User:Stickymatch/Adoption

Stickymatch, really this can be structured however you would like it to be. I can provide more structure help for you or just general advice on the edits you're making. Let's the organize the conversation by week to make everything easily navigable.

Week one

Some basic tips

I noticed that you haven't signed some of your recent replies. Remember to always sign talk pages with four tildes ~~~~. You should do this effectively any time you write something on a talk page, even in replies. Another helpful tip is how to "ping" users. Writing {{u|username}} will notify a user that they have been mentioned, raising the probability a lot that they will actually respond to your enquiry. Sam-2727 (talk) 04:19, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Got it, I went around signed many of my previously unsigned replies. That pinging feature does seem especially useful as well. Stickymatch (talk) 19:40, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

It looks like you've already found use of many useful tools on Wikipedia, particularly Twinkle and the short description helper. This suggests to me that you are more interested in the maintenance aspects of Wikipedia rather than the article creation aspects. This is the category of Wikipedians I lie in as well. If this is what you are more interested in, I'll structure the resources I suggest around this. Just let me know before I move forward. Sam-2727 (talk) 04:19, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Yep, I would definitely say that the maintenance aspect as you call it is more appealing, that would excellent if you could do that. Thanks again! Stickymatch (talk) 19:40, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Comments on some edits

I looked at a page you edited heavily, Elks Tower. Here are some suggestions I have. In the "overview" section, you use the template "in a nutshell." This template shouldn't be sued in the mainspace, only on articles in the Wikipedia space. Also there is such a thing as "overtagging" (see WP:OVERTAGGING). That is, since there are many problems with the article, you can often sum up all of them with one tag. I've replaced a lot of the tags with one overarching tag in the article. Finally, the "citation needed" template shouldn't be used in article headers (such as "Amenities & Configuration of the building during the late 60s"). It should only appear next to prose. As in, text the size that I am writing right now. Hope this helps! Sam-2727 (talk) 04:28, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

I understand, how would you recommend incorporating some background into the article, to better understand why the group is important to the historical context. Also, about that article- during a search for information, I found a news article that was almost identical to many sections of the Elks Tower page before my edits (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Elks_Tower&oldid=809025182), what would be a good way to go about following Wikipedia guidelines to make the article compliant? Thanks for the feedback! Stickymatch (talk) 19:36, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Stickymatch, this is actually a very complicated case, and I'm glad you noticed it. Normally I would just give advice on what to do, but since copyright problems are pretty serious and should be handled swiftly (even though this one wasn't), I went ahead and did the appropriate tagging. Basically it is essential to find all material that is copied in the article in delete it. But this isn't enough because the copyrighted material will still remain in the page history, so it is still a copyright violation. To solve this, I found the revision where the entire news article was copied and pasted into the Wikipedia article. I then put that revision into the {{copyvio-revdel}} template, which requests that an administrator comes around and delete the revision that has the copyright violation. Since I'm legitimately unsure what to do in this odd case since the copyright violating material remained for three years (I feel like it would be a pain to delete three years of revision), I left that up to the administrator, which is a more experienced user. This is really on odd case because usually copyright violations are removed in a matter of hours. Sam-2727 (talk) 22:42, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Another thing I've noticed is that on the talk page you've formatted the information a bit differently from different talk pages. Typically in talk pages the heading won't be the date. This is only what Twinkle does for the talk pages of users when giving warnings. As an example of a talk page, see Talk:Kepler's Supernova. The project banners are at the top, and headers for sections are labelled with the intent to summarize the main topic of the conversation under them. Sam-2727 (talk) 22:45, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Sam-2727 So, in effect what you are saying is that this situation isn't common, and usually it would be able to simply be resolved by tagging the copyrighted material? Also, I fixed the talk page you mentioned, and will follow that format from now on. In the meantime, I would be interested in furthering my knowledge on the maintenance aspect, and as always- thank you for your time. Stickymatch 15:14, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Stickymatch, yes this is the only time I've ever seen something like this, and I've dealt with quite a bit of copyvio situations in the past. This is also probably the reason that the notice is staying up on the page for so long. No administrator really wants to deal with it since it's an odd situation to have. I'll put together some resources now. Sam-2727 (talk) 20:49, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Resources

• If you haven't already, under gadgets in your preferences, I would add "HotCat." This will allow you to add pages to categories. Occasionally, I like to check in on Category:All uncategorized pages, because often these articles should be nominated for deletion.
• WP:AfD is one of the best places to gain experience for newer editors, in my opinion. It's very helpful in learning the various notability guidelines (there are many subject specific ones that are often applied in deletion discussion). If you look at the table on the side of this page, you will see that there are also discussions for files, categories, and miscellaneous pages. I generally think that AfD is the best place to get new experience, but feel free to contribute to any of the other discussions as well. Participating at deletion discussions is also an excellent way to eventually be a reviewer at articles for creation, which is what I mainly do, and be a new page reviewer.
• Before you answer an AfD request, it is critical to read the relevant notability guidelines. If not, you could anger a lot of editors. These discussion can be pretty hostile at times.
• Another interesting place to check out if you like maintenance is Special:New pages feed. You can sort newly created articles here to find potentially problematic ones that you can in turn nominate for deletion or even speedy deletion (if the strict speed deletion criteria apply)
• There are a number of user scripts that add additional functionality. Don't use a ton of them as it can be overwhelming but feel free to pick out the ones you find most useful. These are the scripts that I use.
• I'm sure I'm missing a lot of stuff so I'll update this page as I think of them. Sam-2727 (talk) 21:07, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

