User:EdJogg/EditHelp

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Wikipedia Help and Guidance

To look up help, type the (bold) shortcut into the search box.

  • WP:TM – top-level list of useful Template Messages, both for article space and user space - good starting point...
  • For invisible comments to editors use:
    <!-- xxxx -->
  • To show example template text, use:
    {{tl|templatename}}, for example {{thomas}}.
  • Alternatively, with fixed font:
    {{tlx|templatename}}, for example {{thomas}}.
    This version can also show parameters (see template doc).
  • For examples, can use {{xt}} for highlighting:
    • positive (green) text (produced by {{xt|positive (green)}} )
    • negative (red) text (produced by {{!xt|negative (red)}} )
    • {{xt2}} is the same, but text appears on next line
    • avoid use in article space!

Echo / User Notification mechanism

To alert a user of a Talk page message (except user's own Talk page) use (eg) {{ping|EdJogg}} or {{reply to|UserName}}.
Either produces: '@UserName:' and can be further customised if desired!

Can also trigger a user notification by simply including their user name in double square brackets (see Notifications) or more simply using the User link (or u) template eg: {{u|EdJogg}}.

WP Admin

  • For complete set of User Talk Namespace Message Templates, see: WP:UTM
  • See WP:VAN for categories of vandalism
  • For spam reporting on talk pages, see Template:spam (as starting point)
  • For unsigned talk page comments, add:   {{subst:unsigned|user_name|date}}
  • To greet a new user, add the following: (see WP:WC for guidance and WP:WT for the myriad templates.)
==Welcome!==
{{subst:NewUser}}
~~~~

Messaging, Talkback, and Emails home

This has all evolved since EdJogg's maximum activity period. See elsewhere for more information.

Talkback

This {{tb}} template was left on EdJogg's Talk page, resulting in an email (as emails are enabled in settings).

{{tb|Wikipedia talk:Route diagram template/Catalog of pictograms/watercourses}}

Writing style

See also: Wikipedia:Featured article criteria

Several articles provide help and guidance for editors raising an article to 'Featured status' (see WP:FAC). A particularly good one, concerning English writing style, may be found at: User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a. The same author has written a set of redundancy exercises to train editors to identify and eradicate superfluous verbiage (avoid redundant words :o) ); plus several other useful pages. It is a good idea to read these before attempting a FAC review...

FA Preparation

The following experimental tools were found as a result of a FAC nomination (see here).
The links show stats for traction engine, but all allow the page name to be changed from an edit box.

Search-and-replace 'curly quotes': “ ” and ‘ ’

Edit summaries

Occasionally, may be useful to refer to the edit-being-undone as WP:CB ("Complete Bollocks") -- yes there is a page by that name, with alternate shortcuts: WP:BALLS and WP:BOLLOCKS.

Manual of Style (MOS)

Starting point is always the Wikipedia's Manual Of Style (WP:MOS).

  • WP:LAYOUT or WP:GTL – Guide to layout
  • WP:DASH – Manual of Style (dashes)
  • WP:PUNCT – Manual of Style (quotation marks and other punctuation)
  • Lead paragraph (or 'lede'): WP:LEDE
    • This is VERY important. WP 1.0 may well use ONLY the article Lede sections, and MANY articles fall short of the ideal. Re-read this occasionally to remind of the important considerations.
    • Also compare news style and Wikipedia:Summary Style (WP:SS)

Standard Headings

Use the following order, taken from WP:MOSHEAD:

  • See also
  • Notes
  • References
  • Further reading
  • External links

'Notes' and 'References' may be in the other order, or combined, according to ref style in use.

Article clean-up

Not-a-typo Templates

  • {{Not a typo}} for items which are actually correct (for example, "he put a little english on the ball") - in this sense "english" is not capitalised, although it almost always is.
  • {{Typo}} for items which are deliberately incorrect, either because we are illustrating a point, or because they are direct quotes.
  • {{Proper name}} for names, such as Flouride - not flouride or Pharoah as opposed to pharaoh.

Also be aware of:

  • {{Sic}} which can be used to mark up text, thus [sic], or invisibly.

In-line fact-query templates

If you do NOT date these, a bot will come along and do it for you, and probably apply some other formatting improvements into the bargain!

  • {{Fact}} -- aka 'citation needed' -- the basic tag for un-ref'd information
