User talk:Fabartus/TUP

THE USUAL PLACE

Page Purpose and Rules

I'm creating this page with the express purpose of helping field 'Rookie Questions' as the initial post here, gives the title. While I've volunteered as a welcoming committee member to help newcomers bootstrap their knowledge, the ongoing business of my normal user talk is best left for briefer and more 'episodic' article business, as I have a hand in over a wide field of subjects. Newcomer posts tend at times to get lengthy, so this is the place for that. It's also one reason, I prefer email for such, as any WYSIWIG editor beats the WikiP edit window hands down, plus doesn't bump up the number of open windows in the task bar—mine tends to be crowded, even using a multitab capable browser(s), and my email is always 'up'!

The above does not mean that you should not post a brief (1 or 2 paragraph message) about an article issue on my main talk page. Just use some judgement.
When you do post here bear in mind, I won't automatically get the banner alert 'New Message' (or maybe I will— time will tell),
so send an email or drop a one line 'See TUP' on the main talk. What's TUP? The Usual Place. Suggested method: (1) Edit the bottom section (or bottom post my talk), (2) Write the note: 'See TUP //~~~~, but wait to save, (3) Edit the line in your browser's address bar to add '/TUP' and hit return. (4) Add your post here. (5) Save (6) Backspace to the 'See TUP' note, (7) Save That (Done-both pages posted, and you can just backspace back to your original business that engendered your question.)
Note once you are in an edit page, you can also examin Contribs, History, or Go 'forward' in any direction, say to grab a link (perhaps editing (w/o saving) in some article to get the source code, etc.), and just backspace back to your edit page. (I do this so frequently I can probably do it sleeping.)
1. Caveat: Every preview screen, adds one forward link to your browser history, meaning you have to backspace more to get back to whatever. That's generally NBD.
2. This may be less than efficatious if your browser settings don't have a large memory setting, and/or retain temp pages for a long time. We can cross that bridge if you have a problem.

In General

My email is: fabartus-at-comcast.net; transpose the normal 'at' character in email addys... This is counter-measure to defeat spammer web-crawling tools known as 'spiders', which automatically crawl the web looking for the 'at' character in strings and build mailing lists.
1. Having 'Wikipedia' in the text or title will route your email into a special folder I watch as a priority, and the email rings a chime when a new incoming email arrives, so it more likely to get immediate attention if I'm making an involved wikiP edit.
2. If you need help quick, make a post to the normal talk too... It can just say 'see email', if you like.
3. Once we start a regular corespondence, I'll add your email to the wikiP email filter and my address book, and you can drop the Wikipedia mention.
Some prefer not to share email addys, or at least not use the wikiP email facility, which is your priviledge. This page is for you! Any email's I get that I deem of general interest, I'll post here as well. The converse works too. You can post here, and just drop an email saying to take a peek!
I urge you to build a network of WikiPedian contacts of your own. In particular, if you're normal WikiP worktime is xx to yy, try and find several others with the same general periodicity. Interiot's Tool is good for such.

List of Resources

If my traffic light is red, these are some links to check for assistance, if you are 'pressed' by a difficulty. Note in my experience, most dedicated wikipedians are quite glad to be helpful in areas they feel competent handling; this is especially true for the admins (List item #1). You will also sense (in time) which one's are over-burdened, and under-helpful with experience. In the table below (forthcoming), I'll try to indicate some good one's by area of expertise and interest; perhaps in time you'll suggest others to add.:
1. WP:NCH — Newcomers Help Page; Same as {{Help}}, but the communal page for how to on WikiP articles.
2. Wikipedia:Help_desk — Try to fit into a categorized page, and follow the link. The specific page is for 'customers' requesting help.
3. Help:Contents
4. AdminList Categorized by Recent Activity — Check here for whether someone you ran into is an Admin; See their contribs, to see if someone is 'On' at whatever odd hour you happen to need that hot question answered! Use to build a contact list (via trial and error) of who may be around during your working hours. (Plug the names into Interiot's Tool, and this can be seen graphically!)
5. Interiot's Tool — This is usually several days behind current work, but a good tool none-the-less!
6. Complete list of Administrators, but uncategorized
7. WP:WC and Wikipedia:Welcoming_committee/members — Anyone here should field questions gladly.
8. Wikipedia:New_user_log — Sign up here, and establish a good reputation! Network and make friends with others at a similar level. Reduce the the scrutiny you may undergo as a new contributor.
9. Wikipedia: Shortcuts — A good place to check on high traffic pages which may be exactly what you need! I call this one: the keys to the kingdom.
10. Wikipedia:Extended_image_syntax — the in's and out's of image use in WikiP.
11. User:Fabartus/Welcome_message — A somewhat complicated page to copy and mine for tricks
12. Wikipedia:Category — Where to start on categories; See also: CAT:CAT
13. Wikipedia:Boilerplate text — Some good places to poke around and follow links up the learning curves

