thing on the requester's talk page. So at least I did something right :|

Anything can be fixed by reverting. I believe that lesson 5 is going to be templates. Would you like a special one instead? öBrambleberry of RiverClan 22:42, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

No, actually, that is exactly what I need right now since I have recently taken to patroling new pages.

Lesson 5: Templates edit

I took this one partially from my own experience and also all over the place, since templates are a diverse topic. This lesson mostly deals with the important templates. Others I'll go over in case you want to know them, but are not major.

Inserting templates edit

To insert a template, you must go to the appropriate template page and find where it says either "Parameters" or "All parameters", or something to that effect. You copy all the information in the little gray box under that heading and paste it where you want the template to go. Then you fill in all the parameters you can fill in and delete the rest, as it causes unneccessary cluttering of article space to leave unused parameters.

You always use curly brackets to insert a template, and you don't need the Template: prefix.

Infoboxes edit

Infoboxes are little boxes to the side of articles that give quick details about the article. For example, on Justice (sculpture), the box to the side shows a picture and tells you the artist, year, type, material, dimensions, location, and owner. On José Maria Larocca, the box to the side shows a picture and tells you his full name, nationality, discipline, birth date, birth place, height, weight, and horses. Not all infoboxes need a picture. You can find a grand list of every infobox at Category:Infobox templates, where you can narrow it down to what you're looking for. A hint, instead of, say, "Infobox plant", the infobox for a specific species is at Template:Taxobox. This goes for animals, plants, bacteria, fungi, Archaea, and protists. Template:Infobox animal is for a specific animal.

Navboxes edit

Navigational boxes, or "navboxes", are templates placed at the bottom of a page that allow you to easily jump between related articles. Examples are Template:Warriors (Erin Hunter), Template:Peter Laufer, and Template:Disney theatrical animated features. These are also the easiest to create. You can follow the instructions at Template:Navbox to create one by filling in the parameters and then putting the result at Template:(what you want to call it). Then you would put {{what you want to call it}} at the bottom of the articles listed at the navbox. I created Template:Peter Laufer and Template:Daughter of Smoke and Bone that way.

Stub templates edit

Stub templates call articles to the attention of certain people. They can be as basic as

This article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

or as detailed as

This Italian dessert–related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

. The idea is to get as detailed as possible. For example, I used Template:Vespertilionidae-stub on cinnamon red bat because there was no "Lasiurus-stub". Once again, if you want to look at all the different stub templates, go to Category:Stub message templates.

Tags edit

If you see a problem with an article, like that it has no citations or contradicts itself, you can "tag" it with one of the article message templates provided. They go at the top of the article, and you add "date=" followed by the month and the year after it but before the closing brackets.

Twinkle templates edit

There are a variety of templates (user warning, talkback, AfD, CSD, etc.) that are used with the semi-automatic tool Twinkle, which we will go over in lesson 8, right after the Five Pillars of Wikipedia and Wikiquette. I chose this order because I believe it's necessary to know the prior two subjects before jumping into semi-automatic tools like Twinkle and HotCat. Don't worry about them yet.

End of lesson 5 edit

Any questions? This was a short lesson, I know, but there are many templates, and I could only go over the important manual ones. If you have questions on other templates, don't hesitate to ask.

Question - what's a parameter? Also, I find it kind of hard to find specific templates in the Catagories on both Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia.

A parameter is an option that, if text is added to it, will add text somewhere. For example, on "Infobox equestrian", there's a "horse" parameter that looks like this:

|horse =

If you type in text, let's say "Hardrock Z", then when the infobox comes up it will look like what's to your right.

If you have a hard time with categories, you can always do the guess-and-check method. That's how I found "Infobox equestrian". I typed it in and found it. Or you can go to a similar article with an infobox or stub tag and see by opening the edit window what infobox they use. The problem is that it's sometimes the wrong one, but that's rare. Understand now?

Oh, so that's what those things are called. Yes, I've got it now.

Lesson 6: The Five Pillars of Wikipedia edit

There are five "pillars" to Wikipedia, or principles by which we operate. I've reworded them a little from the original to further explain.

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia.: Wikipedia incorporates various elements of reference materials such as encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers. Wikipedia is not for advertising, propaganda, or social networking. It is also not a dictionary, newspaper, or collection of source documents; there are sister projects for this. The goal of Wikipedia is to form a comprehensive online encyclopedia.
Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view.: Wikipedia presents all sides of the argument in a fair and balanced way whenever possible. We present no such opinion as being "the truth" or "the right position". Every allegation must be backed up by references, especially when concerning a controversial topic or a living person.
Wikipedia is free content.: Wikipedia is free for others to edit, use, modify, and distribute. No editor owns an article, and so everything you write is free to be mercilessly edited and redistributed at will. However, we still respect copyright laws and do not plagiarize.
Editors should be respectful.: Wikipedia has millions of editors who are bound to disagree on some topics. When you do happen to disagree, you should discuss your disagreement on the article's talk page. During this you should remain level-headed and not accuse. Just because the other editor may begin attacking you does not mean that you need to engage in similar behavior.
Wikipedia has no firm rules.: Much like the Constitution, as Wikipedia changes, the rules do as well. Nothing is carved in stone. Sometimes improving Wikipedia means doing an exception to the rule. Be bold in your edits (but not reckless) and don't worry about making a mistake, as you can always fix it.

Any questions?

Sometimes editors get into an edit war and accuse and call each other names. Obviously, they either don't know or don't respect the pillars of Wikipedia. I do know that sometimes it's hard to keep your temper, especially with promos and vandals. You just have to exercise self-control.

When you are partial to a point of view of a certian topic, I guess you probably shouldn't create an article about that subject as it would be hard for you to be neutral. Also, I have an unrelated question - How did you put that navigational bar on the top of your user page (Can I have one? :) )?

Yes, if you are partial to a topic or point of view and create an article about it, then a "conflict of interest" can be created, meaning that the ideas of one editor are throwing off all of Wikipedia. As for the navbar, I used a code from the user page design center to put on a page called User:Brambleberry of RiverClan/Menu. Then I put {{User:Brambleberry of RiverClan/Menu}} on every page I wanted to. All of the menu codes are at Wikipedia:User page design center/Menus and subpages for you to use and adapt. Just make sure everything links to one of your pages and not a page for User:Example.

Well, all the menus at the design center weren't exactly what I wanted, so I looked around a bit and found a customizable template for a navagation bar at User:Solarra/navbar Then I made a page called User:Missionedit/navbar, where I have been working on my own navagation bar with some help from the User page design center. Take a look!

That looks really cool! Now all you need to do is create the missing pages. The next lesson is Wikiquette.

Lesson 7: Wikiquette edit

At the end of this one there will be a test. This test will probably be more or less copied from User:Go Phightins!'s test, as, without any specific questions, I have to base some of my curriculum off of an average one. There will only be tests after some lessons. If any specific questions do come up, I can make a lesson of what you want that probably won't have a test. Don't worry about being graded; if you get it wrong I'll just nudge you in the right direction. My goal is not to get it finished fast, but completely correct. "Wikiquette" is, as I'm sure you've guessed by now, a portmanteau of "Wikipedia" and "etiquette". There are three main points of Wikiquette: assuming good faith, threading, and avoiding common mistakes.

Assuming good faith edit

There are two fundamental points of Wikipedia. One is that we are here to build an encyclopedia. The other is this. This will come up again and again because it is so important. Always assume that every member of the community you come across is trying to do the right thing. The exception to this would be somebody who already has four plus vandalism warnings and who is making more malicious edits; they probably aren't acting in good faith. Apart from that, don't jump straight in to assume somebody is malicious. Whenever I come across someone's first edit that isn't particularly helpful, I have a system. I'll use a recent example. Somebody's first edit was that they changed the numbers in Bernese mountain dog to say that the dog was between five and sixty feet tall at the withers. I reverted the edit, explaining why, and then left a note on their talk page describing what their edit meant and that mistakes were okay, but that if they meant to do it, then it could be considered vandalism, which they could get blocked for. Then I invited them to the Adopt-a-user program. Whenever I'm confronting a new editor, I like to begin with "Welcome to Wikipedia, (user name)!" and end with "Happy editing!"

Threading edit

You've pretty much got the hang of this already. When you're responding to something I write, you use one colon. When I then respond to you, you use two colons. When you then respond to me, you use three colons. The tricky thing is when you want to respond to the original post, but there's already a long line of threading. Then you just go back to using one colon. Think of it this way: whatever you want to respond to, preface it with one more colon than what it had already.

Avoiding common mistakes edit

It's pretty easy to come across a faux pas in the Wikipedia editing world. Try not to create autobiographical articles or articles about someone close to you, company articles, dictionary-type articles (we have Wiktionary for that), articles that are too short to have any encyclopedic value, and redundant articles. For the last one, it's easy to figure out if you're creating something redundant; just type in the search term into the search box and see if what comes up covers your topic. Whenever you delete content, be sure you give an explanation as to why. Even if you revert vandalism, say that it's vandalism. I saw once that somebody removed vandalism without saying that they were, and ClueBot NG reverted THEIR edit, thinking it was vandalism. Also, try not to delete valuable content just because it's poorly written and biased; instead, just rewrite it. (If it's about a living person and has no references, however, then it's time to delete.) Try to properly structure a lead section (more on that later), consistently style text (once again, more on that later), avoid self-referencing (referencing the Wikipedia project in article space), avoid external links in places other than the external link section, and avoid adding a signature any place but a talk page, but always remember to use your signature on talk pages. Edit instead of criticize, don't forget to be bold, don't over-capitalize articles, and don't add too many internal links. Try to remain level-headed in arguments (if you feel you're getting too heated, walk away and bring in a third party), always keep talk pages on topic, and don't get annoyed when you see bad articles or drastic edits (or even deletion) of your work.

