Studentletterb
Welcome!
editHello, Studentletterb, and welcome to Wikipedia! My name is Ian and I work with the Wiki Education Foundation; 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.
Handouts
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Additional Resources
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If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me on my talk page. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 03:39, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
March 2019
editHello, Lindsey, and welcome to editing Wikipedia. I hope you have a successful time here. However, there were some problems with your editing to the article Gymnastics, and I hope it may help you if I let you know about them.
- A Wikipedia article should be written in an objective spirit and from a neutral point of view, and not express opinions. That someone is "confident, determined, strong, and of performing elegance" is a judgement or expression of opinion, as is any statement as to what is "important" or what is "rather disturbing", and such statements should not be in a Wikipedia article. Likewise, no article should contain words such as "I believe", as it should not be expressing the personal point of view of those who wrote it.
- The views you expressed were very much praising and exalting what you saw as the good qualities you see in the people you wrote about. That is certainly not writing from a neutral point of view, and comes very close to writing to promote those people, which is contrary to Wikipedia's policy against promotional editing.
- A section on a small number of particular gymnasts in an article about the whole subject of gymnastics is disproportionate. Information about an individual gymnast is suitable for an article about that particular gymnast if that person satisfies Wikipedia's notability guidelines. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 21:59, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
- Hi Lindsey. Please please read WP:Policies and Guidelines before you edit any further. You are running into trouble in terms of the content you are adding
Scholastic is a source for children mostly and should not be used as a WP:RS source for Wikipedia.
If you add content verbatim from a source you are plagiarizing which could cause you to be blocked completely from editing Wikipedia.
Sources are added within the article after the content you add so that readers can look for the reliability of what was added and also look for further information.
Please do the background reading required to edit here. What is happening now is that other editors have to clean up the problems you are creating. There is no shame with being a new editor or making mistakes. Just edit slowly, and if you are unsure ask. The WP:Teahouse is a good place to ask questions if you are a new editor. There are editors who will help you but first you must do the background work to understand how this encyclopedia is written. Best wishes. Littleolive oil (talk) 18:07, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
- You will find on my user page [1] at the bottom two easy to follow guides on how Wikipedia runs. Hit the show button on the side to view. Students can go through this to familiarize themselves with Wikipedia... Please go through this and then use further as a guide when in doubt about what to do. Also, as I said above students can also go to the WP: TEAHOUSE to ask questions. Littleolive oil (talk) 18:29, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
- The comment below can be removed if you feel it will cause problems. Go to edit on the section heading, click, then delete on the edit page. No problems from my side but editing must be cleaned up. Sorry to seem so critical but the as always the accuracy of the encyclopedia is at stake. Littleolive oil (talk) 18:38, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
Please pass on to your teacher or professor
editIt is critical that students have a good knowledge of how Wikipedia works before they start to edit. If they do not, not only do they create extra work for experienced editors but they could cause themselves problems with the encyclopedia itself as when plagiarized content is added and they could be blocked. This student is working hard to do things correctly, but she does not yet understand the way the encyclopedia is written with is unfair too her as well. One does not learn to edit overnight; it has taken most of us years, so patience is necessary as is the time to really look at how the place runs. One of the problems with using Wikipedia as a source for information for university students is that anyone can edit and that person may not know how to add RS content or may simply be vandalizing content. Some of those edits will never be seen by experienced editors or corrected and so the reader is using false information. The least we can all do is point new users in the right direction when looking for how to edit and make sure they edit slowly and carefully with teacher oversight. If you have 20 or more students editing with out background knowledge I am very very concerned. Please have an experienced editor check their edits; you seem to have someone available to do that. What is at stake is the reliability fo the encyclopedia for all readers. Littleolive oil (talk) 18:21, 13 March 2019 (UTC)