User talk:Kmac1986

Sandbox
/sandbox

Mentor program
Thanks for inquiring as to my availability to support your Wikipedia efforts as a mentor. I will gladly assist in this capacity. I have some catching up to do but my initial observation is that you already have some experience or you are a fast learner. Perhaps both are true. Either way it seems you are progressing nicely. I will look closer at the edits you have made to date and comment if and where specifically indicated. I will also monitor your Wikipedia activities from here an provide guidance as appropriate. You are always welcome to contact me if you have any specific questions or concerns. I look forward to our future interactions and to the contributions I anticipate you will append. Cheers.  My 76 Strat  04:59, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot! I really appreciate your help. I had never ever ventured beyond the main Wikipedia pages before this project but I am very interested in becoming good at editing here and perhaps contributing more in the future. Kmac1986 (talk) 05:21, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Your sandbox draft
I have quickly reviewed the draft in your sandbox. There are some areas which we will improve in short order. Nothing glares at this point but there are some minor improvements which we can later make. For now, and most importantly, what do you intend to call this article? The title is an important consideration because this is what notability is measured against. And to be sure no article exist on the subject. Therefor taking things one step at a time, let's determine the title for this article. I'll await your response. Best.  My 76 Strat  00:38, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi, I want to call it "United States Security Assistance to the Palestinian Authority". I think it deserves to be considered alongside such articles as Israel-United States military relations and as a subcategory of United States Foreign Military Financing. Though it is not a state recognized by the United States, and as part of its agreements with Israel it does not have what is called a military, the relationship between the US and the PA is significant and worthy of a Wiki page. In fact, I think it quite surprising that there is no such page in existence considering the number of news articles and media regarding the topic. The Palestinian Authority page is seriously lacking in this regard. If you follow some of my links to other Wiki pages it is clearly an underdiscussed subject on here, but a good connection point to many existing articles. For instance, Keith Dayton, the primary leader of the USSC program has a page but hardly anything written about his role in the Middle East.Kmac1986 (talk) 00:38, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Very good. That is a through, well thought, and very appropriate response. I am glad you have given such proper considerations to the subject you are developing. I see no problems or rebuttal to any of the statements you correctly made. All that is left really is minutia from here, and how you wish to proceed. For example, whenever you want to create this article, we can copy paste the whole article at once so it debuts in an expanded form with a single attribution. Or we can move it from here so it enters article space with the history of its development. There is a third option, which I actually recommend, that can be discussed. This is unless you already know what direction you wish to pursue. Let me know your thoughts in this regard. Cheers.  My 76 Strat  20:31, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi, I know "dumping" articles isn't favored on Wikipedia. What is the third option? I intend on revising much further once it is goes (by Thursday 10/28/10) and I must report to my class on what the public opinion is on the article. But otherwise I don't have a major preference.Kmac1986 (talk) 02:29, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Technically a sandbox is where you can perform all kinds of editing tests. It will remain useful as a sandbox throughout your tenure as a Wikipedian. It can be cleared and used for all kinds of related experiments. If we move the article from the sandbox, the complete history and talkpage transfers with the move. I suggest creating User:Kmac1986/United States Security Assistance to the Palestinian Authority as the location for this draft. When you edit there be meticulous about your summary as this will reflect the development history of the article for attribution. That way we can preclude some of my comments and examples from cluttering the finished article. Also you can summarize when in fact you are exercising style preference for future consideration. For example you might summarize one edit as "Introducing serial comma as preferred style", or another as "establishing citation style for references". In all instances it allows you to craft this article using a deliberate approach while allowing us to experiment and play in the sandbox. If you decide this suits you, click the red link, place at the top with the squiggly lines just as shown, and save with a summary to the effect 'Creating user space draft for article creation'. I will keep my comments and examples in the sandbox, leaving it for you to move your choices or finished products to the draft.  My 76  Strat  19:33, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I understand what you mean about transferring things back and forth between the sandbox and a draft page. Does this mean that edits made on a draft page get noted in the published article, but edits from the sandbox do not? I will have a chance to meet with Campus Ambassadors tomorrow so maybe they can assist me with this... Kmac1986 (talk) 02:19, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Essentially, yes. And by the way whenever you want to publish the article live, it is in fine shape for doing so.  My 76 Strat  04:27, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
 * So I am ready to just go live, but I'd like to take my revision history to date with the article. Is this possible? Can you help me figure that process out? Thanks! Also, it's obviously not 'done' and I will be looking for other people's perspectives. Do I need to do certain things to get ratings and get WikiProjects to take my article under their purview?Kmac1986 (talk) 20:25, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Confirmed account
By the way, in case you hadn't noticed, your account should be confirmed based on your contributions to date. This means you can edit Semi-protected articles and no longer will you be required to authenticate your contributions using CAPTCHA. Therefor, congratulations, and happy editing.  My 76 Strat  03:06, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Moving your sandbox draft
It would be fine moving the draft to article space as a live article. When it is there I will add it to the categories you stated and a few others as well. I will assess the article, and place a reader review box so readers can give feedback. I will also continue to monitor the article and assist if any situations arise. I do not anticipate any problems at all. Now when you are ready all you must do is login, go to the sandbox, from there choose the move option which drops down from the triangle next to the star beside history. When you click on move a special page will open for the move. where it says move page "to new title" enter the title for this article. United States Security Assistance to the Palestinian Authority. In the reason box just say something to the effect Moving sandbox draft to article space. Uncheck the box which says Move associated talk page. This will move the sandbox draft with all of its history to the new location. The talkpage will not move as long as you uncheck the box. I will be at the help channel if you need help and I will also be watching for the page to move, so just do it whenever you are ready. Don't worry that the article can be improved, it will be fine and you can always improve it.
 * My article exists now at United States Security Assistance to the Palestinian Authority! Shall I send out birth announcements to any project pages? Kmac1986 (talk) 00:47, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
 * You can be sure the announcements have gone out. It is normal for many Wikipedians to preview a new article under various New page patrols and the likes. Tomorrow or the next day I'll show you some page view statistics related to this activity. For now I will do some of the things I said earlier. By the way, please consider editing other articles you are a welcome contributor and your activities are not limited to this article alone. Congratulations on your first Wikipedia article.  My 76 Strat  01:20, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi Kmac1986! I just wanted to say that your article looks wonderful and that if you feel you have time (doesn't have to be now), you should nominate your article for good article (GA) status. The article can still be improved, but the major work is finished, and I'm sure My76Strat can help you if you choose to pursue GA for the article. Cheers, / ƒETCH COMMS  /  01:46, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

