Welcome!
Hello, Sorceress150, 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:
I hope you enjoy editing here and being a
Wikipedian! Please
sign your messages on
discussion pages using 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 ask your question on this page and then place {{help me}}
before the question. Again, welcome!
bobrayner (
talk)
16:05, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for your feedback. I'm sorry you found editing Wikipedia difficult; the interface can be a bit daunting at first. If you'd like some help with specific problems, you can always ask at the helpdesk, or contact me on my talkpage. Yunshui 雲 水 15:17, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for your feedback. Can you explain what it is that you're finding difficult? If you've got suggestions for improving Wikipedia's interface (and we're always looking for ways to improve), you can add them at the Village Pump discussions.
Yunshui 雲 水 15:20, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Yes i responded on the helpdesk, and i just don't get all the signes and stuff like that, if u could tell me a few that would be great thank you.
Sorceress150 ( talk) 15:24, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
BTW, I'm going offline now - if you need any more help today, you've already found the WP:HELPDESK! Yunshui 雲 水 15:34, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Thank you!! Sorceress150 ( talk) 15:37, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Please take some time to read Wikipedia:Guidance for younger editors. Don't be alarmed, just take the advice seriously. Feel free to message me at my talk page if you need anything. fredgandt 15:52, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, i'll be more careful about that i'll erase both.. sorry!!!!
Sorceress150 ( talk) 15:55, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Hi Sorceress150,
I see you've put yourself up for adoption - good idea! If you'd like, I'd be happy to oblige. Take a look at my contribution history (mostly anti-vandal work recently, with a bit of content creation and deletion discussion thrown in) to get an idea of the sort of areas I normally operate in; if you think I'd be able to help you, drop me a line on my talkpage. Generally I'm available from about 8-3.30 GMT on weekdays, and occasionally evenings and weekends (but not often).
You're under no obligation to accept; if you don't think I'd be the right adopter for you I assure you I won't be in the least bit offended. Cheers, Yunshui 雲 水 19:07, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
NO! i wrote in your talk page, saying i would gladly accept! All the best,
Sorceress150 (
talk)
15:25, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
I hope that you will consider adopting me again. The only time that I have been available on Wikipedia is just to look something up quick. Thanks, Sorceress150 ( talk) 20:01, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
Hi Sorceress150. With the proviso that what I said above still stands - ie. there is no compunction whatsoever to edit Wikipedia, and no required level of activity to remain an editor - I thought it might help you to find something to focus on. Wikipedia's a big place, and it can be difficult to know where to start. With that in mind, and noticing that you joined WikiProject:Dogs last month, I used the toolserver to generate this list of articles which you might find useful. All the articles listed are of High importance to the Dogs project, but are regarded as low ("Start-class") quality, and need to be edited to make them better.
The issues that these articles face include: poor or unencyclopedic prose, a failure to conform to the Manual of style guidelines, disorganised content that might need reordering, insufficient sources and more. Some will have tags at the top of the page suggesting specific problems that need correcting.
If you're stuck for something to do, go ahead and try to improve one or more of these articles. Or don't - to repeat myself again, you don't have to if you don't want to! Yunshui 雲 水 10:22, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Sorceress150 ( talk) 14:20, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
It's clear that there are some editing conventions you aren't familiar with, so hopefully we can clear them up here. Wikipedia has set ways of displaying articles, so that they all adhere to the same style; you can't just adjust them to a layout that you yourself prefer. For convenience in the following discussion, here's the previous version of the page and here's what it looked like after your edit.
First up, you've got the idea of file uploads (as with File:Smallpuppy.jpg which seems to have been deleted whilst I was writing) but you need to understand copyright concepts. Photobucket isn't copyright free, so you can't just pull images off it - someone took that photo, and they own the copyright. If you were the photographer then that's fine (but you should upload the file from your computer, rather than Photobucket) but if you didn't take the picture (or get verifiable permission from the person who did), you can't use it on Wikipedia. You formatted the image correctly, which is good, but it needed a better caption (specifying which breed of dog it is, for example).
Don't indent sections in articles with colons, like this :: . Colons should be used for indenting in talkpage discussions, to make it clear who you're replying to, but the colon indent shouldn't be used in articles. You also break headers if you indent. Headers in articles are written like this:
==Header Level 2==
with equals signs on either side; that takes care of all the necessary formatting, so you don't need '''bold text''' modifiers or -------- horizontal lines.
