User talk:Est.r

Welcome!

 * }

Help
I'm not sure I understand how this works. How come I didn't have a talk page.


 * Your talk page came into existence when you first edited it, that is when you created the "help me" message. I've added a welcome message at the top with various useful links.  Favonian (talk) 11:52, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Wow, so much to read. I just want to expand on some topics.

You don't have to read it all before starting. Come back and read bits as they become relevant. And you will make mistakes at first, but it will get clearer with experience. I strongly recommend making fairly small edits to articles, and in time you may learn enough to be able to do bigger things. People who start out by writing substantial articles often find that they have not followed the guidelines, and all their work is deleted, which can be very frustrating and discouraging. Much better to learn slowly. Writing a featured article can come later. Your small but useful edits to Capernaum look like a good start. Feel free to contact me on my talk page if you have questions. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:03, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

It is a little daunting to be honest. I've placed the adoption thing on the other page, but noone has responded.

Adoption
I see that you have put yourself up for adoption. I have already made an informal invitation to contact me for help above. I am perfectly willing to turn that informal offer into an adoption if you like. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:11, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * You said on my talk page "Ok! What does the process actual involve?" Mainly it just means that we agree that I am available to help you with any questions or problems while you get the hang of things. I will probably also occasionally have a quick look at how you are getting on, and drop you a comment if I think it might help, but mainly if you are happy editing without help I will let you get on with it, unless, of course, I see that you are getting into significant problems (which, of course, I hope won't happen). I have in the past had a few new editors who have seen me as someone they can keep coming back to for help, and though we have never formally called it "adoption", it is really the same thing. How long does it last? That really depends on you. I have read of cases of an adoptee just asking one question and never coming back again, and I have read of cases of adoptions continuing actively for a few months. Essentially it would go on as long as we both want it to. I would hope that it would end after a while because you felt you were ready to work without it, but if you wanted to end it for some other reason (such as because you thought I wasn't being helpful) then you would be free to do so. You may like to look at Adopt-a-User/Adoptee's Area/Experiences. There's not a lot there, but it may be of some interest.
 * You can always ask me questions on my talk page. However, I hate conversations which jump backwards and forwards between two talk pages (you ask a question on mine, I answer on yours, you make a response to that on mine, etc) because they get confusing. On the other hand, if the main purpose of conversations is to help you then it seems more useful to have them in your user space than in mine. I suggest if you have a question then ask it here, and just drop a brief note on my user page telling me to look here. (You can use the standard template, or just a note in your own words, whichever you prefer.)
 * If you want to go ahead with this then I suggest replacing the  template on your user page with   This will cause you to be listed at Category:Wikipedians adopted in Adopt-a-user. I can also add   to my user page. (I would invite you to do that yourself, but my user page is protected so that only administrators can edit it, because of vandalism in the past.) JamesBWatson (talk) 08:47, 14 October 2010 (UTC)99

Thanks for your help James (?), I appreciate it. I'm hoping to get the Capernaum featured but I don't know where to start. I wouldn't mind doing other tasks as well. By the way, how do you get those signs on your user page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Est.r (talk • contribs) 09:13, 14 October 2010


