User talk:Nicola Swanborough

Welcome!
Hello, Nicola Swanborough, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question and then place  before the question on your talk page.
 * Quick introduction to Wikipedia
 * How to write a great article
 * Ten Simple Rules for Editing Wikipedia, an essay from PLoS
 * Identifying reliable sources for medicine-related articles (general advice)
 * Wikipedia's Manual of Style for medicine-related articles (general style guide)

''If you are interested in medicine-related themes, you may want to check out the Medicine Portal. If you are interested in improving medicine-related articles, you may want to join WikiProject Medicine (sign up here or say hello here).''

Again, welcome! -- Colin°Talk 14:27, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

In reply to some of your queries:
 * You can edit the first (lead) section by editing the whole article: click on the [Edit] link at the very top of the page (between [Read] and [View history]). This is unfortunately confusingly different to how you edit the later sections.
 * I see someone else has inserted the logo for the Epilepsy Society.
 * An easy way to add sources with all the required attributes is to use the citation templates. When you edit an article, click on the "Cite" button at the top of the edit window. Click on the "Templates" drop-down and choose an appropriate one. Don't worry about filling in all the fields but try to add as many as you can.

If you need more help just ask. I'll have your user page on my Watchlist for a while so you can write any questions here if you like. There's quite a lot to learn and worth spending the time reading our guidelines and policies. -- Colin°Talk 14:27, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi Nicola,

Since you work for the Epilepsy Society, you should have a read of Conflict of interest and make sure your edits here don't attract criticism. For example, ensure that the text you edit on the Society's article doesn't become an advert or boast: it needs to be dispassionate and encyclopaedic. Make sure when adding sources to e.g., Epilepsy that your purpose is to confirm the text is accurate, and not to give readers an external link to your organisation or to external information sources. Where those external information sources are better than the current WP text, our focus should be on improving the WP text rather than leading the reader elsewhere. The epilepsy-related articles on WP aren't strong: some are largely unsourced and poorly written, and some are far too technical. It would be great if you and your colleagues could improve this situation. Some medical folk are put off WP if they think their edits will be destroyed by vandalism or by editors pushing fringe ideas, but that doesn't tend to happen in this part of WP, which is actually quite neglected yet important. Colin°Talk

Epilepsy Society rename
I'm not an expert on article renaming (I'm not an Admin). If the rename is uncontroversial and the new name hasn't been used then any editor can move an article (though best to read all the guidelines on that first). However, Sfan00 IMG posted a "rename request" to the Talk:National Society for Epilepsy page to start a discussion on this rename. I think we now have to allow 7 days (from the 5th) to pass before the move is accepted and some admin comes along and actions it. It would be worth you adding your own (presumably support) comment to the discussion there so it is clear to the closing admin that there is a consensus to move. The we just wait a few more days. Colin°Talk 14:19, 11 August 2011 (UTC)