User talk:Indiekitten

Welcome!

Hello,, and welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Unfortunately, one or more of the pages you created may not conform to some of Wikipedia's guidelines for page creation, and may soon be deleted.

There's a page about creating articles you may want to read called Your first article. If you are stuck, and looking for help, please come to the New contributors' help page, where experienced Wikipedians can answer any queries you have! Or, you can just type   on this page, and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Here are a few other good links for newcomers: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Where to ask a question or ask me on. Again, welcome! ttonyb1 (talk) 04:54, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
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Removing a maintenance template
You asked if you could remove a maintenance template someone had put on your article. Short answer: if you are happy that you have addressed the reason for it, then, yes. You should put some explanation in the edit summary, e.g. "Unref tag removed after refs added", or if longer explanation needed put it on the article talk page.

Longer answer: if you are in doubt, another possibility would be to look in the article history to see who put the maintenance template on, and leave a message on their talk page on the lines of "Hi. You put an "unreferenced" template on this article; I have added two references, is it OK with you if I remove the tag?"

The way Wikipedia operates is summed up in the essay WP:BRD standing for Bold, Revert, Discuss. If you think that some change will improve the encyclopedia, then be WP:Be bold and make it. If someone then reverts it, don't just revert it back, which may lead to WP:Edit warring, but discuss it on the article talk page and try to reach WP:Consensus. If you can't, the next step is explained at WP:Dispute resolution. If you think the change may be controversial, especially on a "busy" article where the history shows several editors regularly contributing, it may be wise to go straight to the "discuss" stage by making a proposal on the article talk page.

One more piece of advice: you refer to "your" article, and I see what you mean in that you have just posted it and so naturally have an interest in it; but it's an important Wikipedia principle that nobody owns any article. As soon as you put it in, it becomes Wikipedia's article, and other people can and will edit it; you will still be interested, of course, but you should avoid feeling too proprietary about it.

Regards, JohnCD (talk) 14:37, 19 January 2010 (UTC)


 * this is very helpful, thank you! I see what you mean about me saying "my" article!  Sorry about that!  I am just excited to have posted my first entry, although I do realize it belongs to Wikipedia!