User talk:The SOAD Fan/Mentor

Mentoring page

Heck, I just want to know if you have any good tips on how to be a good Wikipedian, and how to get to the status of someone like yourself. The SOAD Fan (talk) 20:01, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Not too difficult; practice editing articles, especially sourcing facts. I just have a lot of spare time, so building up an edit record wasn't difficult, and I found lots of missing articles I could write. If you gain the trust of other editors, you can apply to become an Admin after a few months good editing. It also helps to know the main policies, and a good place to start on those is here. Let me know how you get on. --Rodhullandemu 20:06, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Would you say it's better to actually make completely new articles, or just make small minor changes when I see them? The SOAD Fan (talk) 23:20, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Either is good; I learnt how to improve articles by starting on the Wikification project, which kept a list of articles needing structuring, markup, references, etc. You can pick up a lot of good techniques by taking an article and making it at least look good and be properly-sourced. If you read good articles, you get a feel of how they should look. After that, you get to know things like infoboxes and categories, which take a basic article into a useful experience for a reader. Starting an article can be frightening; first you need to find out whether we already have an article that covers the same topic; then you have to know whether your proposed article is about a notable topic. Wikipedia:Your first article is a good place to start on that. If you have any specific topic are in mind, let me know, and I'll point you at the appropriate rules for establishing notability. Good luck. --Rodhullandemu 01:06, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I've always been confused about the articles for songs. Should there be articles for every seperate song on an album, or should it just be the album? Because, I know quite a lot about music, and that'd be good for me to help make. The SOAD Fan (talk) 01:28, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

<outdent> It varies. If a song from an album has become so notable in itself that it warrants its own article, it will have one; most Beatles songs tend to be in this category, because they've been written about extensively; however, most songs won't be, even if they are on albums. You could say that unless there is something to take an album track out of the ordinary, it won't deserve its own article. But if you take a song like Who Knows Where the Time Goes?, which was never a big hit, but has been covered by many artists and described as a classic, then an article for the song is justifiable. --Rodhullandemu 01:51, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Recent Edits

How have my recent edits been? Is that kinda what you were talking about? Also, how do I make one of those cool user-tags, like yours? The SOAD Fan (talk) 01:36, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Your edits are fine, although edit summaries would be useful; not sure what you mean about "tags"; if you mean the Userboxes, it's all here. --Rodhullandemu 13:23, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

You know, how after you post, the four tildes? How do you customize it, like your's is. The SOAD Fan (talk) 20:23, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Ah. You need to set it up in your preferences (at the top of each page you see), and use wikimark up. My raw signature looks like this : [[User:Rodhullandemu|<span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#0000FF">Rodhull</span>]][[User_talk:Rodhullandemu|<span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#FF0000">andemu</span>]]. Try experimenting with your own in the sandbox, the #color codes are here. --Rodhullandemu 21:00, 18 March 2009 (UTC)