User:WormTT/Adopt/Mikeymand

Hi Mikeymand, and welcome to your adoption center. I'll substitute across a lesson for you tomorrow, but for now I thought you'd like to know that you do now have your own official page. As you can see from User:Worm That Turned, I've created an adoption HQ, where you can read ahead in the lessons. I haven't finished them all as yet - the red linked ones are likely to change, but feel free to read ahead - it might help. The tests might include a couple of extra unique questions if I see an area that you might need a little extra development - don't take it as a negative, it should help. Also we now have a talk area for us to use, away from the more public areas - if you would like to use it - it's at User Talk:Worm That Turned/Adopt/Mikeymand. Let me know if there's anything else you'd like to see. Worm   TT   23:04, 23 February 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 notable... 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? Can you just check I have summarized this correctly: Articles should be non-bias and have 'sources' which is a Wikipedia word for evidence of what you are saying. A good source is commonly a big news site" If that is right, I'm ready for the test! With love; MikeyMand :) (talk) 15:15, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It's not wrong, certainly. Sorry I never got back to you on this, I missed it because I went away for the weekend, and didn't spot things that happened between 2 and 4 on Friday. Stupid me!

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.

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 -No, because a friend does not count as a reliable source

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 - I don't understand this question. Sorry
 * Well, it's an actual situation that has come up on wikipedia. I'll rephrase it for you though. "If a newspaper is publishing material you believe is definitely racist, can you create a "racism" section on that paper?"

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- Showing the correlation between 2 technically unrelated things is unadvisable, however scientific proof of the link would confirm and, if it could be sourced, could be used in Wikipedia
 * I think you get the point here, that if it is your research, you can't use it, but if it could be sourced to a reputable scientific proof, it can.

4) Q - Would you consider BBC news a reliable source on The Troubles? What about on ITV?
 * A - Yes, as BBC is an unbias big news company. So is ITV.

5) Q - Would you consider Ben and Jerry's official Facebook page a reliable source?
 * A- Facebook is never a reliable source. They may be bias towards themselves.

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- No.

7) Q - Would you have any problem with http://www.hopsandpips.com being used in a beer related article?
 * A - No, because it is a shop and wouldn't contain information about beer as a product in general
 * Interestingly, I've seen this one argued both ways. This is one of those questions where there isn't a right and wrong answer, but I'd argue that some of the information on the site is useful.

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 - If the About Us page had history of Xerox, then I would have no problem

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 - Yes, but the original writer of the article does not
 * Very good. It's possible you wouldn't need one either, depending if it's "contentious". Just disagreeing with what "everyone knows" doesn't make it contentious, but since "everyone knows" it... it shouldn't be hard to source...

Results
Good enough to go onto the next round - do let me know about Q2 if you get a change though  Worm    TT   08:58, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

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
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- Rod's Mate

2) Position B?
 * A- Rod

3) An editor who has a low edit count seems awfully competent with templates. Should he be reported as a possible WP:SOCK?
 * A- ASSUME GOOD FAITH!!!!!!!!!!