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Happy editing! Schazjmd  (talk) 14:40, 13 July 2020 (UTC) reply

@ Schazjmd: Thanks! I really enjoy the 'Task center feature' but I wanted to expand short articles but I cannot use the 'Randomize in category', is it just me or the button isn't working? -- Chopin2712 ( talk) 15:12, 13 July 2020 (UTC) reply

I think there's been some work going on with toolforge recently, a number of those tools haven't been working properly. You can search "toolforge" on WP:VPT to see the comments from others who've noticed problems. Some technical details. Schazjmd  (talk) 15:22, 13 July 2020 (UTC) reply

@ Schazjmd: I found an article I want to contribute to but I don't know where to start, I am not expert in the topic even if it is something I use every day, I don't know what I can write more. -- Chopin2712 ( talk) 15:30, 13 July 2020 (UTC) reply

The very first thing to do is to find reliable sources. You can use The Wikipedia Library Card Platform to connect to various resources for research (also Google Books and Google Scholar). When you find sources, you identify important/interesting information about the topic and summarize it in the article. You can also review the sources already cited in the article to see if they may provide more information than the original editor used.

It's also possible that a stub article is that way because there simply isn't more information available (yet). Not every stub can be expanded. Schazjmd  (talk) 15:37, 13 July 2020 (UTC) reply

@ Schazjmd: I seriously have no idea on this one. Is there easier things to do? I don't get any article I can edit using the task centre. -- Chopin2712 ( talk) 17:01, 13 July 2020 (UTC) reply

I'd recommend starting with easy fixes, like punctuation, spelling errors, making wording clearer. You can check out WP:Typo Team/moss, that's what I started with. Sometimes I just keep hitting Special:Random (it's also a link in the left navigation), looking for articles that need improving. If you come across an article that's tagged as needing more sources, that can give you good practice at finding sources. (I recommend the instructions at User:Nick Moyes/Easier Referencing for Beginners for learning how to format citations.) If you're interested, read through the ongoing discussions at WP:AfD and you'll get an idea of how editors evaluate articles. Schazjmd  (talk) 17:09, 13 July 2020 (UTC) reply

@ Schazjmd: Thanks for the recommendation. I found something to do. I took an article I knew and I decided to improve it by start as you said by copy editing, etc. What do you think of my contributions to Master_Password? -- Chopin2712 ( talk) 17:38, 13 July 2020 (UTC) reply

They look pretty good. One thing, you wikilinked to master password, and there is no such article. That's not necessarily wrong, but you should add "red links" deliberately and thoughtfully. Glad you found something to work on! Schazjmd  (talk) 17:50, 13 July 2020 (UTC) reply

@ Schazjmd: Thanks a lot for your help! About the red link, it is deliberate. Even if I think that this would be a very short article. But I created a topic in the talk page of the article about the possible confusion between "Masterpassword (software)" and "master password". A master password is a password that is used to create or access other passwords. -- Chopin2712 ( talk) 18:05, 13 July 2020 (UTC) reply

Oh good, as long as it's a deliberate choice. At first, I thought it was a link right back to the same topic (which we don't want to do), but then I noticed the difference in capitalization. Take a look at WP:YFA for guidance in creating your first article, when you're ready to work on Master password. A tip: create the article in your userspace (such as User:Chopin2712/Master password), then you can work on it at your leisure until it's ready for the main encyclopedia. Schazjmd  (talk) 18:11, 13 July 2020 (UTC) reply

@ Schazjmd: Thanks for the advice I will create it :) I will also change the article's name now. -- Chopin2712 ( talk) 18:13, 13 July 2020 (UTC) reply

I disagree about changing Master Password, see that talk page. Schazjmd  (talk) 18:15, 13 July 2020 (UTC) reply

Oops, never mind...I see that you just added the disambiguator (algorithm) -- that's fine. Schazjmd  (talk) 18:17, 13 July 2020 (UTC) reply

Hi, you want to be judicious when adding wikilinks to an article. Please review WP:OVERLINK for guidance. Happy editing! Schazjmd  (talk) 14:41, 13 July 2020 (UTC) reply

@ Schazjmd:Thanks for the information! I didn't know that, sorry. I will try to not repeat this mistake everywhere else :p -- Chopin2712 ( talk) 14:49, 13 July 2020 (UTC) reply

No problem. There are a lot of policies, guidelines, and style rules on Wikipedia, I doubt any of us know all of them so we usually find out when someone else objects to an edit we make. Schazjmd  (talk) 15:00, 13 July 2020 (UTC) reply

The Wayback Machine is a valuable tool for editors. If you click the link in the first reference in Master Password, you'll see that the webpage is no longer available. What we do in that case is go to archive.org, enter the URL, find an earlier snapshot of the page that has the content we need, and update the reference with archive-url and archive-date (the date of the snapshot). I've done that for the first ref on Master Password. Schazjmd  (talk) 18:02, 13 July 2020 (UTC) reply

Schazjmd Yes I know I use it very often. I will look at the first ref, I haven't looked at it yet. -- Chopin2712 ( talk) 19:08, 13 July 2020 (UTC) reply

Another tip: eventually, one of your edits will be reverted, or perhaps you'll revert someone else. The generally accepted etiquette is documented at WP:BRD (Bold > Revert > Discuss). Just so you're prepared. (A lot of editors get in trouble by ignoring the Discuss phase and just revert each other back and forth, which is an edit war and how one can easily be blocked.) Schazjmd  (talk) 18:22, 13 July 2020 (UTC) reply

Schazjmd Thanks for the info, it's good to know! I started to create my page User:Chopin2712/Master_password btw -- Chopin2712 ( talk) 19:06, 13 July 2020 (UTC) reply

Schazjmd BTW, I just looked at the archive of the first reference, thanks for making me notice it, it contains very interesting information related to the first topic I wrote on the talk page of that article. -- Chopin2712 ( talk) 19:13, 13 July 2020 (UTC) reply

Guessing at your interests based on the article you've been working on, you might be interested in checking out WP:WikiProject Computing and WP:WikiProject Computer Security. I don't know how active either project is, but those can be good places to connect with editors who have similar interests, and the project pages often have good resources for working on articles in those areas. Schazjmd  (talk) 19:19, 13 July 2020 (UTC) reply

Schazjmd What is a WikiProject? -- Chopin2712 ( talk) 19:23, 13 July 2020 (UTC) reply

Basically, a WP:WikiProject is an informal group of editors who have a common interest. I think most of them are subject-area-specific, such as the two I linked above. Schazjmd  (talk) 19:29, 13 July 2020 (UTC) reply

Schazjmd Thanks I will look around :) -- Chopin2712 ( talk) 19:30, 13 July 2020 (UTC) reply

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. An automated process has detected that you've added some links pointing to disambiguation pages. Such links are usually incorrect, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of unrelated topics with similar titles. (Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.)

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Hi Chopin2712! The thread you created at the Wikipedia:Teahouse, How to make researches on a topic you are not familiar with, has been archived because there was no discussion for a few days (usually at least two days, and sometimes four or more). You can still find the archived discussion here. If you have any additional questions that weren't answered then, please feel free to create a new thread. The archival was done by Lowercase sigmabot III, and this notification was delivered by Muninnbot, both automated accounts. You can opt out of future notifications by placing {{ bots|deny=Muninnbot}} here on your user talk page. Muninnbot ( talk) 19:01, 17 July 2020 (UTC) reply

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Portsmouth Olympic Harbour, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page 1800s.

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