Hirodaicommunication

Talkback

Hello, Hirodaicommunication. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard.
Message added 22:38, 12 September 2014 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Auntof6 (talk) 22:38, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Advice

Some advice:

1. Make sure the article says why it is important
2. Include enough background for ignorant readers to understand what is it all about
3. Make sure each page has one or more categories, like "Japan" and "Battles" or whatever.

Thanks, Macdonald-ross (talk) 12:53, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Hello. Thanks for the advice. I am trying to keep track of what they do but sometimes am behind. I am planning to have a class soon where they can go back to the articles they have done and try to improve them. Plus I am trying to make changes myself to things like not having categories. Hirodaicommunication (talk) 05:31, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Student articles

Hello. I have been looking at some of the articles created by your students. I haven't looked at all of them yet, but several of them have some issues. If the student isn't finished working on an article, they could put the {{under construction}} template on it to keep it from being deleted or changed by someone else. That template shouldn't stay on very long, but it might give the student time to finish the article.

Here are a couple of the issues I see so far:

• References are not in the correct format. Some of the articles have the reference coded as an external link in the text, and then again in a list in the references section.
• Incorrect heading levels: the first heading in an article should be a level-2 heading, with two equal signs before it and two equal signs after it. I see one article that uses three equal signs instead.
• Some articles don't say why the subject is notable. Some give references, which is good, but the references either are what we call "primary sources" or they don't show notability.

There are some others, but I'll wait to hear back before I list any more. --Auntof6 (talk) 10:49, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Hello, thank you for your advice. I know some of the references are in an incorrect format but I was unable to find where Wikipedia tells you how to do them correctly. In the meantime I just wanted them to get their references on the page. Could you give me the link to the page where info about correct reference formatting is shown please. please. About headings, I am trying to check everything before they save it but sometimes one gets slipped past me. They know the heading rules but I will remind my students about that. Could you tell me what you mean by primary source and notability? I am trying to encourage the students to use references but if I can give them more explicit instructions about what kind of references they need that would be great. Thanks! Hirodaicommunication (talk) 05:36, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply! Here are some answers:

• Wikipedia:Citing sources gives some information on how to do references.
• Primary sources are sources that are closely associated with the subject of the article. The kind of primary source that can be an issue is a source that might be biased about a subject. WP:PRIMARY gives some information related to this.
• Notability: if something is notable, it means that it is important enough to have an article. There are guidelines on how to determine if a topic is notable for Wikipedia purposes. The basics are explained at Wikipedia:Notability. There are some special guidelines for specific subject areas such as music, sports, movies, and other things. Those guidelines are found at English Wikipedia's page on notability: en:WP:Notability. We use the English Wikipedia guidelines in cases where we don't have our own guideline pages.

Take a look at the pages I linked and let me know what other questions you have, or if I can help explain any of it further. Also let me know if you would like me to change the references in one of the articles as an example of a better format. --Auntof6 (talk) 07:55, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Hello again

Hello again. I see that several of your students have created new articles. I'm afraid the articles need a lot of copy editing, simplifying, and what we call "wikifying". Do you know how much more work they plan to do on them? If the students and/or you are going to improve them, they could stay for a little while, but if not, it would be best if they go back to the sandboxes. Please let me know, and let me know how we can help with this. Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 10:01, 2 February 2015 (UTC)