  • {{Clarify|reason=xxxx|post-text= – yyyy}} -- request to clarify text that is difficult to understand, or whose meaning is unclear (see WP:CLARIFY)
    • |reason=xxxx -- is used to assist editors in place of a trailing in-line comment (keep it short, or use talk page)
    • |post-text= – yyyy -- is used to display text within the superscript text, that is visible to all readers.
      Current template formatting (Aug 2010) requires spaces and ndash, as shown, for best effect.
    • |pre-text=zzzz -- less useful, but may help reader if used to add a preceding '?'
  • Also available: {{Elucidate}}, which takes the same arguments as {{Clarify}} but shows as [further explanation needed]
  • Also available: {{Who}}, {{Whom}}, {{When}}
  • Also available: {{Verify source}}, {{Dubious}}, {{Disputed-inline}}
  • WP:TC – Cleanup message templates
  • 'Expand section' indication (below) is produced by {{Expand section|date=May 2008}}
  • 'Clean-up section' indication (below) is produced by {{cleanup|section|date=May 2008}}
  • To highlight an article that is too technical, use {{technical}}. Probably is intended to go on Talk page...?

Categories

  • WP:CAT – Top-level guidelines for category use + details of sorting techniques
  • WP:CATS – Categorical index
  • WP:SUBCAT – gives guidance on when an article should be in both parent and subcat.
  • Wikipedia:Categorizing redirects – proposed guideline (EdJogg contributed to discussions)

Category sorting

  • Use, for example, {{DEFAULTSORT}} at the start of a set of categories to apply the same sort criteria to all cats, thus saving space.
    For example: {{DEFAULTSORT:Rastrick, John Urpeth}}
  • Note that it is now policy to use full 'Start Case' (ALL words capitalised) for the titles, and this template may be added by a bot during maintenance runs.
    For example: {{DEFAULTSORT:Traction Engine}}, {{DEFAULTSORT:Gwr 5600 Class}}

Disambiguation

References

See steam shovel for first citation added by EdJogg.
  • WP:REF    – Citing sources – good starting point
  • WP:CITET – Citation templates – useful, but not required

For example (based on 'Footnotes' section of WP:REF):

  1. Place a <ref> ... </ref> where you want a footnote reference number to appear in an article
  2. Type the text of the note between the ref tags.
  3. Place the {{reflist}} tag in a "Notes" or "References" section near the end of the article
    – the list of notes will be generated here.

Example:

According to scientists, the Sun is pretty big;<ref>Miller, E: "The Sun", page 23. Academic Press, 2005</ref>
however, the moon is not so big.<ref>Smith, R: "Size of the Moon", ''Scientific American'', 46(78):46</ref>

== Notes ==
{{reflist}}

  • {{reflist}} produces small text references.
  • {{reflist|2}} generates 2 columns (in Firefox. See doc for further options.)
  • {{reflist|colwidth=30em}} generates 2 or more columns according to width of browser window (in Firefox)

Multiple References

See Angels Flight for example of multiple-entry reference (copied! by EdJogg)
See HM Railway Inspectorate for a good example of a brief implementation.
See Scotch gauge for an excellent example of succinctness for large numbers of references:
(49 references to 4 sources, split between 'Notes' and 'References' sections:
notes occupy 4 lines, references, another 5 or 6, rather than the 49 lines required if shown in full)
See Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal (a Featured Article) for an example of Harvard notation using the {{Harvnb}} template.
This wikilinks the page reference (under 'Notes') with the book citation (under 'Bibliography') -- very neat!
also see 'Simplification', below.
  • Use <ref name=XXXX>, where XXXX is an identifier for the reference, for each example of the same reference, in place of <ref>.
  • Use <ref name=XXXX/>, where the same reference has been used previously.
    NB, the '/' replaces the need for </ref>, and avoids the possibility of an empty ref (which is a syntax error).


Harvard refs - simplification

Where there are a large number of Harvard-style refs to the same publication, showing each with separate page numbers can expand the ref list unnecessarily. A solution is to use the {{rp}} tab, for example:

text to be referenced<ref>reference text</ref>{{rp|36-37, 45}}, produces:
text to be referenced[1]: 36–37, 45 

where the page numbers can be whatever text is needed (but omit the 'p' or 'pp').


Scrollable reference list

A scrollable window showing (approx) eleven refs at a time. The original example is at Hindu-German Conspiracy.
These do not comply with the MOS concerning the display and printability of references, and should not be used.

