User:Go Phightins!/Adopt/Starship9000
Starship9000, welcome to your adoption center. It is on this page that you will read all lessons and complete all tests. The format of my course is as follows: I post a lesson, you read the lesson, ask any questions you have, and, when you're ready, request the test. I then post the test, you complete it, I grade it, and then I determine whether you performed satisfactorily enough to move on. We've already discussed in great lengths terms on your talk page, so I will not re-hash that here except to say this: I will be monitoring your contributions throughout adoption and will not hesitate to contact an administrator should you violate them. Thanks, and let's get started shall we? Go Phightins! 00:26, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
Five Pillars
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Lesson one[edit]One of the most important essays in Wikipedia is WP:FIVEPILLARS which is designed to summarize why we're here.
How articles should be written[edit]The articles in Wikipedia are designed to represent the sum of human knowledge. Each article should be written from a neutral point of view – personal opinions such as right and wrong should never appear, nor should an editors experience. Neutrality also means giving due weight to the different points of view. If the broad scientific community has one set of opinions – then the minority opinion should not be shown. An example is in medicine – if there was an article on say treatment of a broken leg, a neutral article would not include anything on homeopathy. To ensure that the information in an article is correct, Wikipedia has adopted a policy of verifiability. Anything written in Wikipedia should be available to confirm by looking at the associated reliable source. Wikipedia should not include anything not verifiable by seeing it is published elsewhere; in other words, it should not contain anything original. Reliable sources[edit]So what is a source? Wikipedia uses the word source for three interchangeable ideas – a piece of work, the work's creator or the work's publisher. In general, you would expect a reliable source to be published materials with a reliable publication process, authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject, or both. This doesn't mean that a source that is reliable on one topic is reliable on every topic, it must be regarded as authoritative in that topic – so while "Airfix monthly" may be a good source on the first model aeroplane, it probably would not be authoritative on the Boeing 737. A source that is self-published is in general considered unreliable, unless it is published by a recognized expert in the field. Generally, self-published sources aren't considered reliable. This means that anything in a forum or a blog and even most websites are considered unreliable by default. One interesting sidepoint is on self-published sources talking about themselves. Obviously, a source talking about itself is going to be authoritative, but be careful that the source is not too self-serving – the article really should not be totally based on a direct source like that. Mainstream news sources are generally considered reliable... but any single article should be assessed on a case by case basis. Some news organizations have been known to check their information on Wikipedia – so be careful not to get into a cyclic sourcing issue! There's a lot more about what makes a source reliable here. Questions?[edit]Any questions? If not, I will post the test. Go Phightins!
Test[edit]Here is the test. You have up to one week to complete it once I've posted it, but it shouldn't take more than 30 minutes maximum to complete. I'm looking for thoughtfulness in your answers, and reserve the right to post follow-up questions should your answer be ambiguous or not on the right track. Good luck, and here we go: 1.) Q- You have heard from a friend that Mitt Romney has been appointed the chancellor of Harvard University. Can you add this to Romney's (or Harvard's) article? Why?
2.) Q - The Daily Telegraph has published a cartoon which you see is clearly racist as part of an article. Can you include this as an example of racism on the newspaper's article? What about on the racism article?
3.) Q- You find an article that asserts that socialists are more likely to get cancer than capitalists, but capitalists are more likely to get diabetes than socialists. Can you include this information anywhere on Wikipedia?
4.) Q- Would you consider FOX News to be a reliable source for information on MSNBC? What about for information on Sarah Palin?
5.) Q- Would you consider Ben and Jerry's official Twitter page a reliable source?
6.) Q- A "forum official" from the Chicago Tribune community forums comments on the newspaper's stance on world hunger. Would this be a reliable source?
7.) Q- Would you object to the "about us" section on say Burger King's website being used as a citation in its article? (Hint: see WP:SELFSOURCE)
8.) Q- Everybody knows that the sky is blue right? An editor doesn't agree - he says it is bronze, do you need a source?
Comments[edit]You said you wanted me to grade it even though you were warned your answers were inadequte, so I did. You ended up with a 19/40 (47.5%). I have posed follow-up questions where they are needed and if you successfully answer those, you can move on and I will award you your first barnstar. Go Phightins! 20:54, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
Starship, I've created a retest for you here. Please complete it, and then we'll decide how to proceed. There are directions on that page. Thank you. Go Phightins! 19:30, 23 February 2013 (UTC) Re-test[edit]Starship, this adoption is not going very well. Instead of going off of the old questions and pontificating on them, I am going to write a new test. You will have one chance to complete this test. You must explain all your answers (at least two sentences per answer) and cite Wikipedia policy, explaining how it applies to the given situation. When you are finished, leave the {{done}} template at the bottom of the page and I will grade it. You must get a 75% or higher to move on to the next lesson and earn a barnstar. Thank you. Go Phightins! 19:29, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
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3) You read an article from the The New England Journal of Medicine which says that British people are more likely to get diabetes than Americans, but Americans are more likely to get heart disease. You find another article from NBC News that says that British people are Socialists, while Americans are Capitalists. Can you then assume that Capitalists are more likely to get heart disease while Socialists are more likely to get diabetes and add it to the respective articles?
4) Can you use Twitter or Facebook to cite information for a Wikipedia article on an amusement park? Why or why not?