Rookie Questions

Fabartus, you recently visited my user page and added some useful information for getting started as an editor (thanks for that, much appreciated), I'd just like to clarify an articles "life-line" if you will. I would find it beneficial if I new what journey an article took from creation to featured article status, this way I'd have a structured framework by which I could view an articles progress. I'll have a guess myself and if you could fill in the blanks/completely rewrite it would be much appreciated.

Article creation
Stub
Expansion
Wikification
Peer review
Good article candidate
Good article
Featured article candidate
Featured article

I appreciate that this appears to simplify the whole process and I am well aware of the very small majority of articles that make it to Featured article status; however I do believe that editors should aspire to such heights, as even if their efforts may not warrant such an accolade, subsequent editors may develop what they have done to the benefit of the article and everyone.

I have been using and "snooping" Wikipedia for some time and feel I have attained the basic editing skills required to produce the bulk of an article. On the other hand I am aware of the major short comings of my advanced editing skills when it comes to such things as templates and frames etc. Is the newcomers help page the best place to get such help?

I have plans to completely re-write, extend and wikify an article on Geotextiles (you may have noticed the article on my talk page), however this is a relatively neglected article, as such I do not think that the number of visiting editors will be sufficient to produce a decent collaboration. Is the Peer review intended for such a purpose, to review and collaborate on articles that may otherwise be neglected? Basically I'm looking for some way to get my article inspected and hopefully improved when it is "completed," any suggestions? Also do you know of any experienced editors that have an interest in Civil Engineering, especially Geotechnical engineering?

I appreciate your help and think it is an honourable and most worthy effort helping rookie editors into the fold, such efforts will go further to develop Wikipedia than any amount of copious editing in my opinion.

Regards Grahams Child 10:13, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Answer GC01

Don't call it 'Snooping', around here it's expected and institutionalized. (Was hard to accept for some months for me!)

Answers 01 'Processes'

As an engineer, you are familiar with the concept of superposition, and indeed almost certainly in this day and age have some hands on programing skill and experience of your own. Your outline is in general spot on, save that in practice, things tend to blur in between the numbers, so to speak, as does the effect of superimposed fuctions. Which facet predominates at a given 't' perameter, is thus determined by the given sub-term scaling factors (editor motiviation) and purpose. (The analog I'm specifically thinking of is the Fourier case where one builds up an ideal square wave from successive use of odd harmonics. The more harmonics, the closer to the 'Ideal', N'est pas?)

Generally, (1) I would call 'article conception', which in an area of crystalized knowledge tends to lead to a stub very quickly... How much planning you put into it before hand is up to you, and should be guided by your RL time vs. WikiTime, naturally. OTOH, a poorly executed stub will quickly 'vanish' as some patroling new articles are less careful of examining an article's history (I've had two 'place holders' marked for speedy deletion in less than three hours, including one that was deleted in less than that.) and less disinclined to make an inquiry than they should be. My personal read on that, is that those are examples of thoughtless exuberance of youth working under the undue influence of regimented intolerance to something that was momentarily deemed 'unencyclopedic'; which is to say, a lack of courtesy, and consideration. My motives were to obviate a redlink in a current edit window. Theirs were (correctly, ignoring the timing) that such were patent nonsense to their world view. <g> 'Hey, You pays your nickle and youse take your chances!' The lesson—create the 'NEW' offline either in a 'sandbox' (e.g. Temp files: user: fabartus/temp4, user: fabartus/temp1, user: fabartus/temp3, user:fabartus/graphics) or on your own computer (I'm actually using MS Outlook Express 'pages' for a WYSIWIG + spell check in major edits lately. Drop the text into a edit window strips out the HTML; similarly, use notepad for global search and replace. Both give some circumstansial speed benefits.).

