User talk:Valerieraynard

Almost there
You tried to add your name to the list, I see. You almost did it. You need to add the code *, whereas you put *. The two are almost the same, but not quite. The former will give the following result:



Anyhow, we can troubleshoot this tomorrow. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 06:04, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

models
To have a sense of what you should be aiming at as you work on your article, you are advised to look at relevant good articles and featured articles. A recent featured article about an author is Mario Vargas Llosa, for instance. This was written by a UBC class last semester. You may also want to consult the Literature Wikiproject. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 09:51, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

reminders: regular editing and plan
Two reminders, from our project page:

Over the course of the semester, you need to log in and make at least one edit, again however minor, to your article twice a week.

By September 19, each group should have their plan in place, and have written it up on their article's talk page.

--jbmurray (talk • contribs) 08:06, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Re. Wikipedia for Dummies
(copied over from my talk page:) Valerie, I just had a look. Thanks for the suggestion. I can't really see that you've done anything wrong. Everything looks just fine!

NB, however, that the protocol is usually to add comments to the bottom, not the top, of talk pages. If you hit "edit this page," just scroll down until you hit the bottom. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 00:42, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see that the marvellous User:Mike Christie came in and sorted things out at Talk:Chicano literature. You see what I said... that you can't really screw up on Wikipedia, because everything can be undone. So don't worry about making mistakes. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 00:46, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

How to add comments
Valerie, I saw your note to jbmurray; I hope you don't mind if I drop an explanation here. The reason your note at the top produced a long comment that stuck out on the right is that it started with a space. Wikipedia uses that initial space to mean "don't format this, leave it just the way it is."

This line starts with a space, for example.

So if you ever see that happen again, just edit it again and delete any leading spaces and you should be fine.

How to make your comments show up under other things: the convention is that you comment underneath, rather than on top, of the comment you want to respond to. So you get a series of comments like this:

First comment
 * First response
 * Reponse to the first response
 * Second response

The indentation levels tell you who's responding to who. In your case I think you wanted to be all the way at the bottom so I reorganized the talk page to be the way I think you meant it to be. (And I deleted your paragraph at the top; I can get it back if you want it.)

If you look at a talk page, you'll see it's in sections, each of which has an "Edit" link next to it. If you click that link you'll be editing just that section. If you click the "Edit this page" button at the top of the Wikipedia page, you'll be editing the whole page -- all sections at once. The sections will show up with equals signs around them, like this: ==Section title==. Then if you click inside the editing box that will appear, and scroll to the end, you'll find your post will appear at the end of the section you're editing.

You can try out editing at SANDBOX if you want to; you can't hurt that page -- it's there for messing around with. Just edit it and see what happens. If you have any questions, you can ask me on my talk page -- I'm usually around evenings and weekends, eastern and central time. I hope this helps! Mike Christie (talk) 00:45, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

October
Valerieraynard, I see that the last time you made an edit was over a week ago... --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:39, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

FA-Team
We have been adopted by the renowned FA-Team! Please add the project page to your watchlists, and feel free to ask FA-Team members if you have any queries or need help. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:19, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

happy face!
You get my happy face for your work on Talk:José Martí... but time also to contribute to the article itself! --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 23:45, 24 October 2008 (UTC)