User talk:Brafield

Welcome to wikpedia (I'm sure someone will be along with a better welcome message before long),

Thank you for your contribution to the Shipham article about Mendip raceway & stock car racing, but I don't think it is yet apropriate for an encyclopedia such as Wikipedia. I've made a few changes and put some comments on Talk:Shipham and would be grateful if you could take another look and see whether the information could be presented in a clearer way?&mdash; Rod talk 12:33, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

reponse to newbie questions
Thanks for getting back to me (replying). I'm going to copy your message here to deal with it bit by bit. By the Way if you sign your message on talk pages with ~ it leave a record of your username & the date & time you post it.

>Rod, this is the first time I have used Wikipedia, and the first time I have attempted to "reply" (if that's what I'm doing) to an "editor" (if that's who I'm writing too!)

We are all editors - anyone can edit the pages that is the whole point. There are admins who have greater rights but they have to be elected & I'm not one, just an editor like you - when we start we all have to learn a few tricks & some of the "etiquette".

>With regard to the piece I put in about stock-car racing near Shipham: I see that you would prefer to see formal description rather than journalism --- and I recognize the principle of fitting in with encyclopedia style.

Yes one of the principles is to give a "Neutral Point of View" see Neutral point of view By the way you make a link by adding word to be link to the words you want to link to another article.

>Can you tell me if you are a Wikipedia editor, or whether Wikipedia is totally user-controlled? I imagine you are free to edit what I submitted -- or am I wrong?

It is user controlled within some policies and guidelines which have been developed over the years (and you can suggest changes to) see Help:Contents for the basics of editing and policies.

>Likewise, I imagine I could go in and rewrite my stuff.

Yep you can change anything someone else has written - but there are procedures for "edit wars" & arbitration when people are constantly changing each others editing.

>Re: The particulars you mention; stock cars evolved as closed-course close-contact vehicles, totally unlike the "normal" sports and racing cars that evolved on conventional road circuits. As with m'cycle Speedway racing, the arena settings inside towns and cities, and often side-by-side with soccer grounds, meant that stock-car racing's audience was from the start a working-class one: very distinct from the middle and upper-class world of Goodwood and Silverstone.

OK do you have a book, journal article or authoritative web site which says that about the history? if you do you cite it to show that the idea is not just your own - but comes from good "sources"

>Question: on the Shiphanm Wikipedia page I have only just now noticed links that you or someone supplied, to Mendip Raceway and to Stock-car Racing; I am fascinated by this --- presumably Wikipedia users can add links anywhere when they see an article about which they know something?

I add some links - although another editor has added a bit about the location. You can add link it's a single [...] but not to advertising or sites you have created.

>Anyway, please enlighten this newbie, rookie, first-timer!! Cheers. from BC Canada

We were all new to wikipedia once & have had to learn but it is generally supportive & most people try to help if yo are contributing in good faith. I hope you enjoy & feel free to ask for help (but I know nothing about sock car racing) &mdash; Rod talk 16:58, 3 November 2006 (UTC)