User talk:Stargazer9000

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The Wikipedia tutorial is a good place to start learning about Wikipedia. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. By the way, you can sign your name on Talk and discussion pages using four tildes, like this: &#126;&#126;&#126;&#126; (the software will replace them with your signature and the date). Again, welcome! Drm310 🍁 (talk) 15:12, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Please don't use "Ibid" in footnotes
I see at Draft:The Smile Machine you used "Ibid" but since Wikipedia articles are dynamic and not fixed, that's a really bad idea because if someone later restructures the text, your "Ibid" footnote could end up following a totally different footnote, confusing what the source actually is. I've put the "ibid" tag at the top of your page which suggests ways to fix that. Please take a quick minute to fix it, and make sure to avoid "Ibid" in the future, since we have codings like "refname" which are a much smoother way to indicate repeated use of a source. MatthewVanitas (talk) 07:06, 13 April 2018 (UTC)


 * MatthewVanitas  Thank you very much. I had not thought of that. I will change it. ≈≈≈≈


 * A few other items... when replying to a conversation thread, indent your lines with a colon . This will make the replies easier to follow. Also, it looks like you used the "approximately equals" sign (≈) by mistake when trying to add your signature. Use four tilde characters (~) instead.
 * In your draft, references should be placed after punctuation marks (WP:REFPUNC). This is part of Wikipedia's manual of style.
 * I see that you have cited the same Baltimore Sun article repeatedly. To show you how to save typing the same thing over and over, I converted it to a named reference. This is a type of shorthand that lets you type out the first instance of a reference in full, put a name to it, and then refer to it by its name only in all subsequent uses. You'll notice in the references section that they are now condensed.
 * I also rewrote your Baltimore Sun reference to use a citation template, cite news. This provides a standardized format for references that are easily read and understood by readers. Other citation templates are available for other types of sources (books, periodicals, websites). This will be helpful in flushing out more detail in some of your references to printed sources that aren't online. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 17:07, 13 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Hello, thank you Drm310 for these changes. I obviously see the logic in them and I appreciate the help. I am going to try to find the archived versions of the Life and Newsweek magazine articles, I have photographed copies of them...though I dont know if I'd have the right to publish these photos.Dickturner (talk) 16:46, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Conflict of interest editing
Hello, Dickturner, and welcome to Wikipedia!&#32;Thank you for your contributions.

I noticed that one of the first articles you edited was Draft:The Smile Machine, which appears to be dealing with a topic with which you may have a conflict of interest. In other words, you may find it difficult to write about that topic in a neutral and objective way, because you are, work for, or represent, the subject of that article.&#32;Your recent contributions may have already been undone for this very reason.

To reduce the chances of your contributions being undone, you might like to draft your revised article before submission, and then ask me or another editor to proofread it. See our help page on userspace drafts for more details. If the page you created has already been deleted from Wikipedia, but you want to save the content from it to use for that draft, don't hesitate to ask anyone from this list and they will copy it to your user page.

One rule we do have in connection with conflicts of interest is that accounts used by more than one person will unfortunately be blocked from editing. Wikipedia generally does not allow editors to have usernames which imply that the account belongs to a company or corporation. If you have a username like this, you should request a change of username or create a new account. (A name that identifies the user as an individual within a given organization may be OK.)

In addition, if you receive, or expect to receive, compensation for any contribution you make, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation to comply with our terms our use and policy on paid editing.

Here are some pages that you might find helpful:
 * The plain and simple conflict of interest guide
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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on talk 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 on this page and then place  before the question. Again, welcome! -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:39, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Hi Dickturner. I've added the above template to your page based upon what you've posted on your userpage. The template contains links to Wikipedia pages which you might find informative. Please be advised that even though Wikipedia doesn't expressly prohibited conflict of interest (COI) editing, it is something which is highly discouraged because it often leads to serious problems. Since you're technically just working on a draft for a possible future article, you will be given a little more leeway when it comes to relevant policies and guidelines. Even so, you should make yourself aware of the kinds of things that the Wikipedia community expects from COI editors because it will help you avoid problems down the road. I also strongly suggest that you stick with WP:AFC in trying to get the draft approved even if it's declined. This will give experienced editors a chance to review it and assess whether it is something suitable for article status. When a reviewer declines a draft, they typically explain why and what things need to be improved to ensure it is in accordance with relevant policies and guidelines. There's no limits on the number of times a draft can be submitted, but you should always try to improve things in accordance with the reviewer suggestions. Submitting the same basic declined draft over and over again is not going to gain you any sympathy and will eventually be seen as disruptive or tendentious.
 * You are not obligated to submit drafts via AfC, but once something has been added to the article namespace it's pretty much there to be edited by anyone at anytime. Content deemed unsuitable for Wikipedia may be removed or even deleted when deemed appropriate. So, you need to understand WP:OWN because Wikipedia articles are not like personal websites or social media accounts where the creator pretty much has final editorial control of what they create. This can be something hard to get used to when you just start editing Wikipedia, but it is a colaborative editing project after all and editors agree such a thing each time they click "Publish changes". -- 01:54, 10 May 2018 (UTC)