User:CaroleHenson/CM workspace

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This is a workspace page.

Quickies

WP vs MOS

Some of the help files start with WP, others with MOS. I think I understand the difference --- MOS is for the composing style items that apply to any publication; WP is for everything else. What I don't get is why some questions are addressed in both WP and MOS files, and in such cases how do I know which is the best one to read. Or does it make any difference? Mandruss (talk) 05:54, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

You're seeing the results of an organic process. The Manual of Style (MOS) was intended to be a guideline for creating articles, but until recently was pretty inadequate. So, there are also a number of Wikipedia pages that were written to provide guidelines about specific topics. In the meantime, the MOS has gotten better.

Since MOS is within Wikipedia, when I'm looking for something in particular, I do an "advanced search" and check off "Wikipedia", such as this query.--CaroleHenson (talk) 06:19, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Vandalism

I've noticed one or two editors say that they like to spend a lot of their time repairing vandalism. Assuming they're fixing mostly things not on their watchlists, how do they find the vandalism? Mandruss (talk) 06:09, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

The primary way that happens is by catching unexpected types of edits to articles on their watchlist... often by a new user or an IP address user. Sometimes it's clear-cut, like an entire article page is blanked out, or a lot of content is removed... other times it's sneaky, like inserting obscene remarks, lies, or changing the information. Sometimes it's accidental, like new users that sign their additions in article space. For articles that are important to me, I check the history when I see articles have been modified.

There are also administrators who watch for certain types of activities. Some types of changes appear on error logs and there are folks that monitor for specific types of changes.--CaroleHenson (talk) 06:25, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Outside of history entries, I've yet to see a single occurrence of vandalism. This, despite the fact that I've been using Wikipedia almost daily for many years (I work the online New York Times crossword every day, and that's one of the ways I use Wikipedia; my sister says it's cheating).

I find that remarkable, given the size of the anti-Wikipedia crowd, and the enormous number of kids (and childlike adults) who have unsupervised Internet access and feel the need to express their angst by breaking something. There must be relatively few articles that are not on the watchlist of at least one editor who monitors it diligently. Mandruss (talk) 08:24, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't see it as much as I used to, but I've got just under 4,000 pages on my watchlist and often spend part of each day either correcting information that was entered in good faith - or resolving vandalism.--CaroleHenson (talk) 15:18, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Here's one example from today that was caught by another user.--CaroleHenson (talk) 15:35, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Show preview

Just spent about two hours cleaning up an article, then decided to try Show preview for the first time. When I returned to the edit, all my changes were gone. After a little investigation, I figured out that I can't use my browser's Back button to return to the edit. The preview page didn't mention that (although it had a nice red message warning me that I was in preview and my edit hadn't been saved), and I'm not real happy about that. Since I tend to click Back without thinking about it when I want to go back, it's probably not safe for me to use preview anyway. That's okay, I guess ... I can just continue to do multiple edits as necessary until it's right. Mandruss (talk) 19:35, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

What a bummer!!! I hate it when those kinds of things happen! I don't know if you want a tip or not, but if I haven't saved in awhile cause I'm working on an edit, I copy the contents to a temp notes file on my P.C. (You want to hear crazy? It's snowing! Doesn't it know it's nearly mid-May? Gotta, hopefully, save some flowers.)--CaroleHenson (talk) 19:44, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Carole, I'm taking a WP:WIKIBREAK, length hard to say at this point. Thanks for all your help to date, you're awesome! Mandruss (talk) 16:35, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Ok, enjoy! Thanks for letting me know.--CaroleHenson (talk) 17:57, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Norman, Oklahoma

Great edits to Norman, Oklahoma. I, too, prefer the spelled out mdy format. You made some great copy edits, too.--CaroleHenson (talk) 20:30, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I grew up here and moved back after 30 years in Texas. Mandruss (talk) 21:05, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

The date format thing was a different editor. Took me a minute to figure out what you were talking about! Mandruss (talk) 21:24, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Lol - at myself. I selected the bunch of your edits and just realized that was in the middle.--CaroleHenson (talk) 21:34, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Land Rush of 1889

Good work on improving the citations within the Land Rush of 1889 article. There is one source, that would be better to get from a book, magazine or newspaper, specifically: Bradford, Susan. "Oklahoma Land Openings 1889-1907". Oklahoma GenWeb. Retrieved 2014-05-09. The GenWeb sites are great sources of information, but the content does not generally have editorial control, such as those found in WP:Reliable sources. Perhaps one of these sources: here would work.