Signatures edit

I thought I should touch on this because I got busted for a mistake I didn't know was a mistake. There are also Wikiquette rules for signatures. You can customize a signature any way you want (for example, mine is in Segoe Script and I use the colors dodgerblue and silver). There are a few no-nos, though. First, do not copy another editor's signature. Even making it look somewhat like another editor's signature is wrong. Linking to someone else's user page on your signature is a big mistake. Second, try not to make your signature too big. That can effect the way surrounding text displays. Be sparing with your superscript and subscript, too. It can sometimes cause a similar problem. Keep your signature a decently big size, too; if it's too small, we won't know who you are. When you use different colors, make sure that color-blind people will still be able to read it okay. Do not include horizontal rules in your signature (I don't know why, it isn't explained). Third (and this is the one I got busted for), do not include images in your signature! It's wrong for a number of reasons, including server slowdown, distraction, comment displacement, and cluttering up the "File links" section every time you comment. You can use webdings or wingdings to get an image effect, though. For example, I use the webdings cat icon in my signature because it's technically a font, not an image. Fourth, keep your signatures short enough that they don't take up a whole line of text when you comment. Fifth, make sure that your signature always links to at least your user page, talk page, or contributions page. Sixth, don't include any external links at all or internal links that have no purpose to building the encyclopedia. Finally, assume good faith when approaching someone who has these problem signatures and be polite.

End of lesson 7 edit

Whew, that was a lot of reading (and writing on my part)! Do you have any questions or are you ready for the test?

Yo'er right, that was a lot to remember, especially in the avoiding common mistakes section. I personally know that you should be nice to new editors who make mistakes because I made a few mistakes when I got started and the people who alerted me about them exactly weren't mean about it, but they weren't exactly trying to be kind, either. I felt pretty terrible. Then I realized I could fix my mistakes and I did. So I try to be nice to everyone.

OK, I'm ready for the test now.

Test edit

1.) Q- Explain in your own words what good faith means.

A- It means to always assume that an editor is trying to improve Wikipedia even when he makes mistakes, unless it is very obvious that he is trying to do otherwise.

Correct!

2.) Q- You come across a mythical creature article and see that it has been labelled as a cryptid, so you change the "grouping" from "legendary creature" to "cryptid". An editor removes the whole infobox, including the picture, telling you not to pollute Wikipedia with pseudo-science jargon. What is your course of action? (This is based on a true story.)

A- I guess that you would kindly tell the editor that next time he should first discuss this on the talk page of the article and gain consensus from other editors before deleting a perfectly good infobox because of the grouping. Then I would ask people on the talk page for their opinion.

Good answer! I took a similar course of action.

3.) Q- Take a look at the following wiki-conversation (forget that they aren't contributing helpfully to Wikipedia with these edits):

What's the best cat breed in the world? -Abraham

Something longhaired, probably. -Robert

Yeah, specifically Nordic. -Winston

You mean like a Norwegian Forest Cat? -Edgar (position A)

Dogs are better anyway. -Dwight

The Norwegian Forest Cat, obviously. But I do have a soft spot for jet-black nonpedigrees. -Edgar (position B)

Who is Edgar responding to in position A? What about position B? (Note: Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, Winston Churchill, and Edgar Allan Poe were all avid cat lovers, and Dwight D. Eisenhower was a cat hater.)

A- position A: Winston position B: Abraham

Yup, but I already explained threading earlier.

4.) Q- Your best friend was third in the graduating class of 2008 at USC, and when you perform a Google Search for him that's the only thing that comes up, apart from his blog about pictures of his guinea pig. Name everything that would be wrong with writing that article.

A-Well, first of all he was your best friend, you are probably biased about him. Second, there is nothing really to write about him except for his guinea pigs and therfore is not signifigant enough to write about and third you would have almost no reputable sorces for the article. There might be more reasons, but that's all I can think of.

More than enough!

5.) Q- Someone in clear association with George R. R. Martin wrote a paragraph explaining why he was the best author ever, using clear facts as sources. Should you delete it? Why or why not? If not, what should you do?

A- It an article that quotes how the sources say he was the best author ever or an article about how, based on his accompishments shown in the sources, he is the best author ever?

I was thinking the latter, in which case you could salvage actual facts and try to fit them into the article.

6.) Q- Name everything that's wrong with the following signature:

Us e rBob
talk

A- It's too big, it uses images, it takes up 2 lines, you can't really read the yellow part. I know I'm missing somthing, but oh well. How do I make my signature different colors, if you don't mind my asking?

Yes, yes, yes, and yes. It's also supposed to be blinking, but I don't see that on my computer either. As for making your signature different colors, you have to put something like this: [[User:Missionedit|Missionedit]]. Look at User:Brambleberry of RiverClan/signature to see what I mean.

Short quiz, but all of this is important.

You passed with flying colors! Congratulations! The next section is semi-automated tools, and I'll try to get it up tomorrow.

Lesson 8: Semi-automatic tools edit

What to do edit

There's no test for this one, just something that I want you to do for me. I want you to go to "Preferences", and then "Gadgets". There are two that I want you to add. The first is Twinkle, fourth from the bottom in "Browsing". The second is HotCat, fourth from the top in "Editing. Now I'm going to explain to you what each one does to make your life easier.

Twinkle edit

Twinkle pretty much does it all semi-automatically. To the left of the search box, you will see the letters TW and an arrow. Click on that arrow and you'll be presented with a variety of options:

Article space

Request speedy deletion
Propose deletion via WP:PROD
Nominate for deletion via WP:XFD
Request page protection
Add a maintenence tag (no more searching through for it, which you said you had trouble with)
See the last revision
Unlink backlinks (I don't know what it means, so I don't touch it and would encourage you not to touch it either)

When viewing the last revision

Rollback (meaning revert all the edits by that user on that page) for good faith
Rollback general
Rollback vandalism
Restore a different revision of the page (usually when a bunch of IP users make edits in a row that are helpful but not clean, I go to the last edit before that and restore that revision with the edit summary "Last clean version")

User talk

Report a user to administrators
Warn or notify a user
Welcome a user
Talkback

I encourage you to experiment with these as long as they are responsible (see "Responsibility", below)

HotCat edit

HotCat is an easy category editor. Once you have it implemented, look where the categories are at the ending of a page. It will now look something like this:

Categories (+⁺): French equestrians (-) (±) | (+)

The double-plus next to categories allows you to add several categories at once. The (-) after French equestrians allows you to remove that category, while the (±) allows you to modify it. The (+) at the end allows you to add one new category. It comes in handy.

Responsibility edit

I encourage you to explore with Twinkle and HotCat, but don't forget to be responsible with them. Don't tag articles just because you think it's fun; do it to better the encyclopedia. User talk:Sandbox for user warnings allows you to test out warning, welcoming, and talkback, while since you do a lot of new page patrolling, you'll likely be tagging and using the CSD and XFD buttons soon and frequently.

End of lesson 8 edit

Any questions? Having trouble using the tools?

I checked the boxes for Twinkle and Hot Cat on my preferences page and saved it. I'm sorry, I don't understand what I'm suppose to do next (I have problems finding things in general) :).

You don't have to do anything, per se, but it would be nice to practice with them. As you can see, there are two images to your right. They are screenshots of both Twinkle (above) and HotCat (below) in use so that you can see what it looks like when you're using the tools. I know that they are both small, but you can press the images and see them full-sized, which is quite helpful. On the Twinkle one, observe where the "TW", meaning Twinkle is: it is positioned right to the left of the search bar on the same line as such things as "Read", "Edit", and "View history." From there you can do anything you want, but practice warning and welcoming users on User talk:Sandbox for user warnings.

Hmmm, that's weird, there isn't any TW in the corner of regular pages for me. I tried purging my catche but that didn't have any effect.

Interesting; one thing I noticed is that there is no User:Missionedit/twinkleoptions.js. I have User:Brambleberry of RiverClan/twinkleoptions.js, which shows all of my Twinkle preferences. You can get to that by going to Wikipedia:Twinkle/Preferences and tweaking it as you need.

I went to Wikipedia:Twinkle/Preferences and it it says that I need to install Twinkle in order to make my prefrences. Oh bother, now what do I do?

Hmm...go back to your preferences and make sure that you checked Twinkle. You might have clicked just outside the box the first time. If it's still giving you problems, I would go to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) and post your question.

Yup, the box was checked, and I posted my question.

NtheP answered your question; you need at least IE9 for Twinkle to work. Modern technology. I'm afraid you're either going to have to upgrade or go without Twinkle. It wasn't a necessity anyway, just helpful.

Ugh, right now I'm using google chrome, which I don't like. But if I want to use Twinkle, I have to, because Internet Explorer 9 and higher doesn't work on my XP. Too bad.

