User:Rcsprinter123/Adopt/Ace10

Hello, Ace10000! Welcome to your adoption page. We are going to work through a course of lessons, the first one of which is below. You can ask questions at any time (at the bottom!).  Rcsprinter  (talk)  11:09, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

The Five Pillars
One of the most important essays in Wikipedia is WP:FIVEPILLARS which is designed to eloquently sum up what we're here for. Once you get your head around these five pillars, you will be a Wikipedian and a good one at that. All 5 are covered in my adoption school, though at different lengths. Be aware that I don't know everything and I would doubt anyone who said they did.
 * Pillar one defines Wikipedia as an encyclopedia. It suggests some things that we are not. Thoughts about what we are not are covered in the deletion lesson.
 * Pillar two talks about neutrality, a concept that this lesson will be concentrating on.
 * Pillar three talks about free content. The Copyright lesson will go into this in more detail.
 * Pillar four talks about civility. Wikipedia is a collaborative working environment and nothing would ever get done if it wasn't. I'll go into civility more during the dispute resolution module.
 * Pillar five explains that Wikipedia does not have firm rules. This is a difficult concept and will be covered in the Policy and consensus lesson.

How articles should be written
The articles in Wikipedia are designed to represent the sum of human knowledge. Each article should be written from a neutral point of view – personal opinions such as right and wrong should never appear, nor should an editors experience. Neutrality also means giving due weight to the different points of view. If the broad scientific community has one set of opinions – then the minority opinion should not be shown. An example is in medicine – if there was an article on say treatment of a broken leg, a neutral article would not include anything on homeopathy.

To ensure that the information in an article is correct, Wikipedia has adopted a policy of verifiability. Anything written in Wikipedia should be available to confirm by looking at the associated reliable source. Wikipedia should not include anything not verifiable by seeing it is published elsewhere; in other words, it should not contain anything original.

Reliable sources
So what is a source? Wikipedia uses the word source for three interchangeable ideas – a piece of work, the work's creator or the work's publisher. In general, you would expect a reliable source to be published materials with a reliable publication process, authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject, or both. This doesn't mean that a source that is reliable on one topic is reliable on every topic, it must be regarded as authoritative in that topic – so whilst "Airfix monthly" may be a good source on the first model aeroplane, I would not expect it to be authoritative on their full size equivalent.

A source that is self-published is in general considered unreliable, unless it is published by a recognized expert in the field. This is a very rare exception – so self publishing is generally considered a no-no. This means that anything in a forum or a blog and even most websites are considered unreliable by default. One interesting sidepoint is on self-published sources talking about themselves. Obviously, a source talking about itself is going to be authoritative, but be careful that the source is not too self-serving – the article really should not be totally based on a direct source like that.

Mainstream news sources are generally considered reliable... but any single article should be assessed on a case by case basis. Some news organizations have been known to check their information on Wikipedia – so be careful not to get into a cyclic sourcing issue!

There's a lot more about what makes a source reliable here.

Questions
Any questions or would you like to try the test? 1)who's made the most edits on wikihow 2)what is "the test"? 3)could you write an article about my website/wiki so it's unbiased 4)when a you going to comply with the terms and conditions of my adoption(i.e the editing of my site) 5)why can't you just skip this bit and go onto the bit i want to learn (i know your supposed to improve my contributions but i'm much better at contributing with templates and user boxes plus in my view: more uibs = more users, how did i work that out i hear you ask well because people like personalizing stuff and once they see the extent to which you can personalize stuff they'll join and make and use more user boxes which in turn will attract more users and the next upside is once they've made 5-10 user boxes then you can grab the nearest user to or you can teach them how to make articles and the guidllines to them and hey presto a massive wiki, loads of users and tons of articles! --Ace10000 (talk) 12:07, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Hey, calm down a little please! Right, by questions, I mean about the page you should have read above. The Test is a series of questions I shall post here. No, because your website isn't notable enough, and I will help you with your sites but I only just adopted you! Gimme time! Please bear in mind that Wikipedia is a serious project, and this adoption is not a quick thing; it may even take weeks. Are you ready for the test?
 * Hey i find that very insulting,1 i did read the page above and 2 i can't help it if i have other things to worry about than wikipedia and i'm not a goody two shoes wikipedian like you i've got over 5 websites to run all at once and accounts on several other wikis to maintain so if you don't mind i'd like an apology!
 * Er, sorry. No offence was meant but I'm just saying. You may come back to this at any time, it is not a rushed thing. Test?
 * Oh, im sorry for snapping at you just that my websites aren't doing that well at the moment and you were saying that i didn't read it when i did and i wanna skip the test and go onto the next bit because tests are boring and i guess i just lost it, sorry, i truly hope you can forgive me and i hope we can still be friends....,can we?--Ace10000 (talk) 13:08, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Sure. Now, I wasn't saying you hadn't read it, but we can't skip the test. So here it is:

Five Pillars
This test is going to be based on questions. Some questions will have right or wrong answers, whereas others are just designed to see if you are thinking in the right way. There's not time limit - answer in your own words and we'll talk about your answers. Also - you do not have to do the entire test in one edit.

1) Q - You have just discovered from a friend that the new Ford Escort is only going to be available in blue. Can you add this to the Ford Escort article and why?
 * A - i don't think so as that isn't really what you need to know if you wanted to know that then you go on the companies website basically it's not needed but if they don't have it in external links you could add a link to fords official site
 * Yes, correct, but also your friend isn't a reliable source is he - you missed this out. ½.

