User talk:SeriousBuilder

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

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- Contributing to Wikipedia
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- How to create your first article (using the Article Wizard if you wish)
- The five pillars of Wikipedia | Cheatsheet of WikiCode

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) 03:49, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! Will read through these. Appreciate the help :-) SeriousBuilder (talk) 18:25, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why can't I edit some particular pages?

Some pages that have been vandalized repeatedly are semi-protected, meaning that editing by new or unregistered users is prohibited through technical measures. If you have an account that is four days old and has made at least 10 edits, then you can bypass semi-protection and edit any semi-protected page. Some pages, such as highly visible templates, are fully-protected, meaning that only administrators can edit them. If this is not the case, you may have been blocked or your IP address caught up in a range block.

Where can I experiment with editing Wikipedia?

Use the main sandbox or create your own personal sandbox to experiment.

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?

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.
Find a website that supports the claim you are trying to find a citation for.
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.
Click the 'Get reference wiki text' button.
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).
In the Wikipedia article, after the claim you found a citation for, paste (Ctrl+V or Apple+V) the text you copied.
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}}

What is a WikiProject, and how do I join one?

A WikiProject is a group of editors that are interested in improving the coverage of certain topics on Wikipedia. (See this page for a complete list of WikiProjects.) If you would like to help, add your username to the list that is on the bottom of the WikiProject page.

August 2023

Please do not add or change content, as you did at Huperzia serrata, without citing a reliable source. Please review the guidelines at Wikipedia:Citing sources and take this opportunity to add references to the article. The website 'The Nutrition Insider' is not a reliable source for nutrition or medical content. Use WP:MEDRS reviews. Zefr (talk) 12:56, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Zefr. Thanks for your message. I understand that the website 'The Nutrition Insider' is not a reliable source. I had message @Peter_coxhead asking him why he thought this link was unreliable: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/huperzia-serrata. This seems to meet the criteria of reliable sources because its a link to a study from a book published by scientists in the same field. Can you let me know if this link also doesn't meet the eligibility criteria as well and why? I am just trying to learn and will most probably avoid editing health/science articles in the future all together anyway. SeriousBuilder (talk) 17:56, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hello SB - that ScienceDirect page is just a listing of abstracts from publications on the subject searched (see lower right "About this page"). The ones first presented seem to favor the alternative medicine or herbal medicine literature which is regarded on Wikipedia as pseudoscience and unreliable for encyclopedic content (experienced medical editors will revert such content and sources). PubMed provides an objective, larger database of abstracts or full articles, but these also appear to be mostly lab research in weaker journals and have little value as sources for Wikipedia. Any source used for medical content still must adhere to WP:MEDRS before use, so it's best to read that guideline and choose reviews in high-quality medical or science journals, clinical guidelines, medical textbooks, or government publications (all discussed throughout MEDRS). Good luck! Zefr (talk) 18:44, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Got it! Appreciate you explaining that. SeriousBuilder (talk) 20:19, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

December 2023

Please do not add promotional material to Wikipedia, as you did to Medicare dual eligible. While objective prose about beliefs, organisations, people, products or services is acceptable, Wikipedia is not a vehicle for soapboxing, advertising or promotion. Thank you. Seawolf35 ^T--C 23:23, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hello SeriousBuilder. The nature of your edits gives the impression you have an undisclosed financial stake in promoting a topic, but you have not complied with Wikipedia's mandatory paid editing disclosure requirements. Paid advocacy is a category of conflict of interest (COI) editing that involves being compensated by a person, group, company or organization to use Wikipedia to promote their interests. Undisclosed paid advocacy is prohibited by our policies on neutral point of view and what Wikipedia is not, and is an especially serious type of COI; the Wikimedia Foundation regards it as a "black hat" practice akin to black-hat search-engine optimization.

Paid advocates are strongly discouraged from direct article editing, and should instead propose changes on the talk page of the article in question if an article exists. If the article does not exist, paid advocates are strongly discouraged from attempting to write an article at all. At best, any proposed article creation should be submitted through the articles for creation process, rather than directly.

Regardless, if you are receiving or expect to receive compensation for your edits, broadly construed, you are required by the Wikimedia Terms of Use to disclose your employer, client and affiliation. You can post such a mandatory disclosure to your user page at User:SeriousBuilder. The template {{Paid}} can be used for this purpose – e.g. in the form: {{paid|user=SeriousBuilder|employer=InsertName|client=InsertName}}. If I am mistaken – you are not being directly or indirectly compensated for your edits – please state that in response to this message. Otherwise, please provide the required disclosure. In either case, do not edit further until you answer this message. Seawolf35 ^T--C 23:24, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! @Seawolf35. Thanks for your message and I understand your concern. I am not being paid or expect to receive compensation for my edits nor do I even know how to go about asking for payment for edits. I find most of my edits from the suggestions listed on my menu and I go in and do my best to edit it according to Wikipedia standards (which I am still learning). While you might have found my last edit to be promotional - I was just trying to add more context to that page and expand on a section. If can add content without adding a reference, I would have done it but that is against Wikipedia policy which is why I went ahead and found that article link I added. The author of the article seems knowledgeable on the subject and it did make sense to the paragraph I have added. SeriousBuilder (talk) 23:58, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]