User:Clementina/Reflections

Hello, dear user! I'm Clementina (talk • changes • e-mail • blocks • protections • deletions • moves • right changes). I made this page to record my reflections on the Simple English Wikipedia to help newcomers get started and find help, and generally as a gentle guide for a happier experience at Simple. I hope you find this helpful.

A hidden world

Pages behind the encyclopedia

One of the most important and confusing things for newcomers to know is that there is a hidden world behind the neat surface of Simple English Wikipedia. Shall I give you an example?

• If you simply write a word in the search box, an encyclopedia article about it will appear.
• If you add User: to the word you wanted to look for, then a user (like yourself) with that name will appear. You can find me by writing User:Clementina.
• If you add Wikipedia: to it, you'll find lots of pages about Wikipedia. For example, try looking at our rules: Wikipedia:Rules. See? We added Wikipedia: to the front to show that it isn't part of the encyclopedia.

An even better way to peek into the hidden world of users working to make encyclopedias better is to click the "New Changes" on the box on the left side, next to this page. Then you can see all the changes people are secretly doing to make this encyclopedia better! If you change an encyclopedia article, your name will come up on the new changes list, too.

People behind the encyclopedia

Yes. There are people writing the encyclopedia right now...and very nice people they are, too! ;) Like me. Anyway, for a list of administrators (people who can delete bad pages, stop vandals, and help you), you can go here. Please remember, though, not all the administrators are active! The less active ones will not be able to help you as quickly.

Yes, I'm an administrator too, and pretty active, so please don't worry and just ask me if there's anything on the wiki you don't understand! :) But one thing: if you want to just talk to me about off-wiki things, like "Do you like cats?" or "What's your favorite food in the world?" you'll have to email me instead. Wikipedia is a warm, friendly place, but its main goal is to write an encyclopedia. See this page for more information.

What are all those weird signs in the articles?

Okay, for a newcomer, all those weird signs (like ==, [[]], and ''') can be really confusing. But don't worry - they're really easy!

How do those symbols work?
Works anywhere in the text
Description	You type	You get
Words that are tilted to the side	''italic''	italic
Words that are bold and thick	'''bold'''	bold
Thick words tilted to the side	'''''bold & italic'''''	bold & italic
Link to another page on Wikipedia	[[Clementine]] [[Clementine|the words you want to write]]	Clementine The words you want to write
Add a picture	[[File:Wiki.png|thumb|alt=Words that pop up when you put your mouse to the picture|Caption]]	Caption
Signature Sign your comments on talk pages, please! Do not sign when changing an encyclopedia article.	~~~~	Username (talk) 21:23, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
Works only at the beginning of lines
Description	You type	You get
Redirect to another page Redirects must be placed at the start of the first line.	#REDIRECT [[The page you want to redirect to]]	The page you want to redirect to
Section headings A Table of Contents will come out by itself when four headings are added to an article. =Level 1= should not be used.	== Level 2 == === Level 3 === ==== Level 4 ==== ===== Level 5 ===== ====== Level 6 ======	Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5 Level 6
Bulleted list You can use these "bullets" to make lists more organized, neat, and easy to read. I made a bulleted list in the section above, see?	* One * Two ** A funny one between two and three * Three	One Two A funny one between two and three Three
Numbered list	# One # Two ## Another funny number # Three	One Two Another funny number Three

The hardest thing to get used to at first are pictures. Where do those file names come from?

They come from a place called Wikimedia Commons. If you go into it, you can search for a picture you want. For example, let's say that you wanted to add a picture of white clouds to add to Cloud. If you search in Wikimedia Commons, you could find a picture of a cloud, like this one. See? It says "File:Silverlining.JPG" on the top. Like this, you can link the names of the pictures so they will appear correctly.

References

Okay, so we know what those weird signs mean, then. :) Next comes something that looks really confusing: references.

First of all, references have to be reliable. Blogs, MySpace, Youtube, and Facebook usually aren't reliable sources. Now, to add references, you have to add tags like this:

My name on Wikipedia is Clementina.<ref>I say so.</ref>

Then what you see will look like this:

My name on Wikipedia is Clementina.

Of course, "I say so" is not a reliable reference. ;) You have to put in a good website or book inside the <ref> </ref> tags instead. To make your references better, you can use the {{citeweb}} or {{citebook}} templates. But as you can see, the words "I say so" did not appear right next to the sentence "My name on Wikipedia is Clementina". Instead, a small [1] came out. The words "I say so" appear at the bottom of the page. To make it appear at the lower part of the page, write:

==References==

{{Reflist}}

There you go! Now look here:

References

It's quite easy, isn't it?

Help! I don't know where to get started

Okay, so you know how to help us write articles...but where do you start?

Our first and most important goal is to write articles. So just type down anything you like in the search box. If there isn't a page about what you wanted to find, make one (as long as it's notable). I don't have a page of my own on Wikipedia yet because I'm not notable enough! :( If there's already a page about it, it needs your help. Be bold and make it longer, better, with more pictures. :) Try to make your writing style follow the rules of our manual of style, but don't be afraid: your mistakes can always be changed back easily, and you can learn a lot by helping out bravely.

Want to get to know the people in Wikipedia a bit better for more help? :) Try going into these places; lots of active users help out in these areas, and you can meet some kind users who will help you become familiar with Wikipedia, and help improve our encyclopedia! Try seeing:

Template talk:Did you know | Proposed Good Articles | Proposed Very Good Articles | There are lots of articles that need your help!

You can also just keep on watching the New Changes. Lots of bad users come to hurt Wikipedia. If you see someone adding bad information (for example, writing on banana, bananas are actually purple and grow on the moon), you can remove it and clean up Wikipedia. If the user keeps on making bad changes without stopping, you can ask administrators to block that user. When you get used to helping clean Wikipedia up, you may be able to use rollback to clean Wikipedia more quickly. Once again, you can come ask me for more help. I'm always happy to help new users. :)

All in all, remember to have fun, be kind and loving, and remember that this is a free encyclopedia that you can change! God bless, everyone.