I've searched far and wide and I can't find another source that specifically supports (or contradicts) the statement in the article. Part of the problem is that the named counties didn't exist at the time of the land run; that area hadn't been divided into counties yet.

There are maps from good sources that outline the land run area without counties. I could cite one of those maps, but it wouldn't really support the statement unless the reader somehow overlayed the outline onto a modern map with counties. I don't think that would pass the smell test, do you? Mandruss (talk) 00:22, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

What do you think about: https://www.nationalcowboymuseum.org/research/exhibits/rushes/default.aspx --CaroleHenson (talk) 00:41, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I think you're a showoff LOL. Note that I changed "2013 modern day" to "present-day" because (1) I don't think those county borders are going to change anytime soon, and (2) I think "present-day" sounds better than "modern day", at least in this context.

Done Mandruss (talk) 01:23, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Lol! Sounds good!--CaroleHenson (talk) 01:50, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Also, there's a cool tool to format sources from google books: http://reftag.appspot.com/ - you just enter the url and click "load" and the template gets formatted for the citation.--CaroleHenson (talk) 19:31, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I added a question on Talk:Land Rush of 1889 about why the article isn't named Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889. Do you have a thought about that?--CaroleHenson (talk) 20:05, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Good question. All of the four articles about other Oklahoma land runs have the same problem. I can only guess the reasoning is that the runs were administered by the federal government. It's not great reasoning, but it's all I got. Maybe you'll get something better in its Talk. Mandruss (talk) 20:43, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Ok, cool.--CaroleHenson (talk) 21:32, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

224,000 Web pages contain "Land Run of 1889" but no "Oklahoma Land Run of 1889". 43,500 pages contain "Oklahoma Land Run of 1889". This seems to indicate a strong Web preference for the phrase without the word Oklahoma. It still doesn't explain why. Mandruss (talk) 03:53, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Is there any way to determine who has that page on their watchlists, and how active they are (e.g., date of last login)? What will you do if you never get a credible answer to your question? Mandruss (talk) 04:06, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Based on your findings, it sounds as if the article name should stay as is. I could post your findings on the talk page and close it out. I am guessing that it doesn't contain "Oklahoma" because Oklahoma wasn't founded as a state until 1907 (I think that's the year). Does it make sense to you to keep the article title as is?--CaroleHenson (talk) 04:52, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm for asking a similar question on the talk pages of the other four articles (similar in the sense that the question is really about all five articles, not just one). I'd be happy to do that, but I think most experienced editors would naturally pay more attention to another experienced editor. The other articles are:

Land Run of 1891
Land Run of 1892
Land Run of 1893
Land Run of 1895 Mandruss (talk) 05:30, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

I posted the question on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Oklahoma#Title name for Land Run of 1889 and will look up contributor's names from these articles and post a talkback on their user page to ask them to chime in if they're interested.--CaroleHenson (talk) 06:28, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

If or when you come back, the feedback on this issue was:

":Well the main reason why the first one is not named Oklahoma land run of 1889, is the simple fact that at the time Oklahoma didn't exist. Oklahoma territory wasn't established till a year later on May 2, 1890. As for the others its more along the lines of common name. Nearly all of the land runs had other names but most of them are mostly known as the Land Run of 1881 and so on. Also do to the fact that there have never been any other Land runs in the United States there seems to be no why that you can mistake these land runs for any others. If you fill other wise the fill free to request a move on any or all of them. If you have anymore questions please feel free to leave me a message here or on my talk page.--Dcheagle • talk • contribs 22:06, 12 May 2014 (UTC)"

And, so I created redirects Oklahoma Land Run of 1889, etc. Thanks for your research and input on this!--CaroleHenson (talk) 01:19, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

John F. Kennedy

Great edits to John F. Kennedy article, including the numerous capitalization edits and movement of images to align with the corresponding text.

