Contributing to Wikipedia articles, talk pages and other tasks can seem complex.

Wikipedia is not without a controversial side, it's not perfect and neither are people who founded or are high level members of Wikipedia.

As a volunteer here, I also have faults. I am passionate about the articles I argue for or against and that can be a good thing or a bad thing. Ultimately I appreciate anyone who takes the time to dedicate their time to Wikipedia articles, debate and other tasks regardless of if it is for monetary, power or voluntary reasons. Thank you!

Wikipedia does seem to do a lot of good. It has no restrictions to the number of articles you can write. It encourages you participate.

Good luck and have lots of fun and I will say sorry in case I end up having to oppose you in a talk section or ask for your material to be removed for example. In the end I would like to see a cooperative effort to improve an article or for suggestions of where an article belongs if it does not make the tough criteria that Wikipedia demands. I believe every author of a article loves that article they made and should get as much respect as possible.

I also accept that sometimes people will be so far apart that working in a cooperative manner will be impossible (and these separations may not always be obvious if for example a person or group of persons is motivated to monetarize a website or shorten the length of articles so they increase exposure on the mobile telephone network). Such divides can be tough to bridge and I am sorry if I fail to do so. I hope the nature of the Wikipedia will not suffer from such conflicts, because ultimately I want as many people who wish to be Wikipedians to feel welcome and valued here.

Welcome, I'm glad your here :)

I hope you enjoy being a part of this community. Thank you for making the effort to contribute to Wikipedia’s content and quality.

Barn-Stars Dedicated to Other People

To those suffering through sickness or feeling unwell

The Get Well Soon Barnstar

		The Get Well Soon Barnstar
		This award is not for me. It's a special wish that you get well soon. This lets you know we hope you're okay. The internet has made the world a smaller place and we feel bad when you are not happy. (Gharr (talk))

To all those people who have suffered though disasters

I know people from all over my country and all over the world. I may have never met all of you in person. When disaster or conflict situation strikes some place in the world I do feel worried about you. I feel sad that you, the people you love or your friends might have been hurt or killed. There has been a lot of disasters and conflict situations of late and I just thought I should provide somthing to say: "I hope all is well in your life and you made it through your troubled times unscathed."

		The Angel Heart Barnstar
		This award is not for me. It goes out to all of you who have suffered through disasters and conflict. This lets you know we hope you're okay. The internet has made the world a smaller place and we feel bad when you are not happy. Gharr (talk) 03:16, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To People Working on The Venus Project, The Zeitgeist Movement, and Jacque Fresco Article.

		The Anti-Vandalism Barnstar
		This is not for me. I generally take notice of edit-wars and vandalism. I know some of you in the The Venus Project, The Zeitgeist Movement, and possibly the unmerged version of the Jacque Fresco article have been spending time undoing these edits. Its a real pity you have to spend your valuable time doing this. I just want to thank you for the effort you made anyway. Gharr (talk) 14:21, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Peace Barnstar

		The Peace Barnstar
		This award is not for me. It is my feeling that The Venus Project, The Zeitgeist Movement, and Jacque Fresco promote peace, nonviolence, and tollerance. By definition, those people who work on these articles also promote those things. The critics voices can be strong in the talk sections, so I just want to say not everyone thinks as they do. Some of us are even thankful for the work you do. Gharr (talk) 14:47, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To My Opponents

I am passionate about my opinions and that may lead me to directly oppose your opinions or support material you don't like. Regardless of if your efforts are done with numerical advantage, privileged rights, tactical genius, obfuscation or good argument, I only chose to oppose you because I have a healthy respect for your powerful opinions and argument. Taking different sides can lead to hurt feelings; but it might lessen the edge if you know that you had me seriously worried.

		The Socratic Barnstar
		To a worthy opponent, you caused me to be seriously concerned, I felt no choice but to challenge your views. Gharr (talk) 15:21, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To Those Visiting Because I left a comment on your article talk page, new article talk page or some other place

For those who like cats

For those who like haiku

For the Rest of you, this is all I can offer

Thanks for visiting my talk page,

The Secret Anti-Cabal Barnstar

There is a certain type of Wikipedian that builds a case against an articles core meaning. These Wikipedians are out to save "us" or save their side from "us." They will present arguments and evidence that range from solid to outright lies. They may take things out of context. It's not really important what they do to win an argument, what is important is that they are here to save their side from "them" and win at all costs.

At the end of the day it is all about science, logic, and what you believe is true. But if there is room for interpretation then, well there is room for conspiracy theories and cabals that have agendas to push a certain interpretation. Fortunately there are people out there to save us.

From my point of view (POV), people that go on talk pages sometimes seem to oppose you with questions about your loyalty, the articles truth, the actual group that supports the article, and backs statements up with any evidence they can scrape up (no matter what the quality of that evidence is). Even when these people are caught out telling a straight out lie, you can't feel betrayed because they come across as having such faith in their ideas that just maybe...there might be some truth to what they say.

No matter what evidence you place in front of these people or how often you reveal that their evidence is based on false facts, they will ignore it all and continue to argue as if nothing has happened. What conviction and well, they really are trying to save the day, the nation, or the world.

