User:Spalding
Hello, fellow Wikipedians!
My introduction to Wikipedia
I loved this site the minute I found it in a Google search. In fact, I just now caught myself looking for the edit tab when reading a normal web page that needed a little tweak, so I think I have a
My interests
But seriously, my interests are
My Wikipedia MO
Recently in early 2005 I have noticed that, just as it often happens with the problem of keeping track of anything, there are often articles that are not linked to similar ones and it can lead to much repetition of similar articles under similar names, so lately I have been
I also create stubs when I am struck with a thought. My watchlist has been growing and growing, since I leave my
Some gushing!
I am very excited about Wikipedia, which in
An old toy
Nomination for Patron Saint of Wikipedia
It just has to be Cliff Clavin! Dontcha think?
My CSS experiments and my small customization of my Wikipedia view
I sometimes have lost edits because I forgot to do the final save after successive Previews. I think the problem was partially banner blindness, but mostly that the "NOTE: This is only a preview and has not yet been saved" message was too small and blended in with the article text. So with the help of some good Wikipedians on the Village Pump Assistance page, I was able to make the notice big (and also blinking on Firefox, IE doesn't support blink). Now if I miss it, shame on me. Here's the line in my monobook.css, along with the development ones that didn't quite work. Note: I had to revise it for changes in MediaWiki 1.5 in June 2005. But I noticed in Feb. 2007 that it doesn't work any more.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Spalding/monobook.css
WikiProjects
I like the idea of the following WikiProjects.
- I think WikiProject Red Link Recovery is a good cause and Wikiproject, because I have often found red links that are very easily fixed, usually because there is already an article with a slightly different capitalization, plural, or some similar small difference. I know that Wikipedia usually has an article (at least a stub) for almost any possible fairly common subject, word, or phrase, so very often I find wonderful articles that are just a small correction away from a red link in any given article, and I want to do as much as possible to prevent myself and others from wasting time and effort trying to reinvent the wheel. Here's a paste from the project site for easy reference: In order to help people find this project, consider using an edit summary like the following********link repair ([[Wikipedia:WikiProject Red Link Recovery|You can help!]])*********
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability is another one I recently joined.
- There is also Wikipedia:WikiProject Categories that I hope to explore.
Use of Javascript in the monobook.js page
I copied and pasted this suggestion from User:ABCD on Wikipedia_talk:Edit summary#Forcing summaries to force an edit summary to prevent inadvertently leaving it blank, since I usually intend to fill it in with descriptive text as a courtesy to others that are watching it. I tried it both as something nice to have and to get experience in Wikipedia Javascript customizing via the User:Spalding/monobook.js page.
The biggest problem in getting this to work was getting the browser cache refreshed. For Firefox, control-reload didn't seem to do it, it took control-shift-R. And it seems to wear out and need to be redone fairly often. There is obviously still a detail of this browser cache stuff that I still don't understand.
Useful links that I keep here for reference and as aids for editing
- grand pubah, the Manual of Style, the critical Guide to Layout, Editing Policy, then working with internal and external links
- Help:Wikipedia:_The_Missing_Manual - This looks useful.
- User_talk:Spalding#Welcome_to_the_Wikipedia - I keep forgetting this is on my User Talk page
- Wikipedia:Featured articles - I often wonder why there isn't a nice sample article for help in formatting, writing, etc., and then duh, I remember that is what featured articles are.
- Wikipedia:Categorization projects (current)- I have avoided categories so far after an initial burst of enthusiasm that was quickly squelched by confusion and disillusionment, but I think they are potentially good. The main problem as I see it is that every article can potentially be in very many categories which gets too messy, IMO, so I will peruse these for the categorization philosophy (1-3 categories per article? I don't know) as time permits before getting involved again.
- Wikipedia:Good_articles - Interesting
- Wikipedia:Wikiquette- Hey, can't hurt!
- American and British English spelling differences - To help separate misspellings from American-British differences
- Wikipedia:Build the web- one of the best features of Wikipedia is the interconnectedness of all things (within reason)
- m:Wikipedia_sociology- Interesting.
- Wikipedia:EIW- The Editor's Index to Wikipedia
- Why_was_my_page_deleted - Criteria_for_speedy_deletion - Notability
- Hatnotes- General templates such as "about", etc. used at the top of articles.
- Wikipedia:Citing_sources - A very difficult area for me, but I need to get proficient since it is a frequently cited (get it?!) area of improvement needed.
Examples
- Example of an article with references Traffic_light_rating_system
- Example of articles using the "about" template - Good Night, Nurse! and Goodnight Nurse
- I noticed on 11/30/2013 that this article now uses the notation (without spaces) { { About| this|that|that } } instead of the old "otheruses" template to give Time moves on!
- Example of a simple citeweb tag for a reference:
References
- ^ "Squirrels go nuts for tasty Christmas lights". CBC News. 2008-12-04.
Fairly obscure tips and tricks that are in the manual but I missed for too long
These are all documented somewhere in the Wikipedia:Project_namespace namespace, but I put them here for quick reference.
- Comments can be included right on an article page by enclosing them as shown: <!-- Comment --> . A good use of this is to warn to check the talk page first when there is a section that is contentious and has been the subject of instruction manual!
- A pipe "|" symbol may be used to strip off the parenthetical part of a link and/or a prefix such as Wiktionary: or Wikipedia: or m:. An example is [[instruction manual (computer and video games)|]] used above to display instruction manual. Also useful for Wiktionary links - in that case it strips off the Wiktionary prefix.
Things to remember
Wikipedia's niche
Comprehensiveness! There is an entry for just about anything! As I entered the above section on the Boiling frog syndrome, I found that just about any term I wikify already has an article, so a person's writing is sort of
As just one example, I thought it was quite funny when I discovered that there is a Category:Fictional chickens. Then after watching Curb Your Enthusiasm, when I searched for "Groat's" I found it in List of fictional diseases. So now my newest toy is the Category Search, where searching just for "fictional" returns many pages of results. Then I thought "If there is a fictional chickens category, why not frogs, and sure enough, of course there is a Category:Fictional frogs and toads. As I said, Comprehensiveness!
This user is a member of the Association of Inclusionist Wikipedians.
The motto of the AIW is conservata veritate, which translates to "with the preserved truth". |
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