I'm wondering if the bit about "First Family comedy album" might do better with the — dashes because of the number of commas in the sentence. Just a thought. Otherwise, looks great!--CaroleHenson (talk) 20:39, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! Great to have someone who appreciates that stuff. Re First Family, I see your point, but how do you create a dash like that? And do you know whether it's more correct to put a blank on each side of one? Mandruss (talk) 21:02, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

You can add the emdash by selecting the "Wiki markup" option from the second half of the edit screen (just before the place to enter the edit summary) - and it's the second item. Or you can use &mdash ; (with the semicolon immediately after the "h") to make —

I kind of like the spaces, so I add them. It seems to crunched together to me without them.--CaroleHenson (talk) 21:28, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Done Mandruss (talk) 22:27, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Cool, looks good!--CaroleHenson (talk) 23:04, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

User page

You may want to add something to your user page. Once you do, your user name will no longer appear as a redlink in the article history, contributions and watchlist pages - meaning you won't look like a new user. Some people add a brief statement about their interests to start.

Done Mandruss (talk) 22:19, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Cool, and funny, too! I envy how close you got to your pilot's license!--CaroleHenson (talk) 23:06, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

For more involved user pages, you can find some ideas at WP:UPYES, information about your background or interests, or projects membership.--CaroleHenson (talk) 20:21, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Feedback types

I'm also interested in your ideas, if any, about things to do in the wiki source to make it more readable and maintainable. No need to write me a style manual, just mention things as we go. Mandruss (talk) 21:12, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what you mean. Do you mean how things appear in edit mode?--CaroleHenson (talk) 21:30, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes. For example, do you like to use otherwise unnecessary white space to separate things for better readability (i.e., easier future editing for yourself and others)? If so, where? Mandruss (talk) 22:15, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

The edit mode is pretty tricky. There's not a lot that can be done until the beta graphical user interface is ready for prime-time.

There are a couple of things, though, like adding comments  to indicate where things are located it the content in edit mode is really confused.

Under your "Preferences" (top line menu), then the "Gadgets" tag, "Editing" section, the third option is "Syntax highlighter". It's not perfect, but it highlights formatting syntax so that it's a bit easier to read the edit mode text.

I'll think of some others.--CaroleHenson (talk) 23:26, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Overlinking Type 1

Let's use this section to talk about overlinking. If there's any really thorough guidance on the subject, I haven't run across it. That might help explain why I see so much overlinking. A whole lot of people seem to think that if you can wikilink it, you should (and I think they like doing it because wikilinks are cool). I know that's wrong, but I need a better instinct for where to draw the line.

Just for starters, U.S. state in the second sentence of Land Rush of 1889. How many people reading that article are going to want to read up on what a U.S. state is? Mandruss (talk) 02:10, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Good question. The pro of linking is that it greatly enhances visibility of articles - and it makes it easy for readers to get further information easily. Generally people and organizations, like universities, etc. are linked once each article. But, it shouldn't be used for very common works like names of countries, common animals (horse, cattle), and other very common terms.

Even bearing in mind that not all English (or multi-lingual) readers are from the United States, I would agree that U.S. state is not a necessary link.

Does that help?--CaroleHenson (talk) 02:23, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

It's a start. First, to simplify things, we should separate two types of overlinking:

Where a certain wikilink isn't needed at all in that article.

Where there are too many wikilinks to the same target. I'll create another section for this later.

For me, the more links there are, the lower the readability. The color changes seem to create a sort of visual interference for me, and a lot of them slow me down to a crawl. Also, from WP:OVERLINK: "An overlinked article contains an excessive number of links, making it difficult to identify links likely to aid the reader's understanding significantly."

Take a look at WP:UNDERLINK and WP:OVERLINK. As I read them, we should unlink U.S. state, United States, and Oklahoma --- and possibly the county names, too, depending on your interpretation of the very vague word, "major".

