User talk:CammieD

Hello CammieD, and Welcome to Wikipedia!

Welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you enjoy the encyclopedia and want to stay. As a first step, you may wish to read the Introduction.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me at my talk page – I'm happy to help. Or, you can ask your question at the New contributors' help page.

Here are some more resources to help you as you explore and contribute to the world's largest encyclopedia...

Finding your way around:

Table of contents

Department directory

Need help?

Questions – a guide on where to ask questions
Cheatsheet – quick reference on Wikipedia's mark-up codes
Wikipedia's 5 pillars – an overview of Wikipedia's foundations
The Wikipedia Adventure (a tutorial orienting you with Wikipedia)

Article wizard – a Wizard to help you create articles
The simplified ruleset – a summary of Wikipedia's most important rules
Guide to Wikipedia – a thorough step-by-step guide to Wikipedia

How you can help:

Contributing to Wikipedia – a guide on how you can help

Community portal – Wikipedia's hub of activity

Additional tips...

Please sign your messages on talk pages with four tildes (~~~~). This will automatically insert your "signature" (your username and a date stamp). The or button, on the tool bar above Wikipedia's text editing window, also does this.

If you would like to play around with your new Wiki skills the Sandbox is for you.

CammieD, good luck, and have fun. – Hoary (talk) 08:31, 1 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Reference formatting

Thank you for providing references, but "bare URLs" (as they're called hereabouts) can easily be made more informative. For the first use of a given reference, something like this: <ref name="unique_identifier">Author, "[http://blahblah.com/blah/blah.html Title of the article]", Title of the website, date. Retrieved [date when you viewed the web page].</ref>. For a second or later use of the same reference: <ref name="unique_identifier" />. I hope that this is understandable. -- Hoary (talk) 08:37, 1 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Come on, CammieD, you can do the above! -- Hoary (talk) 10:12, 1 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm improving my citations! Slowly! veeeerrrry slowly! CammieD (talk) 17:51, 1 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Some kind of revert campaign on where Marsden is born. I don't want to be out of line, but it's becoming an issue. Could you check that I am correct (or not) on MyWikiBiz and personal website all authored by subject of article not being 3rd party sources?? Thanks CammieD (talk) 20:05, 2 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

[[1]] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Newfsecuritygirl (talk • contribs) 00:07, 8 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm editing a different page now and found an awkward sourcing issue. The source is the Hartford Courant online (courant.com), it's their blog from their staff, but not the editorial board, I don't think. The blog is "For the Record" and it doesn't list a specific author, it says "Courant Government Staff". Here is the link to the article: http://articles.courant.com/1999-01-29/news/9901290415_1_congressional-seat-caucus-chairman-democrats And my citation is on the Ann Coulter page and looks like this (I removed the html ref and cite bits here):

| url = http://articles.courant.com/1999-01-29/news/9901290415_1_congressional-seat-caucus-chairman-democrats | title = News And Views From The Hallways Of Government | author = For the Record, Courant Staff | publisher = Hartford Courant | date = 1999-01-29 | accessdate = 2014-03-08

O_O

118 Edits in one week? This definitely sets you up nicely for reviewer rights.

So I did the honors for you! Check Here Titus Fox 08:24, 8 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wow - thank you. I hope to find some extra messy articles with missing citations and see if I can fix them CammieD (talk) 14:57, 8 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, It's Kinda Half and Half. Basically, Reviewing edits. Sometimes, You can find vandals too! Titus Fox 15:04, 8 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

User:Titusfox/RCMDC Titus Fox 15:06, 8 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know. If you read the guy's post under this one, I might be banned for over enthusiastic editing CammieD (talk) 15:19, 8 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, by the way, if you're looking for help with tables Try This Titus Fox 15:45, 14 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Rachel Marsden

You are as of today a single purpose account whose sole purpose is adding negative material to a biography of a living person. You have two alternatives: stop editing that article or be blocked indefinitely. Your choice.

Reviewing admins: see OTRS Ticket:201403071001715. Guy (Help!) 12:32, 8 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, it looks like CammieD has been editing more than one article. There is also nothing inherently wrong with a SPA as long it is abiding by Wikipedia policies and guidelines. As for the OTRS, that is something regular editors don't have access to so I can't comment. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:00, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Right, there's nothing inherently wrong with an SPA. However, a large alarm bell goes off when (or as long as) the single purpose is the editing of the biography of a living person, when that person's bio has previously been the subject of heated argument. Though I disagree with JzG/Guy's description of your edits, you have (rightly or wrongly) been adding negative material.