		The Secret Anti-Cabal Barnstar
		This is not for me. This award goes out to all you conspiracy theory and "secret" cabal theorist. When an article is saying one thing, it probably isn't saying that at all. When a Wikipedian claims one thing, you know they are actually really claiming something else. Whatever the case, "they" are definitely not on "our" side. Thanks for making us wonder and question ourselves, our lives, the bureaucracy, and well nearly everything we believe in, hold onto out of respect and honor, or take for granted. Spread the word, because we know "they" certainly will not do so! --(Gharr (talk) 14:25, 12 March 2011 (UTC))[reply]

Barn Stars Explained

Wikipedia Awards are part of the Kindness Campaign and are meant to promote Civility and WikiLove.

Barn-stars are apparently something that develops a feeling of community in Wikipedia. I have to admit I would feel slightly uncomfortable going onto some strangers talk page and placing one there unless requested to do so (in which case I would be glad to once I have rechecked the correct award is going to the right person)^[1]

Apparently some people have an awards page (I assume this is just a section in their talk page labeled awards)^[1].

You can give these out yourself to others^[1]. You don't normally leave them on your own page as I have done.

There are also personal awards^[2] and other awards^[3].

Personal awards are designed for a specific event or to spread good cheer^[2]. Other events are for a specific action or event^[3].

There is also Wikilove awards that are meant to spread love in Wikipedia. I suppose that might be similar to Hawaiian flower necklace. Anyway the Wikilove awards are currently a kitten or some other picture^[4]

Notes

• User page information
• Style Manual
• Found a user page that upsets you. The user page may not meet Wikipedia's user page guidelines.
• Wikipedia:New_pages_patrol
• Special:NewPages
• Special:RecentChanges

This book introduces a large cast of characters that take the central stage as they weave their way though life’s problems. We, the reader, look on with curiosity as we wonder how each individual character's problems might be resolved.^[1]

The stage that connects each character is Jack Dempsey's vehicle. It is here we see each character as a small part of a larger group.^[1]

This is a quote from the "Weekend Special" book jacket that describes what the book is about:

Jack Dempsey drives between Brisbane and Harvey Bay, Australia, transporting passengers where they need to go. Although Jack doesn’t make any appreciable amount of money with his commuter transport occupation, to the displeasure of his industrious family, it suits him better than a “real” job.

One of the most colorful fares Jack transports is the dysfunctional Fitzgerald family. Fortunately for the others, daughter Carol is a nurse and a very responsible family member. She tries valiantly to stem their mother’s descent into alcoholism as the older woman run the family bar and restaurant. The other children have moved to far-flung locations and Mrs. Fitzgerald is in denial about her problem, but Carol manages to get her to join Alcoholics Anonymous by videotaping her mother’s inappropriate behavior when drunk.

The other passengers include James, who is having an affair with a sophisticated married woman twenty years his senior, and Johnnie, a travel agent who seems to have an unsavory double life.

Jack Dempsey never has a dull moment driving around his dramatic and diverse passengers!

The author realized her publication on the internet was not being noticed or read at the time. She then decided to have it published in book form. Her decision meant that the book form would use the American language to tell the story, rather then the Australian language of its setting. This in turn allowed the book the maximum chance to reach the widest audiences and also made the publisher happy.^[2]

This is a quote from the "Weekend Special" book jacket that gives a short summary about who the author is:

Maureen Greaves was born in Bundoran Co. Donegal Ireland. There she attended St. Louis Convent where she gained honours in her Intermediate and leaving Certificates.

Maureen also gained honours in English Literature and Free Lance Journalism. She has traveled to many countries in the world settling in Brisbane, Australia during the Eighties. Muareen attended TAFE COLLEGE there gaining diplomas in Short Story writing and Free Lance Journalism. She has had short stories published in leading Australian magazines and is published online with Triond.

In her teens, Maureen and her friend Margaret went to Belfast Northern Ireland in search of employment. Being Catholic was a drawback so they went instead to London England, where there was greater freedom. Maureen got married in the sixties and had two children, Diane and Derek. She now lives with Diane in Brisbane Australia.

The "Weekend Special" has been published by "strategic book publishing" and can be found in "Australian Libraries".

The author also added this incredible summary of her life, the book and a message about the need to be given a chance:

