On Jul 22, 2005, at 6:03 AM, janisc@adelphia.net wrote:
I read that article before I joined and I'm still confused as to how you do it.
There are naming conventions, see [[Wikipedia:Naming conventions]]. If you have been around a long time you remember the struggles over them, but as no one can remember the details you may still have to consult that page to refresh youself. If you are new you may have to consult it more frequently.
And does it ever bother anyone else when you spend time making a page nice and neat someone comes along and messes it all up?
That happens to everyone and bothers everyone. Often changes are useful, but sometimes folks can be quite mistaken. This may require discussion on the talk page of the article,
I had a separate page for a TV show soundtrack. Someone came by and REDIRECTED it to the actual show page. I'm afraid if I take it down, they'll get angry and report me. But it really belongs on it's own page. What happens if more soundtracks/books come out based on the TV show is that person going to put them on the main page too? It looks too crowded!
Which way it ought to be is a matter of opinion, there is no Wikipedia policy to my knowledge on this point. It doesn't sound like the soundtrack is distinctive enough to have its own article, but I suppose it is open to discussion. They can "report" you well enough if you undo the redirect, but to get into real trouble you have to persistently and aggressively insist on having YOUR way and ignore input and warnings from other users. Isolated mistakes will not land you in the dock.
Sorry for the vent. I just spent a half hour a few days ago making it look nice so when someone came and cluttered it up I got flustered.
We have a few thousand editors. It is not surprising that opinions among them differ as to the fine points.
and how do you redirect? Say someone's album is called "Helium", well we already know helium is a gas. How do you redirect to "Helium (album)" That's what I'm trying to do and the articles in the help section don't explain it step by step, that's why I joined the list here. I usually just post by trial and error, but I don't want to make any mistakes.
You would not want to redirect [[helium]], but a short note at the top or bottom of the page might link to [[Helium (album)]]. The coding for a redirect would be #REDIRECT [[Helium (album)]], but as I say you would not want to do that, someone might want to know about [[helium]]. Also, although there might be a town named Helium, or a planet, or a person as helium is such an obvious subject for an article, you would not want to make helium into a disambiguation page, [[Wikipedia:Manual of style (disambiguation pages)]], as anyone searching for helium is probably after the gas. However, if a disambiguation page was made there would be a link to [[helium (element)]].
Thanks. :)
You just need to dig in an familiarize yourself with the details. If you make an error, others will correct it. Best not to get into big arguments until you are familiar with the policies.
Fred
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l