A Saku

No more editing allowed???

A Saku, I have placed a request for your account to be 'confirmed' - here. I hope that will be processed soon, and then you will be able to edit the article.  Chzz  ►  02:30, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Now done - your account is 'confirmed' so you can edit semi-protected pages, such as 2011 Sendai earthquake and tsunami. Cheers,  Chzz  ►  02:33, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

 Done

Sorry, I only read your message now a bit late. Thank you very much! A Saku (talk) 02:38, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

That's fine - no problem at all.

And, regarding I don't fully understand the implications of "confirmed";

• Articles can be protected (which means, only administrators can edit them) or semi-protected, which means they can only be edited by confirmed users.
• The article 2011 Sendai earthquake and tsunami is currently semi-protected [1] (due to vandalism).
• User accounts are automatically confirmed after they are four days old, and after making 10 edits. But your account is only 8 hours old...so;
• It is possible for an administrator to manually set an account as 'confirmed' - and that is what happened. I asked an admin to set your account to 'confirmed', and they did, which means you can now edit semi-protected pages.

I hope that explains. Please, if you have any questions, just put {{helpme}} here - with a question - and someone will answer you.

Thanks,  Chzz  ►  03:07, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's a really clear explanation! Thank you, Chzz. I hope using the helpme thing doesn't create a lot of work for somebody else (you?). I presume it works automatically to alert somebody else, rather than there being somebody continually reloading this page on the off chance that I put a helpme here? A Saku (talk) 03:11, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

そうですね。

I might not have seen your message here.

If you put {{helpme}}, it puts this page into Category:Wikipedians looking for help - and lots of people watch that category. I am one of them.

If you wanted to contact me though, you could leave a message on my own talk page - User talk:Chzz.

Do not worry about 'making work'. We all want to help each other, to make Wikipedia better. がんばって。　 Chzz  ►  03:35, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

That's handy, but I see I have lots more to learn; I have just spent a few minutes browsing the Categories:Wikipedia this and that, and feeling rather lost. By the way, your Japanese is good! A Saku (talk) 03:47, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

The English Wikipedia is huge. Over 100 edits per minute, twenty-four hours a day. While I wrote this message, 6 new articles were created and 3 were deleted. And so...it does get complicated - despite trying to keep it simple.

I think the most important thing to know is, that you can always ask for help.

There is no point trying to learn everything; it is better to learn by trying. Be bold, because it is a wiki - and easy to 'undo' mistakes.

There are so many areas on Wikipedia, that really, nobody knows everything.

But, a couple of good starting-point links are;

• WP:CHEATSHEET
• The Missing Manual.

You've (maybe unfortunately) started on a very very 'hot' article - the quake. That is being edited so often, that edit-conflicts happen all the time. They are annoying. But please, don't be discouraged; it is very unusual for an article to be so hectic.

My Japanese is terrible - but thanks!  Chzz  ►  04:04, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

P.S. You might also wish to join Wikipedia:WikiProject Japan  Chzz  ►  04:09, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Wow, that CHEATSHEET is useful; I now see how to do indenting on talk pages. One question is are there rules about which categories to use for different pages? I will have a look at the Wikiproject Japan, although I don't know how much of a commitment would be involved in that. At this stage and not knowing how my free time will work out, I would not want to raise other people's expectations. A Saku (talk) 04:22, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm going off-duty here and on-duty elsewhere. Looks like I have run out of time for today to recover the contents of my lost huge edit-conflicted edit. A Saku (talk) 04:34, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Welcome!

Some cookies to welcome you!

Welcome to Wikipedia, A Saku! I am Cymru.lass and have been editing Wikipedia for quite some time. Thank you for your contributions. I just wanted to say hi and welcome you to Wikipedia! If you have any questions check out Wikipedia:Questions, or feel free to leave me a message on my talk page or type {{helpme}} at the bottom of this page. I love to help new users, so don't be afraid to leave a message! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

• Introduction
• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• How to edit a page
• Help pages
• How to write a great article

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Also, when you post on talk pages you should sign your name using four tildes (~~~~); that should automatically produce your username and the date after your post. Again, welcome!

— Preceding signed comment added by Cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 02:20, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the welcome. Looks like there is a lot of guidance available! A Saku (talk) 02:39, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

That there is! If you ever need help or advice, feel free to write on my talk page! :) — Preceding signed comment added by Cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 02:51, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. The more I look into it, the more guidance I see there is. It's actually rather overwhelming in quantity, so I may very well take you up on your kind offer. A Saku (talk) 03:01, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

In reply to your message on my talkpage, an edit conflict happens when two (or more) people are editing a page at the same time and one person saves the page. Then when the other person tries to save their edits they will instead get a message saying they've encountered an edit conflict. If you know you're going to be doing a big edit to a page, you can always put {{inuse}} (talk) on the page, save the page, and then start making your edits. This will alert other people that you will be making a big edit to the page. Another thing you can do is copy your edits right before you save the page; then you'll have a copy in case you encounter an edit conflict.

If you do encounter an edit conflict, scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page (not just the edit window but the bottom of the whole page). That little window of text has the edits you made to the page that didn't get saved.

For more information, see Wikipedia:Edit conflict. I hope this helps!! :) — Preceding signed comment added by Cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 04:19, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it does help a lot! You're very kind. Thank you! It looks like I lost all my editing in the edit-conflict and I will have to see if I can remember them when I come back. I must unfortunately leave it all for now and go out. A Saku (talk) 04:41, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I wish you the best of luck, in both editing and in the real world :) — Preceding signed comment added by Cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 04:58, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Bit of advice

This is the edit summary box, right below the editing window and right above the "save" button.

Hello, I hope you don't mind me offering you a piece of advice. On Wikipedia, it's customary to leave an edit summary that briefly states the changes you've made (such as "revert vandalism", "copy edit", "added info about [something]", "added source", etc.). Editors tend to take edits more seriously if they see the person who's made the edit has left an edit summary. You can read Help:Edit summary if you want more details.

Also, Wikipedia:Edit summary legend has a "dictionary" of abbreviations commonly used by people in their edit summaries. The page is a bit lengthy, though, so you might want to check out Wikipedia:Edit summary legend/Quick reference instead :P Happy editing!! — Preceding signed comment added by Cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 18:25, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I didn't know that. Thank you for telling me about it. Now you have mentioned it, I do notice the little space for writing an edit-summary and the explanation near it. I think I missed it because looking at an edit page is like looking at a huge wall of information!

As I mentioned earlier I have not been able to edit the article at all recently because I seem to be unable to avoid edit conflicts. A Saku (talk) 11:46, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

My suggestion would be to make a subpage in your userspace, like User:A Saku/Sandbox, go into the article edit window, copy the part of the article you want to work on into your subpage, work on it there, then go into a new edit window in the article and paste your edits in. Also, you should try editing an article that active in small chunks to avoid edit conflicts. If you only try editing one section at a time (use the "edit" link by the specific section you want to work on), you are also less likely to run into edit conflicts. If you have a major edit that you can complete in less than 30 minutes or so, then you can always put {{inuse}} at the top of the article, save the page, and then get to work on your edit. I hope this helps!! — Preceding signed comment added by Cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 22:32, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh, one other thing: Some users, including especially myself, are quite forgetful and don't always remember to follow up on discussions on other users' talkpages Thank goodness there's a template for that! The template's called {{talkback}}, and to notify me that you've replied here, you would just put {{talkback|A Saku}} in a new section on my talkpage. Thanks! — Preceding signed comment added by Cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 13:50, 15 March 2011 (UTC)