 * If by "those signs" you mean the user boxes ("This user is a native speaker of English", "This user is a newpage patroller", etc), then the answer is that there are various tags that make them, such as and  . You can find loads of them from Userboxes/Gallery if you like. Don't waste too much time on them, though - there are much better things to do on Wikipedia.
 * I know nothing about Capernaum, so I can't help you with its content, though I may be able to answer questions on how to edit it, what sort of sources are suitable, etc. Good luck with getting it featured.
 * When you post comments on talk pages and other discussion pages (but not in articles) you should finish your post with four tildes, that is to say with ~ . This is automatically translated into a signature. Not only does this show other users who made the post, but also gives a link to your own talk page, which makes it easy for others to contact you.
 * I don't know if you have yet found out about watchlists, which let you know of any edits to pages that you choose to list. I used to use my watchlist to alert me to responses to my posts on other users' talk pages, but I have stopped doing so, because my watchlist grew too big to be manageable. I will try to make sure to check back here frequently, but do put a note on my talk page if you want to make sure that I will see any message reasonably quickly. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:08, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Hey why does it say 'User:2010 Est.r'. Also, is my new page ok? Est.r (talk) 12:13, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Because made a mistake using the Unsigned2 template to add a signature and date. I've put it right now.
 * 2) Yeah, looks fine. JamesBWatson (talk) 15:29, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Hey sorry to bother you again, but how do I upload this photo onto Wikipedia? -Est.r (talk) 05:43, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I can point you to the basics, but for greater detail unfortunately I am not the best person to ask about that. I have rarely uploaded images, and I still find some of the details confusing. The actual mechanics of uploading a file are perfectly straightforward, but making sure you get all the copyright information correct and so on can be confusing. There are detailed instructions at Uploading images, but there is far too much information there to absorb in one go. It is probably worth at least a quick look at that page, but when you come to do the actual upload the easiest method is via Upload, which takes you through the process step by step. (There is a link to this page in the "toolbox" at the left of the Wikipedia display.) Please do be careful about copyright. I wouldn't like to guess how many times I have known users to upload files without bothering to get the copyright information right, only to see their file deleted. For example, editors claim that a photograph is their own work, but someone else tracks it down to a website they have copied it from. It is worth the effort of making sure you get it right. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:25, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * By the way, you don't need to say "sorry to bother you again". I wouldn't have offered to "adopt" you if I minded being asked. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:26, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't look like I'll need to upload the photo after all. My article was 'redirected'. I didn't realise that someone had already created an article on the topic. -Est.r (talk) 06:14, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Vandalism warnings
I see you have reverted some vandalism. That's great: thanks. It is a very good idea when you do to also give a warning to the vandal on their talk page. There are several reasons for this:
 * 1) Sometimes it works, in other words the vandal stops.
 * 2) The warnings serve as a record of the fact that there is a history of vandalism. If the vandal doesn't stop, provided they have been warned a few times, an editor may report them to Administrator intervention against vandalism (commonly abbreviated to AIV), to ask for an administrator to block them. If there are no warnings for the vandal then it is likely that nobody will realise that there is a history of vandalism, so nobody will report it.
 * 3) If the vandal is eventually reported to AIV with few or no warnings an admin is likely to decline the request for intervention. The vandal is much more likely to be blocked if it is clear to the admin that they have been given plenty of warnings.
 * You can write your own warning messages, but it is best to use standard warning templates for vandalism. Apart from the fact that this saves you work, if an editor using an automatic anti-vandalism tool called "Huggle" reverts further vandalism, then Huggle will automatically increase the level of the warning, and eventually will automatically report to AIV. Huggle won't do this for hand-written messages. You can find a list of message templates at WP:WARN. If you find a single example of fairly minor vandalism you can put ~ on the vandal's talk page, or better still Title of the page vandalised ~ . If you want to add your own comment to the standard message you can use Title of the page vandalised ~ If you see that the vandal has already been warned you can use Title of the page vandalised, and so on.  will produce a "final warning", after which a report at WP:AIV is in order. (Actually it is not absolutely necessary to go through all the levels 1,2,3,4. If I think I see serious vandalism I often start at level 2, or jump from level 1 to level 3. However, I think to begin with it is safer to go through all the levels.) JamesBWatson (talk) 14:00, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Ok thanks, next time I'll use the warning templates. Should we really be giving them 4 chances though? I mean, sometimes it's pretty obvious that they should be blocked. -Est.r (talk) 06:16, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I totally agree, and sometimes I block a user who has had no warnings at all. I think I didn't express clearly what I meant. I didn't mean to say that you had to go through all the four levels, but rather to suggest that it is safer to take the line "if in doubt take it slowly". If there is no doubt then you don't need to do that, but it takes some experience to learn what sort of thing is likely to be accepted by an admin, so at first a bit more caution is advisable. However, having said that, admins are individuals, and some of us are much more ready to block than others in borderline cases, so even the most experienced editor can't tell for certain what is likely to be acceptable. Personally I would almost never require all four levels to have been used up before considering a block, but except in really extreme cases I would want at least two or three warnings, with at least one of them at level 3 or 4. JamesBWatson (talk) 21:36, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

