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Archive 1

Your feedback

Hello KnowLimits! I read the feedback you left on the Feedback Dashboard. Wikipedia, at first, can be very overwhelming and confusing for new editors. I know that it was confusing for me. They are resources and articles available to new editors about editing, Wikipedia's policies, article creation, etc. I'll list some for you.

There is a ton of more articles to read about what Wikipedia is. If you need any help, I'm always available at my talk page. You can also find help at #wikipedia-en-help connect (Wikipedia's help IRC channel) and at the Help Desk. Happy editing! -- Luke (Talk) 01:10, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Help

{{helpme}} (I hope I remembered that correctly. Will find out next time I visit this page.) Just that I was unsure whether I remembered that correctly is an example of something that could be in margin or top-bar of any newcomer's page -- or IS there, but not necessarily noticeable? Or, in automated email sent to newcomers? (not as helpful, as it would, again, require *remembering* it.

Advance apology: This is not brief.

Note that I commented (per above) in Feedback/Dashboard - Thanks for responding. Note that you responded (first response) - but I had posted similar feedback several times (lost count) before anyone responded. Thank you. (Just discovered help-code at beginning of paragraph, today) - but had to read about 10 more minutes before understanding that/how someone would know to respond to it.

Here's an example of "problem I am having" (aside from extremely limited time to contribute and, despite that, having difficulty rationing the time I do have - it is SO tempting to "contribute what I know." Oops, I just got caught: I was about to write an example, however, I am a writer, and *some* of what I write I really do need to not put into Creative Commons License at this time. The example I was about to give is of that type.

Hmm. Unsure how else to explain my dilemma. Short version? I believe I said I wanted equivalent of "Wiki-edit 101 that I can read in 5 minutes" - what I received was SEVERAL (albeit helpful) links, including one to several other links. It is not quite in the category of "too much data, but not enough information." More in the matter of both "data-overload" and "information-overload." Ah, here's example that may help you understand my limits and needs: I have been a dedicated Apple/Macintosh person long-time. As I am now "between computers" - it will be approximately 7-8 months before I have Mac again (barring unexpected benevolent gift/loan of current laptop or smaller, as I need small footprint).

In the meantime, someone has graciously arranged for me to have access to a laptop "until..." "Ah, there's the rub." The laptop - contrary to expectations, yes, I knew it was not going to be a Mac - However, I was *not* prepared for it also being set up in Linux! (Once, previously), someone had graciously insisted I borrow their family's spare laptop; it was interesting to discover how much my Mac-competence (and prior knowledge) was transferable to that PC laptop. Even when "things went wrong" - a well-indexed library book on troubleshooting and I was "good to go." My non-Mac knowledge is: Set me in front of a "public" computer (non-Mac), and I can use it for its intended purposes, but, if anything does not work as intended or is non-intuitive, I need help. (Circular reasoning: That's only part of why I use a Mac: I can troubleshoot most things, without needing to rely on someone else.)

AH! Example of what I am missing here: Wiki - from this new contributor's perspective - is non-intuitive, except for the existence of Tables of Contents.

The other thing I run into, aside from not understanding how to proceed -- or even how to understand what it says on the page that shows me what I am "following" (This, alone, is a serious limitation - please direct me to WiKi info on how to read those pages - and what to do if I cannot get there as often as I anticipate).

Per my initial comment: The other thing is, "What if what I know is through my own personal knowledge of something - and/or, I have been researching it for long time, but do not have access to citations nor time to get them, and I read WiKi-something that reflects knowledge IMNSHO (and verified by age of references) is "10 years out of date" ? -- On one such item, I made a comment to that effect on Talk Page, and I noted that author added comment that info is 10 years out of date - so, at least I feel a little useful. Should I write new article (or edit existing one?), saying what I know, but indicating in multiple places "citation needed" ? Dilemma there? It is about something medical ("I am not a Doctor, nor do I play one on TV..."). On this particular topic, most doctors with whom I discuss the matter say that I know more about it than they do, and one of my docs has been encouraging me to write a book about it (for the specific information, but, more importantly, for the transferable knowledge that would be relevant to wider audience). Once published, I could comfortably excerpt sections for Creative Commons License, but not now. OTOH, it is discouraging to see such out-of-date info: There are web-pages on the internet that did not exist 5 years ago that now have much more current, useful, and detailed info than the WiKi page I saw on the topic. At what point is it more appropriate to say, "abc" page(s) address this topic (at least up to a "B" or "C" standard) but "xyz" is missing" ?

And where/how do I make a suggestion? (I may try this particular one in Feedback & see what happens.) TIA.

P.S. When I went to post this, it said, "Your edit includes new external links." WHERE? KnowLimits (talk) 13:07, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

  • Yes, you remembered to use {{helpme}} correctly; that's fine. You probably saw it in a 'welcome' message, like the one in User:Chzz/w or something. As long as you can use {{helpme}}, it doesn't matter if you can't remember anything else - because you can always ask!
  • "Feedback/Dashboard" is a very new thing. One day, we hope to have a proper system whereby users can say if they've "responded" to things or not. But, it's early days.
  • "Wikipedia 101" - yes, there are various different guides and tutorials...none are 'perfect', some are simpler, some are more in-depth. I think the best are probably: WP:CHEATSHEET, WP:TUTORIAL, this PDF intro guide, and WP:TMM (The 'Missing Manual'). There's also a bunch of videos, if you prefer those. ('Play' them, then you can right-click for full-screen).
  • Wikipedia is, unfortunately, a steep learning curve. However, there is always plenty of help available. Wikipedia is massive, so it can be overwhelming, but nobody knows everything. It's best just to work out the bits you need, as and when you need them. Also, you can talk to helpers (text-chat) with this link.
  • You should never add unreferenced information to a live article - because, anything without a reference can be removed, at any time. But, you could make a user-space draft page - for example, User:KnowLimits/Test page - you can click that, to make that page, and write (almost) anything you like on it, without bothering about references. But it can't be moved to a live article until it has good refs.
  • "where/how do I make a suggestion?" - it depends what you're suggesting;
  • To suggest a change to an existing article, put the comment on the article talk page. So, for example, to comment on the article Sausage, you'd write on Talk:Sausage.
  • To suggest a new article, you could list it on Wikipedia:Requested articles, however that is so back-logged that it might not be created any time this century. It's far better to write a little (but referenced!) stub-article, and hope others will expand it.
  • For general suggestions in a topic-area, you'd be best asking on some related wiki-project talk page. For example, you mentioned Doctors and things, so for medicine we have Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine, and their talk page is Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine. The wikiprojects that are associated with articles are normally shown on the top of the article talk page - e.g. Talk:Canoe River train crash shows that that article is in the Canada, Geography, Trains and Military History wikiprojects, with links.
  • For general suggestions about the wiki as a whole, you want the village-pump.
  • I'm not sure why you got that message about 'External links' - maybe it was because the 'helpme' itself has links to the chat thing. I think you can just ignore it.
I hope that answers. Cheers,
The best way to contact Chzz is IRC (text-chat), here  · Second-best is my talk page · Third-best is email Chzz@live.co.uk

 Chzz  ►  17:33, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

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