User:Fox/Coaching


 * The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Hi.

Thank you for choosing me as your coach. This will be fun...

Let's get started...
First things first. Put RfA out of your mind.

Don't even think about it.

You did, just now, think about RfA, didn't you?

Stop it! :)

Why?

Because "adminship is no big deal."

The main qualification of admins is general experience in developing and maintaining Wikipedia.

And admins have a only a few extras that the rest of us don't have access to:
 * They can edit protected pages
 * They can protect pages
 * They can block users
 * They can see deleted pages
 * They can delete/undelete pages
 * Rollback (a fancy "undo" button)
 * They can activate rollback on a non-admin account

But there are dozens of extras that we do have access to. They're features. Features of Wikipedia. Features of the many tools available for use on Wikipedia. And features of unrelated tools (programs) that are invaluable for working on Wikipedia.

The odd thing is, users tend to go for adminship before they even know about the features they do have access to. I know I did.

By the way, what tools do you use?

 Th e Tr ans hu man ist   22:17, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I use AWB, Pop Ups, ChatZilla and others. I don't know which  WEBURIEDOURSECRETSINTHEGARDEN  play it cool.  19:14, 24 January 2008 (UTC)


 * "I don't know which"? What?  "Others"?   Th e Tr ans hu man ist    22:18, 24 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I use quite a few. I think I listed them all above, though.  WEBURIEDOURSECRETSINTHEGARDEN  play it cool.  23:18, 24 January 2008 (UTC)


 * There's a script on my monobook.js called "Watchlist sorter" which you may find useful. It displays watchlist results by namespace. I find it invaluable, because I often need to monitor a specific namespace, and with this I don't have to wade through unrelated results.  I highly recommend it.   Th e Tr ans hu man ist    22:26, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

How many pages are on your watchlist?
How many pages are listed on your watchlist?  Th e Tr ans hu man ist   22:20, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It increases every time I edit a page. At the minute it's 122.   WEBURIEDOURSECRETSINTHEGARDEN  play it cool.  23:18, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

What do you use AWB for?
AWB is a powertool. What do you use it for?  Th e Tr ans hu man ist   22:18, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I occasionally deliver newsletters and sometimes add WikiProject tags to pages in certain categories.  WEBURIEDOURSECRETSINTHEGARDEN  play it cool.  23:18, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Pop-ups
I find it especially useful for looking at diffs in my watchlist, and for looking at diffs from a page's history. Saves time.  Th e Tr ans hu man ist   22:18, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Very true, although they can get in the way sometimes.  WEBURIEDOURSECRETSINTHEGARDEN  play it cool.  23:18, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

What browsers and browser extensions do you use?
I find Mozilla Firefox the most powerful. It has the best extensions (add-ins) available for it.

By the way, are you familiar with tabs and tabbing?

One very simple add-in for Firefox is Linky (once installed, right-click to access it from the pop-up menu). All it does is load the pages belonging to selected links into tabs. But this subtle little enhancement makes tabbing lightning fast. In Firefox, Ctrl-W closes a tab. When a tab is closed, the next open tab is instantly displayed. That's the key. That's the secret. By pressing Ctrl-W in repetition, you can look at many pages very rapidly. With linky, you can load tabs automatically (rather than manually with Ctrl-T), which previously was the limiting factor. While linky is loading tabs, do something else while you wait.

Another tabbing trick (using Firefox) is holding down the Ctrl key while clicking on "Random article" many times (like 50 or more). Different random articles will be loaded into individual tabs, and you can cycle through them rapidly with Ctrl-W as described above. Just clicking on "Random article" normally over and over is much slower.

If you do any graphical page layout on Wikipedia, you'll need all the major browsers, so that you can check how your markup displays for users who have those browsers. How graphics display should also be checked on each of Wikipedia's skins.

What browsers and browser extensions do you use?

 Th e Tr ans hu man ist   22:18, 24 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I use Firefox, because personally I find Internet Explorer sickening to use, as everything is out of order and shifted. I have installed Linky, but never used it.  I will in the future.  And that random page technique sounds interesting also.   WEBURIEDOURSECRETSINTHEGARDEN  play it cool.  23:18, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Talk page section editing
I noticed you have the section editing turned off on your talk page. I think you should have that turned on, to make it easier for people to participate in the conversational threads there.

 Th e Tr ans hu man ist   23:43, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't know what's going on there. Is it anything to do with the  tag?   WEBURIEDOURSECRETSINTHEGARDEN  play it cool.  18:47, 24 January 2008 (UTC)


 * There must be a  in one of your transcluded subpages.  Th e Tr ans hu man ist    21:38, 24 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Right, found it, now gone.  WEBURIEDOURSECRETSINTHEGARDEN  play it cool.  22:11, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

No air-tight containers
I coach a lot of people, and for each one there is a coaching page. We've covered a lot of territory, which you would no doubt find interesting. Please feel free to join in on the discussions there too.

 Th e Tr ans hu man ist   23:43, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Ok, will do so.  WEBURIEDOURSECRETSINTHEGARDEN  play it cool.  19:35, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Bots
I noticed your bot proposal. I've also noticed your prolificacy in bot-like edits.

Bots could amplify your impact on the encyclopedia by a magnitude at least.

I highly recommend that you become a regular participant of the bot department, and get to know it like the back of your hand.

I doubt it would take too long (a few months at most) before you were running a bot or three. Helping to evaluate bot ideas will give you many bot ideas of your own.

To get a feel for the department quickly, you might try reading the bot discussion archives.

I hope you find this advice useful.

 Th e Tr ans hu man ist   23:37, 28 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Ok. I assume you mean WBOSITBot?   WEBURIEDOURSECRETSINTHEGARDEN  play it cool.  19:11, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Yep. Between that and your AWB edits, I figured you may find bot-work rewarding.   Th e Tr ans hu man ist    01:45, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I might be tempted to try that out sometime and see how it goes. I'll look over the policies as well.   WEBURIEDOURSECRETSINTHEGARDEN  play it cool.  23:00, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Collaboration
I'm pushing a collaboration to complete the list of basic space exploration topics.

Should be fun. Drop on by. ;)

Also, see my post to User talk:Quiddity if you want to delve in deeper.

 Th e Tr ans hu man ist   09:08, 6 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I may well look at that if I have time, too.  WEBURIEDOURSECRETSINTHEGARDEN   round of applause  22:54, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

FYI
I resign.

I've moved this page to your userspace for safekeeping.

 Th e Tr ans hu man ist   03:47, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.