Happyme22
Nancy Reagan Edits
Thanks for contributing to the Nancy Reagan article. If you could WP:Cite your statements, it would go a long way towards keeping them in the article. Without them, the statements get reverted (removed as uncited). I want you to enjoy your experience here, and if I can assist you in learning how things are done, let me know.Arcayne 03:06, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
Hello, Happyme22, 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:
- The five pillars of Wikipedia
- How to edit a page
- Help pages
- Tutorial
- How to write a great article
- Manual of Style
I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name 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 someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! Arcayne 03:43, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
The above is the first thing that I received from an editor here in Wikipedia. I hope you find it as sueful as I did. The Five Pillars are really important, as they discuss something called Neutral Point of View WP:NPOV and WP:Cite. The fact that you met the Reagans makes you important to the article - it will help you spot fake information about the Reagans. Myself, I don't particularly like the Reagans (speaking specifically of their political decisions and policies), and I think that helps to balance out people who are going to either try to screw the article up out of hatred, or screw it up with over-complimentary comments. Remaining neutral is vital here. However, staying neutral alone won't help. There is something called WP:Bootcamp which will help you learn the ins and outs of editing and contributing. It is awesomely helpful. Let me know how else I can help. We are in this together and who knows? Someday soon, you will do just this very thing for someone else. :)
One last thing: signing your posts is REALLY helpful. The way to do that automatically is to add four tilde's (~). If you look below your edit screen and below the edit summary line, you will see a series of squiggles in blue afte the words 'sign your name'. When you do that, you don't have to type out your name, and it automatically adds the date and time you added your post. Drop me a line, and see how it works.Arcayne 03:43, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
- Hey, your autosignature worked just fine! Let me know how things work out. One last bit of advice - which of course you shouldn't feel compelled to take. The first article you work on should be something you know about but don't care that much about. You need to be able to walk away from an argument, and that means not having personal feelings one way or the other about the article. By not caring about it, you are more able of dealing with difficult editors and contributors, and you also are able to keep some distance, so when an edit doesn' go the way you think you should, it doesn't bug you too much (I am learning that lesson now - lol).Arcayne 04:27, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
- First of all, good work citing your research. It looks pretty sharp. Now we need to address how to use quotation marks where what you wrote is a direct quote from the source material. Remember that you need to aim for VERY neutral language (WP:NPOV), unless it is a direct quote. Also, while I think it is awesome that you remembered to Wiki-cite, an item with a wiki article only needs to be cited once in an article, usually the first time it is used.
- Here is the paragraph you added, with my proposed changes underneath it:
- Mrs. Reagan has described in her memoirs that March 30, 1981, was the worst day of his life. That day, her husband was shot by a would-be assassin. After Mrs. Reagan was told that President Reagan was shot, she rushed off to George Washington University Hospital, only a few miles from the White House. When she arrived, she found her husband in the operating room. The First Lady described that moment in her memoirs: "I had seen emergency rooms before, but I had never seen one like this-with my husband in it." The operation ended up being a success, and on April 12, Nancy escorted President Reagan from the hospital back to the White House.
{{cite book}}: Empty citation (help)
Mrs. Reagan has described in her memoirs that the assassination attempt on her huband on March 30, 1981was the worst day of her life. She describes the moment she arrived at [[George Washington University Hospital:
- "I had seen emergency rooms before, but I had never seen one like this-with my husband in it."
OnApril 12, Nancy escorted President Reagan from the hospital back to the White House. {{cite book}}: Empty citation (help)
- Note the differences between my edit and yours. I cut down a lot of information that is unnecessary, such as the fact that she rushed off to the hostpital, or that the operation was a success. The first isn't necessary, and the second part is more about Ronald Reagan than his wife. As well, we don't need to reintroduce the fact that Ron was her husband - it is mentioned in the beginning of the article. Why don't you undo (also called revert) you own edit and clean it up a bit. You don't have to use my specific text, but other editors will brutally remove anything that looks like favoritism - it isn't allowed at all in WP.
- Articles can get really long, and its important to be brief. I noticed how you kept a lot of the preferential descriptions out of your language, which is good. Nothing will get data removed faster than a failure to use NPOV. Your first edit is really good. Aim for a little more brevity. It looks like the citations were a hassle for you (were you using a template?). An easier way to cite references would be like this.
"This is a nifty website." OR This is a nifty website [1]
The way to do easy cites like this is pretty pain-free:
- . find the citation you want to use. In this case, we are using http://questionablecontent.net/ (I am using bold text to illustrate, and you don't need to do that).