DYK for United States Security Assistance to the Palestinian Authority
Cbl62 (talk) 06:04, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi Kim, a (late) congratulations on getting your article onto the Did You Know section on the Wikipedia front page! As you probably saw, the work you did on the U.S. Security Assistance to the Palestinian Authority article was viewed by more than 700 people on November 6th! Great job, and keep it up! Annie Lin (Campus Team Coordinator, Wikimedia Foundation) (talk) 07:27, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you Alin! I am pleased by how my article turned out and with my introduction to Wikipedia!Kmac1986 (talk) 02:33, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I would like to add that of these 700 views, not even 1 felt a need to change or improve this article. A fact of that magnitude speaks volumes regarding the state of this article. Bravo.  My 76 Strat  02:43, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot--much credit is owed to having a great mentor! It was suggested that I work to bring the article to 'good article status'. Can you tell me what is involved with that? Kmac1986 (talk) 02:46, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi there, Kmac1986; My76Strat asked me to respond to your question about GA-preperation. I can give you some tips and ideas, and I hope you won't be put off by this; it really is not as hard as it all sounds.

Just a note that I'm writing this with only the most cursory glance at your specific article, so mostly it is generic tips and advice. I honestly don't have the hours it'd take me to start examining that article in depth, and if I was able to do so, I might as well GA it myself...but I'm afraid real-life is interfering with my wiki activity, at the moment.

There are always two separate issues with articles; one being the comprehensive nature of the coverage of the subject, and the other being the more technical and artistic requirements - crossing the t's and dotting the i's, and making the prose sound excellent.

Because you'll end up doing all the proofing again and again, it is logical to do everything you can to ensure the article is comprehensive, without worrying overly about the style side of things until later.

To do that, I recommend getting as many opinions as you possibly can. Ask on the talk page of related project groups, and see if you can get lots of opinions about possible improvements; listen to the comments of everyone, no matter how insane they sound.

Also, take a good, hard look at featured articles which are on similar topics. Yes, FA is a step up from GA, but they will give you ideas. If a similar-topic FA has a section which your article lacks, then perhaps it is not currently 'broad in scope' - which is a GA requirement. It's easy to overlook obvious omissions when you get too involved with an article; use the FA's as a guideline template for ideas.

You might also get in touch with the major contributors of those FA's, and see if they can help you out.

The single most important aspect of any article is, of course, the references; all of the facts must have a solid, reliable source for a GA; anything lacking sources should be removed.

That is, of course, where the dichotomy occurs; for some articles, there simply are not enough RS out there for it to ever become a GA. If that's the case, you have to accept that. But from my very brief glance at this specific article, I don't think that will be a problem.

So - once you've double-triple-checked that the article is comprehensive, then is the time to worry about the style side of things.

References references references; make sure every single one has a date, author, ISBN number, or whatever is appropriate. In particular, make sure all of the dates are in exactly the same format throughout (whether the style is '1 April 2001', 'April 1st, 2001' or whatever).

Now - there are lots of pedantic things to check; are there dots on the end of captions if they're full sentences, are there any words abbreviated to "Can't" instead of "cannot", are numbers less than ten written out as words (four) not numbers (4), and more. Fortunately, there is an excellent 'cheat sheet' for this in User:Ealdgyth/GA_review_cheatsheet. If you work through all the points in that, a hell of a lot of these issues will be covered.

You also need to try and make the prose flow well; joining sentences, avoiding clumsy grammar, and so on. To be a good article, it should be a pleasure to read. Currently, it looks OK, but of course anything can be improved. There's some superb tips on this, in User:Tony1/How to improve your writing - definitely worth a bit of a work-out on those exercises of his.

Again, WP:FA is helpful. Read several, and you will get great ideas.

Finally, before submitting to GAR, I suggest you study the requirements. That is what the reviewer will be checking off, so make sure you cover the points. So, have a good read of the beautifully named WP:WIAGA.

Last thought: the point of GAR is not to get a GA; the purpose is to improve the article. So don't just try to tick the boxes; focus on writing great work, and GA will come naturally enough. The reviewer is on your side - we all want to make Wikipedia better, so it is a collaboration between you and the reviewer, simply to make the article shine.

Best of luck. I'm kinda on a wiki-break right now, but I will be available sporadically; feel free to leave notes on my talk.  Chzz  ► 03:36, 18 November 2010 (UTC)