Lesson 9: Reliable sources edit

Now, you may know a little about this already, and if you do then it will be a breeze for you. Reliable sources are a good thing to know about. There is a test after this lesson, but there will only be tests after some lessons. If any specific questions do come up, I can make a lesson of what you want that probably won't have a test.

Wikipedia uses the word "source" to mean three different, interchangeable things: a piece of work, the writer of the work, and the creator of the work. Therefore, a reliable source should be published materials from a reliable publisher (you can pretty much guarantee that a press coming from a university is reliable), authors who are known for the subject that they are covering, like L. David Mech talking about wolves, or a fiction author being interviewed about their own work, or both, like a book about wolves by L. David Mech published by the University of Chicago Press. And while a source may be considered reliable on one topic, it may not be on other topics. Like that L. David Mech book (which is a real book called Wolves: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation), which only talks about real wolves. While it's great when talking about wolf behaviors and conservation, it may not be the best authority for talking about Little Red Riding Hood.

Most self-published sources are considered unreliable because no publisher had a say in what goes in and what comes out. However, this doesn't apply to self-published sources talking about themselves. Like let's say that Mercedes Lackey wrote a post on her website about her inspiration for the Elemental Masters series. Because it's coming straight from the horse's mouth, you can add that information in a section called "Inspiration and origins".

Mainstream news sources are generally considered reliable, like The New York Times. However, some of these news sources get information from Wikipedia, so it can get trapped in cyclic sourcing. Wikipedia cites an article that cites Wikipedia!

In addition, anything that is commonly accepted by the public can be put in without a source, just like in a reference paper. Saying that snow melts when it gets warm outside is not going to need a source.

Any questions?

Nope. Pretty easy to remember. Can you do a lesson on tables next?

Of course I can. Now here's the test.

Test edit

1.) Q- A friend just told you that Mitt Romney has been appointed Chancellor of Harvard University. Can you add this to Romney and/or Harvard's pages? Why or why not?

A- Well, no, because there's no telling where your friend got his information from. But, if you find a reliable source that backs up your friend's statement, it's a great idea to add it to Wikipedia, as long as you reference the source in article.

Exactly. If the Harvard University page has a list of Chancellors that includes Mitt Romney, your friend was right. Otherwise, no.

2.) Q- The Daily Telegraph has published a cartoon as part of an article that you see to be blatantly racist. Can you include this as an example of racism on the newspaper's article? What about on the racism article?

A- You can state in The Daily Telegraph Wikipedia article that it sometimes publishes blatently racist articles using this article as a source, but you can't use the cartoon in the article unless it's copyrights are released for public use. It was hard for me to answer this question since it was hard to understand.

Not exactly, but I apologize for the question wording. What I meant was that you personally think that the cartoon was racist, but there hasn't been a public outcry about it. I didn't think about the copyright thing, but nice touch.

3.) Q- You find an article claiming that socialists are more likely to get cancer than capitalists, but capitalists are more likely to get diabetes than socialists. Can you include this information on the socialist, capitalist, cancer, or diabetes page?

A-I think you can include it in any of those pages if the article is reputible, but I generally wouldn't because I don't think that really is something to be included in Wikipedia.

Couldn't explain it better myself. If the article is reliable, you could technically include it, but at the same time it doesn't really belong.

4.) Q- Would you consider FOX News to be a reliable source for information on MSNBC or Sarah Palin? Why or why not?

A- I don't really know, but I have a feeling not.

Yes, I'm sorry if you don't know, but FOX News and MSNBC have had a long-standing rivalry, and FOX News has been accused of a bias towards Sarah Palin, so the information provided there may not be completely accurate.

5.) Q- Would you consider Ben and Jerry's official Twitter page as a reliable source? Why or why not?

A- No, because on Facebook and Twitter pages, anyone can post anything they want, true or false.

Well, sort of, but is the official twitter page, so people who work for Ben and Jerry's are running it. The problem is that generally tweets don't contain that much information. They can be good as preliminary information (like if Victoria Holmes's Facebook page talks about a new Warriors book), but not for long-standing information.

6.) Q- An unnamed "forum official" from the Chicago Tribune community forums comments on the newspaper's stance on world hunger. Would this be a reliable source? Why or why not?

A- No, since the unnamed "forum offical" could be anybody, trying to misrepresent the newspaper.

Yes. The "forum official" could be Bob the hot dog vendor from across the street or Peter Laufer, so the reliability is questionable.

7.) Q- Would you consider the "about us" section on Burger King's website a reliable source for information on the history of Burger King? Why or why not? (Hint: The "about us" page actually gives a pretty detailed history of BK).

A- Well, yes, as long as it is not the main sorce of an article.

Correct. The "about us" section would of the Burger King page would be good for history, but maybe not for controversy, and if it was the main source, the article would have to be tagged as relying on primary sources.

8.) Q- Everybody knows that the sky is blue except for one editor, who says that it's bronze. Do you need a source? Why or why not?

A- No. Duh. That's a commonly accepted fact.

Yup. Chances are that editor may be color-blind and not know it. If you were to explain why the sky was blue, you would need a source, but you aren't.

This, I think, is one of the longer tests.

You did very well! One of the problems was my wording of a question, so I'm sorry about that.

Lesson 9: Wikitables edit

Creating a Wikitable edit

Wikitables are basically charts that can be created to organize data better, like a wikitable for horses on an equestrian page or for awards a movie or book has received. To create one, look at your toolbar (the same one with Cite). Click on "Advanced". Now look all the way to the right of the toolbar that appears under it. You should see a picture of a wikitable. Click on it and look at what comes up. From there you can choose to make the table sortable or not (helpful when creating filmography, but not for others), whether or not to have a header row (always good), and to style with borders (a must, unless you want floating text). Then you can choose rows and columns. Press "insert" and it shows up, with "Example" in everything. Then you just fill it in accordingly. The top row (the one with the !! instead of ||) is the header row. I recommend using "Show preview" quite frequently to make sure you're not messing up a lot.

Combining columns or rows edit

Sometimes you'll have to combine a column or row for some reason, like if people tie for a position at an Olympic event. If that's the case, then for the first one that you do you put either "rowspan" or "colspan" and then how many rows or columns to span. For the ones after, you would put a || instead of an opening. I know this sounds confusing, so I provided an example.

| rowspan="32"|1 || {{flagIOCathlete|[[Jur Vrieling]]|NED|2012 Summer}} || Bubalu || align="center"|0 || align="center"|0 || align="center"|0
|-bgcolor=ccffcc
|| {{flagIOCathlete|[[Alvaro Alfonso de Miranda Neto]]|BRA|2012 Summer}} || Rahmannshof's Bogen || align="center"|0 || align="center"|0 || 
align="center"|0
|-bgcolor=ccffcc
|| {{flagIOCathlete|[[Nick Skelton]]|GBR|2012 Summer}} || Big Star || align="center"|0 || align="center"|0 || align="center"|0
|-bgcolor=ccffcc
|| {{flagIOCathlete|[[Simon Delestre]]|FRA|2012 Summer}} || Napoli du Ry || align="center"|0 || align="center"|0 || align="center"|0
|-bgcolor=ccffcc
|| {{flagIOCathlete|[[Cassio Rivetti]]|UKR|2012 Summer}} || Temple Road || align="center"|0 || align="center"|0 || align="center"|0

Further information edit

Further information can be found at Help:Table. Most of wikitables is trial-and-error, so go out and play with it.

End of lesson 9 edit

Any questions?

Not really. Thanks for doing that lesson, though. I wasn't feeling well for the last few days so I haven't been on. Just wondering, why do all your other adoptions seem to be on hold?

That would be their problem, and not mine. You're my only active adoptee at the moment. You're the only one participating. Some of them I know may not always be active, such as OcelotHod and Austinuity, but others just kind of seemed to disappear. I hold out hopes for them, though.

Break: Personal interest edit

Congratulations on making it halfway through my adoption course! As a reward, I'm giving you a break right now. These are all personal interest questions for you to fill out. They will come in handy later on.

1.) Q- Why did you begin editing Wikipedia? Why did you decide to be adopted?

A- I started using Wikipedia for some research and I found some major typos and problems. I thought "Well, someone needs to fix those". Then when I realized that I could fix them myself, I got really excited and I wanted to create an account.

I was really cautious and paranoid when I first started and I think I made a lot more mistakes than I realized at the time. Skamecrazy123 greeted me on my talk page with "Welcome to Wikipedia" and I looked around on his user page and learned stuff from that. While looking around, I found a reference to adoption and found out what it was. It was just what I needed to find out everything I wanted to know, so I signed myself up.

2.) Q- How did you decide on your username?

A- I wanted my username to be something purposeful with a nice ring to it, not something really obscure. I wanted everyone to know that I am here to contribute, and not to mess around.

3.) Q- What are your major interests? What type of things do you like to do on Wikipedia?

A- In "real" life, I like to do karate, edit Wikipedia, watch good movies and read books. I love the outdoors. (I like filling things like this out, too :)) On Wikipedia, I like to greet new Teahouse guests, patrol new pages, copyedit everything and be nice to people.

4.) Q- What are you main goals on Wikipedia for the future?

A- I haven't really thought about it since I don't really want to write articles, I just want to contribute to them. So I don't really know.