Common reference sources

See #External Links

Cite templates

More information Web page, Book ...
Web page Book
<ref>{{cite web
  | last = 
  | first = 
  | authorlink = 
  | coauthors = 
  | title = 
  | work = 
  | publisher = 
  | date = 
  | url = 
  | format = 
  | doi = 
  | archiveurl = 
  | archivedate = 
  | accessdate = }}</ref>


<ref>{{cite book
  | last = 
  | first = 
  | authorlink = 
  | coauthors = 
  | title = 
  | publisher = 
  | year = 
  | location = 
  | page = 
  | pages = 
  | url = 
  | isbn = 
  | oclc = }}</ref>
Close
  • See: {{cite web}} for examples of referencing archived links
  • For 'cite book': use page = for p; pages = for pp; n-dash (–) for page ranges
  • Use 'date' rather than 'year' if appropriate
  • WebCite -- instant document archiving here (or URL search first) -- Use email address edjogg.webcite@[E]

'Notes'

See {{cref}} and {{cnote}} -- see examples at Tower Bridge.

For example:

{{cref|Example Note}} produces [Example Note]
which links to {{cnote|Example Note|Formatted note text}}, placed under a 'Notes' heading towards the bottom of the page:

^ Example Note: Formatted note text

Talk Page management

For archiving talk pages, see 'Page Management'. Section may be moved here in due course?

'Diff' Template

The {{diff}} template provides a link to a history-difference that is both server independent and allows the link to be built without full URLs cluttering up the place. For example, this:

{{diff|Template talk:Infobox locomotive|380574816|380564141|my edit}}

is equivalent to this:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template_talk:Infobox_locomotive&action=historysubmit&diff=380574816&oldid=380564141 my edit]

but is shorter and neater, and server independent. (See Wikipedia:Secure server)

Recommend using this everywhere (except on your own ToDo list maybe!)


Multiple project banners

Where an article talk page has attracted 'project banners' for three or more WikiProjects, the first useful text (and the TOC) may be forced off the bottom of the page. To get round this can use the 'banner shell'. Add the following text:

{{WikiProjectBannerShell|1=
  ...project banner templates...
}}

If a project banner does not auto-hide once this template is applied, or if the page already uses the {{WikiProjectBanners}} template, see the {{WikiProjectBannerShell}} template documentation for instructions.


Outdenting

When a thread becomes too indented, may be clearer if it is reset to the LH margin. Can use the {{outdent}} template for this. For example:

::::::This is the previous post, indented 6 levels
::{{Outdent|4|link}}start of a new post

displays as:

This is the previous post, indented 6 levels
(outdent)
start of a new post
  • '4' indicates level of indenting to revert -- may be an integer or a sequence of colons if easier
  • 'link' adds the 'outdent' text (this is optional, but may aid clarity and help spread use of template)
  • as shown here, template may itself be indented -- this is also optional

Page Management

Counter-Vandalism

  • WP:RFPP -- Requests For Page Protection -- unlikely to be granted except for extreme/persistent cases, but this is the place to ask.
  • WP:REVDEL -- Revision Deletion -- for Administrator intervention where the presence of a previous version of a page could cause offence. For example, if libellous or profane text included in an edit summary (which is later reverted) it is still visible in the article history, but Revision Deletion can make it inaccessible to those without the appropriate privileges. This page lists the valid criteria, but EdJogg successfully requested removal of a profane edit summary via the help page (this mechanism was used). Having checked the criteria at WP:REVDEL, ask for assistance from someone via CAT:RFRD where there are further instructions.

Reasons for Reverting

  • WP:NOTBROKEN -- Explains why links to redirects should not be replaced by piped links to the redirect target

For/Main/Seealso/etc

See Template:Other uses for a list of the various templates available for directing readers to alternative pages.

  • {{Main|Article|l1=Alternate text}} produces:
    Main article: Alternate text
  • Can have up to 10 Articles, and 10 Alt texts -- all articles come before any alt text, NB 'l1' uses lowercase 'L'
  • Alt text is not required but allows anchor links to be hidden, if needed.

Archiving talk pages

WP:ARCHIVE – How to archive a talk page

Moving/Merging Pages

WP:MM – Merging and moving pages (includes 'merge' templates)

Identifying a proposed merge
  1. Add this on the page being merged from (the 'Source Article'):