My name is Maureen Greaves I grew up in Bundoran a little town in co Donegal Ireland There I attended St. Louis Convent gaining my Intermediate and Leaving certificates. I also gained honours in Free Lance Journalism and English Literature. I have written books on the Irish Troubles one titled The Orange and the Green. This book depicte a Cathloic family caught up in The TROUBLES. Shaun O'Donevan is cruelly taken from his family and interned in Long Kesh the notorious prison where the hunger strikers like Bobby Sands and his fellow prisoners all died in the name of the cause. I came to Australia in the 1980s and have had short stories published in leading Australian magazines and the stories are also published on line with Triond. WEEKEND SPECIAL IS A BOOK SET IN AUSTRALIA QLD TO BE EXACT. It tells the story of seven passengers being driven from their homes in Harvey Bay to their work place in Brisbane. Jack Dempsey owns the bus and even though he doesn't make much profit in the venture he loves mingling with his passengers and listening about their home life and they are not without intrigue. Take Nora Molloy for instance she would put Scrooge to shame she is so mean and this shows in all her doings with the other passengers. Nora is in trouble with Gwen her flat mate over a fridge. Gwen wants her to buy a new one and Nora is livid at the very thought. She is friends with Stella Cosgrave the judge's daughter who mixes in Nora's opinion with the lower classes with no qualms whatsoever. Like Pat Cassidy son of Mary Cassidy who scrubbed floors for poor and gentry alike before she got cancer and is need of pallitive care. Stella is having an affair with Karl Davis one of the executives Nora works for. Of course Karl is a married man with a young daughter called Charollete. Stella is friendly with Nora because who else can tell her about Karl it is music to her ears hearing about him. another passenger on the bus is Mary Muldoon. Mary is a flamboyant character who runs a taxidermy shop.Scandal surrounds Mary in the theme of Jacques her son who her husband took away from her when she was caught smuggling wild life into the country. The book depicts the everyday life of ordinary people going about their business but it also unfolds the darke side of humanity in the line of scandals and intrigue. I would like if my book got a chance to be read and gain merit on that. If nobody gives you a chance well then where can you get heard just that one breakthrough that many of us crave. LOOK AT SUSAN BOYLE SHE GOT A CHANCE AND SEE WHAT HAPPENED.

The book would be good subject material for schools and Universities They could benefit in their English Studies on how to write fiction and structure a story. They could learn about how to plot a story and get first hand knowledge on how to write a novel themselves if they so wish

This above quote from the discussion section of an article I posted may end up being deleted by wikipedia, so for the moment I have not referenced the link it belongs to. Perhaps this will be a historic note and encouragement to future generations of writers should the original article I posted be deleted.

Gharr (talk) 01:01, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Greaves, M; Weekend special; Strategic Book Publishing; New York [2009]; ISBN: 9781608600007

• "Weekend Special by Maureen Greaves"
• "National Libraries of Australia, a text listing that includes Weekend Special in its list"
• "historic pamphlet showing author talk at brisbane square libary--the place where ideas about the book were talked about: page 5"

The article Weekend Special by Maureen Greaves has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Does not meet any of the criteria of Wikipedia:Notability (books). Only sources provided are lists or self-published.

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{dated prod}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. The-Pope (talk) 02:13, 11 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm thinking of talking about my experience of posting my first article. It has been a very interesting experience. After my article on the weekend special was published I got messages of:

(1) Additional references that can be "verified"

(2) Additional references from "third-party publications"

(3) For the topic I chose (a book) it had to be "notable"

While I did add additional references, the main topic of the book being "notable" appears on the surface to have not been met, even though the basic level of being notable had been met. Since I started to get the feeling that I may not be able to meet the criteria for a notable book (the five points in a nutshell) I added a discussion (that the author amazingly also contributed to) about why Wikipedia should not ignore new literature. I don't know it this will work. According to Wikipedia, to halt rapid deletion I had to insert a {{hangon}} tag. I did this and a nice box popped up in the text view asking for a delay to the deletion.

I get the feeling Wikipedia is open to being flexible from the following quote:

"Wikipedia remains flexible because new people may bring fresh ideas, growing may evolve new needs, people may change their minds over time when new things come up, and we may find a better way to do things."

Gharr (talk) 01:01, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is quite interesting: Wikipedia has it's own "style manual". I have heard that each school, university, company or organization has its own style manual. I should have realised that Wikipedia would have one too. Generally (from having read the "Australian Style Manual") they tend to be guides only as they cover a wide range of publications.

Gharr (talk) 01:21, 17 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Wow, I placed a {{hangon}} tag, and Wikipedia removed the rapid deletion message.

I'm not sure if this will prevent them from deleting the article, unless the author's argument helped. I did provide an argument also, but the requirements mentioned above have not changed, so I currently see this a simply Wikipedia giving everyone one more chance to comply with the original rules mentioned above.

I suspect they will not worry about loosing new and modern literature—my follow up argument.

Gharr (talk) 05:44, 12 April 2010 (UTC) _____________________________________________________________________________________________[reply]

Cool, the next step to deletion, since I assume the hagon tag and the previous discussion has failed or been ignored is a thing called a "Articles for deletion (AfD)" tag.

The hangon tag I placed does not necessarily stop the deletion process, it simply delays it. So I expected the process to go forward if the discussion failed or was ignored! Strangely enough, I didn't expect augments about non-original research" or "copyright."

I assume this is Wikipedias try at making sure I have not copied the article from some place or produced material that I assume gives me rights of copyright to the article. There must be some strange rules for people who write encyclopaedias I suppose.

Gharr (talk) 04:31, 16 April 2010 (UTC) ________________________________________________________________________________________________[reply]

This is also a really cool site to visit: "Wikipedia:Articles for deletion." It is fascinating to read all the authors reasons and augments about why their articles should not be deleted. I realize that articles are coming in from all over the world, but there are quite a lot scheduled for deletion and thus there are many that you can browse through and read!