By the way, thanks for signing my guestbook!

No problem! I really liked your answers as well. You're going to be great on Wikipedia; you have the right attitude towards it. Like I said, your answers (esp. to Question 3) will help me out later.

Lesson 11: Manual of Style edit

The Manual of Style is a style guide for all Wikipedia articles. It is basically a list of guidelines—not necessarily rules—to abide by when you are on Wikipedia. Here are the main points of it:

Article titles, headings, and sections edit

Article titles are like sentences, not story titles. This means that only the first word of the title and proper nouns are capitalized, not all important words. The exceptions are things like iPod and eBay, where there are weird capitalizations.
When dealing with something where a title should be italicized, like Tailchaser's Song, Django Unchained, or 30 Rock, you put {{italic title}} as the first line of the text. This makes it appear italicized.
Do not use articles (a, an, and the) in the beginning of a title unless it is part of the title of the work. This means "Economic impact of dingoes", not "The economic impact of dingoes", but A Clockwork Orange stays the same.
Titles should normally be nouns or noun phrases.
The final visible character of a title should not be a punctuation mark unless it is part of the name (Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!), an abbreviation (Inverness City F.C.), or a closing parenthese for a disambiguation (Daughter of Smoke and Bone (trilogy))
When all of the content is done, the bottom sections and information should go in the following order, with the information in parentheses being the proper header. If there is no information in parentheses, this doesn't have a heading but just goes after the last one mentioned:
- written or musical works by the subject (Works or Discography)
- internal links related to it (See also)
- notes and references (References)
- books that are so frequently used that a reference is, say, "Laufer 11-42" (Bibliography)
- relevant publications that have not been used as sources (Further reading)
- relevant websites, usually the official website of something (External links)
- navigational boxes
- categories
- interlanguage links, if needed
Headings should not be redundant to the main subject or a higher heading (for example, if one heading was "Ecological impact", you would not have a subheading called "Ecological impact")
Headings should not have links or citations in the heading
Headings should not contain images or flag icons
Headings should not contain questions, unless the name of a work is a question

Spelling and grammar in different forms of English edit

There are many different kinds of English. Sometimes, using an invisible template such as {{Use American English}}, {{Use British English}}, or {{Use Irish English}}, you can tell what you should use. Otherwise, guess based on what the rest seems to be written in and keep it standard.

Capital letters edit

Do not use capital letters for emphasis. If absolutely necessary, use italics (as I did in that sentence).
Do not capitalize articles when they are not part of a work (e.g., not The United Kingdom, but The Lord of the Rings)
When dealing with titles of works or bands, use the proper way it is capitalized (e.g. Animal Farm and fun.)
Do not capitalize words like "president" or "king" unless they apply to an honorific title (e.g. "a Scottish king" and "King David II of Scotland")
Religions (Roman Catholicism), scriptures (Gospel of John), deities (God), and specific religious events (the Great Flood) are capitalized, as are specific mythical creatures like the Minotaur and Pegasus. Pronouns for figures of veneration are not capitalized (e.g., in Catholicism, when talking about God, He is always capitalized; not so on Wikipedia).
Months, days of the week, and holidays are capitalized; seasons are not.
When dealing with scientific names, only the first word is capitalized. When dealing with the Latinate of higher taxa, words are capitalized, but not the English equivalent. (e.g. Felidae, but felid)
Common names are not capitalized (puma, gray wolf) unless they include a proper noun (Przewalski's horse, Madgascar free-tailed bat)
"Sun", "earth", and "moon" are not capitalized unless personified or mentioning a specific astronomical body (e.g. The Moon orbits the Earth).
Do not capitalize directions. Only capitalize names of regions when they have attained proper-name status (the West Coast, but southern Poland).
When it comes to institutions and places, follow their own usage (such as The Ohio State University insists on having the "the" capitalized.)

End of lesson 11 edit

Any questions? I have included only the very basics; there is much more at Wikipedia:Manual of Style.

Wow, the Manuel of Style is so huge, how did you condense it all? Most of this is basic English, so it's not to hard to remember.

I combined things and got rid of things that didn't seem necessary. I can condense almost anything with a couple hours of hard work.

Test edit

1.) Q- Capitalize the following accordingly:
a farewell to arms
ipad
ecological impact of feral cats

A-

A Farewell to Arms
iPad
Ecological impact of feral cats

Yup!

2.) Q- Put the following in the correct order:
(1) Category:Books by Peter Laufer
(2) See also: Karen Dawn
(3) Further reading: Guenter, Bernd (2004). The Bernese Mountain Dog: A Dog of Destiny. Sun City: Doral Publishing. ISBN 0-9745407-3-0.
(4) Bibliography: Dunayer, Joan (2001). Animal Equality: Language and Liberation. Ryce Publishing. ISBN 978-0-97064-755-9.
(5) Works: No Animals Were Harmed: The Controversial Line Between Entertainment and Abuse.
(6) [[nl:Marc Bekoff]]
(7) Dunayer 11-47
(8) Official website
(9) {{Peter Laufer}}

A-(5) (2) (7) (4) (3) (8) (9) (1) (6)

Yes! That one was hard for me to correct. I had to go back up and do a lot of copy-and-pasting.

3.) Q- Name everything that's wrong with this if it were an article title:
What is the beginning of United Kingdom English progressive rock?

A-It is a question, it has a template (and an image) in it and it contains internal links. Did I miss something?

I don't believe you missed anything, but those three things are enough for it to be a horrible article title.

4.) Q- What English should you use if this is a sample sentence?
The tusks, at 9 m (30 ft), were adapted to minimise interference with daily life.

A- British English, I believe.

Yes it is, although that sentence (I think, at least) could also be Australian, Irish, or a couple others. However, I would guess about 90% of articles on the English Wikipedia are either in American or British English.

5.) Q- Capitalize the following accordingly. If correct, write "correct":
The Republic of Ireland
tailchaser's song
correct King Cormac Mac Airt of Ireland
a Czech president
Hasidic Judaism
the book of Revelation
winter: correct
otomops madagascariensis: correct
ursidae: correct
hooded crow: correct
Jupiter has at least 67 moons
east coast: correct
Western Kazakhstan
north: correct
University of Pennsylvania

A- I capitalized them as if they were in a sentance, I don't if that is what I was supposed to do or what.

here are the ones you got wrong:

the Republic of Ireland

Tailchaser's Song (a book)

the Book of Revelation

Otomops madagascariensis

Ursidae

East Coast

western Kazakhstan

Rather short in terms of numbers, but there's more than one part to 4/5 of the questions.

You did a good enough job overall, though when you're editing you may want to review capitalization.

Lesson 12: Vandalism edit

Ah, vandalism. It really is the bane of most editors' existence on Wikipedia. Fortunately, if you keep a good eye, you should be able to fix it.

Looking for vandals edit

I'm not a vandal hunter, but if you have a few pages watchlisted, you'll likely run into some vandalism. If you're looking at your watchlist, see if an editor whose talk page is still redlinked made an edit without an edit summary. This could be vandalism, as most new editors think that Wikipedia is just a place to post junk. However, whenever you see an editor who you don't now, I would check out the edit to make sure it isn't vandalism, as some editors have talk pages that are nothing but warnings. The missing edit summary is always a sign that something may not be right, which is why I've gotten into the good habit of putting in my edit summaries.

Reverting vandalism edit

To revert vandalism, you would go to "View history" on a page. Now see the button with "Compare selected revisions." Press that and find the vandalism reversion. Since you have Twinkle, you should see three options: "Rollback (AGF)", "Rollback", and "Rollback (VANDAL)". The first one you shouldn't use unless it's obviously good faith, and we're not talking about that. The third one you should only use if it's a repeat offender who has a significant amount of vandalism under their belt. Usually for new editors you will use the second one.

Warning vandals edit

There are different ways to warn vandals. This is Brambleberry's warning guide. Be sure to use Twinkle for everything. The first step will be under "Wel", while the rest will be under "Warn":

If this is a new editor's first edit, you welcome them and use either {{welcomevandal}} if they have a username or {{welcome-anon-vandal}} if they are an IP editor. You always link the article that you found the vandalism on.
If, after their welcoming, they are still vandalizing, you use a "General notice (1)". {{uw-vandalism1}} is the general, though if you can get more specific, try.
If they are still vandalizing, you use a "Caution (2)".
If they continue to vandalize, you use a "Warning (3)".
If they still continue their vandalism, you use a "Final warning (4)".
If, even after all your warning, they continue vandalism, you've warned them long enough. You report them to administrators using "APV" on Twinkle. Fill in as much as possible and send the notice on your merry way. The admins will do what they have to afterwards.

If someone has a level 3 warning on one charge (such as vandalism), but doesn't have one on another (like using a talk page as a forum), start with a level 1 warning on the new charge. I've found that some vandals have multiple charges.

Different vandals edit

There are multiple kinds of vandals.

Scared vandals. There are those kinds of vandals that make one kind of unhelpful edit (like replacing a heading with "muahaha" or some type of gibberish) thinking that everyone on Wikipedia does that. They then get a warning and are scared straight immediately. They either choose not to edit ever again or become upstanding editors.

