User talk:Beth Rogers

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 bibliomaniac 1  5  23:42, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

PS: I was reading your comments at WP:NOT, and I had to agree. I think a mind set that isn't so wiki-phobic is a better one. Wikipedia, as a tertiary source, isn't meant to be used as a primary source of information. Even other encyclopedias cannot say that they are 100% accurate. I've never really gotten the gripe against Wikipedia's accuracy: if it's so bad, why don't you come over and fix it? The ones who complain about the food are the ones who don't appreciate the time it takes to craft a dish.  bibliomaniac 1  5  23:42, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Your comment at WP:NOT

 * Note that it is possible, with the "cite this page" link that is on every article, to get a link that will always link to the exact version that was read at a given time, and that is what should be provided in a citation. See Citing Wikipedia for more details. Your second point is correct, but errors can and do happen in any publication. Dis you see the report in Science that a detailed expert review of a selection of articles from Wikipedia and from the Encyclopedia Britannica found essentially identical error rates (differences not statistically significant). No single source should ever be uncritically copied on a fact, that is how errors sometimes propagate from textbook to text book (and I can cite sources on this, if you are interested), over generations. Whether you wish to allow students in your classes to cite wikiepedia is of course up to you. Wikipedia doesn't recommend doing or not doing so, but it does recommend verifying references. DES (talk) 00:08, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Reply
Whoa! Okay, I'll try to answer your questions one at a time.

First, I was meaning to put "they," but it came out as a universal "you." It wasn't accusatory, so I apologize for that misunderstanding.

Second, I am not an administrator, although I am currently undergoing a request. I'm not supposed to talk about it, but you had asked.

Third, talk pages (you might want to see WP:TP for more details) are for discussion of how to improve the article or policy in question, not about the topic itself. If you'd like to ask questions, you may wand to see the Help desk or the Reference desk.

The major/minor edit is basically subjective, but as a rule, changes in grammar and spelling or reverting should generally be marked minor. It is also a rule of thumb to provide an edit summary for each edit, explaining what you have done and a rationale in case of a potentially controversial edit. Very controversial edits should be discussed in the talk page of the article in question. If you see an error, feel free to correct it and cite it.

There are also numerous cleanup and collaboration groups. These include Peer review, Cleanup taskforce, Article Creation and Improvement Drive, and any Wikiproject. Feel free to join any and help out. Some of these have more specific subgroups for topics ranging from Indonesia to Rugby. You might want to help out in a more specific group, or you can join the inclusive ones. Cleaning up and improving an article is a pretty painstaking task that requires a lot of willpower and determination.

Finally, replies to a question may be put in either the sender or the receiver's talk. Generally, I like to send it to the other person's talk page, because there's more assurance that they'll log on, find the "You have new messages" template, and read what you have to say. It really depends on the user, although most people prefer to answer on the other person's talk.

 bibliomaniac 1  5  20:55, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Comment from ???
Here's a comment that showed up on my "User Page", and I'm not comfortable just deleting it so moved it here. Don't know who wrote it, but they seem to be having similar trouble navigating the editing/commenting process. I think I'm getting the hang of it now, but it was hard to locate some of the help documents. I eventually found some info pages I was looking for via the "welcome" section, but they had not come up in a basic search. Also, there seem to be at least two different welcome sections. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Welcoming_committee/Welcome_to_Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Welcome%2C_newcomers Wish there was a "Getting Started" or "New Users" link on the left-menu of the homepage... (p.s.- no reply needed, just wanted to put the comment below on the appropriate page)

Beth Rogers 22:14, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

"Beth, I can't find a way to post comments either, I've spent an hour searching in vain on the discussion page of Reference re the Secession of Quebec, and no way. It's just really badly designed, not user-friendly, cryptic.  I am pissed at the waste of time. The quality of the commentaries is below mediocre, and no way to respond. So much for public encyclopedias." From: ?

Referencing
The easiest way to build citations is with the tool at at http://diberri.dyndns.org/cgi-bin/templatefiller/. Instructions are at User:Diberri/Template filler. If you've got any other questions, feel free to ask, either on my talk page, or at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine. Glad to have you here! --Arcadian (talk) 01:00, 18 November 2010 (UTC)