Contributor training . . .

Greetings - I do a lot of simple punctuating editing, and some simple sentence structure changes when I notice them just to be a part of Wiki. I shy away from major editing and creation of pages simply because I am unsure of what is acceptable and how to do certain things . . . like, I'm still unsure what an acceptable citation is even after reading all that I could find on what a citation should be.

I'd like to contribute more to Wiki, but learning how is the greatest challenge. So I correct spelling, and punctuation . . .

Best Regards.

PS Maybe what I need to do is print out as much of the "manuals" I can find on Wiki for page creations and rules and the like and go from there.

Hi TDurden527 - Are you aware of the Bookshelf project? There are some great resources there!

To learn to swim you have to swim. The more manuals you read the more you feel your hands tied ("the more I see the less I know", you know this cute song :-) You will be surprized how helpful other editor may be when you start talking in the article talk pages. And for sure someone will tell you right away that your citation is OK (and someone else may say it is not OK, but don't be scared: this is exactly how wikipedia works: via consensus building) Altenmann 00:28, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

TDurden527, it's okay to be bold!

Seriously, it is. If you try things out, as Altenmann said, even if you make mistakes other people will often help you --- it can be a good way to learn. Incremental improvement is also fine: if you make something just slightly better (like, add an imperfect citation), somebody else will likely come along after you and improve what you did. That's totally fine: that's how it's supposed to work.

Also, it helps to be aware that everyone you're interacting with is just another editor, like you. Sometimes when people's edits are reverted they take it personally; they feel like "Wikipedia" is reprimanding them. (As though their work had been deleted by Flickr or Facebook, as though they had broken the terms of use or done something terribly wrong.) On Wikipedia though, that's not what's happening.

If your edit is reverted on Wikipedia, that just represents the _opinion_ of another editor, and he or she may be wrong. You shouldn't necessarily experience the reversion as a rebuke or sanction.

If you are very inexperienced the odds are good the other editor is right and you were wrong. But even so, as long as you are editing in good faith and not being utterly reckless, other editors should be supportive of you, and should want to help you. If not, then frankly I think they --not you-- are the ones with problematic behaviour :-)

It's a good thought to be "OK to be bold" but the fact is that you will likely have your article deleted in ways that will confuse you utterly. The whole issue of NPOV is much too academic for most newcomers (even being called a "newbie" may be humiliating); and the first AfD (article for deletion) notice you get will undoubtedly make your heart sink and leave you floundering and unable to figure out what to do. So you will let it unfold and walk away in despair when it goes against you for no reason you can understand. You may not even know that you are supposed to argue in favor of your article on a special page. (what is a talk page anyway?). Deletions are at the heart of the issues as the survey points out repeatedly, and os it should be much harder to delete and more help given to new editors who try to create. Otherwise, silently editing and being a good citizen is th only alternative, and not a very satisfying one.

I appreciate your taking the time to respond. However, considering that Wiki is in the process of trying to attract and keep editors "frustration," "floundering," "humiliating," and "despair" not a good way to do that. Not judging just an opinion.

An example. I wanted to change one word in a sentence from "established" to "current" and someone called OrengeMarker man said "current" was derogatory. Like give me a break.

If that's how inflexible some are going to be then screw it.

OrangeMarlin wrote "deprecated", not "derogatory". "Deprecated" means "not recommended to use". And both of you user funnier English than mine. (Like, OPrangeMarlin wrote "no scientific consensus doesn't change suddenly", so his sentence is quite flexible both ways. :-)

Thanks Max - I stand corrected on the mistake of Deprecated vs. derogatory.

I'm not sure how certain words are determined to be deprecated. Can you tell me?

As far as how fast scientific consensus changes, it is a small matter to me.

Thanks.

BTW, after reading OrengeM mans talk page I consider him a disgrace to Wikipedia. I support a permanent ban on him.

Look folks, many people speak as though our problems (ignoring the vandals and other vermin) all are things that will go away as soon as the contributors of material buckle down to learn the tools, tricks and conventions etc (and of course as long as burnt-out admins learn to take their holidays regularly and come back all nice and sympathetic to the munchkins).

Forget it! It won't happen. It isn't even especially relevant. OK, OK, I am overstating, oversimplifying, and generally overboard, but nothing along those lines will make the problems go away; to expect anyhting of the kind makes as much sense as to expect water to flow uphill. It is to expect the wrong things of most people. This isn't the army and if initiative is forced into an army mould, it will crumble. You can't legislate for greatness, or even for creativity. Some people are nature's editors, some are natural proofers, some are material contributors, and far too many are vandals. Fortunately the last-named are the laziest. But when we get a superior contributor, the thing to do is, not to tell him to go away till he has assimilated the book of rules and the proper protocol for saluting it on sitting down to the monitor, and the correct genuflections for citations, but to thank him nicely and ask his peers to edit the material and the natural editors to knock the text into decent structure, grammar, lucidity, etc. Add a few tags for citations required, and ask him or anyone else for responses to the product.

How do we get authoritative material and oust the quacks? Get the authoritative authors to fight it out. What about cases where some unrecognised young genius has progressed beyond recognised boundaries, and gets excluded? Well, for one thing, that happens in real life too; we can't expect to scoop every new development. But we could make allowances for the fringes until there is some consensus. Create a cockpit class of threads in which articles are on probation till the matter is settled sufficiently clearly for us to sort out the nut cases.

What about when doctors disagree? There are plenty of fields where they do. No problem! Create a class of articles Under discussion. Let the super-string theorists occupy one thread, and the opposition the other, the AGW bigots on on side and the rabid denialists the other... etc ad nauseam if not ad infinitum.

We don't have to aim for perfection from scratch, and we certainly do not have to scare off our one irreplaceable resource with insistence on appearances. As things stand, most articles aren't all that spic and span anyway; they might as well contain some useful substance at least, and the more the better.

I agree Jon - I certainly hope the common sense you discuss makes an impression.

I think what I need is a "sponsor" . . . is that what its called. Someone who is familiar with the ways of Wikipedia, a rather seasoned editor who is familiar to many of the possible pitfalls of the new aspiring editor.

Anyone volunteer? I think there is a page to find those type of people. I'll look for it.