User:Deflagro/Admin coaching

Introductions

Add an intro if you want:

Shell Kinney

I've been on Wikipedia for about two years now; I tend to do a lot of cleanup and grunt work with the occasional biology article tossed in for fun. I've helped out a little bit of everywhere - informal mediations, OTRS, copyrights and even had to take a case to ArbCom once. I think civility and discussion are the cornerstones of editing and prefer educating new or problematic editors over formal dispute resolution. My favorite essay on being an admin is by Mindspillage. This style works well for me, but remember, part of the strength of Wikipedia is having people will different talents and approaches working together. Feel free to ask me any questions you want. Shell ^babelfish 20:05, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Deflagro

I've been on Wikipedia a few months more than half a year. I RC Patrol and revert vandalism using Twinkle. I try to contribute to articles about what I like (and sometimes random articles I stumble upon), but tend to have trouble finding references and information. Deflagro 20:20, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

What you want out of this

Things you want to achieve or learn:

How to find more information
Learn how to participate more in Wikiprojects
Learn more aspects of Wikipedia other than editing (i.e. Manual of Style and such)
What it takes to be a good admin
What are all the aspects of the admin tools
Learn more of the Wiki language

That's a great start. To really help out I'll need a bit more information. What kind of information do you need to know more about finding? Which Wikiprojects would you like to take a more active role in? I'll start putting together some things for you to take a look at and get back with you soon. Shell ^babelfish 21:24, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I guess I need more help with references and citations. Right now I am only in the Paintball and Magic wikiprojects. Don't feel like I'm really that involved in them. Deflagro 22:09, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

References

Since I'm not sure what about references you would like more information on, I'm going to start in a few directions. If there's something you'd like to talk about more or anything you feel you already have covered, just let me know.

Wikipedia:Citing sources - When to cite and how to handle citation problems
Wikipedia:Citation templates - Quick view of citation templates
Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines
Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check
Wikipedia:Footnotes - Style guidelines on referencing

As far as involvement in Projects goes, my best advice is to be bold. Get involved in discussions about the project or find out what the project's latest task ideas are and work on them. I'll be working on putting together some good reading material for using the admin tools next. Shell ^babelfish 20:49, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Okay thanks. What I meant about references is finding them! It seems most of the Projects I am in are kinda dead. Right now the only one I'm really active in is Piracy. Deflagro 20:51, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

If you're interested in more information on finding references, I would suggested talking with the folks at Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check. Typically using different types of Google searches can give you a great deal of information. You can search news, journal articles and other research and even search inside some books; in addition to online sources, this can give you some clues to offline references as well. However, the most tried and true method is still visiting a library and checking out books on the topic first hand. Shell ^babelfish 00:21, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! The problem with the library is that most of the time when I can't find a reference, it is usually on a Piracy article and then a library won't help much! I dunno if you have time, but can you look through some of the articles I have written/majorly contributed to and tell me some tips and ideas on what I can do better at writing? Thanks! ♣ Deflagro ♠ 04:04, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that does make it difficult some times - certain topics just don't show up in a traditional library. Some times a search of books on Amazon.com will come up with some reference ideas; they sell some books that are self-published and from tiny publishing companies. Unfortunately, there are some times that you just can't expand an article the way you would like to because reliable references don't exist.

I'd be happy to look through your contributions. Give me a couple of days to poke around and I'll see what suggestions I can come up with. Shell ^babelfish 15:56, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok, things I saw while looking through your contributions:

You do a good job sorting through new articles and tagging them for speedy deletion appropriately. You also make sure to notify the editors almost every time - this is great.
You do a good amount of vandal fighting and again, you make sure to warn vandals.
You almost always use an edit summary - this is fantastic.
You have very few non-minor edits. You might want to consider trying to work on a piracy article to get it to GA or FA status.
You notice when you make mistakes and resolve the issue without any problem.
It doesn't appear that you've been involved in any disputes, so I can't offer any opinion there - showing how you handle disputes or editing differences that arise is something that ends up being important if you are interested in becoming an admin.

One other thing - being the silly person that I am, I didn't check out the Piracy project and didn't realize it was about Pirates (I was thinking piracy in a technical manner). If you can give me an idea which articles you'd be interested in expanding, I bet I could give you quite a few references to look up. I did a paper on piracy during an anthropology class - it would be interesting to visit that again. Shell ^babelfish 15:16, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for looking through all those! Today is the first day that I have actually done New Page patrolling. About the piracy articles, I dunno a specific one. I have started working on the new Portal:Piracy. I'm not sure, anyone you have information on I guess. Maybe Black Bart (Bartholomew Roberts) because that one really needs to be cleaned up. Also buccaneer needs some more stuff on that if you have any references. It's great to hear back from you as I guess you have been on vacation or somethin. Thanks! Deflagro ^Contribs/_Talk 15:35, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Next Steps

Fair or not, administrators are expected to know their way around every aspect of Wikipedia and know it well. A great place to start is to check out Wikipedia:Tips. Take a look over the sections you're interested in and let me know if you have any questions. Shell ^babelfish 20:42, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Hey it's great to here back from you. I don't know my way around Wikipedia at all so that will help a lot. It's late for me right now so I will look over it tomorrow. Deflagro ^Contribs/_Talk 02:40, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I looked over it and I don't really understand the tags for images and that sort of thing if you could explain it for me, that'd be great! Deflagro ^Contribs/_Talk 20:37, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Image tagging is one of the more complicated things to learn on Wikipedia (just some of the templates Wikipedia:Template messages/Image namespace). Ideally, images on Wikipedia should be copyleft,or what is usually referred to as "free". These are images that have fallen into the public domain or where the copyright holder allows the image to be re-used for any purpose.