Don't be discouraged - markup is a tricky beast on Wikipedia, and can take a few tries to get right. Have a look at the cheatsheet for some common examples, and have another go. If you're not sure about how something will look, you can test-drive it in the sandbox or use the Preview button at the bottom of the editing page. Let me know if you need any help. Yunshui 雲 水 14:52, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
Let's have another crack at that Puppy article, shall we?
A major issue with the article at present is that it lacks inline citations. This means that, although there are sources in the references section, none of the information is attributed to them. Fixing this problem would do a lot towards improving the page.
What you need to do is this:
<ref>Kern, Kerry; ''The New Terrier Handbook'', Barron's Educational Series, 1988, page 42</ref>
There are more complex ways of citing information (such as the {{
cite book}} template), but don't worry about those for now. As long as you put sufficient information in between the <ref></ref> tags, it's fine. The minimum information is the author and title of the book (put the title in italics by placing two apostrophes ('') at either end); if you can also supply the publisher, ISBN, page number and year of publication that's a bonus. You can cite websites by putting the website address in between the <ref></ref> tags (don't forget the http://
!) like this:
<ref>http://www.example.co.uk</ref>
again, there are better ways to do this, but for now, the important thing is to learn the use of <ref> tags.
Have a go with the example I've give above, and then see if you can find any more things in the article to reference. Let me know if you need a hand, or if you want anything explained further. Cheers, Yunshui 雲 水 10:27, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll be starting right now. Sorry I haven't been on for some time! Sorceress150 ( talk) 13:38, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Sorceress150 ( talk) 14:05, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
![]() |
The Original Barnstar |
For adding inline citations and additional references to the Puppy article, I award you a barnstar! Excellent work! Yunshui 雲 水 14:07, 2 May 2012 (UTC) |
I'm going to offer you a new task now; you can take it or leave it. Welcome to the thrilling and suprisingly addictive world of typo fixes!
Not everyone who contributes to Wikipedia can spell. Many of those that can make the ocasional mstake... Thus, Wikipedia is littered with typos. They are, however, easy to fix. There are several ways to do this (there are even Wikipedia add-ons like Auto Wiki Browser to help); for manual fixes, my preference is the following:
If you enjoy this sort of thing, you can also adopt a typo of your very own, and go around fixing it wherever it's found. Have fun! Yunshui 雲 水 14:29, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
Because there are so many areas to concentrate on within Wikipedia, I'm going to continue throwing tasks like this at you. It's a good way of learning all the different facets of the encyclopedia. Hopefully this will lead you to find areas that you particularly enjoy working in, and we can then concentrate more heavily on those. You've already demonstrated competence in referencing and typo-fixing (which leads on to copy-editing), two very important tasks for improving content. Now we'll look at something that involves more interaction with other editors: anti-vandalism.
Wikipedia gets hit by vandals thousands of times a day. Most instances of vandalism are cleared up pretty quickly, thanks to both a dedicated cadre of editors and the rather impressive automated program, ClueBot. You can help! I've created an introduction to counter-vandalism here; read through it, and then have a go. Start with really obvious vandalism - "lol"s and "gay"s are easy to spot and revert - and you should avoid treading on anyone's toes.
Like all my suggested tasks, this is totally optional - if you don't think you'd like to work in anti-vandalism, let me know and we'll move on to something else. Yunshui 雲 水 12:47, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
Sorry I haven't been on for so long! Anti-vandalism seems like a good topic, but I must say it is all very complicated. I have looked through the recent changes and read your article a bunch of times, but still I am not very good at doing it... Sorceress150 ( talk) 13:38, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
Sounds Great! Sorceress150 ( talk) 14:31, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
Hi Sorceress150. Some months ago, I pointed out that there's no minimum level of activity required to edit Wikipedia. That's as true today as it was then, but in order for an adoption to be successful, some degree of regular editing is required. Since you haven't edited anything for the last three months, I'm inclined to suggest that official adoption isn't ideal for you. As such, I'm going to close the adoption and remove you from my list of adoptees. It's nothing personal, and please don't take it as a criticism (there is nothing wrong with not editing!); it's simply that we're overhauling the adoption process at present and need to expunge inactive adoptees to keep the categories clear.
That said, please feel free to contact me with any questions or problems you have with editing. I'm more than happy to help you out if and when you need a hand, I just don't think that a formal adoption arrangement is going to be particularly beneficial for you. Look forward to seeing you around - enjoy Wikipedia! Yunshui 雲 水 12:21, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
Welcome!