That article isn't that bad, I've seen a lot that are far worse. Many editors would have linked "Hollywood" in that article, for example, not to mention a few dozen other unneeded and distracting links. ^{Yawn. I'm going to bed.} Mandruss (talk) 05:02, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I weigh in a lot about overlinking and underlinking. I came to a general framework from conversations with other users -- in the end how a lot of things get resolved.

I would agree about U.S. state and there is absolute consensus not to link countries, like United States. For counties, you may want to think about a reader from another country - or someone who wants to get the lay of the land, so to speak. Is it more annoying to have the links, or to have to go up to the search window to look up each county if they're interested.--CaroleHenson (talk) 06:31, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

If there's absolute consensus not to link countries, I could locate and eliminate all of the links to United States, at least.

Is there some record of that consensus that I could link to in the edit summaries? If not, could one be created? Just something to help reduce reverts?
Can you think of any exceptions, cases where the link is appropriate? Mandruss (talk) 04:28, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

There's lots of discussion in the linking archives about this topic, all of which builds upon the statement in WP:OVERLINKING that links should not be made to "the names of major geographic features and locations".

If you're really excited about de-linking, I have a couple of suggestions: 1) post a message on the Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking page and see if there are pros and cons to that - or some specific trouble countries. From what I've seen, it would seem to me a safe de-linking would be [[United States|American]], which is used a lot. 2) I'd very highly recommend the use of a tool like WP:AWB where you can search for [[United States]], for instance, and use the find and replace to change [[United States]] --> United States and then save the change. An added bonus is that the AWB would find and fix some common errors in the process.--CaroleHenson (talk) 08:26, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Citation needed tag

I'm curious about this tag. If I see something that doesn't have a citation, I know it needs a citation, since everything should be cited. What's the point of the tag, then? Does it automatically add to some global list of citations needed? Mandruss (talk) 05:03, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

If you add {{citation needed|date=May 2014}} at the end of an uncited sentence or paragraph

Or, {{Refimprove|date=May 2014}} at the top of the article if there are a lot of citations missing,

then it appears in a worklist for that month, like Category:Articles lacking in-text citations from May 2014. At the bottom of the page are "hidden categories" that identify the worklist categories. I'm not sure if you have to set something up in "Preferences" to see that or not.... hmmm, I'll check.--CaroleHenson (talk) 05:13, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Yep, it's a setting in preferences to see WP:Hidden categories. If you're interested, see Help:Preferences#Appearance.--CaroleHenson (talk) 05:18, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

The page for the category "All articles needing additional references" says, "This category contains all pages labeled with {{Refimprove}}, {{Refimprovesect}}, {{One source}} and {{Unreferenced section}}". It doesn't mention {{Citation needed}}. I can spend some time working on this kind of thing, but I think I'd rather start with individual citations needed rather than entire articles. Is that in a different list, or is the above statement just incomplete? Mandruss (talk) 12:59, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I hope you don't mind me chiming in here (I saw your post at the Teahouse regarding adoption) and then noticed this question. While a goal is to have just about everything actually sourced, and our best content usually conforms to that, the applicable policy, verifiability does not require this but rather that all information must be sourceable – (capable of being verified in sources). We only require actual citations – proof of that – in: quotations, and any "material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged" (emphasis added).

The section of the verifiability policy known as WP:BURDEN is incredibly important and directly applicable: it provides in sum and substance that if you believe something is dubious, wrong, probably unverifiable..., you can remove it and it is the burden of the person wishing to retain that material to provide a source using an inline citation or it cannot be returned to the article. Understanding the interplay of this is key to understanding when to use the citation needed tag.

In practice, instead of just removing material, placing the citation needed tag is a method of challenging material you question, asking for actual evidence of verifiability by verification in a source. (Of course, clearly inappropriate material should just be removed, and this is especially true of unsourced controversial material about a living person.)

