Talk:Puff model

Explanation of why changes were made
All of the photographs were deleted by Anetode because they had been Speedily Deleted for lack of proper licensing. All that was left then (other than the lead-in section and the history section) were the references and a jumble of extraneous headings. So I spent about an hour re-formatting and Wikifying (i.e., putting the article into the usual Wikipedia format).

Peterwebley, I would first like to welcome you to Wikipedia. Then I would like to give you some advice and pointers about writing Wikipedia articles. You and I and many others made the same mistake when we first came to Wikipedia: that of writing an article before we had spent a good many hours reading the tutorials, the help sections and looking at the Edit pages of other articles to see how they were done. Here are some of the places where you went wrong:


 * It is not proper to put links to one's email address in a Wikipedia article, which you did in your version of the lead-in section.


 * The title of an article is always included in bold in the first sentence of an article.


 * You must learn to use the Wiki Markup language rather than HTML. Your article was full of HTML and HTML tables which makes it difficult for other editors (like myself) who have become accustomed to Wiki Markup. It really isn't hard to learn and it is somewhat easier to use than HTML.


 * As you now know, you must license photos, diagrams or other images properly before uploading them into Wikipedia.


 * Your photographs were much too large and required a lot of horizontal scrolling. You can upload large images if you wish, and then use the image syntax in WikiMarkup which allows you to easily reduce their size when you insert them into an article. That means that you should study the help articles on images and how to reduce their size and how to place them on a page.


 * Your heading entitled "Google Search" could be interpreted as being very close to advertising and Wiki doesn't allow advertising.


 * Your should also study the Wiki policy on No original research being included in an article. That is important.


 * Your section entitled the "Redoubt Ash Encounter" really had nothing to do with how the Puff model works. It would be better to create another article to describe that volcanic event.


 * If you do obtain the proper licensing for the deleted images, then I would strogly advise you to include only one or two of the photos (reduced in size) in the article as examples of how the Puff model works. After all the article is about the Puff model ... it is not about volcanology nor is it about exhibiting the use of Google Search.
 * Alternatively, if you take the time to learn how to create a gallery of thumb size photos to be put at the very end of the article, that would be acceptable. Readers can click on those thumb size photos to see the full size images if they so desire. But learning how to do that will require more study on your part.


 * The main section headers of an article are made like this: ==Subject==, the sub-sections are like this: ===Subject===, the sub-sub-sections are like this:====Subject====, and so forth. Only the first letter of the first word in the subject is capitalized unless the subject is a proper name like say ==University of Alaska Fairbanks==.


 * Most articles have a ==See also== section (for links to relevant Wikipedia artciles, a ==Reference== section (and you should learn how to use format for your reference citations) and an ==External links== section for links to Internet sites.


 * The lead-in or introductory section has no header. You do not start like this =Introduction=.


 * Finally, only the first letter of the first word in the article title is capitalized unles it is a proper name like United States Department of Energy.

I know the above seems overwhelming but a few months from now it will be almost second nature. Hope you find this useful. - mbeychok (talk) 08:51, 7 February 2008 (UTC)