Answers 02 'Pursuing FA'

On Reaching for FA state: This is a worthy goal, and imho, the right attitude, provided you don't run afoul of getting too emotionally attached to the article in question. Getting edited mercilessly is a very real and likely circumstance on WikiP, so be careful not to let emotion transform differences with others into edit wars. If you've got someone being headstrong on something, yell for help within your network of wikicontacts, rather than resorting to a second revert. Myself, I've barely used the revert capability, prefering talk and reasoning. The most reverts (more than half) I've done were to save an intermediate big change, say when I had RL overriding priorities, then to revert the article to the state previous to my big edit—which saves the intermediate 'iterim unfinished edit' for my next time window.

Another useful technique is to edit back in something someone reverted out, but with changes you infer that are aimed to overcoming the objections whomever reverted you text, may have had with it. Usually, a clear question on the others talk about why they made such a change is a good way to start that process. Then, having both been introduced properly so to speak, you can take the issue back to the article talk page and iron out your differences.

These days, FA pages have no chance without a lot of footnotes. If you truly aim for that state, you best lurk around the various FA Talk pages and see the comments others make and guidelines they cite so you don't run afoul of the same issues. Same with the peer review pages. The wikiP Online community has it's own culture, and most here have their own hot buttons, so study the matter, and plan for success. If you can't navigate to these, drop me a note, and I'll dig links out for you.

Answers 03 'Realities'

Expansion requires research + good writing. Make sure to take Notes and build footnotes (See: WP:V and WP:CITE). Sandbox pages, including one's off an article title are good for that. e.g. Geotextiles/Cites_source_quotes and Geotextiles/Cites_notes and geotextiles/Preliminary_Footnotes should all be safe titles and pages. This is a suggested technique in one guideline, iirc, but the whole footnote thing is fairly recent, so is not yet a common practice. If someone deletes such, having it undeleted should require a single request, instead of a formal procedure.

Note such addresses are in 'Main Space' , and anyone can edit or change them. Using something in your user space, like one of my 'temp' files listed above, is 'SAFE' as such is recognized as inviolate, w/o the owners permission. It is also outside the search engine for off wiki (google) searches, and as private a 'company record' is going to get herein. Disabuse yourself of any notion that anything is fully private—assume always someone will look at it, or keep it in email if you want discretion.

Answers 04 'Arcana'

Templates and frames. I don't comprehend what you mean by 'frames', unless it's wikilanguage graphics including tables, like the superset HTML elements, which are related, but with usage wrinkles, especially having some browser dependent oddities. Templates are advanced, generally only necessary where something needs repeated often, and so are special purpose. I'm just now in an era where such have increasing relavance, and my page and 'user:fabartus/graphics' are the best help I can give you on those. In sum, they're nicities and can be worked around. If you have a general purpose need (e.g. Talk:1632 series see a screen down at the articles currently forseen. I was getting ZERO help on that project, and out of the blue someone came up with the one below— in this case, one of the original editor's who had all but abandoned the series LAST JUNE. Shrug-it takes all kinds!<g>) I can direct you to a few individuals that can help build a new one. One's currently in use, is generally best absorbed in pieces by browsing from List of templates.

Disclaimer

Well, I had another paragraph here, but I went off pursuing it, and ended up over at Metawiki, wikimedia, etc. on some other pages, and Firefox didn't keep the pending change. IIRC, it was advice on finding other potential contributors to geofabrics and other CE subjects.

One, I can look it over (more to proof and point out clarity issues) as I've used some, and studied some in moving a hill over five years, retaining walls, drainage, etc.
See the history files of Civil Engineering articles. Make sure you check the type of edit made, as you won't be helped by a copyedit/grammer/spelling/category/stub sorting/MOS project type working editor; i.e. you want to ID people that have added significant content. Check their user page, then maybe paste a boilerplate message (Spam invitation, as it were) on their talk pages. It's a good idea to check their contribs before doing so to see if they are 'dormant', or have been active recently. When in doubt, leave a message, and you may rekindle their interest, if they log in as a user-customer.
Pursue Category:Wikipedians and even Category:user boxes for usages that will lead to others. There is a Wikipedians:Engineering group of some sort, but I've not yet joined up. (I'm EE/CS).
Category:Wikipedians by profession, lists engineers, but no EE's or CE's. So maybe we need to start a category or two. OTOH, Category:Geoscientist Wikipedians may bear some fruit for you. Depends on who they are. WikiP has a lot of students, so bear that in mind.
Watchlist User talk:quiddity, and seethis page and section. Don't know this old timer will be of any use, but his heart is in the right place. He's a Chem-E, but some CE's responded to his survey on his User_talk:Mbeychok (Many sections along the lines: About_my_engineering_qualification_etc.)

