Thomas5388
Welcome!
editWelcome to Wikipedia, Thomas5388! Thank you for your contributions. I am ThatPeskyCommoner and have been editing Wikipedia for quite some time, so if you have any questions feel free to leave me a message on my talk page. You can also check out Wikipedia:Questions or type {{helpme}}
at the bottom of this page. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:
- Introduction
- The five pillars of Wikipedia
- How to edit a page
- Help pages
- How to write a great article
Also, when you post on talk pages you should sign your name using four tildes (~~~~); that will automatically produce your username and the date. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!
Some Tips for you
editHi Thomas5388, I thought I'd drop a few notes on your talk page with some help on writing articles :o)
First of all, it may be best for you to do a bit of reading, starting with the Wikipedia manual of style, which will give you a lot of information about how Wikipedia prefers its articles to be written. It's not as hard to follow as it might look; quite a bit of the information there probably won't be vital for you at first.
Second, I recommend you make a user sandbox - which is just an area you can use to practise in, and to make notes in, and to get things ready in. If you click this red link: user:Thomas5388/Sandbox, that will let you create that page (it gives you an edit window to start work in). Anything, anywhere, on the help and information pages which gives you an example, try it out in your sandbox until you're familiar with it.
For your article, the next thing you want to do is start collecting as much information as you can about it. Google searches (particularly in Books and Scholar) will be your best friend for this! Once you've found the information, the next most important thing is to start writing up each fact in your own words (very important, this), and make a note at the same time of exactly where that information came from. Build in the references as you go along; I'm going to copy in, down below this, a whole heap of help on doing references, which was produced by one of our best teachers (Chzz).
Here's another place that you'll find incredibly useful - citation templates which you can copy and paste into your sandbox, between <ref></ref> tags; you just fill in the blanks from your sources into the template, and you'll end up with nicely formatted inline citations :o) It all helps. Remember to add a references section to your sandbox (make a new line, and put ==References== on it, and type {{reflist}} on the next line, so that you can see how your citations look as you do them. Remember to save your page often! You don't want to lose your work.
Hopefully this will give you a good start and make life easier for you. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 08:44, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
How references work
editSimple references
editThese require two parts;
- a)
Chzz is 98 years old.<ref> "The book of Chzz", Aardvark Books, 2009. </ref> He likes tea. <ref> [http://www.nicecupofteaandasitdown.com Tea website] </ref>
- b) A section called "References" with the special code "{{reflist}}";
== References == {{reflist}}
(an existing article is likely to already have one of these sections)
To see the result of that, please look at user:chzz/demo/simpleref. Edit it, and check the code; perhaps make a test page of your own, such as user:Thomas5388/reftest and try it out.
Named references
editChzz was born in 1837. <ref name=MyBook> "The book of Chzz", Aardvark Books, 2009. </ref> Chzz lives in Footown.<ref name=MyBook/>
Note that the second usage has a / (and no closing ref tag). This needs a reference section as above; please see user:chzz/demo/namedref to see the result.
Citation templates
editYou can put anything you like between <ref> and </ref>, but using citation templates makes for a neat, consistent look;
Chzz has 37 Olympic medals. <ref> {{Citation | last = Smith | first = John | title = Olympic medal winners of the 20th century | publication-date = 2001 | publisher = [[Cambridge University Press]] | page = 125 | isbn = 0-521-37169-4 }} </ref>
Please see user:chzz/demo/citeref to see the result.
For more help and tips on that subject, see user:chzz/help/refs.
Something to make your life easier!
editHi there Thomas5388! I've just come across one of your articles, and noticed that you had to create titles for your url links manually, or were using bare urls as references.
You might want to consider using this tool - it makes your life a whole heap easier, by filling in complete citation templates for your links. All you do is install the script on Special:MyPage/common.js, or or Special:MyPage/vector.js, then paste the bare url (without [...] brackets) between your <ref></ref> tabs, and you'll find a clickable link called Reflinks in your toolbox section of the page (probably in the left hand column). Then click that tool. It does all the rest of the work (provided that you remember to save the page! It doesn't work for everything (particularly often not for pdf documents), but for pretty much anything ending in "htm" or "html" (and with a title) it will do really, really well. Happy editing! Pesky (talk …stalk!) 08:44, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
Nomination for deletion of Template:BE-IR lines
editTemplate:BE-IR lines has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Pkbwcgs (talk) 11:42, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
Nomination for deletion of Template:BE-IR color
editTemplate:BE-IR color has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Pkbwcgs (talk) 11:44, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
Nomination for deletion of Template:BE-IR stations
editTemplate:BE-IR stations has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Pkbwcgs (talk) 11:44, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
Speedy deletion nomination of Category:BE-InterRegio templates
editA tag has been placed on Category:BE-InterRegio templates indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.
If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself. Liz Read! Talk! 17:59, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
Nomination for deletion of Template:S-line/BE-IC right/E
editTemplate:S-line/BE-IC right/E has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:22, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
Nomination for deletion of Template:S-line/BE-IC left/E
editTemplate:S-line/BE-IC left/E has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. Gonnym (talk) 09:01, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
Nomination for deletion of Template:BE-IC color
editTemplate:BE-IC color has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. Frietjes (talk) 15:48, 14 October 2022 (UTC)