User talk:Michael Barker

Welcome![edit]

Hello, Michael Barkowski, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like this place and decide to stay.

Please sign your name on talk pages, by using four tildes (~~~~). This will automatically produce your username and the date, and helps to identify who put a certain post on a talk page. Please do not sign any edit that is not on a talk page.
Check out some of these pages:
If you have a question that is not one of the frequently asked questions below, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or click the button below. Happy editing and again, welcome! —Ute in DC (talk) 21:28, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What are the four general rules at Wikipedia?

The four general rules are to respect your fellow Wikipedians, remain neutral, cite your sources, and to ignore a rule if it prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia.

How do I edit a page?

Click 'Edit this page' or 'Edit' on the top of the page that you want to edit.
Make your changes in the edit window.
Preview your changes by clicking the 'Show preview' button.
Click the 'Save page' button.

See Wikipedia:How to edit a page for more detailed information.

Why can't I edit some particular pages?

Some pages that have been vandalized repeatedly are semi-protected, meaning that editing by new or unregistered users is prohibited through technical measures. If you have an account that is four days old and has made at least 10 edits, then you can bypass semi-protection and edit any semi-protected page. Some pages, such as highly visible templates, are fully-protected, meaning that only administrators can edit them.

Where can I experiment with editing Wikipedia?

Use the main sandbox or create your own personal sandbox to experiment.

How do I create an article?

Please use the Article Wizard to create one, then add references to the article as explained below.

What are references, sources, and citations all about?

All claims must be supported by a book, website, or news organization independent of the subject of the article. The source must be reliable, meaning it cannot be a blog, MySpace page, or personal website. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, to prove that an inaccurate statement is true, and that it should stay in the article. The policy regarding this states that the statement has to be verifiable, not necessarily true. See Wikipedia:Verifiability for more information.

How do I insert a reference into an article?

For inline references:

Do a search on Ask.com, Google, or your preferred search engine for the subject of the article that you want to put a reference in.
Click 'Edit this page' or 'Edit' in the Wikipedia article, and insert a claim into that article stating a fact about the subject. Don't click the save button just yet.
In the search you did in step 1, find a website that supports the claim you made in step 2. Highlight the address in the address bar (where it says http://www.some-website.com/some-page.htm).
Go to the reference generator, click on the 'An arbitrary website' bubble, and fill out the as many fields as you can. Then click 'Get reference wiki text'.
Highlight, and then copy (Ctrl+C or Apple+C), the resulting text.
In the article, after the claim you made in step 2, paste (Ctrl+V or Apple+V) the text you copied in step 5.
If the article does not have a References, Footnotes, Notes, or Bibliography section, then add this below the See Also section and above the External Links section:

==References==
{{Reflist}}

For references put at the end of an article:

Do a search on Ask.com, Google, or your preferred search engine for the subject of the article that you want to put a reference in.
In the search, find a website that supports the claims made in the article. Highlight the address in the address bar (where it says http://www.some-website.com/some-page.htm).
Go to the reference generator, click on the 'An arbitrary website' bubble, and fill out the as many fields as you can. Then click 'Get reference wiki text'.
Highlight, and then copy (Ctrl+C or Apple+C), the resulting text.
Go to the Wikipedia article. If the article does not have a References, Footnotes, Notes, or Bibliography section, then add this below the See Also section and above the External Links section:

==References==
{{Reflist}}

Then, add this after the {{Reflist}}, in a new line:

{{Refbegin}}
*Press paste (Ctrl+V or Apple+V) after this asterisk, then remove the <ref></ref> tags

{{Refend}}

What is a WikiProject, and how do I join one?

A WikiProject is a group of editors that are interested in improving the coverage of certain topics on Wikipedia. If you would like to help, add your username to the list that is on the bottom of the WikiProject page.

How do I format text on Wikipedia?

See Wikipedia:Cheatsheet.

Removing a tag[edit]

If you feel confident that you have properly addressed the problem, go ahead and remove the tag. If for example, you click on the toolbox link "What links here" on the left hand side and you see that 5 other articles link to the page, it is perfectly acceptable for you to remove the orphan tag. Thanks for the question and feel free to ask any others. —Ute in DC (talk) 17:21, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Requesting your opinion on a photo[edit]

Hi. We really need your opinion on which of these photos would make the best Infobox portrait for the Rick Remender article. Could you please offer your opinion in that discussion? The most recent subsection of that discussion is here, so you can just chime in there if you don't want to read the whole thread. I really appreciate it. Thanks. Nightscream (talk) 17:14, 7 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox Photo Discussion[edit]

Hi. Can you offer your opinion in this discussion regarding the better photo for an article Infobox? Thanks, and Happy Holidays. Nightscream (talk) 23:58, 26 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom elections are now open![edit]

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:30, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open![edit]

Hello, Michael Barker. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]