So theoretically if it's a blatant vandal then I can start off with the second template, or even the third?-Est.r (talk) 06:55, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The short answer is "yes". The level one templates tend to take the line "you probably meant well, but unfortunately you seem to have made a mistake". If it is clear to me that the person did not mean well then I feel perfectly free to start at level 2. A particular example concerns the messages about removing a speedy deletion tag from a page you created yourself. (This is not vandalism as such, but similar principals apply.) The level 1 message starts out by saying "Welcome to Wikipedia. It might not have been your intention, but you removed a speedy deletion tag from a page you have created yourself." In my opinion if the person in question has made an edit which did nothing else apart from removing the tag, then it is ridiculous to say "It might not have been your intention...", so I would certainly go straight to level 2. I would only use the level one tag in cases where an edit looks as though the removal may possibly have been an accident in the course of another edit. There are even templates such as Template:Uw-vandalism4im which are specifically intended to be used as the only warning given before blocking, and which go directly to level 4, so there is no doubt at all that it is sometimes acceptable to miss out levels. However, in my experience newcomers far more often make the mistake of jumping too high too quickly than the opposite mistake, which is why I tried to warn you to be cautious. Maybe you wouldn't have made that mistake, though. The immediate "only warning" templates are mainly suitable for really extreme cases such as serious libel. Having said all that, like everything else on Wikipedia, it really comes down to using intelligence and being willing to learn from experience. JamesBWatson (talk) 08:57, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for taking time to explain. The anti-vandalism process sounds quite complicated, I think I'll stick with working on article content. -Est.r (talk) 09:25, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh dear. I certainly didn't mean to put you off combatting vandalism. Probably i have made the mistake of giving you more information than you need. Almost everything on Wikipedia is ridiculously complicated if you look into all the details, but you don't need to follow every detail. Well, if you come across vandalism please do revert it, even if that's all you do. It will be better still if you also drop a note on the vandal's talk page, but you don't have too worry about the different levels and so on. Any warning note is better than none, and even undoing the vandalism and not leaving a warning is obviously better than leaving it. JamesBWatson (talk) 11:02, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

If I come across a vandal I'll revert. Other than that I probably won't go out of my way to engage in 'vandal fighting', well at least not for the time being. -Est.r (talk) 12:53, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Good work / edit summaries
I've just had a quick look through your editing history, Esther, and I think you are doing really good work. A lot of your edits are just little details, but I haven't seen a single one which doesn't look good, which is not the case with many new editors, even those with the best of intentions. One small suggestion for improvement, though, is to always use edit summaries. Sometimes you do, as in this edit, for example, but often you don't. Even very brief edit summaries can be very helpful to others. They can also sometimes protect your own work, because sometimes a perfectly good edit without any explanation can look to someone else like vandalism or other unconstructive editing, whereas with even a few words of explanation it may be clear what you were doing. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:13, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I thought that most of the edits were self explanatory, and I didn't really know what to put in the space. -Est.r (talk) 09:19, 18 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, sometimes there isn't a lot to say. However, a couple of words can be better than nothing. For example for this edit you could have just said "wikilink Nepal". I agree that an edit like this is self-explanatory to someone who is looking at the change made by the edit, but it can sometimes be helpful to have at least some idea of what an edit is about when you are looking at the edit history, so that you can't actually see the edit. JamesBWatson (talk) 10:51, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Greetings!
 Hello Est.r, Wilhelmina Will has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Go on, smile! Cheers, and happy editing! Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Hope you're having a good day! Wilhelmina Will (talk) 02:06, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

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Signature
JamesBWatson (talk) 08:58, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Happy Halloween!
Cheers! Wilhelmina Will (talk) 04:45, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Congratulations
Hello, Esther. I've just dropped by to see how you are getting on. I looked at your recent editing history, and the answer seems to be that you are doing fine. It's nice to see friendly acknowledgements on this page from other users too. Keep up the good work. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:30, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