Gharr (talk) 05:01, 16 April 2010 (UTC) ________________________________________________________________________________________________[reply]

"Notability" was apparently defined in 2005 and caused controversy in subjects like comics and companies^[1].

I myself think information on companies and even comics some times is interesting or important. I have wondered about those who would be brave enough to comment on state organs or companies that may one strike back at the author. Certainly encyclopaedias have respected the state by reporting on historic news in biased ways (sensitive topics about war for example may be misrepresented for decades—the Australian light horse for example^[2]). A citizen of a country is no different from a company that prints an encyclopaedia!

I believe Wikipedia will bend notability rules when confronted by the powerful governments or industries. This is the reality of our system.

I see Wikipedia’s attempt to limit content as two fold:

1) Wikipedia wants to define itself as a brand or thing to the people that read it. It wants a brand that pleases international governments, industries and the people that seek out information on Wikipedia.

2) Also Wikipedia wants to reduce the amount of space used because it costs them money.

So far, I think Wikipedia does a great job. I like to reference its pages all the time!!!

Other encyclopaedias have grown up covering other types of information. They possibly pick up on things Wikipedia refuse to accept and may even compete with Wikipedia.

It is for this reason I feel the boundaries that Wikipedia draws on are flexible, to prevent it from loosing its market share of the audience.

Thus the word “notable” will mutate, alter and perhaps become quite complex. Wikipedia has to cater to the audience, power structures (such as politics and industries) and competitors.

Gharr (talk) 01:00, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

References

1) Three tildes

gives just your name. Use this when giving general notices on your user or talk page: Gharr (talk)

2) Four tildes

gives name and date, this is the normal signature used when you discuss things. However you should never use it in the main article as it is a contribution of several authors and belongs to no particular author: Gharr (talk) 03:15, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

3) Five tildes

give just the date stamp, use this when communicating with others: 03:15, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

If you want to know more about signatures

then check it out on "Wikipedia".

The deletion process occurred by what seemed like a sort of vote. I have read some of the other articles for deletion and the arguments can be convoluted. One seemed to list each copy of an article as proof that the entry was notable.

Also editors talking about deleting articles do in fact some times suggest more appropriate places that an article might belong to.

Sometimes articles may also end up redirected or merged.

While I argued my point, it seems many authors do not argue on the discussion page, they simply seem to edit their own pages. Perhaps that is a sign of the difficulty or arguing with editors that simply follow rules and make a decision.

Certainly this suggestion of not arguing with editors might hold some weight: ""Railing against the guidelines is very unlikely to result in this article being kept"a comment made by Whpq.

--Gharr (talk) 04:46, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• "Signing your posts (Wikipedia)"

An article that you have been involved in editing, Weekend Special, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Weekend Special. Thank you.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. B.Wind (talk) 18:44, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

An editor has nominated one or more articles which you have created or worked on, for deletion. The nominated article is Weekend Special. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also Wikipedia:Notability and "What Wikipedia is not").

Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion(s) by adding your comments to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Weekend Special. Please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~).

You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate.

Please note: This is an automatic notification by a bot. I have nothing to do with this article or the deletion nomination, and can't do anything about it. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 01:09, 16 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Based on the above (and your list of contributions) I understand you're trying to understand the workings of Wikipedia. Some things to keep in mind when an article is nominated for deletion:

1. Do not remove or alter posts by others, particularly if they involve templates. Such removal will often be construed as vandalism.
2. Do not post anything that can be construed as personal attacks on others (see WP:NPA), and assume good faith.
3. Look carefully at the nomination and the comments other editors are making; use the information to improve the article and try to save it.
4. Don't try to control the conversation - this tactic usually backfires.
5. If lack of notability is mentioned as a cause, start looking at WP:GNG; for books see WP:NB. If original research is cited, get references that are independent of the subject; if there is a suspicion of violation of copyright, don't just argue the point - see what parts could be construed as a violation and rewrite them.
6. Articles that rely upon first person material generally fail. Dig up reviews (note also that the author of the book in question does not have a Wikipedia article, so a redirect to that article is not an option).

I hope this helps as you try to save the article. B.Wind (talk) 18:54, 16 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome...

Hello, Gharr, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like this place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

• Introduction
• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• How to edit a page
• Help
• How to write a great article
• Manual of Style

Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your username 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 ask your question there.  Again, welcome! Mike Cline (talk) 19:45, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Gharr - 1st, I want to apologize for my fellow editors who did not welcome you to WP when you created your first article Weekend Special, so I did so above. Unfortunately, it did not come up to WP:NB standards and had to be deleted. There was consensus to do so and as an Admin I was compelled to support that consensus. Consensus is really the most important idea I want to convey to you in that by and large the policies and guidelines that govern WP are really consensus driven. We are all volunteer editors and operating in a consensus based community has proven to be very successful. Do not feel bad that your first article in WP was deleted. Three years ago, my first article was deleted, and I suspect I felt like you do now. Don't despair. We want you to participate and contribute to the encyclopedia, especially on subjects you are passionate about. I would encourage you to spend some time reviewing the various policies, guidelines and essays on how the WP works and what stays and what goes. With a bit of practice and experience, you will do fine and your contributions will be appreciated. Another thing that is extremely useful for new editors in to participate in Projects associated with the subjects you are interested in. In many cases, the project itself will give you great pointers in creating articles. For example, if you are interested in Books, then Wikipedia:WikiProject Books is a project you should participate in. If you ever have any general or specific guideline, policy or MOS question; just want to vent or otherwise discuss something about WP, don't hesitate to ask me on my talk page. Again thanks for contributing.--Mike Cline (talk) 19:45, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to thank all editors and readers of the “Weekend Special, by Maureen Greaves” and the debate to try keep the article.