2) Q - A mainstream newspaper has published a cartoon which you see is clearly racist as part of an article. Can you include this as an example of racism on the newspaper's article? What about on the racism article?
 * A - You can't do it on the newspapers article as this would mislead and "label" the newspaper as racist, on the rascism topic it could help the article if you took and uploaded a pic of the racist "sketch" and then put a tag thing on the bottom of it saying "an example of racism in a newspapers cartoon column" therefore helping wikipedia without direct "labelling"
 * That's right. 1.

3) Q - You find an article that shows that people in the state of Ohio eat more butternut squashes than anywhere in the world and ranks each of the United States by squashes per head. Interestingly you find another article that ranks baldness in the United States and they are almost identical! Can you include this information anywhere on Wikipedia? Perhaps the baldness article or the butternut squash article?
 * A- probably not but if you want to then ask a admin or even better 2 admins the more you ask the more accurate opinion you get to help judge whether to do it or not just don't ask too many or you may get blocked
 * Not really the answer I was looking for here. Admins are not really for asking for opinions on these sorts of things, any user will do, and you should be able to make your own mind up anyway. 0. Carry on.

4) Q - Would you consider BBC news a reliable source on The Troubles? What about on ITV?
 * A - bbc tends to be reliable itv not so much but even the bbc makes mistakes and tells a few porkies so generaly yes but as i'm not that knowledgeable on the subject i'd have to say no
 * They are both equally reliable - ½.

5) Q - Would you consider Ben and Jerry's official Facebook page a reliable source?
 * A- No! facebook is more biased than barack obama talking about himself!
 * Correctamundo! - although Obama isn't icecream. 1.

6) Q - A "forum official" from the Daily Telegraph community forums comments on Daily Telegraph's stance on world hunger. Would this be a reliable source?
 * A- Depends. it's quite debatable and it depends on what forum official means but id think not
 * Yes, you have everything in that answer. 1.

7) Q - Would you have any problem with http://www.hopsandpips.com being used in a beer related article?
 * A - well it depends what the relation is but most would say yes they do have a problem me included
 * I don't really get this answer; the correct answer is no. 0.

8) Q - Would you have any issue with using the About Us page on Xerox as a source for the history section of the Xerox article.
 * A - yep i would, you never use a companys about us thing it's always biased unless you can prove to the point where arguments against are not possible a would but in the case that you could prove it then go ahead.
 * No, companies' websites are fine to use as sources; however you're right with the bias - although you can just edit that out and use the facts. ½.

9) Q - Everybody knows that the sky is blue right? An editor doesn't agree - he says it is bronze, do you need a source?
 * A - well you should ask how the users "knows" it is but if his sources aren't very good then no you don't
 * Sort of - the sky is indeed blue and while you do not necessarily need a source, the quickest way to end the argument would be with a source (or even a picture). 1.

5½/9 - Not bad. Ready for the next lesson?
 * Result

Wikiquette
WP:Wikiquette - or the etiquette of Wikipedia is something that you may already be familiar with, depending how much reading around the different wikipedia pages you've made.

I'm just going to highlight some of the important Wikiquette items that you should try and remember. It may help you out.
 * Assume good faith - This is fundamental and I'll be going over it again in dispute resolution. Editors here are trying to improve the encyclopedia. Every single member of the community. EVERY ONE. If you read a comment or look at an edit and it seems wrong in some way, don't just jump straight in. Try and see it from the other editors point of view, remembering that they are trying to improve the encyclopedia.
 * Sign your talk posts with four tildas ~ . The software will stick your signature and timestamp in, allowing the correct attribution to your comment. I have a script that reminds you to do this if you think you'll forget.
 * Try and keep to threading, replying to comments by adding an additional indentation, represented by a colon, : . I cover more about this in my basics of markup language lesson - let me know if you'd like to take it. Talk pages should something like this - Have a read of WP:THREAD to see how this works.


 * Don't forget to assume good faith
 * There are a lot of policies and guidelines, which Wikipedians helpfully point you to with wikilinks. Their comments may seem brusque at first, but the linked document will explain their point much better than they may be able to.
 * Be polite, and treat others as you would want to be treated. For example, if someone nominated one of the articles you created for deletion, I'm sure you'd want to know about it, so if you are doing the nominating make sure you leave the article creator a notification.
 * Watch out for common mistakes.
 * Did I mention that you should assume good faith?
 * Comment on the edits. Not the editor. I'll cover this more in dispute resolution.

Questions
Any questions?

test please--Ace10000 (talk) 11:42, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, here it is:

Test
Have a look at the conversation below: Well, the Passat lover clearly loves his Passat, but who is he replying to? In

1) Position A?
 * A- freddie
 * No, Rod's Mate.

2) Position B?
 * A- jane
 * No, Rod.
 * See with these first two, indents reply to the one one indent less. 0, I'm afraid.

3) An editor who has a low edit count seems awfully competent with templates. Should he be reported as a possible WP:SOCK?
 * A- no, after he makes a couple of templates gently guide him into editing but don't stop him making templates that way they are productive in templates and editing
 * If you were assuming good faith, you would realise that there are any number of reasons a person could be good at templates, they could have worked on other wikis, be an IP editor with a new account, just be a natural coder... Although your answer is correct in essentials, I'll give you ½.

4) You come across an editor that has made 5 edits to articles, yet 85 to userspace. What do you think you should do with him? (Bolden your choice)
 * A- Volunteer him for mentoring
 * B- Report him to admins
 * C- Nothing
 * D- Your own choice - .....
 * 1 Bang on. I designed this question specifically for you, and hope we get somewhere with this. Final score for this test is 1½ / 4. Anything you'd like to ask about these?