User talk:Kristal776

Hi!
Hi kristal776, Derrick Coetzee (User:Dcoetzee) asked me to be your mentor this semester for the course PA/GEOG 776: Environmental Policy (and Wikipedia). Here's a quick bio: my user name is "fetchcomms", I live in the U.S., I've been editing Wikipedia actively since October 2009, and I'm an administrator (that just means I can lock pages from editing, block user accounts from editing, and delete pages; it's not any special status that gives me more authority in debates or anything like that) since July 2010. I work in both "behind-the-scenes" areas on Wikipedia but I also like to write articles when I have time to do research and stuff.

I think you're learning the basics of Wikipedia in class, but I'm always open to questions—don't feel like you're bothering me. There are a few ways you can contact me: my user talk page (the easiest and most common way to contact me; here is a direct link to the page for starting a new discussion thread), by email (usually only used for private conversations), and on IRC (AKA online chat; direct link; if I'm not in the chat room, there should be other mentors available to help). All these links are on a convenient box I put at the top of this page, right under the sentence "This user is a student in a course working with the Wikipedia Ambassador Program and WikiProject United States Public Policy".

Two tips on replying to messages on your user talk page, like this message I'm writing now: 1. To keep the conversation in one place, you can reply directly under this paragraph, but if you want you can reply by making a new post by clicking on that direct link to my user talk page as well; and 2. Don't forget to sign your posts so everyone knows who was writing the message! To sign, at the end of your message add four tildes (~), like this:. It will automatically convert to show the time the edit was made and your username, plus a link to your user and user talk pages. (Here's my signature: / ƒETCH COMMS  /  .)

Lastly (sorry if this is so long!) the one thing I cannot stress enough is communication. Once you start on your course Wikipedia assignments and begin writing an article, you should log in and check this page at least a couple times every week. It's really hard to talk to someone who doesn't respond :) Also, don't be afraid to ask other people questions on either an article's talk page or on someone's own user talk page if you have a question about some edit they made. In short, communication is vital to success!

Again, if you have any questions, just see the box at the top of this page for links to contact me or another mentor. Happy editing! / ƒETCH COMMS  /  01:29, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Hello there fetchcomms! Thanks for the welcome note. I missed my last class, so I'm not sure if I'm doing things right. Our assignment for the week is to review an article and write on its Discussion page, so I'm going to get started on that now. I'll let you know if I run into any issues. Hopefully this is the right way to reply to your message...? Thanks! Kristal776 (talk) 04:40, 14 February 2011 (UTC)kristal776
 * Yep, you replied correctly :) One little minor thing; you can look at the code of my reply I'm writing here, and see a colon at the very beginning, in front of the "Yep, ..." part—this indents the paragraph, to make my post more distinguishable from yours and easier to read a long conversation. (If you want to reply to this message, add two colons [ ] right before your message so it gets double-indented. See an example at this page.) Also, you don't need to write your name manually—see the "kristal776" sticking out after the date/time at the end of your response? If you do this signature thing with four tildes ( ~ ) then your name automatically gets added. Cheers, / ƒETCH  COMMS  /  04:54, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Cool, I think I got it. Thanks a lot! Kristal776 (talk) 05:29, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Article Review Review
Well done on your review, very good constructive criticism, and it looks like you are learning the mark-up very quickly. Maximilianklein (talk) 18:25, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi Kristal,

Just wanted to say hello. Have fun Wiki-writing!

Simone8855 (talk) 02:28, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi! You were sitting next to me in class today, right?  Just wanted to make sure ;-)  This stuff is pretty interesting - hope you're enjoying it too.  Kristal776 (talk) 06:14, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Moved your article writeup from discussion page
Hi, you accidentally created your article on the discussion page User talk:Kristal776/Sandbox. When you create articles on discussion pages, people are unable to leave comments. I moved it to User:Kristal776/Sandbox. Just letting you know so you can find it! Dcoetzee 01:59, 16 April 2011 (UTC)