Repeat vandals. The repeat vandals are bored and looking for a little fun. Once again, most of their vandalism is gibberish replacing good text. You can give them as many warnings as you want, but they won't bother. Once you get past the level 4 warning for them, you report them to WP:AIV and the admins deal with them.

Belligerent vandals. These vandals are similar to the repeat vandals, except the belligerent vandals will often leave a nasty note on your talk page or vandalize your user page when you give them a warning. They then build up two warnings: vandalism and personal attacks.

Malicious vandals. These are sneaky vandals that add seemingly-true information, add shock sites, or add hidden and offensive comments. They may also do multiple quick vandalism, such as moving as many pages as possible, or blanking many pages, or replacing all the content with the same sentence. In this case, you give them {{uw-vandalism4im}}. If they continue vandalizing (which they probably will), report them to WP:AIV.

WP:AIV edit

WP:AIV, or Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism, is what you do when people won't stop vandalism. You can report them by Twinkle, as Twinkle has the option "ARV", which allows you to fill out a form that sends the user to WP:AIV. Once it gets sent there, there is no more left for you to do; let the admins handle it. However, if I were you, I would keep track of the editor and what the admins decide on for punishment.

End of lesson 12 edit

Any questions? I recommend looking at Twinkle and your various warnings, as that is the majority of the test. Look at User talk:Sandbox for user warnings and do a little warning. However, do not report that to ARV.

I haven't had much experience with vandals. Is there a list or something of new users so that I can legitimately warn someone?

There are two places you can look. First is Special:Log/newusers, which is just a log of new users and takes extra steps for you to find contributions. The far more useful link is [1], which shows the contributions of new users.

Test edit

1.) Q- Define vandalism in your own words.

A- Deliberate malicious edits that disrupt Wikipedia.

Yup!

2.) Q- What are some of the hints that an edit may be vandalism while watching recent changes?

A- Well, if it's a edit by a new editor you should check it out, as well as if the edit has no edit summary.

Correct. Most new editors are helpful, but you can never be too sure.

3.) Q- What warning template is appropriate for a user who has blanked a page and has already been given {{welcomevandal}}?

A- {{subst:uw-delete1}}

Yup!

4.) Q- You warned someone for, oh, let's say messing with taxonomy templates. He came to your talk page and unleashed a range of expletives on you and your parents. He was on his third taxonomy warning and his second for adding spam links, but has had none for personal attacks. What template would you use?

A- {{subst:uw-npa1}}

Yes again!

5.) Q- What is WP:AIV and when should you use it?

A- Adminastrator Intervention against Vandalism. You use it to report vandals that won't stop to the administrators.

Yes, commonly used when a vandal has received their final warning.

6.) Q- What warning template would you use for the various situations (assuming that they are all on level 1 warnings):

A user gets rid of maintenance templates that obviously still apply

A user talks about how cute the Swedish Lapphund is on its talk page

A user moves Black Beauty to Anna Sewell's horse book.

A- {{subst:uw-tdel1}}

Yes, yes, and yes!

Hint: See Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace for the warning template ones*

A perfect score! You're going to be quite helpful as a user, I can tell you that.

Lesson 13: Dispute resolution edit

Dispute resolution goes hand-in-hand with vandalism as one of the most important things to know when interacting with editors. This one is mostly from User:Go Phightins!'s dispute resolution adoption lesson.

What is dispute resolution? edit

Even if you are always on top of your Wikipedia game and try to edit Wikipedia in the best ways possible, you are going to become involved in a dispute with someone. It's not a question. As you become a more well-known editor, it will happen even more. When you do become involved in a dispute with someone, dispute resolution is how you come to a peaceful end to this and avoid flame wars.

Simple resolution edit

You obviously believe what you are saying, but keeping a dispute going forever is never the best option. Here are a few resolution tips:

Always assume good faith. Almost definitely, you and both the other editor are trying to help the encyclopedia, but you just have different ideas on how to do so. Try to see things from the other editor's point of view.
Keep calm and take your time. While, as I said, keeping a dispute going forever is never the best option, you also don't have to rush to reach an agreement. The difference between keeping it going and trying to reach the best option is your approach; if one person involved keeps saying the same thing over and over, they're trying to keep it open. If they keep introducing new ideas that have good points, it's figuring out the best option.
Follow the idea of "bold, revert, discuss": One editor makes a bold edit, another reverts it, and the two discuss whether it should be kept or not on the talk page until they agree.
When you are making your arguments, always contradict with enough supporting evidence. Don't attack anything about the other editor and always have something to back up your case. If the other editor drops to attacks, be the better woman and don't fall for it.

Dispute resolution process edit

If the simple resolution tips don't help your situation, try the Wikipedia methods of dispute resolution in this order.

Assistance If you want someone to talk but not insert themselves into the situation, try the Wikipedia:Editor assistance noticeboard.
Get a third opinion Wikipedia:Third opinion allows you to list a dispute, and another editor will come along and see that you want a third opinion to make a ruling.
Mediation If you now have more than two people involved and the issue still can't reach consensus, it's time to try the editors on the Mediation Committee, who specialize in dispute resolution. There are two processes: informal (WP:MEDCAB) and formal (WP:RfM).
Request for comment If you think having lots of experienced editors help you decide after the Mediation Committee can't make up their mind, try opening up a request for comment. Lots of experienced editors participate in that. However, this should not be taken lightly, and this is after every step before.
Arbitration If, even after the request for comment, there is still no consensus, it has come to this. WP:ARBCOM. The community's most trusted officials will make a final ruling. This is like Wikipedia's U.S. Supreme Court.

Reports edit

If another editor has dropped to name-calling or other offensive and unprofessional methods, try looking at these boards to let people know:

You could be wrong! edit

You will not always win the dispute resolution process, but as long as you made good points, there is nothing wrong about disagreeing.

End of lesson 13 edit

Any questions?

Whew! I sure don't look look foward to disagreeing with people if it's that complicated. I have seen a lot of these disputes get really messy. Random question - Do you live in the US? I probably won't be able to make it to the Great American Wiknic this year but it still looks fun!

Yeah, it's not always fun, but if you keep a level head you can keep it from being too messy. I live in Wisconsin and so could in theory go to the Chicago one, but unfortunately marching band conflicts heavily with lots of summer plans.

Test edit

1.) Q- Explain, in your own words, each level of dispute resolution:

A- Editor assistance: You seek this when you would like some advice on how to handle a situation from someone not involved.

Third opinion: You can put your dispute up on WP:Third Opinion and another editor will come along, and, suprise suprise, give you a third opinion on the matter.

Mediation: When you have more than 2 editors involved in the matter and you still can't get a solid consensus, go to the Meditation Committee, which exists to solve such things and will probably do so in your case.

Request for comment: This course of action is only to be used when the issue is not resolved after all of the previous actions and is very serious. You request for comments from many different experenced editors.

Arbitration: If, after all this, the situation is not resolved, you take it to the offical officals who make the final ruling.

Yes! A good explanation for other users.

2.) Q- Editor A adds something that he believes is helping Wikipedia. Editor B disagrees and reverts it, so Editor A re-adds the content only for Editor B to revert again. What should the two editors do instead of this "edit warring" (repeatedly adding and removing content)?

A- They should discuss things on the article's talk page.

Exactly! Edit warring disrupts Wikipedia, is counterproductive to discussion, and can actually get both users blocked even if they were acting in good faith.

3.) Q- You're editing an Articles for deletion page and vote that a particular article should be deleted. The creator of the article says you are an incompetent, intellectual snob that has no right to edit Wikipedia. How should you react?

A- You should put {{subst:uw-npa1}} on the creator's talk page (if this was their first offence).

Yup! Name-calling is completely counterproductive to dispute resolution, and calling it to the editor's attention is a much better idea than joining in.

4.) Q- You find information saying that the island fox is making a comeback and another editor reverts it as patent nonsense. What should your next step be?

A- You should leave a note on their talk page kindly asking why they reverted the information that you added although it was backed up by a perfectly good source.

Great idea! An alternative would be to leave a note on Talk:Island fox and using Twinkle to post "Talkback" on their talk page. Don't worry if you don't get Talkback right away, though. It's basically just a way to say you have messages on another page.

5.) Q- When you are in the middle of a dispute with someone, they insult you on the basis of gender and religion. What should you do?

A- Keep your head and give them a Personal Attack warning on their page while asking them to refrain from doing so again.

This is a good first step. If they continue insulting you based on gender and religion, this is a serious problem that should be reported immediately to WP:AIV.

6.) Q- OPINION: Is there any way to make the dispute resolution process easier?

A- Keeping everything as polite and as kind as possible really helps in all cases, but I think the process is very workable as is.

I agree. It's pretty much up to the editors involved to keep things professional and everything will be smooth sailing.

Lesson 14: Deletion edit

Deletion is a big part of Wikipedia, and since you're a recent changes patroller, it will come in handy quite often.

