User talk:Dwy

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Welcome to Wikipedia!

Welcome to Wikipedia, Dwy! I'm Celestianpower. I noticed that you were new and/or have yet to receive any messages so I just thought I'd pop in to say "hello". Hello. Wikipedia can be a little intimidating at first, since it's so big but we won't bite so Be Bold and get what you know down in microchips! If you do make a mistake, that's fine, we'll assume good faith and just correct you: it'll take a few seconds maximum! Here, however, are a few links to get you started:

There are lots of policies and guidelines to get to grips with but they all make your life easier and your stay more fun in the long run. If you have any questions, feel free to leave me a message on my talk page or add {{helpme}} to your userpage - someone will come very, very quickly to your aid. Please be sure to sign your posts on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~) to produce your name and the current date, along with a link to your user page. This way, others know when you left a message and how to find you. It's easier than having to type out your name, right? ;)

I hope you enjoy contributing to Wikipedia. We can use all the help we can get! Have a great time, all the best, sayonara and good luck! --Celestianpower talk 17:04, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Tsushima Island

Apparently, I notice strange behaviour and sensitivity on some topics among you Japanese users, (but never mind, I don't want to elaborate, small matter)...

I realised that you have removed the 対馬島 from the article. Previously, you noticed the edit that I have added "Tsushima Island (対馬島), better known as Tsushima (対馬島)...".

I added 対馬島 is merely to rhyme with the english equivalent of Tsushima Island, and I know that the Japanese government and people simply call Tsushima rather than Tsushima Island, in which if I'm not mistaken, is the official name which Japan itself uses for adminstrative purposes. Had I denied this fact (which is totally absurd to do so), I wouldn't even added "better known as Tsushima". The main purpose of my edit is to reinforce facts, that's all, not to spur controversies.

If you have strong objections otherwise, please state so in my talk page. I would very much like to hear about it soon. Thanks! Mr Tan 07:06, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Dwy, please see my reply on Tsushima Island. It is a rather tricky problem on 対馬島/対馬 and Tsushima/Tsu/Tsushima Island, though. And please leave a note/reply on my talk page after your response. I greatly appreciate that. Thanks. Mr Tan 07:28, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Welcome to fun, fun, fun

  • I happened into the Tsushima Island article, and noticed your posts on the talk. Personally, the article was rather mature back last August when I last looked at it. It is now full of (?), (??), and (???) which are not proper wikiediting that I've ever seen. But I digress. My point to you is that you need to puruse the Talk archieves if you're going to edit in an article that has become the personal prize pet of some editor or editors, and take a long look back at the history- say to early last June. If after doing those two things, you want to involve yourself be on guard. I see you are new as an editor, so you may want to look at a few other things I'll get back to you on.
  • Oh, the Tsushima (no Island or Islands appended) was one of the compromise proposals back in July—August when debating the name change/move article proposal. Notice the template on the name at the top of the talk page. That's now a dead horse. Reading the 2nd archive onwards to current business is well advised. If you want a feel for just how silly some editwars can get, start with the first archive. You can get the picture starting with just #2.
  • Feel free to poke around my user page and lift things for your own references. You may be interested in the community contributions section, in particular. Then, too there are a lot of good links and tools and links to tools and neat pages for to study techniques. FrankB 16:40, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A Helping Hand or More

I just left this yesterday for another newbie, so if something isn't quite edited now into context, forgive me, as there is other complications for him.