Hello, Sorceress150, 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:
I hope you enjoy editing here and being a
Wikipedian! Please
sign your messages on
discussion pages using 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 ask your question on this page and then place {{help me}}
before the question. Again, welcome!
bobrayner (
talk)
16:05, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for your feedback. I'm sorry you found editing Wikipedia difficult; the interface can be a bit daunting at first. If you'd like some help with specific problems, you can always ask at the helpdesk, or contact me on my talkpage. Yunshui 雲 水 15:17, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for your feedback. Can you explain what it is that you're finding difficult? If you've got suggestions for improving Wikipedia's interface (and we're always looking for ways to improve), you can add them at the Village Pump discussions.
Yunshui 雲 水 15:20, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Yes i responded on the helpdesk, and i just don't get all the signes and stuff like that, if u could tell me a few that would be great thank you.
Sorceress150 ( talk) 15:24, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
BTW, I'm going offline now - if you need any more help today, you've already found the WP:HELPDESK! Yunshui 雲 水 15:34, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Thank you!! Sorceress150 ( talk) 15:37, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Please take some time to read Wikipedia:Guidance for younger editors. Don't be alarmed, just take the advice seriously. Feel free to message me at my talk page if you need anything. fredgandt 15:52, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, i'll be more careful about that i'll erase both.. sorry!!!!
Sorceress150 ( talk) 15:55, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Hi Sorceress150,
I see you've put yourself up for adoption - good idea! If you'd like, I'd be happy to oblige. Take a look at my contribution history (mostly anti-vandal work recently, with a bit of content creation and deletion discussion thrown in) to get an idea of the sort of areas I normally operate in; if you think I'd be able to help you, drop me a line on my talkpage. Generally I'm available from about 8-3.30 GMT on weekdays, and occasionally evenings and weekends (but not often).
You're under no obligation to accept; if you don't think I'd be the right adopter for you I assure you I won't be in the least bit offended. Cheers, Yunshui 雲 水 19:07, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
NO! i wrote in your talk page, saying i would gladly accept! All the best,
Sorceress150 (
talk)
15:25, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
I hope that you will consider adopting me again. The only time that I have been available on Wikipedia is just to look something up quick. Thanks, Sorceress150 ( talk) 20:01, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
Hi Sorceress150. With the proviso that what I said above still stands - ie. there is no compunction whatsoever to edit Wikipedia, and no required level of activity to remain an editor - I thought it might help you to find something to focus on. Wikipedia's a big place, and it can be difficult to know where to start. With that in mind, and noticing that you joined WikiProject:Dogs last month, I used the toolserver to generate this list of articles which you might find useful. All the articles listed are of High importance to the Dogs project, but are regarded as low ("Start-class") quality, and need to be edited to make them better.
The issues that these articles face include: poor or unencyclopedic prose, a failure to conform to the Manual of style guidelines, disorganised content that might need reordering, insufficient sources and more. Some will have tags at the top of the page suggesting specific problems that need correcting.
If you're stuck for something to do, go ahead and try to improve one or more of these articles. Or don't - to repeat myself again, you don't have to if you don't want to! Yunshui 雲 水 10:22, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Sorceress150 ( talk) 14:20, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
It's clear that there are some editing conventions you aren't familiar with, so hopefully we can clear them up here. Wikipedia has set ways of displaying articles, so that they all adhere to the same style; you can't just adjust them to a layout that you yourself prefer. For convenience in the following discussion, here's the previous version of the page and here's what it looked like after your edit.
First up, you've got the idea of file uploads (as with File:Smallpuppy.jpg which seems to have been deleted whilst I was writing) but you need to understand copyright concepts. Photobucket isn't copyright free, so you can't just pull images off it - someone took that photo, and they own the copyright. If you were the photographer then that's fine (but you should upload the file from your computer, rather than Photobucket) but if you didn't take the picture (or get verifiable permission from the person who did), you can't use it on Wikipedia. You formatted the image correctly, which is good, but it needed a better caption (specifying which breed of dog it is, for example).
Don't indent sections in articles with colons, like this :: . Colons should be used for indenting in talkpage discussions, to make it clear who you're replying to, but the colon indent shouldn't be used in articles. You also break headers if you indent. Headers in articles are written like this:
==Header Level 2==
with equals signs on either side; that takes care of all the necessary formatting, so you don't need '''bold text''' modifiers or -------- horizontal lines.