When I started the article on the Weekend Special, I had no idea how big (or small) the media for it was. The publishers of the “Weekend Special” must have seen a potential or they would not have proceeded to the publishing stage—as I understand it, the author had no say in this decision.

I’m not related to Maureen Greaves or any of the other numbers of authors, artists or businesses that I support (with or without them knowing it or perhaps knowing but not acknowledging it). I do maintain a business like friendship with the people I meet. I may have a conflict of interest if you mean that I look up to any people who succeed in producing something as real life heroes—be it a product or service.

I support these people because I want to start my own business and I am getting to know the environment they face (that I must face also). I like Wikipedia because it is a success in my view, but real life products and services must work on staying around for as long as possible. This is a new era in the world in my opinion (but I am sure I can find lots of examples and evidence that is easily available) and many new possibilities exist. The rules must be flexible and able to be challenged.

I have lived through the age where machines can beat humans at chess when it was thought to be a sign of intelligence. I have seen the debate of test tube babies, women using their dead husbands frozen sperm to have a child and many other things that have tested laws that we once thought were impossible to challenge. I have lived in an age when I could still witness the wonder that was caused by man going to the moon—a task that was thought impossible and the strange contingency plans that were formed when man went to the moon (like was it’s surface solid, what was that gunpowder smell and the unexpected feeling of the Earth setting on the horizon).

Editors can follow the rules, but they should not be considered to be inflexible or binds that can not be broken. Already, as I have mentioned above, many major rules and boundaries to thought have been broken many times over. My argument should not be treated as a rebel or as spilt milk; it should be treated as a normal respectable response to a person who is used to increasingly seeing the rules as shifting ground in this modern era.

As for the Weekend Special, I can only speak about what seems to be the local situation and the things that I can find on the Internet. My internet searches have shown that the weekend special is being sold by a number of web pages to various locations all over the world. However, I do not read every newspaper and I do not have access (or the multilingual language skills) to know what goes on in every newspaper or magazine in the world. For my part, I am not aware of any radio, newspaper, television, or magazine article about the weekend special. I do not own a radio or television and have not done so for years.

I was expecting other people to contribute to the “Weekend Special” article eventually from other places in the world. This did not occur (except for the author’s contribution—and I’m am honoured that the author took the time to do that) in the time frame the article existed in. The other option I considered was that Wikipedia may have had a place where it lists the large number of works being created in today’s brave new world of publishing. Today we publish works all the time in our blogs, web pages, online articles, in online-encyclopaedias and yes even in book form without batting an eye (to a person like me it is close to the feeling I get when I think of people going to the moon!).

Again I thank all those who read and participated in the aspects of my first article the: “Weekend Special.” I would have like to see my first article succeed in staying around, but it was not to be.

As I said before, I hope I can contribute to Wikipedia in the future by writing an article for it or helping out with the many articles that need work.

Best of wishes to everyone.

--Gharr (talk) 00:46, 23 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have added my opinion to several discussions.

I was originally going to add additional references to the articles, but I admit I did feel a little nervous about doing large edits of someone else’s work.

Anyway, the people who check the articles had good points, so I read the articles, thought about the topic and did additional research.

Tracking the articles you contribute to can be done through the watch list, my contributions or by direct links:

1. Geosynchronous satellites
2. Australian landmarks
3. List_of_landmarks
4. Wolf's_Dragoons

I'm not as yet sure if all edits to the main article come up on a watch list--a flurry of them happened reciently and I don't think I got notified appropriately of such events.

--(Gharr (talk) 13:39, 10 March 2011 (UTC))[reply]

Cool, I can track any new work I do by going to my User contributions page. You can't see this page as it is my personal page (at least I assume you cant see it).

Wow, some people actually get banned here. I don't know how many reasons there are for banning a person. "Skipsievert is an example of someone being banned". At the moment, it appears that Skipsievert was banned because of (verbal?) attacks on other members.

There are certainly complex twists and turns in this Wikipedia place. (Gharr (talk) 15:15, 22 February 2011 (UTC))[reply]

"Wind" and "Cline" above have included some useful information that might apply here. (Gharr (talk) 15:21, 22 February 2011 (UTC))[reply]

In case your wondering how I got the links to Mike and Wind. Apparently Wikipedia bookmarks all heading somehow. However, if you want to place a bookmark inside your article, than that is also possible if you use an anchor.

I have placed an anchor into Cline's article at the spot he suggests that "I could visit 'wiki project books'". As pure luck would have it, Cline made a possible spelling error there as well by using it instead of if. I corrected that spelling.

