User talk:Bocephusjohnson

Welcome to Wikipedia!

Dear Bocephusjohnson: Welcome to Wikipedia, a free and open-content encyclopedia. I hope you enjoy contributing. To help get you settled in, I thought you might find the following pages useful:

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Thanks for adding to the Knoxville, Tennessee article. Wikipedia always needs additional, substantive content.

Having said that, I made some major changes to your contribution this morning. See the changes (1 and 2) I made and take a look at my comments on the article's discussion page (Talk:Knoxville, Tennessee). Reviewing the links below (plus the links in my welcome message above and my comments on the article's discussion page) should give you a sense of what Wikipedia's looking for:

Wikipedia:Citing sources
Wikipedia:Verifiability
Wikipedia:No original research
Wikipedia:Neutral point of view -- much of the article about this policy deals with inflammatory topics like the Iraq War, but going beyond that, the bottom line is that Wikipedia and its editors have no opinion on anything -- we just pass along the facts. Other people's or publications' opinons may be cited if taken taken from a reliable published source but it should be clear (with a footnote, link or direct quotation) that it's not Wikipedia's opinion. This policy is closely tied to the "No original research" policy above.
Wikipedia:Reliable sources for the full guideline on what sources can be used (hint: it doesn't include my buddy's blog).
Wikipedia:Check your facts
Wikipedia:Words to avoid, in particular, "Words which can advance a point of view"

We were all newcomers once, and I hope you won't take this too much to heart. I was interested to read about this legend and it's a good addition if you can back it up from a published, reliable source. I especially hope you'll contribute more Knoxville-related content. As for the Knoxville, Tennessee article itself, the rest of the article's talk (a.k.a. discussion) page discussions will give you a feel for how a partial,non-binding consensus has evolved as to what should and should not be included. (You'll also see a discussion of my own early editing mistakes!).

Again, thanks for contributing and I hope you'll keep adding to Wikipedia.

--A. B. 14:51, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. Nobody but wikiholics and lawyers have the time and patience to really study all those links in detail at once!

30 minutes of skimming will get you started -- then just dive right in, making more edits and additions. Also, if you're unclear on all the article formatting details and you're lazy, you can do what I did -- just hit the edit link for an article and plagiarize the formatting someone else used.