WP: CSD edit

WP:CSD, short for "Criterion for speedy deletion", is what you post on an article that needs to go ASAP. (This lesson is full of initials). These are the following criterion for article space (you rarely have to use any other space):

G1. Patent nonsense: Either total gibberish or words that are supposed to mean something, but that you can't understand because they make no sense.
G2. Test page: A page used for Wikipedia testing. It can be hard to distinguish between this and G1 sometimes, but test pages may have bold, italics, etc.
G3. Pure vandalism and blatant hoaxes: Anything that is obviously vandalism or a hoax.
G4. Recreation of a page that was deleted per a deletion discussion: A pretty much identical copy of a deleted article.
G5. Creations by banned or blocked users: Pages that a banned or blocked user tried to create under their block or ban. This one is pretty rare.
G6. Technical deletions: Pages that serve no purpose, like a disambiguation page with one link.
G7. Author requests deletion: If only one person has edited a page and the talk page and wants the article to go, they file it under G7. (IMPORTANT FOR TEST! Page blanking by the author falls under G7 too!)
G8. Pages dependent on a nonexistent or deleted page: Like a redirect that redirects to a deleted page.
G9. Office actions: The Wikimedia Foundation requests deletion. Extremely rare and neither you nor I can request CSD per G9.
G10. Attack pages: E.g. "Missionedit and Brambleberry SUCK!!!!"
G11. Unambiguous advertising or promotion: E.g. "Come to JIM'S DISCOUNT FURNITURE! Crazy prices! Unbelievable furniture condition!"
G12. Unambiguous copyright infringement: Complete plagiarism.
G13. Abandoned articles for creation submissions: An WP:AFC submission that hasn't been touched in over a year.
A1. No context: A very short article that doesn't tell you who the article is about.
A2. Foreign language articles that already exist somewhere: E.g. an article written in French that already exists either on the French Wikipedia or the English one.
A3. No content: There is no actual prose here, only links and templates.
A5. Transwikied articles: E.g. a dictionary definition that is already at Wiktionary.
A7. No indication of importance: Any article on an individual, individual animal, organization, web content, or organized event that does not tell you why such thing is notable.
A9. No indication of importance (musical recording): An article about a musical recording that has no article about the artist and does not indicate why such recording is notable.
A10. Duplicate article: An article already covered somewhere on the English Wikipedia that does not give any further information.

You should wait at least ten minutes before tagging an article with either A1 or A3, because the author may add more information in that time that would render the CSD templates void.

WP:AFD edit

WP:AFD, short for "Articles for deletion", is where you go if you think something should be deleted but want to be sure. You list it at AFD using Twinkle (it will be listed as XFD on the Twinkle toolbar, though) and say why you think it should be deleted. Then the public goes and votes on what to do with it. You can also vote on many of these. I've been trying to up my AFD participation recently. If you ever want to be an administrator, it's one thing that you should really get involved in.

WP:PROD edit

WP:PROD, short for "Proposed deletion", is like a fallback for CSD. If something doesn't meet specific CSD requirements but would still be an uncontroversial delete, you list it at PROD. Someone can always contest your PROD, in which case you should take it to AFD. In my 5+ years of editing Wikipedia, I have never used PROD. I'm not sure it's all that common practice.

End of lesson 14 edit

Any questions?

No questions. I am always hesitant to mark pages for deletion unless they are obviously vandalism.

Test edit

1.) Q- Explain a scenario where you would use PROD.

A- I really can't think of a time where I would have to use PROD, because I never have had to.

Yeah, it's not a common situation. If you think something really has to go, but it doesn't fall under CSD, that would be PROD.

2.) Q- You tag an article for CSD under A7. The creator then blanks the page. What should you do?

A- You should change the CSD tag to G7.

Yup, page blanking is read as a request for deletion.

3.) Q- Why should you wait before tagging an article for A1 or A3?

A- Because the author might be in the process of adding new information to the article.

Yup; I always like to start with some content before adding to it, though.

4.) Q- (4-7 are hypothetical scenarios. You have to say what you would tag it as under CSD). Joe Garrison is so nice and awesome and the best person I've ever met! He always has a beer and a hot dog for you! His fiancée Ashley is really cool too!

A- Well, when I use the Page Curator tool, there is an option to mark an article for AFD if it is a BLP with no sources. For this, I think I would just use A7.

Wow! I actually realized after posting this that I had made a mistake and it could be marked as an unsourced BLP! I think this deserves extra credit!

5.) Q- ajdflajsdlfjalghaiefjalsfj

A- G1

Yup; some people might call this G2, but to me it looks like the "complete gibberish" described in G1.

6.) Q- Mike Smith is a trumpeter in the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. He used to be in the Boston Pops. He likes to read and swim when he's not playing the trumpet.

A- A7

Yes, there is nothing showing that he is important. Sorry, Mike.

7.) Q- On the night of 22 April 1941, during the the blitz, over 70 civilians were killed, including a mother and her six children, when a bomb fell on the shelter near the Planetarium. The bomb shelter consisted of a series of underground tunnels which many had long-presumed lost but were rediscovered in 2006. The bomb blast was so big that human remains were found in the tops of trees. In 2006 an appeal was made to raise money for a public sculpture to honour those who lost their lives. (This one's a tricky one, but ask yourself: do you know what they're talking about? What does it fall under if the article doesn't say what the subject is?)

A- A1, I believe.

Yes, it never says what the specific event was on that night, which means that it is A1.

A pass with flying colors! I'll get lesson 15 up soon.

Lesson 15: Consensus and !votes edit

Since Wikipedia is a collaborative encyclopedia, when we have a disagreement on something, we go by consensus. You can add your opinion to the debate by a !vote, which is basically a bolded vote saying your opinion, like Support or Oppose. However, it technically means "not vote".

!votes edit

A !vote is like a vote, but it's read as "not a vote". This is because, while it is counted as supporting or opposing, just saying "Support" is different than saying "Support - User has been a loyal host at the Teahouse since its inception, shows a good article track record, and has enough experience in the administrative work she intends to participate in that I have no concerns with her use of the tools." In other words, the reasons why you are voting the way you are show more importance than the actual !vote.

Articles for deletion edit

These are the following !votes you can have on AfD:

Keep - Keep the article as is; it should not be deleted.
Speedy keep - The article has much value to the encyclopedia; nomination may have been in bad faith
Delete - The article shows no purpose on the encyclopedia and should go away
Speedy delete - The article falls under CSD and should have been listed under that in the first place
Merge - The article does not deserve its own page, but has some valuable information that we can put in another article
Redirect - The article does not deserve its own page, and any valuable information it has is already on another article
Userfy - Put it in the creator's sandbox until they can fix it. An alternative to this is Incubate, which puts it in an WP:Article incubator.
Transwiki - Move the article to another wiki page, like a dictionary definition to Wiktionary.
Comment - You're not !voting, but you have something you have to say

Requests for adminship/bureaucratship edit

These are the following !votes that you can have on RfAs and RfBs:

Support - User would make a good administrator or bureaucrat
Oppose - User would not make a good administrator or bureaucrat
Neutral - User might make a good administrator or bureaucrat, but there are some concerns

You can also add "Strong" or "Weak" to "Support" and "Oppose", or you can go for a more humorous approach, like "Oh my goodness yes". It's usually in better taste to have a humorous !vote for a support than an oppose.

Bad arguments edit

There are many bad arguments that you should avoid on Wikipedia when !voting. There are two links you should look at for this.

AfDs: Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions
RfAs/Bs: Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in adminship discussions

End of lesson 15 edit

There's no test on this one, just an assignment: vote in 3 AfDs and in any RfAs or RfBs that they have to get around !votes.

Where can I find some of these to !vote on?

You can !vote in AfDs at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2013 June 3. You can !vote for RfAs or RfBs at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship.

Done :)

Lesson 16: WikiProjects edit

I apologize ahead of time for any typos that may be in this lesson. I burned my index and middle finger at the first joints today, and the Band-Aids are impeding on my typing.

What is a WikiProject? edit

A WikiProject is best described as a group of individuals collaborating to improve every article that falls under a particular topic. There are many of these across Wikipedia, relating to many topics.

How do I join a WikiProject? edit

You can join a WikiProject simply by adding yourself to the member list. It's good to add a userbox that says you have joined that WikiProject as well.

What WikiProjects should I join? edit

Well, you're already a member of the Guild of Copy Editors and WikiProject Cleanup, so those are taken care of. Before this, you answered questions about your interest. Using that and things you have already told me or that I saw on your talk page, here are some WikiProjects that you might like to join:

WikiProject Warriors
WikiProject Animals in media (started by me and going dead; it would be nice to get more people to join)
WikiProject Christianity
WikiProject Film
WikiProject Novels
Welcoming committee (not really a WikiProject, but it's close, and it's basically welcoming newbies and making Wikipedia look happy to them)

End of lesson 16 edit

Any questions? No test for this one. Just join any WikiProjects you wish. It doesn't even have to be the ones that I listed.

Is there a list or something of WikiProjects that I could look at? I'm sorry you burned your hand! Is it really bad?

There is a complete list of WikiProjects at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. However, it's more like a list of links that take you to WikiProjects of that type. As for the burn, it's not bad. You can barely see it, since it's a white mark on the joints of my fingers. It might leave a little scar, but like I said, it's nearly impossible to see anyway.

Well that's good. I'm thinking about a few WikiProjects. I was wondering, could you do the next lesson on Copyright issues? I've seen a lot of problems with copyrighted images and articles recently and I don't know how to fix them.