    {{Mergeto | DestinationArticle#MergeSection | discuss=Talk:DestinationArticle#Proposed Merge | date=Month 20xx}}
  2. Add this on the page being merged to (the 'Destination Article'):
    {{Mergefrom | SourceArticle | discuss=Talk:DestinationArticle#Proposed Merge | date=Month 20xx}}
  3. Create a new section 'Proposed Merge' on one or other talk pages, whichever is likely to see the most traffic (usually the destination page). Add any additional commentary explaining the reason for the proposal
  4. Make a note in your ToDo list to indicate that a proposal has been raised. (Note the date.)
  5. After 6 weeks, if no opposition, go ahead with the merge (or deal with any queries) -- see Help:Merging (WP:MM) for instructions.
Alternatives and further notes
  • {{Mergeto}}/{{Mergefrom}} templates can handle up to 20 articles!
  • {{Mergesection}}/{{Mergesections}} templates are available for merging sections
  • other templates are available for more complicated merge proposals (see template doc for details)
    "If you are unable to merge the pages, or you believe that the merger may be controversial, you might want to add a listing to [[Wikipedia:Proposed mergers]]."
  • View from {{Merge-multiple-to}}:
    "If there is consensus after one or two weeks that the articles should be merged (or no response at all), proceed with the merger. Otherwise, your proposal should be pulled. It is less controversial if you undo your own tagging. You have implicit responsibility to watch your proposal and follow any discussion that develops!"
    -- note that this text is NOT present on the Help page or the basic merge/mergeto/mergefrom templates, so may be deprecated, indeed, it is possible that NO time limit is implied!

Orphan Pages

WP:ORPHAN (or WP:O) -- WikiProject Orphange

  • Use bots to identify the 1000's of orphan pages (>3 incoming links)
  • View the project page for the procedures (and edit summaries) to use when de-orphaning a page (finding suitable pages and adding links from them)
  • Use the site search tool (in the banner template, and in EdJogg's navi-toolbox) to find pages with suitable text that may not be linked yet.

Stub identification

Redirects

Always add at least one template (see WP:TMR for list) by using the form:

#REDIRECT [[destination page]] {{R template}}
  • Redirects should also be categorised as {{R printworthy}} or {{R unprintworthy}}, as appropriate.
    Some of the other templates automatically add one or other of these cats.

{{Anchor}} may be used to enable an (HTML) 'anchor' at any point in an article, linkable using 'link syntax' ([[<article_name>#link|Link text]]). Multiple anchor names may be specified, allowing for likely alternative spellings, etc (currently, up to 10 are supported).

{{Visible anchor}} is a variant, where the first parameter will be visible text. The two templates are otherwise identical. This version is ideal for section headings, where the heading text is frequently repeated in the first sentence following the heading.

The templates are of particular use for direct linking to individual entries in a glossary.

Usage

To anchor an article section, use {{Anchor}} just after the heading. This allows the anchor to be independent of the heading text (hence allowing for future heading text changes without affecting incoming links), but also alerts editors to the presence of incoming links.
For example:

===Heading===
{{Anchor|First anchor alias|Second anchor alias|etc}}
NOTES
  1. For talk pages, etc, best to use wikilink markup, eg: [URLforPage#Link Page#Link]
  2. Template {{Anchors}} was originally used to specify multiple anchors, but this is now just a redirect to {{Anchor}}. Replace it when encountered.
  3. The original advice was to place inside the heading syntax, but the current documentation (Oct 2009) suggests that this will not work.
  4. [[#link|link text]] can be used to link to an anchor within an article
  5. See Glossary of boiler terminology for example usage within a glossary

See WP:NOTBROKEN for the MOS explanation of why replacing redirect links with the redirect's target is not a good idea. Useful for edit summaries reverting such changes.

Deletion

  • WP:DP – Deletion policy - useful starting point...
  • WP:PROD – Proposed deletion - also see Category:Prod-related templates
  • WP:SPEEDY – Criteria for Speedy Delete

Formatting

Useful Templates

External Links

Copyright

Terminology

Content

Miscellaneous

Utilities

Project banners

Anti-vandal work

For Foreign-Language Wikis

Related Articles

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