User talk:BillGoldsmith

Welcome!


Hello, BillGoldsmith, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like this place and decide to stay. Here are some frequently asked questions:

Q: What are the general rules of Wikipedia? A: The four general rules are to respect your fellow Wikipedians, remain neutral, cite your sources, and to ignore a rule if it prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia.

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Q: Why can't I edit some particular pages? A: Some pages that have been vandalized repeatedly are semi-protected, meaning that editing by new or unregistered users is prohibited through technical measures. If you have an account that is four days old and has made at least 10 edits, then you can bypass semi-protection and edit any semi-protected page. Some pages, such as highly visible templates, are fully-protected, meaning that only administrators can edit them.

Q: Where can I experiment with editing Wikipedia? A: Use the main sandbox or create your own personal sandbox to experiment.

Q: How do I create an article? A: Please use the article wizard. Note that non-autoconfirmed users (users that have not made 10 edits or do not have an account that is 4 days old) cannot create articles, but they may submit new articles for review at Articles for Creation.

Q: What are references, sources, and citations all about? A: All claims must be supported by a book, website, or news organization independent of the subject of the article. The source must be reliable, meaning it cannot be a blog, MySpace page, or a personal website. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, to prove that an inaccurate statement is correct and that it should stay in the article. However, the Verifiability policy is about verifiability, not truth. See Verifiability and Reliable sources for more information.

Q: How do I insert a reference into an article? A:
 * 1) Do a search on Ask.com, Google, or your preferred search engine for the subject of the article that you want to put a reference in.
 * 2) Insert a claim in the article stating a fact about the subject.
 * 3) In the search you did in step 1, find a website that supports the claim you made in step 2. Highlight the address in the address bar (where it says http://yada-yada-yada.com/bla-bla-bla.htm ).
 * 4) Go to the reference generator, click on the 'An arbitrary website' bubble, and fill out the fields best you can. Then click 'Get reference wiki text'.
 * 5) Highlight, and then copy (Ctrl+C or Apple+C), the resulting text.
 * 6) In the article, after the claim you made in step 2, paste (Ctrl+V or Apple+V) the text you copied in step 5.

Q: How do I sign my posts on talk pages? A: Sign your name on talk pages by using four tildes ( ~ ). This will automatically produce your username and the date, and helps to identify who put that post on the talk page. Please do not sign any edit that is not on a talk page.

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Q: How do I format text on Wikipedia? A: Use two apostrophes for italic text (  italic text  ), three apostrophes for bold text (  bold text  ), five apostrophes for bold and italic text (  Bold and italic text  ), two brackets for an internal link (page name]]), two brackets and a pipe ( | ) for an internal link with different text to be displayed ( text to be displayed ), the link, including the http:// prefix, for external links (http://www.example.com), one bracket and a space for an external link with different text to be displayed ( Text to be displayed ), and two curly brackets for. See this page for more formatting marks.

Q: Are there any pages I should take a quick look at? A: To get an idea of how things work around here, check out some of these pages:
 * New contributors' help page
 * Introduction to Wikipedia
 * Guide to Wikipedia
 * The simplified ruleset for Wikipedia
 * Help
 * Help on image and sound files
 * More frequently asked questions
 * Where to ask questions

Q: I need additional help. A: Check out Questions, [ ask me on my talk page], or click the button below. Happy editing and again, welcome! Samwb123T (R)-C-E 03:16, 23 April 2010 (UTC)