Hope this all helps!

Best wishes, FrankB 20:07, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

All very useful thankyou, I'm sure you will hear from me again, although I'll try not to pester. Hopefully I can get a few other Wikipedians to become interested in this article once I've got it on its feet. Regards, Grahams Child 08:39, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Xpost fm mytalk and User talk:Deborahjay

FrankB's 2nd Welcome

Hi! Followed you over from NewComer Help, as I'm on the welcoming committee (of sorts). You've fallen through a crack, it would seem! (I make the occasional post on the helps, so I left you a longer answer there than you may want! You may find yourself 'detained', as a matter of fact. <g>)

I took the liberty of dropping a template on 'style' guides on your page for you to reference, but you may want that on your user page instead. I also tidied up a bit.

Again, don't feel inhibited about asking for help! Best regards, // FrankB 16: 50, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

FrankB, thanks sooooo much for the (unexpected) pair of Welcome messages you added here! You are welcome, indeed :-D

Your explanation does fill in the picture, as I've been beavering away for ten days equipped only what I could gather on my own, aided by a few, specific {{helpme}} and New Contributor pleas that were helpfully answered.

The Style template (which I did move to my User Page; thanks for the suggestion :-) seems to have numerous links that are highly pertinent to my actual needs at present. (Yes, it is rather daunting and will indeed detain me, but of my own free will -- as I consider it'll be time well spent, an investment in my learning curve here.)

So only after I read those will I ask specific questions -- but believe me, I will! There are still quite a few things I do poorly, or hesitate to attempt, and I'm prioritizing these so as to streamline my functioning here (which from the outset has become a daily activity, including thinking about what I intend to do).

I feel I've made a lot of progress so far, diligently (albeit somewhat haphazardly) pursuing an assortment of translation/editing tasks and lining up more. So far, practicing with minor edits has been a good way for me to develop facility (especially working between foreign language versions), and pinpointing mechanisms I need to learn. The biggest surprise so far is how much I can already contribute: e.g. I come to fix typos and "nativize" grammar/usage, and discover I can make substantive corrections and even additions!

I'll be back...but shall start with one question to you: how are you alerted of my response here (i.e. my Talk Page, continuation of a dialogue initiated by you)? (My more general questions, I'll write on the New Contributors' Help Page so others can benefit by the answer too :-) Thanks! Deborahjay 05:54, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some Answers_01

re:

Yo, FrankB, this is one of your newbies squeaking up :-) Am having difficulty getting some elements on my User Page to line up nicely, and I'm hoping you can advise me. (This is described on my Talk page, if you'd like to take a look...)

Also (while we're at it), I'm still feeling clumsy and bewildered about the whole communications setup within WP (e.g. Talk pages, e-mailing, non-reciprocal watching, etc.). Please advise me as to how to proceed. Thanks! (And by the way, I'm located at GMT+3 but stay up late and get up early... :-) Deborahjay 20:31, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

P.S. -- I'd be only too pleased to oblige with the "bottom posting" to which you refer -- but frankly, my dear, I don't understand what it's about (crossposting alerts for communications?) and how to perform it! :-/ Deborahjay 21:22, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

If I were any good at it, (and I'm not), 'watching my watchlist' would tell me that, assuming of course, I'd watchlisted the page (which I did). See my talk, note the third box down on 'requested Talk protocols', but not even I follow it blindly. I'm pretty good at adding the small note 'Hey, see my answer ________. Name.

Please see User_talk:Fabartus/TUP#THE_USUAL_PLACE for some additional resources to tap; note the. #@$%*&)#@*!!! (The list of resources, one of which was a link to others on the 'welcome committee' thereon was 'NOT SAVED' prior to the long holiday weekend here!, it may in fact be somewhere back in this browser window! Grrrrrrr!

Anyway, check in there now and again. I'll be around 'only INfrequently' this week, but will be checking messages now and again. Find my link to 'Admins' on my user page (user:fabartus), plus that to the(list of) 'Welcoming Committee members' and 'mine' anything and everything there as you like.