Don't be discouraged - markup is a tricky beast on Wikipedia, and can take a few tries to get right. Have a look at the cheatsheet for some common examples, and have another go. If you're not sure about how something will look, you can test-drive it in the sandbox or use the Preview button at the bottom of the editing page. Let me know if you need any help. Yunshui 雲 水 14:52, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
Let's have another crack at that Puppy article, shall we?
A major issue with the article at present is that it lacks inline citations. This means that, although there are sources in the references section, none of the information is attributed to them. Fixing this problem would do a lot towards improving the page.
What you need to do is this:
<ref>Kern, Kerry; ''The New Terrier Handbook'', Barron's Educational Series, 1988, page 42</ref>
There are more complex ways of citing information (such as the {{
cite book}} template), but don't worry about those for now. As long as you put sufficient information in between the <ref></ref> tags, it's fine. The minimum information is the author and title of the book (put the title in italics by placing two apostrophes ('') at either end); if you can also supply the publisher, ISBN, page number and year of publication that's a bonus. You can cite websites by putting the website address in between the <ref></ref> tags (don't forget the http://
!) like this:
<ref>http://www.example.co.uk</ref>
again, there are better ways to do this, but for now, the important thing is to learn the use of <ref> tags.
Have a go with the example I've give above, and then see if you can find any more things in the article to reference. Let me know if you need a hand, or if you want anything explained further. Cheers, Yunshui 雲 水 10:27, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll be starting right now. Sorry I haven't been on for some time! Sorceress150 ( talk) 13:38, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Sorceress150 ( talk) 14:05, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
![]() |
The Original Barnstar |
For adding inline citations and additional references to the Puppy article, I award you a barnstar! Excellent work! Yunshui 雲 水 14:07, 2 May 2012 (UTC) |
I'm going to offer you a new task now; you can take it or leave it. Welcome to the thrilling and suprisingly addictive world of typo fixes!
Not everyone who contributes to Wikipedia can spell. Many of those that can make the ocasional mstake... Thus, Wikipedia is littered with typos. They are, however, easy to fix. There are several ways to do this (there are even Wikipedia add-ons like Auto Wiki Browser to help); for manual fixes, my preference is the following:
If you enjoy this sort of thing, you can also adopt a typo of your very own, and go around fixing it wherever it's found. Have fun! Yunshui 雲 水 14:29, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
Because there are so many areas to concentrate on within Wikipedia, I'm going to continue throwing tasks like this at you. It's a good way of learning all the different facets of the encyclopedia. Hopefully this will lead you to find areas that you particularly enjoy working in, and we can then concentrate more heavily on those. You've already demonstrated competence in referencing and typo-fixing (which leads on to copy-editing), two very important tasks for improving content. Now we'll look at something that involves more interaction with other editors: anti-vandalism.
Wikipedia gets hit by vandals thousands of times a day. Most instances of vandalism are cleared up pretty quickly, thanks to both a dedicated cadre of editors and the rather impressive automated program, ClueBot. You can help! I've created an introduction to counter-vandalism here; read through it, and then have a go. Start with really obvious vandalism - "lol"s and "gay"s are easy to spot and revert - and you should avoid treading on anyone's toes.
Like all my suggested tasks, this is totally optional - if you don't think you'd like to work in anti-vandalism, let me know and we'll move on to something else. Yunshui 雲 水 12:47, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
Sorry I haven't been on for so long! Anti-vandalism seems like a good topic, but I must say it is all very complicated. I have looked through the recent changes and read your article a bunch of times, but still I am not very good at doing it... Sorceress150 ( talk) 13:38, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
Sounds Great! Sorceress150 ( talk) 14:31, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
Hi Sorceress150. Some months ago, I pointed out that there's no minimum level of activity required to edit Wikipedia. That's as true today as it was then, but in order for an adoption to be successful, some degree of regular editing is required. Since you haven't edited anything for the last three months, I'm inclined to suggest that official adoption isn't ideal for you. As such, I'm going to close the adoption and remove you from my list of adoptees. It's nothing personal, and please don't take it as a criticism (there is nothing wrong with not editing!); it's simply that we're overhauling the adoption process at present and need to expunge inactive adoptees to keep the categories clear.
That said, please feel free to contact me with any questions or problems you have with editing. I'm more than happy to help you out if and when you need a hand, I just don't think that a formal adoption arrangement is going to be particularly beneficial for you. Look forward to seeing you around - enjoy Wikipedia! Yunshui 雲 水 12:21, 19 September 2012 (UTC)