That's not really my forte, but I'm happy to give it a shot. öBrambleberry of RiverClan 14:25, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Lesson 17: Copyright edit

This is not my forte, which is why most of it was taken from Go Phightins! It is also one of the hardest topics on Wikipedia, which is why it isn't my forte. (I'm more of a content adder, copyeditor, and deletion !voter than a copyright officer). No test on this one, since it's your own choice. However, since other adoption schools teach it as a required lesson, I think I'm going to do that with my other adoptees. When, you know, they're active.

Glossary edit

Term	Explanation
Attribution	The identification of work by an author
Copyright symbol	© - used to show work is under copyright
Creative Commons	Creative Commons is an organisation that provides licensing information aimed at achieving a mutual sharing and flexible approach to copyright.
Compilation	A new work created as a combination of other works, which may be derivative works.
Derivative work	A work which is derived from another work. (Eg a photograph of a painting)
Disclaimer	A statement which limits rights or obligations
FACT	Federation Against Copyright Theft
Fair use	Circumstances where copyright can be waived. These are strict and specific to the country.
Copyright infringement	Use of work under copyright without permission
Intellectual property	Creations of the mind, under which you do have rights.
License	The terms under which the copyright owner allows his/her work to be used.
Non-commercial	Copying for personal use - not for the purpose of buying or selling.
Public domain	Works that either cannot be copyrighted or the copyright has expired

Image copyright edit

There are two kinds of images on Wikipedia: Free images and non-free images.

Free images are pictures that can be used anywhere on Wikipedia. They are either public domain or released under a free license, which means that the author (used here to mean the person who uploaded the picture) retains some rights, but overall releases the picture to the public. An example is Creative Commons, which says that you are free to share and adapt the work as long as you attribute the original author. Free images can be used anywhere where they will build the encyclopedia. For example, I didn't photograph File:Norwegian forest cat.jpg, but I added it to the Norwegian forest cat page to build the encyclopedia. Anything that is old enough to be considered by U.S. standards to be in the public domain, such as Shakespeare works, is considered among free images.

Non-free images, on the other hand, are trickier. There are some cases where non-free images must be used. For example, book covers are non-free because they are owned by the publisher, but what other image would you use on a book article? They are used sparingly for the reason that there are certain criteria one must have:

There must be no free equivalent
We must ensure that the owner will not lose out by us using the work
Use as little as possible (as few pages as possible and the lowest resolution possible while still showing an accurate picture)
Must have been published somewhere else first
Meets our general standards for content
Meets our specific standards for that area
Must be used (we can't upload it and then not put it anywhere)
Must be useful in context. If it's not adding anything to the article, we shouldn't use it
Can only be used in article space
The image must attribute the source, explain the fair use for articles it is used in, and display the correct tag

Number two is a little confusing, but it basically means that the image is at a size that people can't pirate it. Now let's look at two examples: a magazine cover photo of Aaron Tveit and the cover of Eragon. The photo of Tveit would instantly fail #1 in that anyone can take a picture of him and put it on Wikipedia as long as it's high-quality. The cover is another story. There is no free equivalent (#1) and is useful in that it shows what the cover looks like (#8). As long as it is small enough that it can't be used to sell fakes (#2), used on as few pages as possible (#3), low-res while still conveying the image (#3), meets our standards (#5 & 6), used on Eragon (#7), only used on articles like Eragon (#9), and has all the proper information (#10), it's okay.

Commons edit

"Commons" is Wikimedia Commons, a free material repository. You can upload things to Wikimedia commons and they can be used on every language Wikipedia. Because all different countries have different copyright laws, fair use and non-free images are not permitted on Wikipedia.

Copyright and text edit

Obviously, you must include text from various sources in your writing. You know all about the dangers of not having reliable sources. Well, with text, you have to make sure that you're loosely paraphrasing it and sourcing it. For example, in Dogs: A Startling New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behavior & Evolution, the authors say "The transition dog, the 'missing link', between wild and domestic fox was a piebald, floppy-eared, diestrous, tame animal, in many ways identical to the so-called mongrel street dogs."

This would be wrong: The transition dog, the 'missing link', between wild and domestic fox was a piebald, floppy-eared, diestrous, tame animal, in many ways identical to the so-called mongrel street dogs.^[1]
This would be wrong too: The "missing link" between the wild fox and the domestic fox was piebald, floppy-eared, diestrous, and tame; in many ways, it was identical to the so-called "mongrel street dogs".^[1]

You see, this kind of close paraphrasing in the second example is almost as wrong as full-out plagiarism. This would be a better alternative:

The transition between wild and domestic fox resulted in a "missing link" that was pied, diestrous, and tame with floppy ears, not unlike so-called "mongrel street dogs".^[1]

End of lesson 17 edit

Any questions? I can't guarantee that I can answer them. I'm better with copyright and text than I am with images.

Yes, I'm not really much for copyright stuff either, but it's still good to know a little about it, just in case. I know that fair use images are not supposed to be used in certian places, such as userboxes. Are there any other places where you are not suppose to use them? Also, what would I do if I find an article that is just copied and pasted from a copyrighted source?

First, fair use should only be used in article space, no user, talk, or Wikipedia space. Second, a copy-and-pasted article would fall under {{db-g12}}, or "unambiguous copyright infringement". You should naturally tag it as such.

OK, thanks.

Lesson 18: Policies, guidelines, and essays edit

Policies edit

A policy is a page describing a topic whose views have wide acceptance among editors and describe standards that editors should normally follow. Examples of policies are WP:NOT, describing things that Wikipedia is not and therefore should not lead to pages of, and WP:Verifiability, saying what counts as a reliable source. These are commonly described as being "rules". There are usually exceptions.

Guidelines edit

A guideline is a page describing a best practice as supported by consensus. Editors should attempt to follow guidelines to the best of their abilities, although exceptions may apply and everything should be treated with common sense. Examples of guidelines are WP:Assume good faith, which tells you to always assume that editors are working for the good of Wikipedia, and WP:Citing sources, which tells you the best way to cite sources on Wikipedia.

Essays edit

An essay is a page describing the opinion of an editor or group of editors. Essays are not rules or even guidelines to follow, and they do not represent the entire community's view. They are, however, worthy of consideration when you are editing. Examples of essays are WP:Existence ≠ Notability, which says that just because something exists doesn't mean that it deserves a Wikipedia page, and WP:Just drop it, which says that if things get heated, you shouldn't continue arguing.

Misconceptions edit

Breaking policies gets you blocked.: Sometimes people make mistakes from not reading polices carefully. In addition, violating some guidelines and even some essays can get you blocked or banned. Some policies, such as WP:Verifiability is a policy that gets broken every day by thousands of users without getting blocked.

Policies are brief and to the point.: What about WP:NOT? That weighs in at about 53 KB.

Policies tell you what you must do, and others tell you what you should do.: There are a number of exceptions to policies, and many guidelines tell you exactly what to do, such as WP:ELNEVER.

Policies are prescriptive and other pages are descriptive.: Prescriptive, in this case, is telling you what editors should do, and rarely what the community actually does. Most policies rose out of the common practice of good Wikipedians, which would make them descriptive.

Policies are supported by a higher degree of consensus than guidelines.: While policies are watched by more editors, and therefore it's more likely to be noticed if there's a change, there is no guarantee that they better reflect the community's views. In fact, if every edit is scrutinized and usually reverted, changing views may not be recognized, and policies may no longer reflect the views of the community.

A page is a policy because everyone reads it.: WP:Clean start, WP:Revision deletion, WP:Reusing Wikipedia content, WP:Open proxies. Ring a bell? These are all policies. Some essays, on the other hand, are viewed thousands of times a day. How much someone reads something is not a guarantee of how they will be viewed.

Policy > guideline > essay: Editors must follow the most relevant advice. For example, WP:Verifiability, a policy, allows low-quality, self-published blogs as sources, WP:Identifying reliable sources, a guideline, says that's not such a good idea.

Ignore all rules edit

The fifth pillar of Wikipedia is "Ignore all rules". It says that you should ignore a rule keeping you from improving the encyclopedia. Some people try to apply it in bad situations, and it rarely works to their favor. There's an essay about it called Wikipedia:What "Ignore all rules" means. It basically says that if rules keep you from wanting to enjoy participating in the wiki, ignore them and go about your business. I have my own interpretation, and soon you will too.

End of lesson 18 edit

Any questions before the test?

I have one not really relating to the subject - Is there a process, or like a review or something that an article goes thourgh to make it a A, B or C grade article?

Not for A, B, or C. Those are usually decided upon by the WikiProjects that the article falls under. The only specific processes for a grade are FA and GA. However for some WikiProjects, such as WikiProject Novels, there's a section specifically for requesting a new assessment. I'll get the test up ASAP.

Test edit

Remember when I said I would get the test up ASAP? Absentminded professor forgot about it. This test is mostly opinion.

1.) Q- Explain, in your own words, the difference between a policy, guideline, and essay.

A- A policy is generally agreed on by all and is a flexible "rule" of Wikipedia.

A guideline is, well, a guideline, that tells you the best way to do something, decided by consensus. It should be followed in context.

An essay is page that shows the opinion of a group of editors on a subject and it can be taken into consideration when editing

Yes; policies are rules (with exceptions), guidelines are suggestions, and essays are opinions.

2.) Q- Can policies change? If you wanted to change a policy, what would you change?