  1. You'll be watched closely for a couple of months as a newbie, (or Anom., but not as much as the Anoms are watched.) You can go to them by entering your IP in the search window just as you can cut and paste (CnP) 'user:Mel_Etitis' or 'user_talk:Mel_Etitis' there, which will take you to his user pages.
  2. When wikified as links the equivelents are: user:Mel_Etitis  /  user talk:Mel_Etitis. (He's a good admin to know for all that he's 'a bloody Brit'! <G>) I should note editing someone's user page is a big no-no (to save), but Talks are considered part of wikiDocumentation, and are held in common for all. So to keep something to you alone, put it in your user:page or user sub pages. But not User Talk. For example, I'm going to cut this out and create a user subpage called welcome by generating this link User:fabartus/Welcome_message, which will show up here as a redlink (empty article title) as far as the wiki search engine in concerned. Once I preview, I'll click the redlink and paste in the contents. So you'll see a bluelink to new article AFTER I save this edit therein. (See! Told you it'd be blue!) <G>
  3. or a similar link— Unwikfied: Gets to my talk page. These are the three of the four ways of getting around in Wiki and/or in using links, so edit this section and study the differences. (And now you know how to create a new page from scratch as well.)
  4. The fourth is by direct URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:24.61.229.179&redirect=no&nbsp; an explicit cite here, and a link to my IP (note the &redirect=no, a form should you want to edit it and delete the redirect (Don't!, now you know one way to edit such); the point is the IP and User:BlahBlahBlah are entirely interchangable, assuming the IP isn't an institutional gateway like a library firewall—then it could mean hundreds of users.
  5. User_talk:24.61.229.179 gets you to the other more indirectly... you're on my talk, but with a bluelink indicating you went through the redirect up near the article title. By clicking on the blue link, you will go to the page redirecting you here. So you can edit that away too (Don't!).
  6. My user page has a lot of good stuff on it. It's part of the wikiCulture that people expect you to steal things from user and Talk pages, so open up one edit window where you want to put it, and the edit window where the source is, and copy away using CnP from window to window... back out or jump to a new URL in the source window edit, and no harm done. It's also pretty much invisible and untraceable. I've a group of interesting user pages (now dated, I suspect some have changed) that use various WikiMetaLanguage effects and lists. Poke around, and browse 90%:10% editing, the ten will be much more productive that way all the sooner and can become 99%+ soon enough. If you're into sci-fi I'm working virtually alone on a ten plus article series of articles (sadly neglected) talk: 1632 series will get you to most current planned links about a section or two down.
  7. I'm around often right now, and glad to help. If I'm not actively on Wiki, the best and fastest way to get me is generally by an email... I tend to long careful edits. A whole chain of short edits just messes up the history pages, which are a very useful tool. By that link, you can see that you can preview an edit, then follow links in the generated copy downstream to check them. That's how I get into such chains of edits. It does require a lot of using of BACKSPACE to get back to the most recently previewed changes... especially if you get five or six articles downstream with nested edits and (usually multiple) preview looks along the way! I don't recommend it, but don't often take my own advice either! <G>
  8. You can see from this edit, how to place numbered points in a document
    1. Here's the next level of numbered indents. Wiki works with browser text size scaling, so when making an edit around images and such, check the wrapping and placement of such by zooming in an out while viewing the effects on the whole. Sometimes you can fill up a lot of otherwise whitespace by correctly placing the image within the text, and/or by changing its thumbnail size (px).
    2. Which is useful, depending on the context and subject matter. Some boilerplate templates (e.g. Battle of... articles, say Battle of Tsushima) crowd things aside, and you have to play around to see how well you can make them look. Nagasaki, Nagasaki is illustrative, or was some months ago. It had an obnoxious amount of whitespace when I started editing it(1). See if you can find that back in the history (hint: search on fabartus in the history tab).
  9. And one can return to the main flow thusly. (And the above shows one method of entering a footnote as well. (we're progressing!)
  10. So make yourself at home. It's a really important good habit to puruse a Talk page, and the article history page before editing a matured article. I have some links to catalog type pages where articles are immature. But this is Wiki, one edits where one's interests take them.
  11. Some good places to start getting a feel for the culture (And it is a community with it's own rules and expectations of and on members) are these (mainly talk pages). The one we discussed above is a particularly educational series of pages. Have a couple of spare hours before reading!
    1. WP:VP - The village Pump is the community center BB of sorts
    2. WP:AfD - The Articles for deletion debate pages. These are also excellent for meeting up and comers and established Admins that you can ask for help. My page has link to all the Admins somewhere under useful links.
    3. WP:RFC - Request for Comments
    4. WP:JIMBO - Jimmy Wales own talk page. A lot of folks congregate and it serves to give you an idea of hot topics. Follow some of them to their own talks, as they are mostly very senior or very presumptuous. Check their contributions to see which.
  12. One last steer:
    1. If you follow the category at the bottom of my user pages, you should get to a list with some poking around entitled 'Wikipedians Welcome Committee' or such like.
    2. (You can cheat and start at CAT:CAT and work your way back down if you can't find a way up— it is there, however. These two exercises will give you an excellent peek into the category system and empower you to get around inside wiki all the better)
    3. That link should give you a list of editors and admins that have volunteered to help new editors such as yourself. Another avenue would be to look at the categories at the bottom of the first user who left you the welcome message. These three ways should get you to the same list of admins. I should copy a link to that myself for my user page!
  13. Suggest you set up a Bookmark/Favorites folder (Term depends on which browser you're using) that is alphabetically near the top, to hold only useful wikipedia links. e.g. Mine is called 'aWiki', so it floats (above) alphabetically over top of most all other folder names. Helps when want to put things in fast, or find them fast.
  14. Look at the page history now to see the comparative edits. tab back and forward, and see the changes. Note that my signed edit ends in the status line with my signature but no time. ~~~ is signed in the status window, the four '~' version is used in talk pages which are like delayed time chat rooms.
  15. Tables and tablelike resources:
    1. Access some of the measurements and units articles like US customary units for tables examples.
    2. Try history of Battles articles for examples of the later like Battle of Trafalgar (See the construct: {{Infobox Military Conflict ... }} in the edit window.


Lastly, once you've seen this, open a second browser to it, and puruse the finished version in one, and the edit window version in the other. Some good 'starter' tricks herein if I do say so myself! This should be enough to get you going and fill up lots of WikiTime with educational direct browsing! Good Hunting!
And Enjoy! FrankB 17:43, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Babel boxes

Dwy --

Just looking over your posts on various Talk pages, it looks to me like your English ability is well above Level 1 (beginner). Perhaps you meant to set it at Level 4 (near-native)? Just curious, Eiríkr Útlendi | Tala við mig 19:19, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Just popped in

... to say Hi! How's it going? Been a while since I welcomed you above and haven't heard from you. See you've kept with it too! Great! Best regards on behalf of WP:WC // FrankB 15:34, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the message. Really nice to know I’m still being watched (as a newbie) by someone I can turn to when I need help.--Dwy 11:01, 5 July 2006 (UTC)