Wikipedia:Image copyright tags/Free licenses - The GFDL and certain Creative Commons licenses fall under "free" as well as images released into the public domain (i.e. the copyright holder releases all rights). These are fairly straightforward as the copyright holder is usually the uploader or has specified precisely which of these licenses to use.

Wikipedia:Image copyright tags/Public domain - Images that have fallen into the public domain need a bit more scrutiny; some are in the public domain in their native country, but not in the US, others are public domain in the US but not elsewhere. Works of the US government are typically public domain (Wikipedia:Image copyright tags/USA) as well as photographs or paintings where the author died more than 100 years ago. If you browse the list, you can see there are many different variations.

Wikipedia:Image copyright tags/Non-free - This is the most complex area. Certain images, such as logos or cd covers are integral to an article on the subject but will never be found as a "free" image. In specific cases like these, Wikipedia allows the use of the images (Wikipedia:Non-free content, Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria) as long as they are accompanied by a suitable fair-use rationale (Wikipedia:Non-free use rationale guideline, Category:Non-free media rationale templates).

There's a good FAQ at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions and looking at the talk page and archives there can give you a lot of insight on the kinds of things that come up. This is one category that takes a lot of reading to really get a good handle on - feel free to ask any questions you think of! Shell ^babelfish 21:41, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay now. I have three questions:

Can you check my images and see if I did the Free Use Rationale right? (they are both logos, I never added a free use rationale.) Image:Evangelical_Christian_School_logo.JPG and Image:WMFS.jpg
How do you review/put up an article for review to make it a Good Article?
Is the coding in my signature too long?

There was some good posts on the Media copyright Questions. Found one on what to do to about the logos of schools which one of my two pictures is! Thanks for all your help! Deflagro ^Contribs/_Talk 00:49, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Those are both excellent rationales.
Both are done in the same place, Wikipedia:Good article candidates. Articles to be nominated can be placed at the end of the category they fall under, assuming they meet the criteria at Wikipedia:What is a good article?. As far as reviewing goes, there's a great walkthrough at Wikipedia:Reviewing good articles and the explanations for what to do if you want to pass/fail an article are on the candidate page itself.
For me its 3 lines worth of signature - some people have expressed the feeling that this is long, some say its too long and some (like me) just don't care. Yours falls into that gray area where the community has some serious disagreement; unless you've gotten some complaints, I personally don't feel you should need to change it.

Yeah, that is an awesome page when you need to clarify something image-wise. Pretty soon you'll be finding your way around Wikipedia like a pro. By the way, if you haven't already taken a good look at the Wikipedia:Community Portal, its links will help get you to many useful areas. Shell ^babelfish 02:12, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! At first for some reason I didn't see the answers and just saw that last paragraph. Anyway yeah, I do go and glance around the Community Portal every now and then. Not too often though. I just went and looked at it and this is the first time I have noticed the Notices part. Might be looking at that more often now. Will look over the Good Article status and such in a little bit. Deflagro ^Contribs/_Talk 23:00, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Anything else with images you have questions about? It can be a rather confusing area to work with. Shell ^babelfish 13:38, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't have any questions right now on it. I think I have that down. Also the reason I asked about the Good Articles thing is I nominated Francis Drake. Also I think you saw Gazzo Macee was proposed for deletion so I endorsed that and put up the speedy deletion author tag. Couldn't find any sources on him except for places selling his effects. I think that's all for right now... Deflagro ^Contribs/_Talk 22:50, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I gave a quick look for references for Gazzo Macee and didn't have much luck either. I noticed that Francis Drake was also listed as going on the Wikipedia CD, with a note that inline citations would be helpful. Might not be a bad idea to do that to help with the good article status too. Shell ^babelfish 14:50, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah I am going to work on that some. It was quick-failed because there was not enough and there was some citations needed. Deflagro ^C/_T 21:32, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I have been working on Francis Drake on and off for a little bit. Can you take a look at it. I converted most of the references to inline citations (except the ones I didn't know about) and added in some other references. Also there are no citation needed tags in there. If you could look through it and maybe tell me some things/tag some places that need citations? Thanks! Deflagro ^C/_T 00:16, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm probably not the best judge of copyediting; you might want to look into the history or biography Projects to see if someone can review, or even submit it for WP:Peer review. Shell ^babelfish 00:16, 1 February 2008 (UTC)