User talk:Lindsay.ags

Welcome! (and notes on Black spot disease (crustaceans))
Hello and welcome to Wikipedia! I just moved the page you created into what we call "mainspace", the more visible part of the site with all the articles. I figured I'd swing by to offer a couple of tips and point you in the direction of similarly interested editors. First, you may notice that Black spot disease (crustaceans) looks a bit different from other Wikipedia articles (e.g. look at another disease of crustaceans, Infectious hypodermal and hematopoietic necrosis). First, that article has links to other Wikipedia articles, which we call wikilinks. They help to integrate the various encyclopedia articles together into a more cohesive whole. I've added one to Black spot disease as an example, perhaps you can add a few more (guiding principle: don't wikilink everything, it's annoying to the readers. Instead link key words/ideas that a reader interested in Black spot disease may wish to read more about). Second, the references on many pages are slickly formatted, where on Black spot disease they're just URLs. We typically frown upon bare URLs as references because they're susceptible to link rot, i.e. the page moves and nobody can figure out what you were trying to reference. The default editing interface should have a "Cite" button near the top of the editing window that can help you format your references. If you prefer to use the more HTML-looking classic editor, you can manually detail the reference in a template. I've templated one of your references as an example.

More importantly, I'm glad to see another editor interested in wildlife diseases. I hope you decide to stick around; there's so much to be done here and not nearly enough hands to do it. Wikipedia is a big place, and like in any other large organization, you may find it helpful to find "your people". Editors tend to collect at topic-centered "WikiProjects". If you're mostly interested in taxonomy, you may like to check-in at WikiProject Tree of Life. If you're interested in diseases more broadly, you may find similarly interested folks at WikiProject Medicine (where I'm most often found). Sadly, there are more particular WikiProjects: for Marine life, Microbiology, et al. (no crustaceans project!) but they've mostly gone quiet due to lack of interested editors. Feel free to ask any questions you have at those WikiProjects, at WP:TEAHOUSE (where you'll probably get the quickest response), or you can ask me anything here. I'll post a common Welcome template below, which has some other links you may find useful for reference. I hope to see you around! Happy editing! Ajpolino (talk) 03:03, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Welcome!
Hi Lindsay.ags! I noticed your contributions and wanted to welcome you to the Wikipedia community. I hope you like it here and decide to stay.

As you get started, you may find this short tutorial helpful:

Alternatively, the contributing to Wikipedia page covers the same topics.

If you have any questions, we have a friendly space where experienced editors can help you here:

If you are not sure where to help out, you can find a task here:

Happy editing! Ajpolino (talk) 03:03, 25 October 2022 (UTC)