User talk:Mregan1913

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20:04, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Minnehaha

I'm sorry I've been so slow getting back to you. They need to invent 40 hour days, a fact you'll soon become all too aware of. Good luck with your LSATs.

I really hate subheaders. They put undue artificial emphasis on things. That said, the best way to handle the two campuses is with subheaders. Main header, Campuses. A short intro, like "Minnehaha has two campuses, located X distance apart along Y street (If the street has an article, wikilink it). Then subheader "North campus", blah blah blah (with sources); subheader "South campus", blah blah blah with sources.

I'd group the competitive academic teams like robotics, debate, quiz bowl under the academic header, along with a listing of AP courses and any course offerings unique enough to be sourcable to independent academic or journalistic sources. It's OK to source the AP listing, and the existence of the academic teams to the school, however any accomplishments by the academic teams must have independent sources, and please only include achievement at the highest level, ie, state or national championships.

Band, theater, chorus and visual arts classes can be discussed in their own section. Unless you have a ton of sources, again avoid subheaders. Same general rules apply as above, but we do not discuss vague achievement such as "first division". Unless the bands or choruses actually compete in competitions that ha opve actual winners, we don't discuss the results of the competitions.

Subheaders should be avoided at all costs in the athletics section. Appropriate content would include the school's mascot or nickname (or both. Unless there is a guy in a silly suit or a critter used for spirit boosting, the team name is just that. The mascot is the character in the silly suit or the critter), school colors, current conference, a listing of sports offered (only varsity, making sure to indicate which sports have separate boys and girls teams, which are boys or girls only and which are coed), and a discussion of long-standing rivalries.

For a good way to handle the listing of the sports, with the state championships consolidated in it, see Crown Point High School. This approach eliminates the cruft-attracting subheaders for each sport.

If you can write a decent prose section on rivalries, or better put, if you can find sourcing to write it, that maybe should be a subheader.

I've written a bunch of Athletics sections. My approach is to discuss the nickname, colors and conference in an introductory sentence, followed by the bullet list of sports with the championships in the list. If I have anything for rivalries or perhaps historical conference changes, I cover that after the list. Remember, we do not name staff or students, we do not discuss individual accomplishments, and we don't discuss individual games or season records.

Yes the independently published history book would be a great source, but do not dismiss the one published by the school. It would be a great source for indisputable facts, just don't discuss the promotional stuff and don't quote it, just cite it.

You've pretty obviously got this, that's why I'm writing you here rather than at the article talk. This is more in the way of technical instructions than content debate. I'mma just go on about my business I think.

Oh, one more thing: the order of the article. It should go:. LEDE, History, Campus, Academics, Demographics, Athletics, Arts, Notable alumni, See also, References, Additional reading, External links. I will do the demographics soon, probably tomorrow night.

Your gonna make a great lawyer. I'm pretty busy both on and off Wiki. I'm involved in a much more intractable debate on another school right now that hadn't been nearly as enjoyable as this one. I'm one of the coordinators of WikiProject Schools, but something tells me you knew that. Like I said, you're gonna make a good lawyer. John from Idegon (talk) 07:44, 23 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

thank you! I will start to work on this, one quick note is that so far as I know and my check of the school's website did not indicate any other major academic teams besides debate...there is a team that sends a project to the Space Station but I believe since it's a class it belongs under academics. The mascot does have a name...it's "Squawk the Redhawk" but the only source is the school's social media and possibly the website. One more question...if I can provide a source, would it be worth mentioning The Birds of America by John Audubon? The school has a full sized set of the books in the Library at North Campus. The books have their own article which I am linking for you here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birds_of_America I can provide a source for the information on the collection at the school.

Mregan1913 (talk) 17:53, 23 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Mregan1913 (talk) 18:01, 23 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

18:02, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Just a quick note. Indent talk page conversations by typing a colon, one more than the last, at the beginning of your post. I did your reply here so you could see. Also, I don;t know what you are doing when you sign your posts but every time you do, your name comes up twice and there is an additional time stamp besides. All you need to do is type four tildes at the end, that will add your name and time stamp it. I suspect you are clicking the signature button and typing the tildes. A time stamp is generated by typing 5 tildes, so I am really confused. Anyway, a passing mention of the Audubon collection would be fine. You'll probably describe the library under the campus section so just add it there. If there is an independent source, all the better. Don't cite social media for anything ever. User generated stuff is frowned upon. You cannot even cite Wikipedia! I wouldn't worry too much about including the mascot name in the mascot field in the infobox without a cite, but any description in the body of the article is gonna need a reasonable citation. The academic teams were just examples. You got this. If you need any technical help, holla....or you can ask at Teahouse. I'm a host there, but there are many of us so you may get a quicker response by asking there. Happy editing! John from Idegon (talk) 20:16, 23 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Adding references can be easy

Hello! Here's how to add references from reliable sources for the content you add to Wikipedia. This helps maintain the Wikipedia policy of verifiability.

Adding well formatted references is actually quite easy:

While editing any article or a wikipage, on the top of the edit window you will see a toolbar which says "Cite". Click on it.
Then click on "Templates".
Choose the most appropriate template and fill in as many details as you can. This will add a well formatted reference that is helpful in case the web URL (or "website link") becomes inactive in the future.
Click on Preview when you're done filling out the 'Cite (web/news/book/journal)' to make sure that the reference is correct.
Click on Insert to insert the reference into your editing window content.
Click on Show preview to Preview all your editing changes.

Before clicking on Save page, check that a References header ==References== is near the end of the article.
And check that {{Reflist}} is directly underneath that header.

7. Click on Save page. ...and you've just added a complete reference to a Wikipedia article.

You can read more about this on Help:Edit toolbar or see this video File:RefTools.ogv.
Hope this helps, --John from Idegon (talk) 05:16, 25 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

To use this message, place {{subst:User:Shearonink/ref}} on User:talk pages when needed.

Just wanted to let you know I reverted some of your changes and copyedited others. The most important part is you need to cite that book better. Above, you will find instructions for formatting references using the built in tool to make formatting easier. For books it is vey important to provide plenty of information to locate it. Thankfully it is easy. For most all books, there is something called an ISBN number on the flyleaf (generally also incorporated in the UPC on the dust jacket too). With the ref tool, all you should have to do is put the ISBN number and it will automatically fill out the rest for you. Just add the page numbers and you are set. If there is a URL where the book can be read, add that too. Once the ref template is placed, a reader can click on the ISBN number and link to a website called WorldCat, where every library in the world that shelves that book is listed. John from Idegon (talk) 05:16, 25 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]