User talk:EstellaGr8/sandbox

New Discussion

This is where I would start a discussion on the page. EstellaGr8 (talk) 15:30, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

This is the wiki markup to add a new point to an existing discussion. EstellaGr8 (talk) 15:30, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Citation of the "last paragraph" in the lede

Appropriate technology has been used to address issues in a wide range of fields. Well-known examples of appropriate technology applications include: the One Laptop Per Child XO laptop, bike- and hand-powered water pumps (and other self-powered equipment), the universal nut sheller, self-contained solar-powered lightbulbs and streetlights, and passive solar building designs.

The last paragraph is a compilation of common references I have seen online and in my text resources. Does it require a single citation or multiple citations or a citation at all?

Good question. My thoughts... Note that these are "my thoughts" and not necessarily fully Wikipedia policy. I don't recall which part of the MOS (Wikipedia Manual of Style) I have read and follow, and which part I have just evolutionarily learned and come to follow and have generally found acceptable in my many edits.

In general, the lede or intro of a Wikipedia article ought to summarize that which is in the article body, and not introduce a lot of material that is not explicated more fully in the article body. Thus, I don't worry about citing every statement in the lede, IF each part is detailed in the article boday AND IF each assertion of the lede is supported in the body of the article.

(Aside: if I find something unsourced in the lede of a longer article, I will generally tag it thusly: "...compatible with Aristotle's work."{{citation needed (lead)}} — which will leave the article looking like this: "...compatible with Aristotle's work.". While not conclusive evidence, this tag, and it's continued existence in Wikiland over time, tends to support my understanding of the necessity, or not, of sources in the lede.)

Therefore, with respect to your question about the last paragraph, I don't believe it is necessary to cite any of the claims in the lede, IF the above conditions are met. (Note also that in many small articles, those conditions are often unmet so we would want good citations in the lede for each claim in those articles.)

However, do realize that it is (in my opinion) okay to cite your sources in the lede, just as in the body. In fact, it could be worthwhile to do so given that Wikipedia is an emergent outcome and not anything that is planned "from the top down" by one particular author. Thus, over time—as inevitable and numerous small edits are made to this article, by many editors who will never spend a fraction as much time on the topic as you are in this semester long graduate school project—it may make for a better and more robust article structure to cite the claims in the lede as well.

Hope that is helpful to you. I will answer your other question on citation style later. (I think I tend to write too verbose responses on Wikipedia (in general), so best to let that soak in and come back a bit later on the other topic—so I don't wear out your brain in one swell foop.  :-) —N2e (talk) 00:46, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the advice. I will not cite them as long as I include them in the examples section. However, if I do not do that, I wil then cite it in my lede. However, I believe it would be preferable for me to include them in the examples section. EstellaGr8 (talk) 11:39, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

That is a fine plan!

There are often many ways to do something in Wikipedia, so I will always try to give you choices when providing ideas and suggestions. Enjoy. N2e (talk) 12:53, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Citing multiple authors

As you can see I am not sure how to properly cite a work with multiple authors using the Wikipedia format. The last names of the authors are grouped and the first names are grouped.

Sorry to be so slow in getting back to you on this Estella. I cite a LOT, but I don't know very much about the manual of style relative to multiple authors. However, not to worry. I don't have to because nowadays I do most citations using Wikipedia:RefTools. I have a little toolbar on my edit window that I can just pull down any time I want to add a citation. For inputting the info on multiple authors, be sure to click on "Show/hide extra fields". Then be sure you get the authors listed in those boxes. I don't worry about it much beyond that.

Having said all that, I do think Wikipedia has a problem because, by current policy, it continues to support a very wide range of citation styles, even though some standardization and good practice is emerging over time. This failure to decide a preferred citation style has been a source of some frustration to me in the past. But a number of previous discussions amongst editors have failed to obtain a consensus for "preferring" one style and deprecating others. Sadly, even though the use of bare URLs is deprecated, they are widely tolerated by the community, and the work of improving the citation seems to be left to others rather than the edtitor who originally added the material. I have been successful, with patience, in throwing out material that is totally unsourced (over a longer time horizon) by the simple use of ^{{{citation needed}}} needed tags, and patient reattention to an article months later (as well as learning to not throw out too much at any one time).

(One example of this is Russian roulette in popular culture, where I have recently succeeded in paring down a large article (30k characters) of nearly 95%+ original research and editor opinion (in Sept. 2009), down to about 5000 characters today, and all of it sourced in some basic way. Notably, this was done in an "at the margins" editing way, where I have successfully avoided any big arguments with other editors). It's still not a good article, and it's still not uniformly sourced, but the unsourced claims have all been deleted and remained deleted for a month or two now. Hooray! I don't even care about the content of that article very much. But I do care about Wikipedia as a whole having too much unsourced junk and feel it my duty to take on a few articles from genres in which I have no interest, just to help make the encyclopedia better. Kind of weird, but that is (only) one way that I spend a small part of my volunteer time improving this great repository of knowledge and messiness.)

Hope this helps. If you can't get RefTools working, ping me and I'll see if I can help. I don't recall the process, but one used to have to add some manual code to a javascript file somewhere to make the toolbar work. There was Talk, and widespread support, for making RefTools available by default for all users; but I don't know how that came out. N2e (talk) 19:46, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. I was using that widget, but hadn't figured out how all the fields work. I like to see how code looks, so I just typed author one and author two into the author fields (and location in to the location field, etc) so I could see what that code looked like and where it put each thing. I think I got it all sorted out now. EstellaGr8 (talk) 11:38, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Lede Live

I have added my new lede to the appropriate technology page in the hopes it will gather some comments or corrections from the wiki community. I will continue to work on my other edits in my sand box. EstellaGr8 (talk) 11:44, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Looks great. It was quite appropriate for you to move forward with the changes: you invited feedback on the article Talk page; receiving none/little, you moved forward. We will see, of course, but I think your changes have improved the article, and I think they will stand, quite easily. It does not appear that the AT article is a highly watched article. N2e (talk) 14:12, 8 April 2011 (UTC)