The new pages area is quite interesting, and just finished reading the notability guidelines, I'm going to see if I can find information on this elsewhere, but in the meantime- other than reading through the article to motion to delete is focused on and related articles, along with applying the notability guidelines, would there be any important steps to take before commenting on a discussion? I was wondering how the article categorization and rating system worked, and just about to ask but that takes care of it. I'll look for some documentation on HotCat and continue your previous recommendations. Finally, while browsing the New Pages Feed, I eventually ended up on BestPenguin Quantum, this seems like a combination of a conflict of interest and a lack of notability, would I be correct in taking this stance? (looks like someone already deleted it) Stickymatch 01:48, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Stickymatch, really the important steps is researching the subject some. In deletion discussions, once you understand the various notability guidelines, you can still be wrong if you don't do a thorough search for articles that could count towards the notability guidelines. I recommend searching the title of the article in quotes on google and then maybe some additional search terms for finding sources. Finding sources doesn't though if the argument is for "presumed" notability. That is, a lot of the subject specific notability guidelines have the concept of presumed notability where the subject will be presumed notable even if sources can't be found as long as they meet certain criteria specified in the guidelines. Yep that was deleted as unambiguous promotion/no credible indication of importance under the speedy deletion criteria. Feel free to nominate pages yourself for that in the future if you're certain they qualify (they must be in most cases unambiguous qualification though). Sam-2727 (talk) 14:09, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Alright, so depending on the subject, different notability rules apply. Are there any other subjects that have specific notability guidelines other than the ones listed on Wikipedia:Notability? Stickymatch 15:36, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

The full category is here. There are also a ton of essays that aren't official guidelines. I wouldn't read through those unless someone specifically references them in deletion discussion since they can be more confusing and aren't a part of the official guidelines. Sam-2727 (talk) 19:10, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Week Two

Questions on editing & adding content

Due to so much information having to be removed from Elks Tower, I would like to work on improving it, currently I am looking for reliable sources to use in the expansion of the page. However the section[[1]] discussing the floor configuration in the 60s is unsourced, should it be removed until a source can be found- or should it be left with the {{cn}} tag on it until said source can be found? Finally, other than the sources listed in the Wikipedia documentation, are there any sources you use on the regular to add content to articles? Stickymatch 15:33, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Stickymatch, unsourced sections aren't ideal but until you find a source it can remain. Only for contentious material (so scandals and that kind of thing) in biographies of living people should unsourced material be removed. I would also give a shot at writing a lead (summary at the top) for the article when you have a chance, if you haven't thought about this already.

I'm going to do a quick "sample source search" as if I was writing the article. On google, I look up "Elks tower" (with the quotes). This allows for exact matches and cuts out a lot of the unrelated results. I see nothing useful in the top google results. I keep going though. Around the 4th and 5th page I start finding useful results. What I keep my eye out for are news results. Not event listings or other company product pages because ideally most of the sources should be independent/reliable. I see a lot of results around various restaurant openings and some "casino" thing. Switching over to the "news" feature of google, I see a lot more results for the "casino" thing as well. As I find sources, I just open them in browser tabs. Then I take all the links and put them in one place: [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8]. Then if I was actually writing the article I'd read the sources. After that, I write up a short summary of each source (or just interesting facts in them)and see how I can into the article. Usually I do this kind of "dump" in my sandbox or some subpage of my userspace. But you can do it in the mainspace as well, you would just have to format it better. Sam-2727 (talk) 04:37, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Comments on Edits

I've looked over some of your recent edits and everything is looking fine so far. I would encourage you though to try learning something outside of Twinkle this week. Maybe it's just my opinion, but I find welcoming new users kind of monotonous after a while. I'll think of something and then add it here tomorrow. Also by the way good job at AfD (I'm looking at this one specifically: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/AMS Airlines). If you participate in maybe ten or so more you could probably apply for WP:WPAFC (if you want to, of course). Sam-2727 (talk) 04:43, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Didn't notice this before, but you also have to be registered for 90 days... Sam-2727 (talk) 03:13, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Got it, by the way are there any other criteria than the ones listed that should be considered when responding to an AfD? Stickymatch 16:49, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Are you referring to this AfD that you nominated? Not really. I'm assuming you looked for sources? In that AfD, people are referring to the general notability guidelines. All the subject specific notability guidelines are used as well to support/contest notability, but the general guidelines are most often used. That topic is definitely on the fringe of notability, but the sources do mention closed-circuit radio quite a bit. A rule of thumb I use sometimes is that if when you look up the term in quotes, many results (as in, at least two pages of google results) come up that mention the topic and aren't just extraneous results, then the topic is likely notable. Sam-2727 (talk) 21:02, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Alright, I checked and while searching with quotes; you are correct, many more relevant results appeared. This week, I am going to continue to work on expanding the Elks Tower article. In the meantime, if you have any other suggestions for things I should try, I'll take a look at those as well. Stickymatch 22:13, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Stickymatch, looks good so far. I would focus on writing at least a minimal lead when you have a chance as this is a pretty critical part of an article. Sam-2727 (talk) 23:01, 6 May 2020 (UTC)