So, if you find a statement you think is dubious or controversial or likely wrong, you can just remove it, but placing the tag to present the challenge is often a better and less drama-inducing way; if not met by a citation being added after some appropriate time has passed, you then remove the challenged material. (Quotations which lack a source also get the tag but that's just straightforward.) Note that there is rather broad consensus that the citation needed tag should not be peppered throughout an article or section but rather anywhere you would do so, use {{unreferenced}}, {{refimprove}} {{refimprove section}} or a related template. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:24, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Hi Fuhghettaboutit - I've seen you around from time to time. Yep, I know that on the continuum of viewpoints about citing sources that are some folks that don't consider it mandatory to have cited sources. I think that material should be cited - and I cannot see a reason why it shouldn't be cited. For me, it's important for managing notability, copyright infringement and that the material comes from reliable sources - and really important for articles about living people. When I've worked on unsourced articles, I often find that some of the content is not consistent among reliable sources and requires editing / clarificaton. It's interesting to find that a lot of time when sources are not available the content is direct copies of material on the web... and/or from non-reliable sources. I go with the approach, as do other editors that I've worked with on history and visual arts articles, to ensure that the information is properly sourced.--CaroleHenson (talk) 15:29, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Wow. This feels more than a little over my head at this point. I think I'll save this and come back to it when I'm ready for it. But, in my humblest of opinions, I think when two very experienced editors differ this much on something this important, it's a sign that the rules and guidelines are leaving too much room for interpretation. It's not like the guidelines would be too complicated if they took a clear stand on questions like these. And there must be a lot of time being wasted because different factions of experienced editors are continuously moving things in opposite directions. Mandruss (talk) 16:53, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

In practice, I don't think that this is an editing or article improvement issue - No one ever has a problem with enhancing an article and adding sources. The only net issue that I can see is tagging for citations too frequently.

From my opinion, what I remember of Fuhghettaboutit is that he or she is a particularly good editor (and possibly administrator?). A couple of things may be at play. I've been working on projects where there have been senior editors that have groomed me to be very careful about ensuring content is well-cited, namely English and U.S. history and visual arts. I fully concede that I am on the stricter side of the continuum based upon my occupational background. That said, I cannot remember experiencing an issue in tagging articles with cn tags, ref improve, or cleaning up articles.

It comes to a point of sorting out for yourself where in the continuum you fall - and how things seem to roll within particular WikiProjects. I think the key issues are when looking at an article is if there are copyright issues, WP:Original research, one-side opinions or inconsistencies with prevailing opinions about a topic. That's really the issue, and I think that's the area where we'd all agree - it just may be how we get there is different.--CaroleHenson (talk) 18:10, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Okay, well thanks to you both for the input.

I embarked on an attempt to improve "articles needing additional references", and I found that I just couldn't get into it. I'm not well suited to that job; that prevents me from enjoying it, and my commitment to Wikipedia ends where I stop enjoying it. What I am good at is copyediting, and I see a need for more of that. Also matters of aesthetics, such as image layout, and I can improve existing citations to make them more standardized and complete. In other words, the kinds of things that I've mostly been doing to date, although I'll probably expand my "skill set" very gradually.

Unless there's a list of articles that need that kind of work, I'll just continue to roam and improve things as I run across them. Mandruss (talk) 01:50, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

That sounds like a great idea! It's really not fun if you're not enjoying it. I don't know if this is helpful or not, but you may want to scope out some WikiProjects that may interests you. Then, you can watch the talk pages and see if there are places to jump in to conversations, article improvement, etc. For instance, for history WikiProjects see this query. Usually the place to join is midway or towards the bottom of the WikiProject page.--CaroleHenson (talk) 03:13, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Carole. You won't find many people more keen on requiring sources than I. I think we are actually of two like minds on this:-) My post was to explain the state of policy, and how it interfaces with use of the CN tag. I have actually proposed making verifiability have more teeth but unfortunately, what the policy is, and what I think it should be are two different things.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:09, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

@Fuhghettaboutit: - Wowee, great comments on your Village pump posting. I couldn't have said it better myself!

I think I got hung up on the use of cn tags to question statements. I just had a visual of the number of articles that I've seen that had no article level references needed tag - and just a few (often long-standing) cn tags, and my brain got stuck on that visual. Along with running into some folks somewhat recently that have had a very laissez-faire approach (and use Wikipedia:Ignore all rules liberally). Sorry for my misunderstanding.--CaroleHenson (talk) 05:08, 12 May 2014 (UTC)