A- Yes. Well, I would have to get consensus on my change first, but I don't know what I would do after that. I'm not worried about that though. I don't think I'll be changing any policies anytime soon :)

Yes, policies can change. I don't plan on changing any either unless it comes out of an AfD or something.

3.) Q- Which policy do you think is the most relevant in your current work on Wikipedia?

A- There are so many, I hope you wil let me name two - WP:BLP and WP:NOT.

Since I do AfD work, I think WP:NOT is most relevant in my work.

4.) Q- Wikipedia:Nobody cares is a popular essay. Do you agree with it? Why or why not?

A- Yes. Editors (or at least most editors) are out to help you, not hurt you. Everyone is made differently, with different interests and concerns. Therefore, If no one responds to your complaint, just move on. Probably editors are not purposely ignoring you, they just don't think the same way you do.

I agree with it too for the same reason that you do.

5.) Q- What does "Ignore all rules" mean to you specifically?

A- If you get all worked up about following processes and exactly specific guidelines that are not completely nessissary, ignore them!

I have a similar viewpoint.

Yeah, so about 1 ½ actual questions. Like I said, a breeze.

Easy pass! I'll get lesson 19 up soon. It's the last lesson before your concluding exam!

Lesson 19: Fun on Wikipedia edit

A little poem about fun edit

Sometimes we all get a little stressed
We got reverted or we failed a little test
We take aspirin for our headache and we think
"Why must everything just stink?"

We wish that we had a Wikipedia place
To bring a smile back to our face
And fortunately, we do!
The Department of Fun, just for you!''

Department of Fun edit

Okay, so obviously I'm no poet, but you get the idea. Fun on Wikipedia is how we all keep from giving each other death threats and getting blocked. There's a whole department for it at Wikipedia:Department of Fun. There are all kinds of games that you can play. My favorites are The Longest Wiki-Story, Word Association, Three Word Story, and The Odd Editor (okay, I made that one, but we need more people to do it.) You can also add to the Wikipedia movies, where I play a part. I warn you, in this movie I have a few outbursts of vulgarity or obscenities, which I know you don't like.

Personal fun edit

You can make your own fun if nothing at the DoF helps you. User:Double sharp, among others, have made chess games. If you don't know how to play that, I'm sure that there's a way to make a checkers game.

End of lesson 19 edit

Any questions? I thought I'd throw this in right before the final exam so that you'd have a chance to relieve stress there.

Thanks for showing me this! I didn't know how much crazy fun you can have Wikipedia. No questions, nice poem though :)

Lesson 20: Conclusion edit

Okay, so this isn't really a lesson. Your training has come to more or less of an end, at least under my adoption. I first contacted you about adoption exactly four months from today. Your final exam will let me know that you're ready to strut off into the world of Wikipedia with confidence that you know what you're doing. There's still much to learn. I've been here five years and I'm still learning something new every day. I hope that we can keep in contact with each other.

Now, the final exams for other adopters are usually somewhat like an actual final, which is super secretive and over e-mail. Mine, on the other hand, will be posted here, same as everything else. I have two reasons for this. First, I don't like using e-mail. Second, I have to look things up constantly, especially in AfD. In the real Wikipedia, you will have to look things up, so you should have the opportunity to do so here as well.

Do you have any questions before the exam?

No questions. I don't like using email Wikipedia purposes, either. I can't believe I'm already graduating. Thank you for being the best adopter ever!!! I am very grateful to you for taking the time to write out all these lessons for me.

Final Exam edit

1.) Q- Why must one assume good faith whenever possible?

A- Because people may be trying to do the right thing, and if they are, you don't want to hurt their feelings. Besides, you don't want to scare away any potential editors :)

Exactly! People might be misguided but have good intentions.

2.) Q- Your boyfriend just so happens to have a Blogger blog about skate tricks (you don't date someone like that, right?) That's pretty much all that comes up in Google and Bing searches except for a short video of him on YouTube doing the cinnamon challenge. Name everything that would be wrong with writing an article about him on Wikipedia.

A- He is not noteable because there are no really reliable sources about him. And no, thankfully, I do not date a guy like that.

Exactly, he's non-notable because he didn't really do anything and has no reliable sources. Also, glad to hear. :)

3.) Q- The new Warriors book is in, and you find a review on Kirkus Reviews. You add it to the Wikipedia article, and someone reverts your edit saying "KIRKUS REVIEWS IS A SOCIALIST PLOT TO MAKE EVERYONE READ ONLY NONSENSICAL CRAP!!!" What should you do?

A- I would nicely ask them why they think so on the article's talk page and ask for WP:Editor assistance if they are unreasonable about reaching consensus.

Good place to start. If they start accusing you of being a Socialist trying to destroy America, it's time to stick a warning on him.

4.) Q- What are some things you shouldn't put in signatures?

A- Pictures, blinking text, hard-to-see colors, links unrelated to Wikipedia, too-big text and causing the signature to take up more than 1 line of text on a page.

That's pretty much the gist of it.

5.) Q- Would Stephen Sondheim's books Finishing the Hat and Look, I Made a Hat be the best authority on the article Hatmaking? (Hint: Stephen Sondheim writes musicals)

A- No, because a musical writer is not a hatmaker.

Exactly. I'm not actually sure what the titles come from in the Sondheim books; all I know is that I like the commentary about Into the Woods and Assassins in Look, I Made a Hat.

6.) Q- @SimonDelestre is a new Twitter account claiming to be the French equestrian. He mentions getting a new horse from José Maria Larocca named Okidoki. You can't find anything about that anywhere else. Should you include it in either the Delestre or Larocca articles? (Hint: read about Okidoki on the Larocca page.)

A- No, because other sources (including Wikipedia) say that Okidoki died July 21, 2010 at 14 years old after badly landing a jump.

Yup! The Twitter account is probably fake.

7.) Q- One editor is trying to say that average humans have six fingers on each hand instead of five. Do you need a source? Why or why not?

A- Yes, because that's not common knowledge and the majority of people would disagree.

Interesting take on it. Many would outright say that people have five fingers on each hand if they're normal, but I suppose that "average" is a bit subjective. I'll take it!

8.) Q- Fix everything wrong about capitalization in this article:
animal farm is a book written by george orwell. it was first published in england on 17 august 1945. the book reflects events leading up to the russian revolution of 1917 and then onto the josef stalin era in the soviet union.

A- Animal Farm is a novel written by George Orwell. It was first published in England on 17 August 1945. The book reflects events leading up to the Russian revolution of 1917 and then onto the Stalin era in the Soviet Union.

Only one teensy mistake: the word "Revolution" in "Russian Revolution of 1917" should be capitalized.

9.) Q- What process should you go through in terms of warning templates with a vandal who continues doing the same thing?

A- For general vandalism I would use {{uw-vandalism1}}, {{uw-vandalism2}}, {{uw-vandalism3}}, {{uw-vandalism4}} and then I would report them to WP:AIV. I would be more specific if possible, though.

Yup; the only thing you missed is that if it's their first edit, you should use a welcoming template that also warns.

10.) Q- What warning template should you use for these (assuming they are all on level 1 warnings)?

Placing inappropriate jokes about older women on the cougar article
Replacing an insightful talk page comment with "Poppycock! Poppycock I say!"
Removing {{multiple issues}} from an article

A-

{{subst:uw-disruptive1}} (is there anything more specific?)
{{subst:uw-tpv1}}
{{subst:uw-tdel1}}

{{subst:uw-joke1}} would be more specific than the disruptive editing one, but that one works too. The other two are perfect.

11.) Q- You place a CSD tag on a user's article, and he then gives you a handful of vulgar insults. What should your next step be?

A- I should give him the {{subst:uw-npa1}} template

Yup! In my book that and {{subst:uw-harass1}} are near-interchangeable, and so both are acceptable.

12.) Q- A certain editor appears to be following you and reverting everything you post as "patent nonsense". How should you confront her?

A- I should nicely ask her on her talk page why she is bent on reverting all my edits and if she continues to do so I will have to warn her for disruptive editing.

Exactly!

13.) Q- What CSD would this fall under? "If you live in the Greater Chicagoland area, come on down to BOB'S CANDLEWICK OUTLET! Our prices are so outrageous, we're almost giving this stuff away! Tell all your friends about Bob's candlewicks!"

A- G11

Yes.

14.) Q- What CSD would it fall under if someone copied everything from Roy Halladay and pasted it on Awesome Phillies pitcher?

A- A10

Correct (not to mention the new title would be wrong right now; he hasn't been doing so well. If you're going to move anything to Awesome Phillies pitcher, I'd put Cliff Lee.)

15.) Q- Will breaking a policy always result in an indefinite block?

A- No. WP:Verifiability gets broken 1,000's of times a day.

Exactly. So don't stress, especially if you didn't know about a policy.

16.) Q- What do you think you got out of my adoption process? Is there anything that you think I should change?

A-I learned more than half of the stuff I know about Wikipedia from your adoption course, from !voting to templates and images. It was great and I seriously can not think of how it could have been better.

Thanks so much!

I wish you the best.

One last question - were you adopted in Adopt-a-User too?

I started out being adopted, but my adopter forgot about me and I had to learn things for myself. I turned out all right, though, wouldn't you say? :)

Congratulations on being the first official graduate of Brambleberry of RiverClan's adoption course! I wish you all the best in your Wiki travels, and may our paths cross again!