User talk:Rushmi/Archive1

Welcome

Welcome!

Hello, Rushmi, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question and then place {{helpme}} before the question on your talk page. Again, welcome!  IPSOS (talk) 13:50, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I have also answered these please click here to see my answers. Thanks! GDonato (talk) 15:29, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Archives

Hi Rushmi. If you need to follow a conversation that has been archived then just click on the links in the Archive box rather than reverting the whole page. For more information see Help:Archiving_a_talk_page.

Thanks Bksimonb 08:18, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Your recent edits

Hi, there. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. On many keyboards, the tilde is entered by holding the Shift key, and pressing the key with the tilde pictured. You may also click on the signature button located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you! --SineBot 10:55, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Getting help

If you add {{help}} to your talk page, I understand that someone will come to help you. In response to your second question, red links go to articles which have not been created yet. Since they could be created, they are left the way they are. We do not replace them with external links. IPSOS (talk) 13:50, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Answering your question

Hello, Rushmi. I'll answer your questions one at a time. Give me a minute to process each, :) please. --Moonriddengirl 15:22, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

1. Need to know what the rules covering talk page. what all contents can be discussed in a talk page.

The rules governing talk pages can be found at Wikipedia:Talk page. In brief, article talk pages are for discussing the article--what belongs or doesn't, what sources are available or aren't. User talk pages are used for personal communication between users, quite often about working on Wikipedia. --Moonriddengirl 15:25, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

2. Need to know what the the rules for external links

The rules governing external links can be found at Wikipedia:External links. The general philosophy is that links are included to support the verifiability of an article or to offer solid additional information to an article's readers. One type of link that cannot be included are links that violate copyright (for instance, a Youtube link to a music video). There are many other kinds of links that should be avoided, and those are specified there. --Moonriddengirl 15:28, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

3. Need to know how to archive a page.

As a Wikipedia practice, you will likely only ever need to archive a talk page. Full directions for that are available at that link. If you mean something else, please let me know. --Moonriddengirl 15:33, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

4. What is undo ?

"Undo" is an automatic method of reverting a change. It is often used to combat vandalism or to repair a page when a good faith edit has broken formatting or violated policy. It's a method of editing pages that should be used with care. Because "Undo" can lead to revert wars, there is a three-revert rule in place to help limit its use. --Moonriddengirl 15:36, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

5. How to know who has changed the content which i have added, and how to get it back.

You can see the history of an article, including who has changed your information and when, on the page history. From the page history, you are able to revert to any earlier stage. However, you do need to be careful when utilizing this that you don't erase good content. You also need to explain in your edit summary what you have done and why. --Moonriddengirl 15:43, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Awards

Got your note. :) It was my pleasure to help. Barnstars are one way of saying "thank you" or "good work." You put them on a user's talk page with the use of a template. Templates are nice shortcuts, since it saves you having to do all the coding yourself. To give an Original barnstar, for instance, you would put this on the user's page: {{subst:The Original Barnstar|message ~~~~}}. (You substitute why you are giving the barnstar for the word "message.") You can also more casually say thanks or good job to somebody by giving them a {{subst:smile}}. You type that on their talk page, and they get a friendly little message. :) --Moonriddengirl 15:55, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Adoption

By the way, I see you're showing a strong interest in learning your way around. (On your user page, for instance.) In case it interested you, I wanted to make you aware of the Wikipedia "adoption" project. This basically allows new users to find experienced mentors to help them learn the ropes. It isn't essential; I basically stumbled around figuring things out on my own. But it's out there. :) And you can take your questions about using Wikipedia to the Wikipedia:Help desk, too. Sometimes the {{helpme}} tag may go unnoticed a little longer. My general experience is that the help desk is almost always in operation. :) --Moonriddengirl 16:00, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad you like the idea. I hope you find someone who is a good fit. As far as the external link concerned, you might want to add a section for external links in the article if you're sure that the link is appropriate. (And I imagine you are, since you asked for the policy. :)). Wikipedia:Guide to layout tells you where it goes. Generally, it is the last thing before the categories. (Which, if you haven't noticed them yet, are at the bottom of the page and show up on the edit window as [[Category:documentaries]] or [[Category:non-governmental organizations]]. That kind of thing. --Moonriddengirl 22:01, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

External linking policy

Except for reference citations, which should be links without text (like this: [2]]) or in footnotes, external links are prohibited in the body of the article. They may only appear in the External links section. The external linking policy may be found here. IPSOS (talk) 13:45, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

Oops, I just answered you on the Sahaj Marg talk page and see that IPSOS did an even better explanation above. So, now you have it! Thanks for the nice note about my father. He's doing well. --Renee 14:42, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Adopt-a-User

Hello User:Rushmi. I see you're looking for an adopter. I would be pleased to be that adopter, if you're interested; I've been on Wikipedia more than six months and have more than three thousand edits. I have quite a bit of experience in article development, dealing with Wikiquette alerts, and categorization. I also have some experience with the Articles for deletion process and a few other internal functions of Wikipedia. I am absolutely no good at making pages look nice, and I'm only passingly acquainted with uploading photos (and the various copyright concerns that go along with doing so), so if you plan on making these your focii, you might want to choose a different adopted. Sarcasticidealist 06:09, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

You should probably remove it, unless you're looking for a second adopter (and if for some reason I prove unsatisfactory, you can always re-add it later). You could also replace it with {{adoptee|Sarcasticidealist}}, unless you'd rather not. More importantly, do you have any specific questions? What are your goals on Wikipedia (immediate, long-term, or in between)? Sarcasticidealist 06:31, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

That is certainly possible. The Wikipedia term for what you want to do is to create a "sandbox" - somewhere you can play around. There's a communal sandbox at WP:Sandbox, but I'd suggest you just create your own by clicking on User:Rushmi/Sandbox and having at 'er. I'd be pleased to have a look at what you're doing and give you pointers (although, as I warned you, I'm not very good at making things look pretty).

