Welcome!

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Hello, Jiselle04, and welcome to Wikipedia! My name is Brianda and I work with Wiki Education; I help support students who are editing as part of a class assignment.

I hope you enjoy editing here. If you haven't already done so, please check out the student training library, which introduces you to editing and Wikipedia's core principles. You may also want to check out the Teahouse, a community of Wikipedia editors dedicated to helping new users. Below are some resources to help you get started editing.

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  • You can find answers to many student questions in our FAQ.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me on my talk page. Brianda (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:22, 20 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Introduction to contentious topics

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You have recently edited a page related to gender-related disputes or controversies or people associated with them, a topic designated as contentious. This is a brief introduction to contentious topics and does not imply that there are any issues with your editing.

A special set of rules applies to certain topic areas, which are referred to as contentious topics. These are specially designated topics that tend to attract more persistent disruptive editing than the rest of the project and have been designated as contentious topics by the Arbitration Committee. When editing a contentious topic, Wikipedia’s norms and policies are more strictly enforced, and Wikipedia administrators have special powers in order to reduce disruption to the project.

Within contentious topics, editors should edit carefully and constructively, refrain from disrupting the encyclopedia, and:

  • adhere to the purposes of Wikipedia;
  • comply with all applicable policies and guidelines;
  • follow editorial and behavioural best practice;
  • comply with any page restrictions in force within the area of conflict; and
  • refrain from gaming the system.

Editors are advised to err on the side of caution if unsure whether making a particular edit is consistent with these expectations. If you have any questions about contentious topics procedures you may ask them at the arbitration clerks' noticeboard or you may learn more about this contentious topic here. You may also choose to note which contentious topics you know about by using the {{Ctopics/aware}} template.

ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 02:11, 16 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Suggestion

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Hey, just saw your edit to gender-critical feminism. That article is one of the most contentious articles currently on Wikipedia, changes to content within it are almost always subject to heavy discussion, and even afterwards are not guaranteed to be accepted. You may wish to ask your instructor, ACHorwitz, to assign you or let you pick another article, as it will likely and sadly not be a friendly experience for a new editor like yourself. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:19, 16 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Thank you @Sideswipe9th for explaining the editing environment of this article.
@Jiselle04, Your current contribution needs rewriting to follow the encyclopedic style of Wikipedia. I have some feedback for you below. I suggest working on your contribution in your sandbox page, and strongly recommend you keep the contribution in the sandbox space where it can still be graded by your instructor, @ACHorwitz
Writing style: Currently, the text reads completely like a persuasive essay, which is fine for other assignments in your course but not for Wikipedia. You have to keep in mind, Wikipedia is not a place to publish your ideas or conclusions about a topic. That’s considered “original research,” and is not allowed on Wikipedia. This means your writing for Wikipedia will summarize what independent, reliable, secondary sources have said about a topic, so that a Wikipedia reader can get an overview of the current thoughts and understanding of that topic. Remember, the goal is to provide a neutral, fact based summary of the topic at hand based off the reliable sources you've found. I recommend reading over pgs. 7-9 of Editing Wikipedia as you rewrite to check out some examples of what is appropriate prose for Wikipedia.
Inline citations: A place to start, is to go over the content and make sure that a reliable source can support or back up each sentence that you have in the sandbox. If any reader wants to check if a sentence has accurate information, they can click on the inline citation and find that information in the cited source. This will help you see what text can remain and what text is original research(your own thoughts/opinions), and can then be removed.
Please let me know if you have any questions about what’s been said so far. Here to help. Brianda (Wiki Ed) (talk) 02:12, 19 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
Thanks to both @Sideswipe9th and @Brianda (Wiki Ed)--I've gone ahead and emailed the student outside of Wikipedia as well, to let her know to check these messages. Since this project is due in a few days, I am going to let her stick with this topic (they also write a reflection on the experience, so even if her changes aren't accepted, it will be part of the overall experience) and will delete it as an option in the future. Again, thanks to you both! ACHorwitz (talk) 16:44, 19 March 2024 (UTC)Reply