User talk:Middleground1

Hi, and thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. It appears that you tried to change the title of a page by cutting its content and pasting either the same content, or an edited version of it, into another page with a different name. This is known as a "cut-and-paste move", and it is undesirable because it splits the page history, which is legally required for attribution. Instead, the software used by Wikipedia has a feature that allows pages to be moved to a new title together with their edit history.

In most cases for registered users, once your account is four days old and has ten edits, you should be able to move an article yourself using the "Move" tab at the top of the page (the tab may be hidden in a dropdown menu for you). This both preserves the page history intact and automatically creates a redirect from the old title to the new. If you cannot perform a particular page move yourself this way (e.g. because a page already exists at the target title), please follow the instructions at requested moves to have it moved by someone else. Also, if there are any other pages that you moved by copying and pasting, even if it was a long time ago, please list them at Wikipedia:Requests for history merge. Thank you. TornadoLGS (talk) 21:28, 20 December 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for letting me know! I didn't intentionally try to move anything -- perhaps I had more than my sandbox and destination open in different tabs. I'll try to find which one this happened to. If you have the name of the pages handy, please let me know. This is embarrassing. Middleground1 (talk) 21:32, 20 December 2025 (UTC)

Looks like it happened with the three most recent articles you made on psychiatric centers. TornadoLGS (talk) 21:42, 20 December 2025 (UTC)

I reviewed those and all the others I based on redlinks from the OMH page. Maybe there was an extra version with a similar name to that which was on the OMH page which I failed to find. I'll check that angle. Thanks. Middleground1 (talk) 21:51, 20 December 2025 (UTC)

Yeah. I see the page history as showing new articles being started there, rather being moved from your sandbox. TornadoLGS (talk) 22:16, 20 December 2025 (UTC)

Maybe this is an opportunity for me to learn something. Here's my process. I find a redlink that seems legitimate. I create a sandbox. I create an article in the sandbox. Then I go back to the redlink, click, that opens up a blank page with the title, and I paste my sandbox text in there. Most recently, I've bene creating pages out of this table, which was mostly red links. New York State Office of Mental Health#List of hospitals

Now, when I publish but see things in the live page that I don't like, I sometimes go back to the sandbox and iron that out, and then paste that version over the version that I had published live. If I understand, then, to adhere to Wikipedia protocol, I should only make those corrections in the live version. Is that correct? If so, I'm more than happy adhere to that. Middleground1 (talk) 18:05, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

Something like that. I think the main thing is, if you draft a new article in the sandbox, it works better to then move that sandbox to the redlink title, rather than creating a new article at that location and copying in the text. Though it seems I did the latter with a couple articles I started years ago. I think, if there are corrections to be made to a live article, they should usually be made on the live page. A couple times I have worked on part of an article in my sandbox if I wanted to fiddle around without disrupting the live article, but even then it was just one section. Such as testing table configurations, which still remain in my current sandbox but is live at Fujita scale. TornadoLGS (talk) 19:53, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

I get it! Redlink is "John Smith". "Sandbox" is and article about "John Smith". So, use the Move function on Sandbox to "John Smith". I do think, though, that when I'm really tackling a rewrite on a live section, I should do it in my sandbox where I can work, think about it, come back the next day, etc., and all those starts and stops won't impact the live version in the process. Middleground1 (talk) 16:20, 22 December 2025 (UTC)

Hi. :) I removed the redlink to the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene from the Government of New York (state) but I thought I should drop a note because I made it an explicit revert. Ward ("New York State Government", 2006, Rockefeller Institute) says of it "the former department remains in place, largely as a legal construct", while Gov. Carey's memorandum (governor's bill jacket, L. 1977 ch. 978) says of it "the existing Department of Mental Hygiene and the Office of Drug Abuse Services will be re-established as three autonomous offices". I believe they did so because of the constitutional provision that "there shall be not more than twenty civil departments in the state government" (Constitution, article V, § 2, as amended in 1961). I do think we should somewhere reference the 1961 amendment and make the connection to the practice explicit.

Also, thank you for your healthcare edits and article creations. I ended up moving quite a bit of healthcare-related material out of the agency articles into the Healthcare in New York (state) article. The Department of Health article alone was getting massive. int21h (talk · contribs · email) 20:12, 4 January 2026 (UTC)

Wow, thank you so much! You are correct in that reversion and I really should have known better after the articles I created. I have no defense in the mistake but my explanation would be that my eyes were starting to cross as I attempted expand the redlinks into articles that I thought would be of value.

And, yes, it was certainly split into three units, and the Department of Health article was definitely verging on overload.

Anyway, I wanted to get back and say thank you. Middleground1 (talk) 21:49, 4 January 2026 (UTC)

Hi Middleground1. Thank you for your work on Welfare Reform Act of 1997. Another editor, SunDawn, has reviewed it as part of new pages patrol and left the following comment:

Thank you for creating the article! Your contributions are greatly appreciated, have a blessed day!

To reply, leave a comment here and begin it with {{Re|SunDawn}}. (Message delivered via the Page Curation tool, on behalf of the reviewer.)

✠ SunDawn ✠ Contact me! 01:32, 5 January 2026 (UTC)

Thank you so much for taking the time to let me know. Much appreciated! Middleground1 (talk) 20:04, 5 January 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. Regarding your recent edits to Kamar Samuels when you modified the page, you introduced unknown parameters. Just because you specify |some_param=some_variable does not always mean that variable will display. The |some_param= must be defined in the template. You can look at the documentation for the template you are using but it is also helpful to use the preview button before you save your edit; this helps you find any errors you have made and ensure that the values you have added are displaying correctly. Below the edit box is a Show preview button. Pressing this will show you what the page will look like without actually saving it. It is strongly recommended that you use this before saving. Note I have likely fixed the error by now so check the history of the page to see how it was fixed. If you have any questions, contact the help desk for assistance. Thank you. Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 00:06, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for your help. I have a bad/lazy habit of thinking "visual editing" is the be all end all, and not checking preview. Which can unfairly put the burden on the fist person who comes along and sees it. Sorry about that. Anyway, I appreciate your explanation, fixing it, and giving me this reminder. Middleground1 (talk) 04:36, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

Hey we've all been there! Keep up the good work! Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 04:43, 8 January 2026 (UTC)