Kelly of Carolina

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Happy editing! WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 15:18, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Your first contributions

That was quite a bit of extra knowledge you've added to Polio vaccine! Thank you. Please take a look at the edits I've made (formatting and style issues, no content changes) as a guide to some of the finer points of creating citations, and to the Manual of Style. WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 15:18, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Help me!

Please help me with... I have just completed an extensive edit to a page(it's Gaylussacia bigeloviana but I can't link it because i'm afraid to open it and make the situation worse). I hit save and was notified of an edit conflict. I went to resolve the conflict and the page I'm now on is just what the page looked like before I did hours of research and work. I'm slowly coming to terms that I've essentially Lost everything but I haven't hit save yet in case someone has a miracle for me. I'd mostly like to know WHY this happened? was it because the page started out as a stub without sections and I added several sections? was it because I use visual editor? Why did the process for me to resolve the difference in edits actually just kick out all my work?? I don't think I can keep doing this editor thing if this is something I have to worry about. Like I didn't eat dinner because I felt bad leaving the edit page open so I just powered through but now it's all for nothing??? (Also I'm aware sandbox is theoretically a thing but I do not understand it. every time I try to open it Wikipedia says my entire user page doesn't exist and gets confused. I have had zero success using it for drafts.) Kelly of Carolina (talk) 03:41, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Hello, and thanks for reaching out to the community for help. Edit conflicts usually occur when one editor tries to edit a page that another editor was already editing (this page here has a clear example to look at if you haven't already). Edit conflicts do not usually happen because the edit you made was substantial in size, nor do they happen depending on the type of editor you were using.

I took a look at the page you were working on but cannot tell how big your edit was, so I do not know if your edit really did save or not. Would you mind letting me know how the page looked (how many paragraphs, etc.) before you attempted to edit? This information would help me to determine what your next best step would be. Thanks! Liamyangll (talk to me! | My contribs!) 04:06, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

@Liamyangll:Hello - So based on my opening the page in an incognito tab, the page as it stands now looks pretty much almost exactly the same as when I started editing apart from PlantDrew's revisions which my fried brain couldnt identify rn. When I was done I'd re written the leade, added two section headings written a new (sourced) description of the plant with information on identification/ differentiation from similar species described the habitat and distribution and flushed out the section on conservation status with information on conservation strategies and management. I think It had 6 sources when I was done. After I hit save for all that I got the pop up about the edit conflict (presumably it was a pop up info box because I'm new?) and when I hit the button to resolve conflicts manually it brought me back to the editor where literally EVERYTHING I'd done was gone all I can see is the text as it stands now and I'm still on that page now having not hit save because I was hoping this was just me not understanding the editor but I'm thinking it's all been burned for reasons no one understands. Kelly of Carolina (talk) 04:33, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Hey again, thanks for clarifying with me about the nature of your edits. Based on your descriptions, it seems like (unfortunately) your edits did not save, as only five sources and one section header are present on the most current revision of Gaylussacia bigeloviana. Now, I can guarantee you that Wikipedia does not discriminate against new users and definitely does not treat you any differently from any other user. Unfortunately, I could not find any remnants of any of the content you added in any of the page's history, etc. which means you will most likely have to start again. This means you should not worry about losing any more data, so you may close the page, press save, etc. However, I do have some tips for you to avoid this kind of situation in the future:

The longer the time you take to edit an article, the higher the chance for someone else to come along, attempt to edit the article and potentially destroy someone's work. If you plan to make major edits to an article (let's call it Article A), what you could do is set up a sandbox (if you still do not know how to create one, I can create one for you and link it here at your request). You could go to Article A, copy everything from there to your sandbox (let's call this one Article B) and edit everything there (make sure to close the Article A tab, as while you are in the visual editor, you will technically be editing the page and edit conflicts may still arise). No one will edit Article B so edit conflicts would not be a problem. Once you're done, delete everything in Article A and copy everything from Article B to Article A, then press submit. After you're sure everything has been saved, you may delete the contents of Article B and save the sandbox for future use.

