User talk:Randomjack

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Welcome!

Contents 1 Moan Away! 2 Adopt-A-User 3 Adoption 4 Have you considered using some vandalism templates 5 Some linking advice. 6 Adoption status. 7 Note on Jimbo's page 8 Speedy deletion of ARCADIS AYH plc 9 C&P move

[edit] Moan Away!

Vandalise as much as you like!

[edit] Adopt-A-User

Hi!

My name is Steve Baker - I'm with the Wikipedia Adopt-A-User program and I noticed that you are looking for help. I'm a fairly experienced editor (8000+ edits, two featured articles)...and most importantly, I'm a fellow car nut who spells colour with a 'u' and tyre with a 'y'. If you'd like to take me up on this offer, leave me a note on my talk page and we can take it from there. SteveBaker 13:48, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Adoption

OK - so I've updated the templates to set up the adoption stuff.

I've been floating around on Wikipedia now for a couple of years - I've made over 8,000 edits and I've had a couple of articles on the front page (Mini and Mini Moke) - so I've run into most of the common problems several times already!

There is no formality to the process - whenever you have a problem of any kind whatever, you can drop me a message on my talk page - or if it's something VERY difficult where you don't want other Wikipedians to be able to see the conversation, you can email me at steve@sjbaker.org

I generally take a look at the 'contributions' list of my Adoptees once in a while to make sure things are going OK - but aside from that, just use me as a sounding board for ideas - or a place to come for advice - someone to have on your side in times of trouble...whatever you need.

If (after a month or two) I feel you're doing just fine without me - I'll hand out some sort of hokey graduation certificate and we're done. If at any time you can't stand me anymore - just drop me a rude note and I'll stay out of your way.

I can generally help with the mundane aspects of editing - also navigating the maze of Wikipedia guidelines and procedures - pointing out places of interest - but generally, my interests probably won't overlap yours - so the actual content that you add won't be something I can help much with...but we'll see.

From what I've seen from your recent edit history, you seem to be doing reasonable sorts of things. Have you considered signing up at Portal:Motorsport/Get_involved? There are a bunch of Wiki Projects where like-minded people get together to work on articles of a particular kind. You might also want to visit Portal:Formula_One and Portal:Motorsport - which are alternative Wikipedia front pages for those interested in those specific topics.

Let me know (via my talk page) if there is anything I can do to help. I'll come back and check up on your 'User contributions' list from time to time to see if I can spot any obvious areas where I could offer help.

SteveBaker 16:32, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Have you considered using some vandalism templates

Hi! I was taking a look at your 'recent contributions' stuff (some fine work going on there!) - and I notice that when you revert some vandalism, you aren't going to the vandals' talk page and leaving a warning notice. There are a bunch of handy templates here: Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace that make the process fairly painless. There are two benefits to this - one is that it lets the vandal know that their work was pointless because (hopefully) it was cleaned up not long afterwards - but more importantly, if everyone does this and steadily escalates the level of warning in the template, it gives the Admins the information they need to block these people. It's not exactly crucial - and a lot of people don't bother - but just in case you didn't know it was OK to do that, I thought it worth a mention. SteveBaker 21:10, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Some linking advice.

Hi! Your friendly local Adopt-a-user guy here! Since I hadn't heard from you for a while, I thought I'd nose around in your recent contributions. You seem to be doing pretty good work. Well done! Just about the only really minor nit I could pick is that you have a tendency to over-link. The idea is to link the first occurrence of a particular term or name - not to every one. If it's been MANY paragraphs since the first mention and the term was really only mentioned in passing the first time, then it might be worth linking the term again - but generally, once is enough. For example, in the article about The Stig - in the section about 'African Stig' you linked Jeremy Clarkson - but this was about the fifth time he'd been mentioned in the article - and the first occurrence was really enough. (I notice that someone came along and unlinked it again later). I can see the same problem in some of your football club edits too. We need to link new terms when we hit them - but if you link every thing that can be linked every time around, the article starts to get hard to read because of the rapid black/blue/black/blue colour changes. But - this is a really minor thing.

Let me know if there is anything at all I can help you with. SteveBaker 03:27, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Adoption status.

Hi! I was just doing my routine checking-up-on-adoptees-whom-I-havn't-heard-from. It looks like you are doing some great editing work...but you havn't asked for any help on anything. Is there anything I can do to help out? Anything that needs explaining?

SteveBaker (talk) 02:43, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Note on Jimbo's page

Hi Randomjack. WP:RFA and it's associated links contains all you need to know. Happy editing! Pedro :  Chat  11:26, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Don't bother applying.

It's a bit soon in your Wiki-career to be applying for Adminship. (And writing directly to Jimbo wasn't cool, he's a busy guy and has nothing to do with creating or approving adminship.) Whilst there is no hard and fast rule about the number of edits you need in order to qualify for adminship - here is a graph showing the probability of being accepted as an admin as a function of the number of edits you've made:

(You currently have less than 450 edits to your credit which puts your likelyhood of success at...oh...around 0%.)

So don't even think of applying until you have maybe 2000 edits under your belt. But more than that, the kinds of things they look for in admins is stuff like the amount of time you've spent ironing out difficulties with other users or arguing over policy - the number of times you've had to explain Wiki policies to other users...your experience with using and creating categories and templates - the degree to which you've smoothed things out with abusive editors...that kind of thing.

They'll take a look at your "User contributions" and discover that you have never, not even once, done any of those things and reject your request without further consideration. Keep up the good work - and try again in a year or two!

SteveBaker (talk) 13:51, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Speedy deletion of ARCADIS AYH plc

A tag has been placed on ARCADIS AYH plc requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is an article with no content whatsoever, or whose contents consist only of external links, "See also" section, book reference, category tag, template tag, interwiki link, rephrasing of the title, or an attempt to contact the subject of the article. Please see Wikipedia:Stub for our minimum information standards for short articles. Also please note that articles must be on notable subjects and should provide references to reliable sources that verify their content.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the article meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the article does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that a copy be emailed to you. Cenarium^Talk 14:10, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] C&P move

Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. It appears that you recently copied the contents of a page and pasted it into another with a different name. This is what we call a "cut and paste move", and it is very undesirable because it splits the article's history, which is needed for attribution and is helpful in many other ways. The mechanism we use for renaming an article is to move it to a new name which both preserves the page's history and automatically creates a redirect from the old title to the new. In most cases, you should be able to move an article yourself using the "Move" tab at the top of the page. If there is an article that you cannot move yourself by this process, follow the instructions at Wikipedia:Requested moves to request the move by another. Also, if there are any other articles that you copied and pasted, even if it was a long time ago, please list them at Wikipedia:Cut and paste move repair holding pen. Thank you. Cenarium^Talk 14:22, 16 April 2008 (UTC)