I mentioned this because this is the first time I have actually edited someones work in the my talk section and I have to admit, I feel a little nervous about it since technically: my edits could be perceived as annoying ^[1] to straight out vandalism.

Another interesting fact is that my edit of Cline's work took effect immediately. I had previously (and rather foolishly) tried bookmark Cline's heading "Welcome and advice," and that seemed not to work probably because all headings in Wikipedia are already automatically bookmarked.

(Gharr (talk) 15:33, 23 February 2011 (UTC))[reply]

References

I had a debate about that was directed at the Jacque Fresco article that had appeared and then disappeared due to an administrators “BOLD” action.

Another administrator the was able to reveal what the previous administrator had hidden! This is the article that was hidden:

The edit page history [accessed March 2011]: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jacque_Fresco&diff=417178507&oldid=414597160

Jacque Fresco article [accessed March 2011]: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jacque_Fresco&oldid=417178507

Another user is also in the process of making a Jacque Fresco article because of the events that have occurred, so this will be a really interesting event. I have no idea how this little problem will end up being solved so everyone ends up happy.

Also due to the strong opposition^[1] to the Jacque Fresco article and The Venus Project (plus any other articles that might be generated) would lead me to expect that these type of article will become challenged in the future. --(Gharr (talk) 00:50, 9 March 2011 (UTC))[reply]

Making Notes Look Nice

I had problems with notes not looking nice or other sections notes occuing in this section.

Other notes occured on this page becuse of a problem with the code. I solved it by changing the code from { { References } } to < References / >. There is probably some bug or upgrade contention occuring because this should not happen if the tags worked correctly--or I used the correct set of tags for the job!

The { { References } } tag is suppose to be a much more powerful version of the tag and it allows users to add a pipe + a number: "two" to form two colums to the reference section. Unfortunately the result I got with a long reference was garbled or a line with a space in it and it looked terrible. So it is not good to use two colums when you use the notes section to make long footnotes for example.(Gharr (talk))

References

Wikipedia is based abound five principals^[1]:

1. Its an encyclopedia that may hold three elements^[2]:
   • encyclopedia,
   • Almanac and
   • Gazetteer
2. A Neutral point of view^[3]
3. No plagiarism: a lot more complex and yet critical to a "wikipedians^[4]," since they can not provide "original research^[5]," and yet must build encyclopedic works that are not direct copies or slight variations of existing work. However, if wikipedians use several articles, the synthesis of published material can lead to the danger of reaching or implying a conclusion that is not supported by any of the sources^[6]. To avoid plagiarism, articles must also have adequate references to supporting material^[7] that might be challenged or where such references would be required by law (such as direct quotes of material)^[8].
4. Wikipedians need to treat each other with respect and focus on improving articles in Wikipedia^[9].
5. "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it^[10]".

Stubs

Articles may also link to stubs. Stubs are just short definitions of a word. It's not intended to be a dictionary meaning however. Stubs do need to be referenced and have stub tags applied. Stubs may also be expanded at some later date.

Negative References (Citations) aren't Helpful

A lot of editors quote negative sources^[11] to justify their stance. While negative articles do have their uses, I think they break the improve article definition and hence should not be used. Since this has not been stated anyplace, this would, by Wikipedias definition be original research. Thus normally this paragraph would need editing or be deleted.

Notability in Wikipedia

“Notability is a term used within the online encyclopedia Wikipedia as an editorial metric used to determine topics meriting a dedicated encyclopedia article^[12].”

While “Notability” is not mentioned in the five pillars from what I can see; you will find yourself facing several versions of this word when trying to defend your article from being deleted.

It is in-fact indirectly mentioned in “What Wikipedia is not^[13].”

The dreaded Deletion of Articles

According to my information, administrators have certain abilities. One of these procedures is to enter into a process of deleting a article. The other is to merge your article with another article--this can lead to your article being effectively deleted (or reduced in size) also as further edits are then reduce the articles size.

There is actually a procedure to be followed when deleting an article.

Mergers also require a number of steps that must be followed.

Template:Platinum: I found this symbol substitution and link to article on Wikipedia's substitution page.

Reason I Re-wrote 5 Pillars of Wikipedia

While this section may seem to be a redundant copy of the "five pillars article", it is in fact not so; this article is a encyclopedia reference to all the referenced articles mentioned here. It keeps the structure of the five pillars article because all the referenced articles revolve around it. I have not tried to alter the meanings of the referenced articles, rather I have tried to put it in a form that has meaning to me.

I call it a encyclopedia article because I have attempted to obey all the rules mentioned in the "five pillars article" to produce a valid article based on those rules IMO. I assume that the article might be then debated if it was live and for real instead of just a mock up article in the My-Talk section.

Example of a Reference (Citation) Section for Wikipedia

A good example of referencing methods that would be approved of by the Wikipedia is "law school" article. While this paragraph could be seen as original research, since this statement is unlikely to have a 3rd party reference--the law school reference section need not have been created to serve as simply a good example of how Wikipedia prefers referencing to be done--we might never the less assume that it's reasonable to draw this conclusion from cited sources.