I understand how frustrated you must be - that you lost potentially hours of work, and I feel really bad having to write all this down. You could wait for someone else to come along and potentially give you more advice, or I could tag this issue as closed. Of course, if you need any more clarification or assistance, please don't hesitate to keep asking, or come to my talk page. Thanks for sticking with me! (Have another smile: ) Liamyangll (talk to me! | My contribs!) 05:15, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

• Try hitting the "go back one page" button if your browser has it and maybe you'll be able to recover your work (assuming the relevant page is still open). As for your personal sandbox, the page indeed doesn't exist; you'll need to create it. Go to User:Kelly_of_Carolina/Sandbox, type "{{User sandbox}}" in the edit window, then hit "publish changes" and that's it, now you have your own sandbox. 78.28.44.31 (talk) 10:11, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

@Liamyangll: Thank you so much for all your help and my apologies for vanishing. I was speaking to you, PlantDrew directly, and someone in the help livechat all at once trying to figure out this drama and was fairly overwhelmed as it was near 2am my time and I felt a bit like i'd lost a term paper :'). I hadn't eaten as I got far too hyperfocused on doing that article for a number of hours and it was a lot. Everyone was so lovely in trying to help me though, and even though nothing worked and it seams like we never fully figured out Why my stuff got dumped, I appreciate the support from everyone! Also many thanks from the person above who clarified how to actually save the sandbox. In all the many times I'd seen information about it and clicked the link to save the page no where did I ever see that I needed to type that bit of code in there to make it actually work! so thank you! With regard to copy and pasting into the sandbox, How does one actually do that with visual editor? Will copy/ paste maintain relevant formating re headings/sources or do I need to switch views somehow? The other editor gives me hives I find it so stressful so I have not interacted with it at all... Thanks again!! Kelly of Carolina (talk) 16:42, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Hey Kelly of Carolina, thanks for getting back to me, and I'm glad you appreciate our support. Templates are a lot easier to insert if you're using the wiki editor, but they can also be done within the visual editor too. Just follow these steps:

When you're editing a page using the visual editor, there will be an "insert" option in the bar at the top, click that. In the drop-down menu that follows, click "template" (the option with the puzzle piece). A box will appear on screen; you should type in the words "user sandbox" (without the quotes, of course), and click the first option that you see. If you would like, you can customise this template with the options given to you below. Otherwise, just click the blue "insert" button on the top-right of the box, and the template will plop itself at the top of your sandbox, where it should go.

Hope this helps! Liamyangll (talk to me! | My contribs!) 03:22, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

The source editor might feel a bit intimidating at first, sure, but please consider that unlike the visual editor, it won't ever casually delete several hours' worth of your hard work. 78.28.44.31 (talk) 14:41, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

@78.28.44.31: I was wondering if it was the fault of the visual editor that everything was lost. I had actually asked a few folks but most everyone seemed quite convinced that it was a fairly unexpected occurrence generally and no one wanted to attribute it to the visual editor. Honestly I will say I find doing this with the visual editor /Extremely/ intimidating already. As I might have mentioned here before, It often feels like every time I try to find a help page for something simple (like adding a photo to an article or citation style) I have to search through and read 30 other help pages before I have half a clue how to do the thing I set out to do without messing something up. The tutorial that is shown when you first make an account doesn't even mention the manual of style so when someone mentioned that with a link I felt TERRIBLE that I'd added poorly formatted content to a bunch of pages. Unfortunately the software we use at my work for documentation is notorious for dumping all of our work pretty frequently (sometimes days or weeks later!) so I can work around that possibility now that I know to expect it. Kelly of Carolina (talk) 18:22, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

It absolutely was the fault of the visual editor. If you go to Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback, you will see there many people who have lost their data, e.g. Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback#Draft lost. And those are just the ones that actually found that page and felt about the issue strongly enough to leave a comment. Visual Editor was a disaster back in 2013 when we showed it the door, and it hasn't noticeably improved since despite the insane amount of resources that went down the drain into its "development." If I were you, I'd treat it as a set of flimsy training wheels and I'd be looking to graduate to the source editor asap.

As for finding help pages, perhaps Category:Wikipedia information pages can be of help as a "map" of sorts. There's a bit of a learning curve to navigating your way through everything we have here efficiently but trust me: it can be done! 78.28.44.31 (talk) 02:26, 10 August 2021 (UTC)