Terrierista

Hello, Terrierista, and Welcome to Wikipedia! Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking or or by typing four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your username and the date. Also, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. Happy editing! Northumbrian (talk) 14:11, 29 August 2010 (UTC) Getting started Introduction The five pillars of Wikipedia How to edit a page Intuitive guide to Wikipedia Finding your way around Table of contents Department directory Editing articles How to develop an article Manual of Style Getting help Frequently asked questions Cheatsheet Where to ask a question Help pages New contributors' help page Article Wizard - a Wizard to help you create articles How you can help Contributing to Wikipedia Community Portal Follow Wikipedia etiquette Practice civility

Your question at the Help Desk about the Jane Greer article

Hi there, I've responded to your question here. Cheers, Northumbrian (talk) 01:56, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Hello again, I see you've been working on the article about Ms. Greer, very good. I've helped a bit, moved the reference tags out of the References section and inline into the text (the preferred method here, so we know which reference goes with which assertion in the article). I've also removed the word "iconic", as it seemed a peacock term, which we try to avoid in a neutral encyclopedia.

I think it's getting closer, but I'm still not sure the catalog as a secondary source passes muster. I do think that that Writer's Digest assertion would make an excellent secondary source, however. Would you be able to provide a reference to that anywhere online, or even to the article in the digest print version? Best of luck, Northumbrian (talk) 17:17, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Northumbrian, thanks for all your help on the Jane Greer article. Earlier this afternoon I emailed Writer's Digest to learn if they can help me reference the 1984 award, but I'm sure I won't hear from them until Monday at the earliest. The page is scheduled to be removed tomorrow. Are you one of the highly mysterious administrative decision-makers? This has all been very difficult (and came at a horrible time for me, as I didn't learn about the warning until 2 days ago), but it's also been fascinating to learn how Wikipedia does things.Terrierista (talk) 03:45, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome! Let's hope the come back to you soon. I went to their website and looked around, but didn't see any links to free archives. I was thinking a library might have a copy that that you could get the reference information from.

At any rate, it looks like another editor has found a good secondary source and removed the deletion template in the meantime, so the article should be safe for the moment, though it will take time to either find sources for all the assertions in it or to re-write it without them.

I'm sorry it all happened at a bad time for you too, I know exactly how frustrating it is as a newcomer to Wikipedia and finding out what a labyrinth it really is.

No, I'm not an administrator, just an editor who's been around the bend once or twice here, who checks the Help Desk now and then to see if I can help with questions such as yours. In a literal sense, administrators are simply trusted and experienced editors with a few more technical capabilities such as the ability to block vandals from editing, to quickly and easily remove vandalism, to delete articles or other material when required, etc. Ideally, decisions here are made by community consensus, and you're now part of the community, so you have a say. However, much of the consensus should be guided by Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, some of which are hard and fast rules, others mere guidelines.

I've gone ahead and put a welcome template on your talk page above; it should show up as a welcome message with links to useful information for beginners. Now that there's some breathing room from saving the article, if you do plan to stay here and continue contributing, I'd go ahead and take look at them, especially those in the Getting Started section, to get a feel for it all so you can see that next policy coming when it attempts to crash down on you. :o) And if you have any other questions that any of those links above don't seem to answer, please feel free to just ask at my talk page, and I'll either try to answer or point you in the right direction.

Best of luck, Northumbrian (talk) 14:11, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Terrierista. You have new messages at Northumbrian's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Northumbrian (talk) 17:44, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome!

Hello, sorry for the delay in response, am traveling on business this week so not as active as I usually am. Your changes look good, excellent! You're quite welcome for the assistance; I hate to see new editors potentially turned off the encyclopedia by the chore of trying to navigate a maze of guidelines, policies, templates, and coding. I hope you enjoy your time here when you make it back! :o) Cheers, Northumbrian (talk) 23:12, 1 September 2010 (UTC)