Reference (Citation) overkill

Each sentence should contain one to three references. Three references are there only to reduce the effect of link-rot. Also, too many Citations (references) might be a sign of edit wars.

Generally too many citations will indicate that the author feels the material might or will be attacked and so defends the material, but instead ends up putting in too many citations and cluttering the article.^[14]

Wikipedia Articles and the desire for smaller article sizes

Wikipedia like many others have realized the mobile phone network could dramatically expand the number of people that visit their site. For that reason they have made a demand that articles remain small so fast down loads can occur^[15].

The argument for making an article small is that mobile users must pay a higher per second cost to access the internet. Computer users on the other hand pay a much lower price to access the internet.

Perhaps invisible to the common user is that mobile telephones are much more likely to be used in poorer countries where it is unlikely that users will also own a computer^[16]. However, such users might end up being a significant percentage of people that visit Wikipedia (if this is not the case already)^[17].

Merging and Splitting Articles

The result of this policy to Wikipedian’s is that there will be arguments to merge or split the articles into smaller units—since both desires are tugging in opposite directions the resultant affect is to probably aggravate parties who engage in a debate of an articles requirements.

Wikipedia has no limits to the number of articles (also test bookmark)

According to Wikipedia, there is in fact no limit to the number of articles that can exist in Wikipedia^[18]. While the idea of unlimited space is appealing, it’s only true if Wiki can pay for the memory required to store such information. This is what might be called a scarcity mindset: where the Wikipedian feels that space if more important than if the article really belongs there.

Wikipedians should in theory ignore the technical details for the need for memory storage and instead simply focus on making a good articles. This however does not seem to be the case, but not for the reasons our logic or statements from others (such as fund raising events) might indicate.

It most likely isn’t storage cost of articles, rather it is the capturing the mobile telephone market that is the real worry and major concern for Wikipedia.

There are other places to publish material

Called “Wikipedia's sister projects,” they are alternative places you can write new for example (you still can’t do original work, but news only need reference to two sources for example.

It’s not always clear how these Wikies are made or used. I suppose part of the difficulty stems around the need to consider copyright.

Meta Wiki has several functions including the formulation of Wiki-media projects.

Commons: holds media of various types

1. Wikibooks: has e-books to read or the creation of books through collaboration
2. Wikiquote: had what appears to be entire texts of conversations in films and so on
3. Wikiversity: lessons to teacher resources
4. Wikispecies: a navigation through the classification tree
5. Wiktionary: A dictionary, Thesaurus, and other stuff
6. Wikisource: A record of historic works or books
7. Wikinews: Similar to wiki, but only need two independent sources

Wikipedia has a dispute resolution process

This actually has several sections and deals with several scenarios.

User Access Levels

Of some interest is the ability of administrators to allow temporary restoration of an article

An administrator can see deleted revisions and diffs but those diffs can only be shared with other administrators. In order to allow all users to view the diff, the revisions in question need to be restored temporarily. Source: Wikipedia:Diffs#Deleted_revisions

Users can have a access level

• Unregistered User
• Confirmed User
• Reviewer
• Administrators must conduct themselves properly
• Bureacrats
• Steward
• Bots

The access level is has also got a diagram that shows things that can be done by each level of access.

Dispute Resolution

Try to avoid using another Wikipedians name/handlebar because this might be seen as a personal attack. Instead talk about the topics that are in that section.

You can also request a resolution

If things get really serious (to be used as a last resort): "This page is for reporting and discussing incidents on the English Wikipedia that require the intervention of administrators. Any user of Wikipedia may post here. Please include diffs to help us find the problem you are reporting:" Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents

Interesting:

• Sock puppetry is when a user operates several accounts for the purpose of deception and disruptive behavior. This can include logging out and making a comment as an IP-address. This behavior can lead to a block of accounts and ban of the user.
• Meatpuppetry is the recruitment or other editors to support your view. This often occurs in high profile disputes. It is considered impolite (insulting) to call other Wikipedians meatpuppets. I suppose in my terms it would simply seem that a group of people are towing a agenda or singular point of view. This type of behavior is quite serious and may result in arbitration measures.
• Some editors may share accounts. Such accounts should be declared on their user page. There is a actual user-box for shared accounts. Shared accounts are treated as single editor.

(Gharr (talk) 12:22, 12 March 2011 (UTC))[reply]

Notes

is it possible to edit this page???

• Welcome new users
• Template:Expand_section
• Sub-sections needed
• Splitting Article Into Separate Pages
• Template:Cleanup-reorganize
• Disambiguation explained
• Making new sections
• Text Fromatting
• Stub
• Stub Template
• Cite Book: use lower case
• Cite Journal
• Cite Encyclopedia
• Reference List, {{Reflist|2}} is used to split long listings into a specific number of columns.
• reference 5 has a interesting technique

• Full list of templates
• Cleanup templates
• Info-boxes for a book

Special Tags

• Edit Protection
• Request Edit
• Help Me
• Admin Help

Tables

References

I have been having some problems with them. I used < References / > to solve the problem.

This is the first time I have had a debate with a experienced and fairly neutral editor concerned with style management of the Wikipedia. I found the experience very taxing to say the least. But here is some very interesting notes from that single encounter.

