TheGrouchWho

GrouchoMarx my peeps!

Welcome!

Although some prefer welcoming newcomers with cookies, I find fruit to be a healthier alternative.

Hello, TheGrouchWho, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like this place and decide to stay.

• Please sign your name on talk pages, by using four tildes (~~~~). This will automatically produce your username and the date, and helps to identify who put a certain post on a talk page. Please do not sign any edit that is not on a talk page.
• Check out some of these pages:
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• If you have a question that is not one of the frequently asked questions below, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or click the button below. Happy editing and again, welcome! —Ute in DC (talk) 07:55, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
  
  

What are the four general rules at Wikipedia?

The four general rules are to respect your fellow Wikipedians, remain neutral, cite your sources, and to ignore a rule if it prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia.

How do I edit a page?

1. Click 'Edit this page' or 'Edit' on the top of the page that you want to edit.
2. Make your changes in the edit window.
3. Preview your changes by clicking the 'Show preview' button.
4. Click the 'Save page' button.

See Wikipedia:How to edit a page for more detailed information.

Why can't I edit some particular pages?

Some pages that have been vandalized repeatedly are semi-protected, meaning that editing by new or unregistered users is prohibited through technical measures. If you have an account that is four days old and has made at least 10 edits, then you can bypass semi-protection and edit any semi-protected page. Some pages, such as highly visible templates, are fully-protected, meaning that only administrators can edit them.

Where can I experiment with editing Wikipedia?

Use the main sandbox or create your own personal sandbox to experiment.

How do I create an article?

Please use the Article Wizard to create one, then add references to the article as explained below.

What are references, sources, and citations all about?

All claims must be supported by a book, website, or news organization independent of the subject of the article. The source must be reliable, meaning it cannot be a blog, MySpace page, or personal website. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, to prove that an inaccurate statement is true, and that it should stay in the article. The policy regarding this states that the statement has to be verifiable, not necessarily true. See Wikipedia:Verifiability for more information.

How do I insert a reference into an article?

For inline references:

1. Do a search on Ask.com, Google, or your preferred search engine for the subject of the article that you want to put a reference in.
2. Click 'Edit this page' or 'Edit' in the Wikipedia article, and insert a claim into that article stating a fact about the subject. Don't click the save button just yet.
3. In the search you did in step 1, find a website that supports the claim you made in step 2. Highlight the address in the address bar (where it says http://www.some-website.com/some-page.htm).
4. Go to the reference generator, click on the 'An arbitrary website' bubble, and fill out the as many fields as you can. Then click 'Get reference wiki text'.
5. Highlight, and then copy (Ctrl+C or Apple+C), the resulting text.
6. In the article, after the claim you made in step 2, paste (Ctrl+V or Apple+V) the text you copied in step 5.
7. If the article does not have a References, Footnotes, Notes, or Bibliography section, then add this below the See Also section and above the External Links section:

==References==
{{Reflist}}

For references put at the end of an article:

1. Do a search on Ask.com, Google, or your preferred search engine for the subject of the article that you want to put a reference in.
2. In the search, find a website that supports the claims made in the article. Highlight the address in the address bar (where it says http://www.some-website.com/some-page.htm).
3. Go to the reference generator, click on the 'An arbitrary website' bubble, and fill out the as many fields as you can. Then click 'Get reference wiki text'.
4. Highlight, and then copy (Ctrl+C or Apple+C), the resulting text.
5. Go to the Wikipedia article. If the article does not have a References, Footnotes, Notes, or Bibliography section, then add this below the See Also section and above the External Links section:

==References==
{{Reflist}}

Then, add this after the {{Reflist}}, in a new line:

{{Refbegin}}
*Press paste (Ctrl+V or Apple+V) after this asterisk, then remove the <ref></ref> tags

{{Refend}}

What is a WikiProject, and how do I join one?

A WikiProject is a group of editors that are interested in improving the coverage of certain topics on Wikipedia. If you would like to help, add your username to the list that is on the bottom of the WikiProject page.

How do I format text on Wikipedia?

See Wikipedia:Cheatsheet.

Response

No, no need to sign your edit summary with four tildes. And my welcome wasn't because you had done anything wrong. The welcome message is just telling you how to do things in the future. As far as a I know, you haven't used any talk pages improperly. Anyway, welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you stay around a while. —Ute in DC (talk) 18:48, 23 January 2011 (UTC)