GOCE drive
Hi, your edit summary seemed to request a check-up for Around the World with Willy Fog, so I thought I'd take a look. Your word count was correct, the number of words of readable prose before you began to edit. However, I found that some of the changes you made (refer to this aggregate diff) did not improve the tone or clarity of the text, and that, in some place, you overlooked other problems with the article. I would recommend changing the tag on the copy edit drive page to say that you are still working on it so that you are not penalized words for a bad edit, and continue working on the article. After you update the tag, take another look at the manual of style. There is a case of a time in the plot section that reads "8.00am" where it should be "8:00 am", optionally with dotted 'a.m.' but always with a space and a colon (Mos). Also, while, in some cases, you fixed sentences that were rambling or unclear, you overlooked others. Just take another look and remember not to just correct basic errors in mechanics but to also address the need for "encyclopedic tone" in the article. Thanks for your efforts, and have fun! –Paul M. Nguyen (chat&#124;blame) 15:07, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll keep working on it then. Thanks for letting me know. - ESTR +  11:47, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

GOCE Drive – Final push
Greetings GOCE Backlog elimination drive participant, We are now coming up to the last few days of the drive, the last for 2010. Currently, it looks like we will achieve our target for reducing the backlog by 10%, however, we still have huge numbers for 2009. We have 55 participants in this drive. If everyone just clears 2 articles each, we will reduce the backlog by a further 110 articles. If everyone can just do 3 articles, we will hit 165. If you have yet to work on any articles and have rollover words, remember that you do need to copyedit at least a couple of articles in this drive for your previous rollover to be valid for the next drive. There are many very small articles that will take less than 5-10 minutes to copyedit. Use CatScan to find them. Let's all concentrate our firepower on the first three months of 2009 as we approach the end of this final drive for the year. Thank you once again for participating, and see you at the finish line! – SMasters (talk) 04:08, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

GOCE elections
Sent on behalf of the Guild of Copy Editors via SMasters using AWB on 01:38, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Quick comments on your editing
Hello again Esther. I've just had a look at your recent contributions. I see you haven't edited for over a week. I do hope this is just a short break, and you will be back, as you have continued to make useful contributions. Just two small suggestions:
 * 1) It can help to say what article you are referring to in warnings. For example, if you have found vandalism in the article Lemon it is more helpful to post than just  . This can make things clearer both to the editor you are warning, and to anyone else who subsequently needs to check the editor's history for any reason.
 * 2) I see you are still usually not using edit summaries. Well, that's up to you, but again they do help.

Best wishes. Do contact me if you have any questions. JamesBWatson (talk) 14:21, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I've been really busy as of late due to a combination of work and personal issues. Specify the article and use edit summaries more frequently, got it. :) - ESTR +  14:27, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

GOCE Year-end Report
Sent on behalf of the Guild of Copy Editors using AWB on 06:19, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Progress
Hello, Esther. I thought I would mention that I have been looking by from time to time to see how you are doing. Usually I haven't said anything because nothing has needed saying, as you have been getting on fine without me. I see you haven't edited for a month now. I hope you haven't left for good, as you seemed to me to be a very good contributor, but if you have left but come back and read this, it was nice knowing you briefly. JamesBWatson (talk) 11:38, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

The WITF wants you
''The World Intelligence Task Force would like to recruit you as an agent. If you accept, comment under the pending section on the project page. It is a relatively new task force and we need new members right away so if you are interested please don't be shy. At this moment in time we only have three members. If you want more information, please go to the project page.'' — Preceding unsigned comment added by SunCountryGuy01 (talk • contribs)

March 2011 Backlog Elimination Drive
Hi. On behalf of the Guild of Copy Editors, I am inviting you to sign up for our March Backlog Elimination Drive. Win a barnstar! It's fun. -- Diannaa (Talk) 01:50, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Unadoption
Esther, since you have not edited for well over three months I am going to remove the adoption notice from my user page. You are, of course, still welcome to ask me for help if and when you return to editing. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:09, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

GOCE drive newsletter
Sent on behalf of the Guild of Copy Editors using AWB on 07:19, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

GOCE drive invitation
Sent on behalf of the Guild of Copy Editors using AWB on 08:58, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
Hi, You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:25, 24 November 2015 (UTC)