User talk:Nocontroversy

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Welcome!

Hello, Nocontroversy, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question and then place {{helpme}} after the question on your talk page. Again, welcome!  MastCell Talk 16:51, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestions

Thanks for your comments on my talk page. Regarding "notability" of scientists and academics, the bar for Wikipedia is set pretty high (at WP:PROF). In real life, I'd consider the chair of a major department in a major academic medical center "notable", as I would the editor of a high-impact journal. But Wikipedia's a little more stringent.

It does seem a little off that people like Harvey Bialy or Leonard Horowitz end up with a lengthy Wikipedia article, while more serious scientists don't. I go back and forth about whether Bialy, for instance, is notable enough for a Wikipedia entry (the lack of reliable, independent sources on his page argues that he's not), but the AIDS-denial lobby on Wikipedia is small but virulent and I generally prefer to spend the bulk of my time elsewhere.

A few suggestions - if you're new, it's best to start with small changes on non-controversial articles to get your feet wet. If you jump into a contentious article, people can be a little unkind, and it's best to get your sea legs before doing so. One suggestion would be to create new articles for some of the scientists you've mentioned, who you feel are notable and deserving of their own articles. It's best to look through Wikipedia's criteria for notability (at WP:BIO and WP:PROF, for instance) to get a sense of what other editors will be looking for in a new article.

Good luck and feel free to ask for help if you'd like. MastCell Talk 21:55, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

OK, I just found out that Lisa, Bart, Homer, Nelson and most of the other cartoon characters from the TV show, The Simpsons, have wiki entries. So people like Harvey Bialy and others should certainly have one.
user:Nocontroversytalk 15:51, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks, MastCell

OK. All good so far. Thanks for the suggestions, that sounds like very good advice.

I am a biologist who uses computers every day. I am not a programmer, but I use a lot of programs and can usually handle simple things like creating and running scripts in UNIX, creating HTML from scratch in a text editor, etc.

I am a little confused about the signature thing already. I went to my user / special pages / preferences and saw the box where I am supposed to add a signature. But it says to add it in "source code" and then gives some information on how to customize a signature. But the "help"[1] on that was not very clear to me.

Maybe the "How to fix"[2] page will be of more help.

I like the signature of MastCell which has a link to the MastCell talk page. How much of this, would I put in that Signature box?

When I put in User:Nocontroversy[User Talk:User|Talk] I get a signature, that is not quite what I want. And trying various permutations such as Nocontroversy Talk

or

<a href="/wiki/User:Nocontroversy" title="User:Nocontroversy">Nocontroversy</a> <a href="/wiki/User_talk:nocontroversy" title="User talk:nocontroversy">Talk</a>

or

<a href="/wiki/User:Nocontroversy" title="User:Nocontroversy">Nocontroversy</a> <a href="/wiki/User_talk:nocontroversy" title="User talk:nocontroversy">Talk</a>

Don't seem to quite work right either. Although the first one looks close to being here (but the superscript talk is not a link to my talk page in this test message. I've been editing my signature in one tab of my browser, and then using the preview button here to test the various signatures.


So, for now, I left my signature box blank, and checked the "raw" box.

--Nocontroversy 22:49, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

See WP:SIG, then ask Gracenotes for help with your question. Real96 22:59, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Hi! Wikipedia uses MediaWiki software, which uses wikitext. Wikitext is not the same thing as HTML; there are several noticeable differences (although several HTML tags are supported in MediaWiki: see a list here). I'm not entirely sure what you want your signature to look like, but here's a basic list of HTML vs. wikitext (so you can "translate" one to another).
HTML Wikitext
<a href="/wiki/Page" title="Page">Page</a> [[Page]]
<a href="/wiki/Page" title="Page">Stuff</a> [[Page|Stuff]]
<b>Bold</b> and <i>italic</i> '''Bold''' and ''italic''
<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Wikipedia-logo.png"> [[Image:Wikipedia-logo.png]]
<ul><li>Item 1</li><li>Item 2</li></ul> *Item 1

*Item 2

This is important, because some HTML code (specifically, the <a> and <img> tag) doesn't work in wikitext. The page WP:EDIT provides a comprehensive guide. I hope that I understood your question correctly! Sorry if you already know this. Now, once you have your signature in wikitext, just check "raw signature" and put said code into the box. As for why the link to your talk page does not work, that's intentional. Pages are not technically able to link to themselves. If I placed the text "[[Dolphin]]" on the Dolphin article, the result would be: Dolphin. Hope this all helps; if you have any questions, please ask. GracenotesT § 00:54, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Gracenotes!

I bet that my signature will work now.

Yes, I previewed it, and it does. The superscript talk link does not work on this page, because this is my talk page. But it should work when I sign other pages.

Although the text below the signature box on my preferences page is correct, I was mis-interpretting it. So your additional instruction here to check that box was needed to finally wake me up. I re-read the instructions more carefully.

THANKS!

--user:Noscontroversytalk 11:51, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

It does work :) although there is (I believe) a typo in the user name link, an extra "s". Just to tell you, you can replace
[[user_talk:Nocontroversy|talk]]
with
[[user talk:Nocontroversy|talk]]

While Exploding whale and Exploding_whale link to the same page, the first is generally considered better style. GracenotesT § 13:29, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

... for the citation at Talk:Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. I'll work it into the article. Are you finding your way around OK so far? Looks like the sig is mostly worked out... MastCell Talk 22:21, 1 May 2007 (UTC)