Welcome...
Hello, OddLot, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:
Please
sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your username and the date. If you need help, check out
Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}}
on your talk page and ask your question there. Again, welcome!
Okiefromokla
questions?
02:27, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
Well, I would generally avoid using "how-to" guides, as it is really not the purpose of Wikipedia to provide such guides. People who want to find such guides can go to yahoo or some other service, not an encyclopedia. If you take a look at what not to link, money-and-investing.com would fail because it is a website that offers "member services" (which isn't free), along with being a how-to guide. It would therefore be close to failing #4 and 5 on our list of what not to link. Fool.com offers a similar how-to-guide that offers services you have to sign up for aside from its free tools, although this is somewhat of a grey area that can be treated with the occasional exception if common sense dictates. Investopedia seems better than the other two, but I would reccomend using that website as a reference to content in the article itself. The bottom line is that external link sections on Wikipedia should generally be very small, linking only to websites that increase the encyclopedia value of the article but cannot be taken directly because of the level of detail or copyright issues. Click here for a list of what should be linked.
If you add some external links that other people think aren't appropriate, it's not a big deal. Likewise, it's not a big deal if you add content to an article that may technically fail some policy, as long as it's reasonable. Although it's important to understand our policies (you can find a link to them on my user page), you should just get out there and start editing. Other people can fix your mistakes if need be, and no admin will block you for them. If there is a problem, you will be contacted on your user talk page and the problem will be explained — no big deal. The important thing is to be bold in your editing. However, one note of caution: If people see that your account is being used only to add external links to articles, it looks very suspicious. Users will assume that you are here only for spam and advertising, and you can be blocked for that, which is what happened last time. Oh, and don't forget to sign your talk page comments by adding ~~~~ at the end. Good hunting! Okiefromokla questions? 15:46, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
Welcome...
Hello, OddLot, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:
Please
sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your username and the date. If you need help, check out
Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}}
on your talk page and ask your question there. Again, welcome!
Okiefromokla
questions?
02:27, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
Well, I would generally avoid using "how-to" guides, as it is really not the purpose of Wikipedia to provide such guides. People who want to find such guides can go to yahoo or some other service, not an encyclopedia. If you take a look at what not to link, money-and-investing.com would fail because it is a website that offers "member services" (which isn't free), along with being a how-to guide. It would therefore be close to failing #4 and 5 on our list of what not to link. Fool.com offers a similar how-to-guide that offers services you have to sign up for aside from its free tools, although this is somewhat of a grey area that can be treated with the occasional exception if common sense dictates. Investopedia seems better than the other two, but I would reccomend using that website as a reference to content in the article itself. The bottom line is that external link sections on Wikipedia should generally be very small, linking only to websites that increase the encyclopedia value of the article but cannot be taken directly because of the level of detail or copyright issues. Click here for a list of what should be linked.
If you add some external links that other people think aren't appropriate, it's not a big deal. Likewise, it's not a big deal if you add content to an article that may technically fail some policy, as long as it's reasonable. Although it's important to understand our policies (you can find a link to them on my user page), you should just get out there and start editing. Other people can fix your mistakes if need be, and no admin will block you for them. If there is a problem, you will be contacted on your user talk page and the problem will be explained — no big deal. The important thing is to be bold in your editing. However, one note of caution: If people see that your account is being used only to add external links to articles, it looks very suspicious. Users will assume that you are here only for spam and advertising, and you can be blocked for that, which is what happened last time. Oh, and don't forget to sign your talk page comments by adding ~~~~ at the end. Good hunting! Okiefromokla questions? 15:46, 31 July 2008 (UTC)