5) An aide to the United States Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services releases a statement saying that the President of the United States supports gay marriage. Would that statement carry the same weight coming from the aide as it would coming from the White House Press Secretary? Why or why not?
6) Do you need to cite a reliable source to tell you that the grass is green?
7) Is there ever a time on Wikipedia when you can ignore the rules? When?
8) If you create an article on a new roller coaster that you think is amazing, are you allowed to tell another editor to go away when he tries to rewrite it from a neutral point of view? In other words, do you own the articles you create?
9) Is Wikipedia a place where someone can get famous?
10) If you write a really great article, is someone else allowed to come along and put it on their website without giving you credit?
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Lesson two[edit]
You've successfully completed the first lesson. I'll warn you, that was the easiest one. Now, let's move on to some bigger and better things, shall we? Lesson 2 is below:
WP:Wikiquette - or the etiquette of Wikipedia is something that you may already be familiar with, depending how much reading around the different wikipedia pages you've made.
I'm just going to highlight some of the important Wikiquette items that you should try and remember. It may help you out.
- Assume good faith - This is fundamental and I'll be going over it again in dispute resolution. Editors here are trying to improve the encyclopedia. Every single member of the community. EVERY ONE. If you read a comment or look at an edit and it seems wrong in some way, don't just jump straight in. Try and see it from the other editors point of view, remembering that they are trying to improve the encyclopedia.
- Sign your talk posts with four tildes ~~~~. The software will stick your signature and timestamp in, allowing the correct attribution to your comment.
- Try and keep to threading, replying to comments by adding an additional indentation, represented by a colon, :. I cover more about this in my basics of markup language lesson - let me know if you'd like to take it. Talk pages should something like this - Have a read of WP:THREAD to see how this works.
How's the soup? --[[User:John]] :It's great!! --[[User:Jane]] ::I made it myself! --[[User:John]] Let's move the discussion to [[Talk:Soup]]. --[[User:Jane]] :I tend to disagree. --[[User:George]] |
How's the soup? --John Let's move the discussion to Talk:Soup. --Jane
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- Don't forget to assume good faith
- There are a lot of policies and guidelines, which Wikipedians helpfully point you to with wikilinks. Their comments may seem brusque at first, but the linked document will explain their point much better than they may be able to.
- Be polite, and treat others as you would want to be treated. For example, if someone nominated one of the articles you created for deletion, I'm sure you'd want to know about it, so if you are doing the nominating make sure you leave the article creator a notification.
- Watch out for common mistakes.
- Did I mention that you should assume good faith?
- Comment on the edits. Not the editor. I'll cover this more in dispute resolution.
Assuming good faith is one of the most important points of Wikipedia (as you may have noticed by my numerous mentions). The test will focus primarily on assuming good faith, threading, and on more assuming good faith. Do you have any questions? If not, let me know, and I will post the test. Thanks. Go Phightins!
- Is this test going to be easy? --Starship9000 (roller coaster fan) 01:05, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
Test[edit]
You be the judge.
1.) Q- In your own words, explain what it means to assume good faith.
- A-A fundamental principle on Wikipedia.
- What kind of principle? 1/5
2.) Q- Explain how you would deal with this scenario using specifics: You are working in New Page Patrol and come across a new page that, though it's content is fine, has a few minor formatting issues. The page is three minutes old. You fix the format issues on the page. A few minutes later, you get a nasty note on your talk page which states that you caused the new editor, who created the page, an edit conflict by performing your few minor corrections. He was unaware of how to correct an edit conflict, and therefore lost everything he was trying to do. He even goes so far as to start an AN/I discussion about how you're incompetent and should butt out of his editing. What specific steps would you take? Disclaimer: This is based on a true story. Note: A similar question will be asked once we get to the dispute resolution question, but simply based on assuming good faith, I want to here how you'd approach this scenario.
- A-A block
- You're not an admin; you can't block someone. And doling out blocks are almost never the solution to a civility problem, at least not initially. 1/5
3.) Have a look at the conversation below:
What's the best car in the world? -- Rod
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Well, the Passat lover clearly loves his Passat, but who is he replying to? In
3a.) Position A?
- A-Passat Lover
- Nope. 0/5
3b.) Position B?
- A-Passat Lover
- Nope. 0/5
3c.) An editor who has a low edit count seems awfully competent with templates. Should he be reported as a possible WP:SOCK?
- A-No he should not be reported as a possible sockpuppet. He would be only reported if he was a account of a sockpuppeteer such as Heyj00 and 204.195.0.161 or if he used those accounts to abuse our privilages.
- Right, but the reasoning is because you should assume good faith. 3/5
When you're finished, we'll move on to a really fun topic, vandalism.
Done
Done
Done
- Unfortunately, most of this is simply incorrect. I would recommend rereading WP:AGF and WP:THREAD, and then revising your answers.Tazerdadog (talk) 21:05, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
- Grade: 3/25 (12%)
- Comments: Starship, I told you and Tazerdadog told you that your answers were pretty much wrong. If you have questions, you ask me. That's the whole point of adoption. Since you have refused to do so and are unable to grasp simple concepts like threading and what it means to assume good faith, I think we're going to take a break from adoption. Please take Ryan Vesey's advice; why don't you take a one year Wiki-Break and next year at this time we can resume adoption. Thanks. Go Phightins! 04:48, 2 March 2013 (UTC)