- . Highlight the entire web address, and rt-click and copy it.
- . Go to the sentence in the text where you want to insert the link
- In the first example, put the cursor right before the word "This" and add a space. Then arrow key the cursor back on space. You should have a space between the cursor and the word. Paste the link, making sure to leave a space between the net address and the word "This." Then, highlight both the entire net address and the word "This." With that selected, click on the 4th tooltip button from the left. It looks like a globe, and the button for the external links (as opposed to wiki article links). When you hit that button, a series of double brackets will appear and the highlighting will disappear. Poof! You now have an external link tied to the word, "This". You can click on the Show Preview button below, to get a look at what it will look like in the article. This will save you some time.
- In the second instance, look at the edit page, to see how to use the <> and ref stuff. If I do it here, it will put in a footnote link and mess up your page. Paste the link between the ref marks. Again, hit Show Preview and see what the final version will look like when you save the page. If it is what you are aiming for, don't forget to save the page after you add your signature (the four tildes).
I hope that helps.Arcayne 06:14, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
Please do not add any more pictures to Death and state funeral of Ronald Reagan unless it's really necessary. We have enough pictures of people and caskets. At some point, it's (pardon my expression) overkill. --WoohookittyWoohoo! 07:11, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
- Well I understand that. Be careful, though, with the copyright status/source stuff with the pictures you are uploading. And just try to keep the total pictures on the article at 10 or under. Any more than that and we're pushing fair use guidelines. --WoohookittyWoohoo! 07:37, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
February 2007
Welcome to Wikipedia. It might not have been your intention, but your recent contribution removed content from Ronald Reagan. Please be more careful when editing articles and do not remove content from Wikipedia without a good reason, which should be specified in the edit summary. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. If you would like to experiment again, please use the sandbox. Thank you. SparrowsWing (talk) 04:01, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
- : Sorry - I didn't realise you were moving the pic. SparrowsWing (talk) 04:09, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
Your request for help with image copyright tags
Happyme22, you asked for assistance and advice in correctly selecting and adding image copyright tags to your images. I thought maybe I could help with some advice, attempt to answer any questions you might have about Wikipedia's image use policy and offer to assist you in addressing your problems. Try to specify on each image's description page where the image came from, such as scanning a paper copy, or a URL, or a name/alias and method of contact for the photographer. In addition, if possible, mention who owns the copyright to the image. As a guideline, make sure that one of the following is true:
- you own the all of the rights to the image (usually meaning that you created the image yourself and it doesn't depict the work of someone else or pieces of images to which you don't own the copyright), or
- you can prove that the copyright holder has licensed the image under a free license, or
- you can prove that the image is in the public ___domain, or
- you believe it is fair use and have included on the image's description page a fair use rationale for the specific use of the image that you intend.
If none of the above are true, you'll need to ask the copyright holder to release the image under the GFDL or other free license. Wikipedia has a page at WP:COPYREQ that helps to explain how to go about requesting permission to use other people's work in Wikipedia. In particular, if they don't specifically agree to the GFDL or one of the other standard free licenses, they must agree to allow modification, redistribution, and use for any purpose, including commercial purposes. Finally, the image description page must contain an appropriate and accurate image copyright tag. If you like, I am more than willing to attempt to answer any question you might have. Just post them here, in response to this note, and I'll try to back to you quickly. —RP88 05:40, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
Re:
The citation style is currently mixed on all articles - each citation cites in a different way, which is sloppy. Cite according to {{citeweb}}, and this will remove that problem at FAC - FAC reviewers will easily pick up the mixed style. LuciferMorgan 04:00, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
- On a side note, consider actually adding something to your user page about yourself or your Wikipedia interests etc. Wikipedians usually suspect users without created user pages of making bad edits / vandalism - I'm not accusing you of this, just giving you friendly advice. Hope this helps. LuciferMorgan 04:00, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
- If the {{citeweb}} link is a bit awkward to understand for you, just inspect how I've cited the article "Christ Illusion", which uses it for all its inline citations. LuciferMorgan 04:04, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Ronald Reagan
While your own contributions have been excellent, I'm not really sure why you appear to have deleted a substantial amount of material that had been present earlier. (RookZERO 07:06, 5 March 2007 (UTC))
Hey. I got your message. I agree the section was a bit long winded, however, alot more stuff got cut than probably should have been... I don't really have time to do much work on it myself, but it would be good if some of it could be worked back in.. (RookZERO 18:19, 9 March 2007 (UTC))