Here, you ask "Should I continue trying to correct citations over [in the article on RM] or just move on and let other people deal with it?" Just move on and let other people deal with it. I'm glad to see that you've moved on to another subject (Coulter), and a quick look at your edits there suggests that your additions won't be controversial. If my impression is correct, good. But in only a few hours you've added over 4% to the size of what was already a long article. I suggest that you now pause there too. The history of that article (with twenty-two discussion archives) suggests that many changes that would seem innocent to some people don't go down well with other people. Therefore I suggest that you pause with Coulter and wait till you see the reaction to what you've already done. Once it's clear that people take your changes well, continue.

In the meantime, there ought to be plenty of subjects that are of interest to you, aside from polarizing political figures: subjects having flawed (or no) articles here. It's a good idea to work on those, to get experience, and to read and digest the considerable "curb your enthusiasm" content within the famous page "WP:BOLD". -- Hoary (talk) 05:43, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The world is all that is the case

You ask elsewhere: I was going to go look at Rob Ford's page next. Bad idea?

First the obtuse response: yes, you're very welcome to look at it or any other article. Indeed, the more carefully you look, the more educational the experience will be.

Now the response to the question I guess you had in mind: no, it's not a good idea to go through an article such as that, looking for its deficiencies and making corrections. Do something humdrum first. Practise even such very minor skills as talk page comment placement (colon indentation, etc) until they come naturally: however trivial such etiquette may seem, getting it wrong adds to the irritation of other editors who may be tetchy thanks to having just dealt with lame "contributions" from yet other editors. Practice on the article on some river, the company that made your cutlery, spectacle frame technology, trackball design, spats, keyring evolution, quartertone music, etc. Then consider dispassionately trying your skills on the bio of somebody who excites others' (but not your) passions. -- Hoary (talk) 09:27, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'd really like to work on improving citations where needed. Is there a place on Wikipedia where articles that need citation help are collected or listed? Where people ask for other editors to come help? Anywhere I can practice that and improve a page is fine with me. The topic can be anything. CammieD (talk) 13:19, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That's a generous offer; thank you. Wikipedia:Community_portal links to "Wikipedia articles needing factual verification". Unfortunately this is overwhelming: pick a title at random and you might find it's a local politician in India about whom the only sources are in Telugu, or whatever. I have a better idea for you: "Featured article removal candidates". These are articles that were once "featured" (eligible to appear in the most prominent position on the top page) but are now thought inferior. There can be many reasons for this; among them are inadequate citations for recently added claims, and too much material that, no matter how scrupulously cited, is now out of date and needs to be replaced by newer material that of course has to be scrupulously cited. It's not easy for a newcomer to work out how this page is structured, but you probably won't have to write much there, so don't worry. Instead, concentrate on a particular article listed there (e.g. Jackie Chan); I mean the article itself, adding/improving references and making the edit summaries informative. -- Hoary (talk) 13:45, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea, that sounds just right for me. I did go look at the Articles Needing Verification and the Tennis article alone is a big massive mess, so I'm grateful for a better jumping place. Featured Articles it is, thank you! CammieD (talk) 14:06, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Good. ¶ Small point, but take a look at your list of contributions. You have a lot of edit summaries (good), but a lot of these include the string "~~~~". As you can see, this isn't interpreted within an edit summary; and as you can see within the history of any article, talk page, etc, the name, date and time aren't needed, as these are anyway always identified. -- Hoary (talk) 14:16, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ohhh okay. I just did a tiny language edit on the Jackie Chan article(and signed it before I read this). Am I being needlessly specific in what/where I edited something? I mean, is it okay to say I edited something for grammar and leave it at that, or is it easier for other editors if I am specific on each edit so they don't have to look it up if they don't want to? CammieD (talk) 14:26, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No, I don't think you're being needlessly specific. But imaginably you are. If so, you're being needlessly helpful. And this is an unobtrusive helpfulness: if people don't want to read your edit summaries, they needn't do so. Nobody can complain. So keep on doing roughly what you're doing. As for the edits, certainly you've cut some junk: When he was 9 and 16 years of age, he lived in Thailand for a short period of time. All carefully provided for those readers (in some other galaxy?) who might otherwise infer that it was 9 and 16 years of temperature, a short depth of time, or a short period of width, I suppose. -- Hoary (talk) 01:26, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]