User talk:Usernamewastaken

Hello, Usernamewastaken! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions to this free encyclopedia. If you decide that you need help, check out Getting Help below, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking or using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your username and the date. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. Happy editing! Fiddle Faddle (talk) 00:32, 26 November 2008 (UTC) Getting started A tutorial • Our five pillars • Getting mentored How to: edit a page • upload and use images Getting help Frequently asked questions • Tips Where to ask questions or make comments Request administrator attention Policies and guidelines Neutral point of view • No original research Verifiability • Reliable sources • Citing sources What Wikipedia is not • Biographies of living persons Manual of Style • Three-revert rule • Sock puppetry Copyrights • Policy for non-free content • Image use policy External links • Spam • Vandalism Deletion policy • Conflict of interest • Notability The community Build consensus • Resolve disputes Assume good faith • Civility • Etiquette No personal attacks • No legal threats Community Portal • Village pump Signpost • IRC channels • Mailing lists Writing articles Be bold in editing • Develop an article The perfect article • Manual of style Stubs • Categories • Disambiguation Pages needing attention • Peer review Miscellaneous User name • User pages • Talk pages Clean up: General • Spam • Vandalism Join a WikiProject • Translation Useful templates • Tools • User scripts

Hope this helps

I'm trying this piece of advice out so any comments are welcome:

Thoughts that may help a new editor

This is an essay, intended for new editors, to help them to understand things at Wikipedia.

If you are to have an enjoyable time here adding articles and editing articles you need to understand how the place works. It doesn't matter about how it, perhaps, ought to work, nor about how you want it to work. What matters is how it works. Once you understand this then you will be able to add new articles to your heart's content, confident that they will survive.

I'm afraid this means a bit of reading for you. Look at Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not first. Look especially at Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Once you understand this then you have the entire trick to it.

It means that just adding a new article is insufficient. Wikipedia does require some work from its contributors. Creating an article with minimal information, providing no other citations, and doing no other work is doomed to failure.

To create a successful article there really should be:

• notability of the topic that is the subject matter of the article. This is non-negotiable. Read Wikipedia:Notability.
• citations to the topic from reliable sources. Check the definition of reliable sources
• wikilinks to other articles. An article that is a dead end is sometimes reasonable, but usually there are useful places to link to. Check that the destination is the article you expect, do not just create a wikilink and hope for the best.
• wikilinks to the article you have created from other articles. This means that the article is not "orphaned" and that others will find it.
• inclusion of the article in the most relevant category (or categories). Read Wikipedia:Categorization.
• If a short article, deploy {{Stub}} in the article, or, better, deploy the best possible stub tag. Read Wikipedia:Stub.

One very important thing is to "let go" once you have posted the article. The only time it is "yours" is when it's in your head. The moment you place it on Wikipedia it becomes "everyone's" Letting go of your baby is hard. Read Wikipedia:Ownership of articles.

Doing these things, even imperfectly, means that others are likely to be kindly disposed to the new article, and, if it is about a notable topic, likely to expand it. Even if they do not expand it the survival of the article is enhanced because it is likely to be suitable for inclusion in the encyclopaedia. This is because it is a useful article since it gives information. It is insufficient for an article simply to exist, it must have value.

Things "ought to have articles here." I hope you understand that every editor here thinks that things ought to have articles here, too, even those who propose articles for deletion. There must, though, be initial article quality. That initial article may be very short, but, even in extreme brevity, must meet the guidelines, and must have the building blocks from which it may be expanded alongside genuine and verifiable notability. Read Wikipedia:Verifiability.

If those building blocks are not present and the article is not about a notable thing, and has no verifiability from reliable sources then the article has no value to anyone, however well-written it is. Read Wikipedia:No original research.

I truly hope this helps you understand how to start to create good articles and enjoy being here. You may have had a baptism of fire and learnt that it is not a gentle place. Working within the rules can be rewarding. Trying to push the envelope always fails.

These are my thoughts. You may disagree, so may others. That's fine, that is part of what Wikipedia creates - we work together. If you disagree, please let me know by using User talk:Timtrent/A good article and we can discuss it. --Fiddle Faddle (talk) 18:24, 25 November 2008 (UTC)