User talk:Thomboone

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--Tom Boone 16:34, 1 November 2006 (UTC)==Welcome to Wikipedia!!!==

Hello Thomboone! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. If you decide that you need help, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. You may also push the signature button located above the edit window. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. This is considered an important guideline in Wikipedia. Even a short summary is better than no summary. Below are some recommended guidelines to facilitate your involvement. Happy Editing! -- LittleOldMe 16:15, 1 November 2006 (UTC) Getting Started Wikipedia Tutorial How to edit a page The five pillars of Wikipedia Manual of Style Be bold in editing How to write a great article WikiProjects Getting your info out there Cite your sources Neutral Point of View Point of View Verifiability Uploading images Image use policy Getting more Wikipedia rules Policy Library Getting Help New contributors' help page Where to ask a question Help Desk Frequently Asked Questions Getting along Wikiquette Civility Sign your posts Wikipedians Conflict resolution Getting technical Cleaning up vandalism Pages needing attention Peer review Utilities Village pump

[edit] Hi

Hi Tom. I've seen you editing on the social entrepreneur and Ashoka: Innovators for the Public articles. It's great to have your expertise on these. They're both shorter than they ought to be. I've been changing soem of your edits - mainly to bring them inline with the manual of style and other guidelines. I just wanted to let you know that I appreciate all the work you put in and my changes aren't meant to be a criticism of your editing, it's great to see more substance on these articles. If you disagree with any of my changes please leave a message on the article talk page or on mine. --Siobhan Hansa 18:25, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Tom, thanks for responding. Don't worry much about the manual of style, just pick things up as you go along. It's more important that we get good content, somone else can come along and clean up the formatting.

There are a couple of conventions that you might want to follow on talk pages - generally speaking new conversations are posted at the bottom of talk pages, not the top, and normally you respond on the page of the editor you want to read the message (as you did). Also editors are asked to sign posts (on talk pages only, not articles) by putting four tildes (~~~~), this leaves a time stamp and your username with a link to your user page, so it's easy to see who .

The interface can be tricky at first - here are a few tips that might help you navigate. Look at the tabs at the top of the article pages - you'll see "article", "discussion", "edit this page", history", "move", and "watch":

• If you click on the "history" button you'll see a list of date and time stamps with usernames by them, each one of these represents when someone saved changes to the article. By selecting radio buttons you can see the difference between two sets of edits, so you can go in and see what changes have been made since you last edited the article, or what changes a edit made.

• Also, if you click on the "watch" tab, the page will be saved to your watchlist. Whenever you're logged on you can see the last edits to all the articles on your watchlist by clicking on "my watchlist" in the uper righthand corner.

• The discussion tab takes you to a discussion (known as the talk page) for each article. This is the place to discuss chagnes to an article with other editors. In general you are invited to be bold when editing and go ahead and make changes you think will improve the article, but if you find someone is reverting something you think should be in there, or you want to get opinions, help, or other collaboration - the talk page is where to have the conversation.

I hadn't realized you were with Ashoka, I'd assumed you were just a fan (which isn't hard!). You should realize that when you edit Wikipedia, you're volunteering for Wikipedia. You need to be editing with the primary purpose of building an encyclopedia, not simply to represent Ashoka. These don't have to be mutually exclusive, but it's important you realize that once you're here you're a part of the "we" :-) Check out our conflict of interest and editing with a conflict of interest guidelines, for more on how we try to stay encyclopdic while welcoming contributions from people who may have a conflict, but still have great contributions to make. --Siobhan Hansa 21:54, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edits to Ashoka: Innovators for the Public and Bill Drayton

Hi Thom. Your recent edits to the Ashoka and Bill Drayton articles have been very promotional in the language they use. Please remember that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a free listing service. Your edits should not read like a press release or magazine feature on the subject. If you are going to continue to edit these articles despite the editing with a conflict of interest guideline, you need to refrain from using peacock phrases and to try to edit with a more neutral point of view. Siobhan Hansa 12:52, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you Siobhan. I will go back to the drawing board and strive for a more considered tone. Have a terrific day!

Tom Boone