Some style editors will try and say there is only one way to write up a article, a "general rule" that applies across to all articles. This of course is not totally true: Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Internal_consistency "An overriding principle is that style and formatting choices should be consistent within a Wikipedia article, though not necessarily throughout Wikipedia as a whole. Consistency within an article promotes clarity and cohesion."

The editor I met seemed tied up with abbreviations. In this case RBE which is suppose to stand for Resource Based Economy (Accessed March 20011: I'm not sure how long this article will last before it is deleted or merged and redirected). This had the extra complexity of being a theory as well.

I argued that a theory should have capitalization: Resource Based Economy while the other editor argued it should not use capitalization resource based economy. I accept capitals can make a article harder to read. However the style manual does not have anything specific about the capitalization of scientific theories.

Abbreviation Debate

The editor simply stated stuff of agreement and ignored what I said so I think he/she had no real argument here. I said abbreviations should be avoided in a short article as it caused confusion. I also quoted the style manual: Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Abbreviations: under the heading: "Do not use unwarranted abbreviations," since it supported my view.

I also pointed out that the RBE links to another article that is not concerned with a resource based economy. This also makes the use of RBE undesirable.

Capitalization Debate

This is a very interesting fact about capitalization: " Do not use capital letters for emphasis; where wording alone cannot provide the emphasis, use italics." See Wikipedia:MOS#Italics under the heading of Emphasis.

The other editor objected to the use of capitalization by

• stating that The Venus Project can use any style manual it wants but that style manual can be ignored all together in the Wikipedia--MOS#Stability_of_articles might tend to disagree with that point of view...
• stating Capitalization in mid-sentence was wrong when clearly no example existed for the capitalization of theories. The books and wikipedia articles I consulted gave a mixed bag of results with some capitalizing and other avoiding it:
  • the Big Bang
  • According to the First Law of Thermodynamics
  • Monetarism
  • Keynesian_Revolution

This line pretty well says we were both wrong: "Where there is disagreement over which style to use in an article, defer to the style used by the first major contributor." Sourced from MOS#Stability_of_articles. Since The Venus Project did not use capitalization for the resource based economy, I decided to not take the capitalization of the Resource Based Economy any further and conceded that lower case letters were acceptable.

However on the note about The Venus Project ( that it should loose "The" and instead use "the Venus Project") I upheld the view that it should be capitalized in-case of copyright or trademark. I also upheld it's status to remain capitalized since it was part of the original document; more on this later...

The other editor tried to stop me from using these links Resource Based Economy and The Venus Project

• state undue prominence (making them sound like they thought The Venus Project was not a accepted idea--and editor that is biased towards The Venus Project and the resource based economy).
• state links to commonly known word are wrong, but I stated that most people would not know what a resource based economy is.

However the Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style states: "An overriding principle is that style and formatting choices should be consistent within a Wikipedia article, though not necessarily throughout Wikipedia as a whole. Consistency within an article promotes clarity and cohesion." Again the "general rule" editors state to set things in stone does not appear to exist. It is acceptable that articles may vary in style--editors don't have to force them to be identical. Certainly the argument that "The Venus Project" should be changed to "the Venus Project" is far from safe ground for a editor to try and hold on to with a so called "general rule" for all articles since such an idea is not supported by the Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style. [Accessed Mar 2011]

Google crome, World wide web, Windows live messenger, Mozilla firefox, Apple safari, Internet explorer are okay based on this single reference? However real world articles do not obey this rule, this article seems to ignore that rule whole sale (I have also pointed out quite a few scientific articles that do not conform to this criteria). --(Gharr (talk) 00:57, 18 March 2011 (UTC))[reply]

The Reason for Strong Argument With Other Editor

I will be editing other articles. If I just blindly follow a editors methods and do the wrong thing, then this might result in harm and even me teaching others the wrong things. I have spent a considerable amount of energy and time on this because I consider this stuff very important.

Also the politics and implied threats (usually to the non-administrative party (like myself)) of getting banned or loosing an article makes the debate a little one sided in some cases. For my part I was wary of traps I might fall into but I jumped in there and did my best to sort out what was going on.

It's been surreal in Wikipedia. There was constant attacks against The Venus Project and now it's awful quite. I have not figured what is going on. But such changes by both sides seems highly unusual. I would have expected the pace to stay fairly constant. Perhaps there really is puppets and meat-puppets involved here. I doubt that a newbie like me could have made them quite. I suppose the mystery to the quite period will eventually reveal itself. --(Gharr (talk) 20:42, 12 March 2011 (UTC))[reply]

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on The Venus Project. Users are expected to collaborate with others and avoid editing disruptively.

In particular, the three-revert rule states that:

1. Making more than three reversions on a single page within a 24-hour period is almost always grounds for an immediate block.
2. Do not edit war even if you believe you are right.

If you find yourself in an editing dispute, use the article's talk page to discuss controversial changes; work towards a version that represents consensus among editors. You can post a request for help at an appropriate noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases it may be appropriate to request temporary page protection. If you continue to edit war, you may be blocked from editing without further notice.--Sloane (talk) 01:56, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]