User:HelenOnline

About Wikimedia and Wikipedia
Wikimedia Terms of Use

About Wikiville

Wikiderata

This is the real world

What Wikipedia is not

The perfect article

Basic copyediting

Edit summary abbreviations

Wikipedia simple rules

Wikipedia policies and guidelines

How to write good
"My several years in the word game have learnt me several rules:

1. Avoid Alliteration. Always. 2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with. 3. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.) 4. Employ the vernacular. 5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc. 6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary. 7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive. 8. Contractions aren't necessary. 9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos. 10. One should never generalize. 11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." 12. Comparisons are as bad as cliches. 13. Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous. 14. Profanity sucks. 15. Be more or less specific. 16. Understatement is always best. 17. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement. 18. One word sentences? Eliminate. 19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake. 20. The passive voice is to be avoided. 21. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms. 22. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed. 23. Who needs rhetorical questions?"

Some quotes
"Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds."

"In the age of information, ignorance is a choice."

"... burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge. In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again."

"Suppose within every book there is another book, and within every letter on every page another volume constantly unfolding; but these volumes take no space on the desk. Suppose knowledge could be reduced to a quintessence, held within a picture, a sign, held within a place which is no place."

"Doveryai, no proveryai Trust, but verify"

Some firsts

 * My first Wikipedia edit was to correct a factual error in a biographical article about a living person in a family tree I had researched (incidentally not someone I know personally). Oops, I didn't write an edit summary so it was reverted and I had to repeat it.
 * The first Wikipedia article I created was for an 18th c. German game designer (in English and German). I also donated his portrait image to Wikimedia Commons.
 * The first Wikipedia article I translated for the English Wikipedia was from a German Wikipedia article about a living American geneticist who pioneered human mitochondrial genetics.
 * My first DYK credit was for an article I contributed to about a recently deceased South African in the international news headlines.
 * My first barnstar was actually a bribe so I don't think it counts. My first genuine barnstar was the South African Barnstar of National Merit from htonl seconded by Roger, for which I am honoured.

Sugar and spice
 I hope you know there was nothing personal in the debate at T:EoW. I'm often not very concise in text communication and can come off ranty as a result. I've actually, quietly noticed many of your contributions around Wikipedia. — Sowlos 09:32, 3 August 2013 (UTC) has extended an olive branch of peace.

Thanks so much for your help on my DYK nomination and good collaborations and kindness in general. Nathan121212 (talk) 15:03, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Rainbow nation
"I live in a country with shocking economic inequality (that’s both third world and first, sometimes within half a kilometre of each other) stricken by AIDS and corruption and crime. At the same time, there’s tremendous hope and optimism and a resilience. South Africa is an incredible place that has spent the last 20 years going through interesting times (as per the Chinese curse). It’s a fascinating place to be. ... I think of myself as South African full stop. Those European ties are so old, so frayed, they’re not even a sepia photograph, they’re a faded oil painting dating back 350 years when my family first came to this country."

"en soms vir 'n oomblik kan ons mekaar se taal verstaan and sometimes for a moment we can understand each other"
 * South Africans are a mixed bunch. I am one part British diaspora in Africa and three parts other African of European ancestry. Although I am a South African citizen by birth, I am also a British citizen by descent as my mother was born in England. My ancestors traced so far are from England, Ireland, Switzerland, France (Huguenot) and Germany via Canada. My extended family in South Africa has British colonial and Cape Dutch ancestry.
 * I was classified as white during apartheid. These days this label mainly matters when you apply for employment or are counted in a national census, where it is described as a "population group". It has a limited life span as the born-free generation has started entering the workforce.
 * Most South Africans living in urban areas speak at least two languages, one being English or Afrikaans. My first language is English but the main language spoken where I live is Afrikaans. Afrikaans is related to Dutch, but it is not the same language and is not necessarily pronounced the same way.