On Bottom Posting— your query: The default skin has a '+' tab on talk pages that auto-appends a new section... At the page bottom. That's one sure method, but leaves a new section and title. Seems a bit of overkill for 'Hey, see my answer on _____' type messages, but the page owner can go and 'clean things up' by deleting incidental titles as they prefer (housekeeping). The other is to just page or scan down to the last section, and 'section edit' a note onto same. The result is the same, save for the summary line.

Generally, I CnP the briefest messages into the summary line, but design them for 'time-independent' relavance (i.e. when re-read two months from now, say!) which get retained by page history, contribs, and other 'special pages' (i.e. part of the database admin records, in a 'technical' sense.)

As an 'temporal distinction', this is tacked onto a prior section, as a 'bottom post' within this section... which is not uncommon on individual's talk pages, so as to keep the thread 'together'... again a provision, looking forward, but also just easier for all. YOU after all, get a banner alert that a post has been left on your talk. DO check your talk page history now and then when getting such, incase there has been multiple posts to your talk—otherwise you may miss one like this within a section!!!

I'll peek at your user page issues in a bit, and respond down where you asked Commander Keane about same.

Best wishes, FrankB 13:32, 30 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On Fancy Signatures

Someone asked me on how to customize signatures (That's 'Nickname' in your user preferences):

Check the box 'Raw Signatures', no auto-link
[[User:Fabartus|Fra]][[User talk:Fabartus|nkB]] is in my nickname box. (FrankB)
Using Raw Signatures unchecked...
1. Never done it here, but at My Meta and commons accounts the software requires it. SO that link shows what I did to get it right.
2. [[User:Fabartus|Fra]][[User talk:Fabartus|nkB]] gives the same FrankB.

The difference is on the less adept software (en.wikipedia tends to have the best upgrades), I had to incorporate the blue font, or get something unwanted. You should be able to figure out what to do purusing that carefully. // FrankB 22:37, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

4Pegship:Commons Cats versus en.WikiP's

I see you made it! Hope you like flowers too! <g> At least you're into Cats and Categories, which is the business, alas, not the social occasion I asked you to this hidey hole for long chats!

Can you point me to any significant discussions of Categories regarding historical maps and any good head end Cats themselves, or a list of map containing cats, etc.
(I've been lost over the commons all day and last night -- want to do something on compatibilitys of Categories.) Poke around here and give me an impression (following the category tree... any reason we shouldn't duplicate the system here on en.wikip (Duplicated cats will show pics through to our cat pages... making it easier to select same for articles. (e.g. compare this to Category:Early Middle Ages which will become a parent on the model of Maps showing history of... (At least there are some folks that believe in clear category names! Dang Kids! Whine, whine, whine: De 'tupid name's too long, man!!! <g> (Like we're going to get carpal tunnel syndrome typing twice the words one time per page!)
btw - the maps I updated last night aren't carrying over yet onto en.wikiP's page... we apparently need a database 'dump' for the new commons pics to show through in our category.
Compare our Category:Historical maps of Europe with the Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Historical_maps_of_Europe (note the redirect category page too!) and see also: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Maps_of_the_history_of_Europe
1. Do we have an equivilent redirect page to warn people off from using a category being phased out?
2. In Category:Historical_maps why pray tell, aren't Maps of France, Germany, etc. under sub-cat Maps of Europe, etc.
3. And is it Ok to tackle that, (and align things up with structure in the Commons) or would you think I'd be better off just adding the same cats as they use, and leave that alone for now. (You might consider emailing me on my right coast from your left coast! This will cause some lengthy discourse I suspect! OTOH, we can meet in the The Usual Place<g> Actually, let's!)

...and now you know how we got here—I didn't see the sense of cluttering up your talk on my library-science needs! // FrankB 01:07, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Fab (may I call you Fab?)! No, I've been mulling and doing mindless minutiae edits...having a dead brain week. I did read your blurb and will try to pursue it in the next couple of days. I seem to be needing back-to-back 12-hour naps these days (and I'm not even pregnant), don't know why. More soon, I promise. Cheers, ♥ Her Pegship♥ 02:34, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hey! OK, I got into the AfD, and seem to have stifled further input! See my latest on your talk... Need to do yard work badly, so whilst you're napping, I'll be planting and chain sawing and digging holes and swearing at too big shrubs the former owner should have never selected for such a spot, etc. Besides, WikiTime focus the next few weeks at least will be the commons, as I implied. ttfn // FrankB 16:29, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Templates, Categories and Interwiki tagging issues

Discussion Xpost from email: re: TUP invite