As for whether Wikipedia can reach the standard of the World Book Encyclopedia, I think it already has for a lot of articles. Any article on a major topic that has lots of editors contributing will in general be as or more useful than its equivalent in a "real" encyclopedia (if you don't believe me, compare the article on World War II to its counterpart in the World Book). Of course, the vast majority of Wikipedia articles are on much more minor topics, and don't have huge numbers of editors contributing to them. These articles are generally of a lower standard than World Book articles, but in most cases they're on subjects that World Book doesn't have an entry on - and something's better than nothing! Sarcasticidealist 06:54, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Your sandbox

I looked over what you've done on your sandbox. The one thing I can suggest right now is that if "What is topic" is intended to be a sub-heading (i.e. a title of a small section within the larger "Topic" section), you should consider using equals signs to give it a heading property, like so:

==Topic==

===What is topic===

I'm also not precisely sure what you're trying to do with the reference; if you have any questions about that (or anything else), please ask. Sarcasticidealist 02:04, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Using links as references

Put each the website's url between square brackets, and put the whole thing between <ref></ref> tags. Then put <div class="references-small"><references /></div> at the bottom of the article. For example, suppose you wanted to say that the sky was blue, and your source was the website http://www.theskyisblue.com. You'd want to write something like this:

The sky is blue.<ref>[http://www.theskyisblue.com]</ref>

<div class="references-small"><references /></div>

That would show up as the following:

The sky is blue.

[1]

If you want the footnote to have something other than just the number, write what you want it to see within the square brackets in the reference. For example, writing

The sky is blue.<ref>[http://www.theskyisblue.com National Council of Blueness website on the colour of the sky]</ref>

<div class="references-small"><references /></div>

would give you this:

The sky is blue.

National Council of Blueness website on the colour of the sky

I hope that answers your question. Sarcasticidealist 06:43, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Oops, the fact that I used both those examples on the same page screwed things up a little. To see what they would actually look like, try using them each (one at a time) in your sandbox. Sarcasticidealist 06:44, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I made a couple of changes to your sandbox to change the way the references displayed. You only want the <div class="references-small"><references /></div> part once, at the bottom of the page. All other references should be in the form of <ref>[http://www.theskyisblue.com National Council of Blueness website on the colour of the sky]</ref>. Let me know if you have any questions.

As for whether it's possible to have external links automatically open in a new window, I believe (but I'm not positive) that the answer is no. I've asked the question at the Wikipedia help desk here, though. Sarcasticidealist 08:39, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Your preferred method is also acceptable (per WP:CITE). It's my personal preference to use the footnotes and have the inline links go there but, as I warned you, I have very little regard for aesthetics. Sarcasticidealist 20:46, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Renee

Hi Rushmi,

You wrote on my talk page:

I noticed that Renee forced some RfC on your contribution. just out of curiosity, are things resolved ? from her activity logs your RfC seems to be second one. If you have some time, can you elaborate more on what is RfC how is it initiated and on what basis ? --Rushmi 11:02, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Is this [3] the RfC you mean? If so, I have never actually gotten around to reading it, and I have no idea what those who have signed it intend.

Or you might mean the RfC involving the dispute involving the Alice Bailey article. That may be resolved...but things there do have a way of flaring up from time to time. Kwork 00:54, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Sahaj Marg

Hi Rushmi,

This edit [4] would likely be considered vandalism by many people, and was inappropriate to make without first establishing consensus on the article's talk page. As you can see, it has been reverted; please don't do that again without discussing it first and checking for consensus.

I see you also placed several talkspace templats in the mainspace. These have also been reverted.

As your adopter, I'd encourage you to ask me any questions you might have about these things before making potentially disruptive edits to articles; that's what I'm here for.

Happy editing! Sarcasticidealist 19:01, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

One more thing: Some of the edits you marked as being "minor" shouldn't have been marked that way. Minor edits are those that make grammatical corrections and the like - things that nobody could possibly object to. Changing the categorization on Sahaj Marg from "Meditation" to "Cult", for example, definitely doesn't qualify, as it is easy to imagine somebody objecting to that. Sarcasticidealist 04:42, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Reliable sources

The short answer to your question is yes: court rulings are certainly *reliable* sources for the content that they contain. That's not to say that everything contained in a given court ruling will be relevant to a given article, or that you should infer things from the ruling that aren't explicitly stated (you should read WP:OR if you haven't already), but any court ruling from a non-corrupt judiciary should meet the threshold of reliability.

As for whether or not you can scan and upload it, the answer is again yes. In fact, that isn't even necessary, since offline reliable sources (books and the like) can still be used; obviously there will be no link, which is one advantage to my citation system (using footnotes) over the one that you prefer (inline direct links). Sarcasticidealist 18:39, 17 September 2007 (UTC)