Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Academy/Asking for help

The workings of Wikipedia are sometimes a bit of a mystery when you first start out, and getting help from an established editor can often be the most effective way of finding the answer to a question you might have. Likewise, at times, even more experienced editors need to ask for some advice or assistance. Fortunately there are a number of forums that have been established to assist with the more common issues that new users face. These can be found at Wikipedia:Ask for help. They include the Help desk, which is considered the "main page" for asking questions about how to use or edit Wikipedia. The Teahouse is a place for new editors to become accustomed to and ask questions about editing. The Reference desk is where volunteers answer factual questions on any subject. The template {{help me}} is a shortcut to ask for this help. Use it to send a notification from the page where you are asking your question. Use the link to the template documentation to find out more about its use.

Sometimes more specific project-related advice is required. This could be about a MILHIST guideline such as project style, content or notability, or it could be a question of fact about a military history topic. If your question relates to a specific article you could consider posing it on the respective talkpage. However, the response you receive and how quickly a reply comes often depends on how many editors have watchlisted the article. This can be relatively few for more obscure articles, so this may not yield the assistance required. You could look through the edit history of the article in question or the talk page and attempt to directly contact one of the key contributors.

One way to attract the attention of the relevant editor(s) is to send a notification or "ping". To do this, you can use the template {{Ping}}. There are a number of synonymous templates, such as {{U}}, that do exactly the same thing. The other way is to use the "@" character in front of the link to their user page (not their talk page). When you sign a message with four tilde characters "~~~~", it leaves links to your user page, your talk page and a date-time stamp of when you made the edit. However, if you leave a message on a user's talk page, they should receive a notification without having to send them a "ping".

A signature will look like this, where Example is the name of the user you want to send a notification to:

Example (talk) 07:33, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

The Wiki markup where they have signed a post will look like this (except it has been color coded). It may look a little different if they have customized their signature though:

[[User:Example|Example]] ([[User talk:Example|talk]]) 07:33, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

If you want to notify the user Example, you can copy and paste the green text and append the "@" character at the front. In Wiki markup, your message would look like this. Remember to sign your post.

Hi, @[[User:Example|Example]], Your message or question. Regards, ~~~~

If you want to use {{Ping}}, you would do this:

Hi {{Ping|Example}} Message text ...

Using the template will cause this, when you save your edit:

Hi @Example: Message text ...

These methods all have an element of "hit and miss" about them. Sending a notification to a user can go unanswered if the editor has retired from Wikipedia, or if the editor has disabled notifications as part of their preferences.

The project talkpage at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history is probably the best place to go, as it is watchlisted by a much larger number of project members. It has become the central discussion point for matters related to the project. Even if you do not get a direct answer to your question you will usually at least be able to get some advice as to where you might be able to go in order to find one. If you have a specific question about an article, it is "good form" to ask your detailed question on the article's talk page. You can leave a brief description of your question at MILHIST talk and a request that the response is made at the article's talk page. This way, any discussion occurs on the page where it is most relevant, although you may get replies at both places. Leave a link to the article page with your message at MILHIST talk. It can be placed in the section heading you create at MILHIST talk, when you ask your question there. Use double square brackets to create the link.

For a question at the talk page of Battle of Jutland use [[Talk:Battle of Jutland]] to create the link.

Finally, you could consider approaching one of the MILHIST coordinators. They are usually editors with a bit more experience than average and can often assist in providing advice regarding more complicated questions or those requiring some corporate knowledge. You can go to their individual user talkpages or send them a notification from an article talk page. The template, {{@MILHIST}}, can be used to notify all co-ordinators.