Master545445

Master545445, you are invited to the Teahouse!

Hi Master545445! Thanks for contributing to Wikipedia. Be our guest at the Teahouse! The Teahouse is a friendly space where new editors can ask questions about contributing to Wikipedia and get help from experienced editors like ChamithN (talk). Visit the Teahouse We hope to see you there! Delivered by HostBot on behalf of the Teahouse hosts 16:05, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Welcome!

Hello, Master545445, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:

• Introduction and Getting started
• Contributing to Wikipedia
• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• How to edit a page and How to develop articles
• How to create your first article
• Simplified Manual of Style

You may also want to complete the Wikipedia Adventure, an interactive tour that will help you learn the basics of editing Wikipedia. You can visit the Teahouse to ask questions or seek help.

Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or , and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome! WanderingWanda (talk) 07:04, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Editing the lead and the body

Hi, Master545445, and please allow me to welcome you to Wikipedia. Please check out some of the links in the welcome message that WanderingWanda left you above.

In this edit (permalink) at Talk:Trans woman, you raised a discussion about the revert of your change to the definition of "trans woman" in the first sentence of the Trans woman article. First of all: good job raising the discussion; that's exactly the right way to proceed after a bold edit and a revert, according to WP:BRD, and the principles of dispute resolution; how did you even find out about that?

Wanda and John B123 already explained what was wrong with your edit, and I concur with their evaluation. However, there are additional objections to your edit, beyond what was explained at Talk:Trans woman, but as they have more to do with basic principles of editing at Wikipedia, it wasn't appropriate to go into more detail about that, at Talk:Trans woman. However, it *is* appropriate to explain that here. So, here are a few additional reasons, which apply not only to that article, but all articles of a similar nature. Most of these things are the kind of thing that new editors don't know at the start, and are very common problems. As you gain experience here, you will learn to avoid these problems.

• It's a wiki; we use wikilinks: You listed one reason for your change, as aiming it at a "reader [who] does not know what a transgender person is". But that is not a good reason for your change. If a reader does not know what a transgender person is, that is easily solved by a wikilink (a type of hyperlink) to the Transgender article. In particular, with respect to your change to the WP:FIRSTSENTENCE, if the reader does not know what "assigned male at birth" means, they need only click the link to find out. One of the huge advantages of hypertext over the printed word, is that when discussing a topic that not everyone will be familiar with, there is no need to bloat the article full of definitions and other explanation of technical words and basic expressions required to understand the article; all you need to do, is create a hyperlink for each of the possibly unfamiliar expressions, and target the article which explains it. So, whereas an article in Archives of Sexual Behavior about trans women might need to have all sorts of explanations about technical terms, perhaps even a glossary in a stand-alone Appendix at the end in order to explain all the terms, with hypertext, that is no longer necessary; we just link the term itself. Explanations are only a click away. Those who already know the term, are not slowed down in their reading, by all sorts of unnecessary, in-line, explanatory verbiage. Those who don't, can click for more info. Wikipedia is a platform based on hypertext, and uses wikilinks liberally to connect articles. This is the best way to do it, in this example.
• Changing the lead: A typical newbie problem, is jumping into an article for the first time, and changing the lead of the article. (The WP:LEAD is the part before the first section header, or the Table of Contents.) This is understandable, because it's the first part of the article that you see. Before you consider making a change to the lead, you should understand the special role of the lead in Wikipedia articles. Please have a look at WP:LEAD, as well as WP:LEADPARAGRAPH, and the WP:FIRSTSENTENCE.
• Body first, then lead: Because of the special role of the lead, the proper sequence in editing an article (which may seem backwards to you at first), is first edit the body of the article, then edit the lead to match. Once you've assimilated the explanations about the lead in the previous bullet, you can read WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY, to see why this is so, and it will make sense to do it in that order. The point here being, your change to the lead, did not reflect a better summary of the article body.
• Check the archives: Another problem with your change, was the fact that you were no doubt not aware of the fact that the wording in the lead, especially in the defining sentence, had already been discussed extensively. All of these earlier discussions are available to you for perusal either on the talk page itself, or in the article's Talk archives, as JohnB 123 pointed out. Before attempting a change to an article, especially in the lead, most especially in the defining sentence, it's generally advisable to familiarize yourself with the article's history (click the History tab) and with the Talk archives, before making your edit. That will help you avoid making edits that will likely be undone.
• Controversial topics: Not really a direct problem with your edit, but more about how to introduce it, has to do with controvesial topic areas. The Trans woman article is in a conversial topic area of the encyclopedia, and putting in a comma or taking one out, will likely have a lot of editors watching you, to make sure your edit is acceptable. While being bold is a feature of editing at Wikipedia and a good thing, making a change to the defining sentence of a controversial article with a significant history of Talk page discussion, is almost certain to elicit a revert. You should raise a discussion on the Talk page first, before attempting a bold change of that nature.
• Discretionary sanctions: Finally, while all editors are subject to certain Wikipedia policies and guidelines governing editing behavior, such as the Three-revert rule, to forestall edit warring on articles, a subset of controversial topic areas are covered under a stricter regime than WP:3RR, known as WP:AC/DS. The trans woman article is part of this, so you should be aware of that. I'll drop a standard notice by Arbcom below, explaining this.

Hope this helps, Mathglot (talk) 04:41, 27 September 2019 (UTC)