User talk:Rosspotter

Although some prefer welcoming newcomers with cookies, I find fruit to be a healthier alternative.

Hello, Rosspotter, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like this place and decide to stay.

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• If you have a question that is not one of the frequently asked questions below, check out the Teahouse, ask me on my talk page, or click the button below. Happy editing and again, welcome! Rasnaboy (talk) 17:15, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

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How do I create an article?

See how to create your first article, then use the Article Wizard to create one, and add references to the article as explained below.

How do I create citations?

1. Do a search on Google or your preferred search engine for the subject of the Wikipedia article that you want to create a citation for.
2. Find a website that supports the claim you are trying to find a citation for.
3. In a new tab/window, go to the citation generator, click on the 'An arbitrary website' bubble, and fill out as many fields as you can about the website you just found.
4. Click the 'Get reference wiki text' button.
5. Highlight, and then copy (Ctrl+C or Apple+C), the resulting text (it will be something like <ref> {{cite web | .... }}</ref>, copy the whole thing).
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7. If the article does not have a References or Notes section (or the like), add this to the bottom of the page, but above the External Links section and the categories:

==References==
{{Reflist}}

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Using Wikidata

Have you read Wikipedia:Wikidata#Appropriate usage in articles? Point 1, in part, says "It is appropriate to modify existing infoboxes to permit Wikidata inclusion when there is no existing English Wikipedia data for a specific field in the infobox". There is already existing English Wikipedia data available. Also Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikidata Phase 2 option 3 says "Permit use of Wikidata for selected infobox fields on specific articles with editor consensus." Can you link to where there is consensus for your edits? Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 16:26, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I was unaware of said articles. I was trying to fix an issue with official links not being effectively maintained on WIkipedia articles including the ones you reverted. Wikipedia pages generally have two places for the official links: the info box and the external links. In many cases, both were out of date and very commonly the two links within the same Wikipedia article were inconsistent. By linking both to Wikidata and ensuring the Wikidata article is up to date, all three are concurrently up to date through a single change, resulting in less overall work to keep the official link up to date.

As per Wikipedia:Wikidata#Appropriate usage in articles that you referenced, it states:

• Wikipedia:Wikidata/2018 Infobox RfC (June 2018) found:
  • There is a consensus that data drawn for Wikidata might be acceptable for use in Wikipedia if Wikipedians can be assured that the data is accurate, and preferably meets Wikipedia rules of reliability. For the other issues raised within this RfC, there was no clear consensus. (See Wikipedia:Wikidata/2018 Infobox RfC#Discussion for the full closing summary.)

In conjunction with adding these templates that link to Wikidata, I verified that the link in Wikidata "Official website" field is correct and updated the link, where applicable. Consequently, the source Wikidata article field is accurate.

In the event the links change in the future, both templates include an editor icon that will take the browser directly to the Wikidata article "Official website" field, which the templates rely on, for easy updating and to promote maintaining relied upon field to be kept up to date. Rosspotter (talk) 15:23, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Please don't use Wikidata to drive anything, it's very easily vandalised and not always easy to spot as it can change with no indicator on Wikipedia itself. Additionally the Infobox instructions recommends just using the URL template. So please don't use Wikidata, it's not actually a very good and reliable source. As mentioned by CBW above, please get consensus to use it and there is no consensus to use it as an unreliable source. Additionally you are linking to Wikipdata for many infoboxes who have instructions on how to link to the URL inside the URL template, so please stop as you are creating a lot of work for others to tidy up. Please do not link to Wikidata without obtaining consensus on the appropriate infoboxes or page types. The single biggest issue with Wikidata is that someone can alter it and we get no indication, nothing in a watch list etc, unless you actually go to the page and manually keep checking the data. At least if we enter it on Wikipedia we have full control of it. Canterbury Tail talk 19:50, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Mvcg66b3r (talk) 20:49, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

@Sammi Brie: What's your take on this? Mvcg66b3r (talk) 23:31, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

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