User talk:SnikaPikaVika

Welcome
 Hello, SnikaPikaVika, and Welcome to Wikipedia!  Welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you enjoy the encyclopedia and want to stay. As a first step, you may wish to read the Introduction.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask at the Teahouse.

--- Here are some more resources to help you as you explore and contribute to the world's largest encyclopedia...

Finding your way around:


 * Table of contents / Department directory


 * The Wikipedia Adventure (a tutorial orienting you with Wikipedia)
 * The Signpost, our newspaper

Need help?


 * Questions – a guide on where to ask questions
 * Cheatsheet – quick reference on Wikipedia's mark-up codes
 * Wikipedia's 5 pillars – an overview of Wikipedia's foundations


 * Article wizard – a Wizard to help you create articles
 * The simplified ruleset – a summary of Wikipedia's most important rules
 * Guide to Wikipedia – a thorough step-by-step guide to Wikipedia

How you can help:


 * Contributing to Wikipedia – a guide on how you can help


 * Community portal – Wikipedia's hub of activity

Additional tips...


 * Please sign your messages on talk pages with four tildes ( ~ ). This will automatically insert your "signature" (your username and a date stamp). The OOUI JS signature icon LTR.png button, on the tool bar above Wikipedia's text editing window, also does this.
 * If you would like to play around with your new Wiki skills without changing the mainspace, the Sandbox is for you.

SnikaPikaVika, good luck, and have fun. Stinglehammer (talk) 13:50, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for taking part in the Wikipedia webinar yesterday!
Our Wikipedia Basics site and links to our video tutorials cover the main need to know information including how to publish your page from the sandbox (video tutorial)(pdf guide). Wikimedia UK, the non-profit charitable organisation, which supports Wikipedia in the UK has just released this video about the work being done to Close the Gender Gap on Wikipedia. It's well worth a watch!

To keep up to date about Wikimedia events happening throughout Scotland, to learn more about ScotWiki projects, or to publicise your own ScotWiki event or project, visit the Wikimedia Scotland page and join the ScotWiki Mailing List now. Everybody is welcome!

Outcomes and next steps
The Women in Red event page and dashboard page will remain live so feel free to work on other pages, both on our University of Edinburgh Women in Red page and the main WikiProject Women in Red page where global virtual editathons are held every single month.

Remember, when you are drafting a new page in your Sandbox, you can use another existing Wikipedia page as your base guideline. The Featured Articles on Wikipedia are good ones to use in this respect. Once you have drafted a page, the main thing would be to make sure it is at least 50-100 words backed up by citations (ideally a citation for every line or at least every paragraph) from 3 or more high quality reliable sources and: Add categories to the bottom of the page (once the page is published, not before). Check other similar pages for suitable categories. Link to and from other Wikipedia pages to increase discoverability. You should feel free to edit other pages to include a link back to your page (as long as the link is relevant). The ‘Find link’ tool can help identify other pages on Wikipedia which may mention your article. Make sure you have an opening sentence which adequately summarises the topic at the top of the page.

Refreshing and improving your Wiki skills
Apart from Wiki Basics and our Media Hopper channel's videos, the three best links to follow up with when you’re getting started in my view are:


 * 1) The Visual Editor user guide and training tutorials – Visual Editor is very intuitive but the user guide is there should you need to refer to it.
 * 2) The Wikipedia Adventure – a fun & informative Wikipedia tutorial – This is a great fun starting point and shows you how the Source Editor works.
 * 3) Ten simple rules for editing Wikipedia – 3 page guide which is very useful for understanding Wikipedia.

Looking ahead

 * It is good to know where you can ask questions.
 * Although sometimes it is just as helpful to consider: What Wikipedia is not
 * The Manual of Style and Manual of Style for Biographies are excellent pages covering most questions on the formatting style of Wikipedia articles in order to keep pages reasonably consistent.
 * The Wikiproject Directory – details all the different WikiProjects available for editors to join e.g. WikiProject Women in Red, WikiProject Women Writers, WikiProject Novels, Wikiproject LGBT Studies, WikiProject Film, WikiProject Literature & many more.
 * Wikivoyage – View your hometown area on Wikivoyage (Wikimedia’s ‘Lonely Planet’ style travel guide) to see if your hometown area is sufficiently covered. If not, and you know how the page can be improved then just feel free to edit. Be bold! If you have any questions then Wikivoyage has a friendly Traveller’s Pub section you can ask questions in.
 * The Wiki 'To do' tool suggests pages that could do with improvement. Hit refresh to see a new random page and see how it could be improved.

But why not do a search (or category search) for a topic you are interested in or knowledgeable about? Did you find what you expected? Is the article incorrect? Too short? Non-existent? You should feel free to amend content on Wikipedia as long as you stick to writing objectively and with academic rigour; backing up everything you say with close reference to high quality reliable published sources.

Upcoming editing events

 * Women of Climate Change and Sustainable Development - Monday 20 April 2020 to publish on Earth Day on Wednesday April 22nd 2020.

But why not suggest your own editathon event? As you’ve seen, editathons are gatherings where Wikipedia editors of all different experience levels come together to improve the coverage of a particular topic on Wikipedia. With a Wikipedia trainer there and fellow editors all around you (along with plenty tea, coffee & nibbles) sometimes this is the best way to ensure you feel supported when you are getting started.

And finally...

If you need any more information then please do not hesitate to get in touch via Twitter (@emcandre) via Facebook or email me at ewan.mcandrew@ed.ac.uk

Very best regards and happy editing! Stinglehammer (talk) 12:07, 9 April 2020 (UTC)