User:Fredlesaltique

Hello I'm FredleSaltique and pretty new here! Living in Japan right now, and want to help make Wikipedia better. I speak near-fluent Japanese, decent Spanish, and rudimentary French.

I like copy editing to make articles more accessible to lay readers like myself, especially lead sections. Let me know on my talk page if I made an error!

Basic functions

How to navigate: articles, talk pages, wiki pages, etc.

Article pages: most of what is on Wikipedia is article pages, like France or elephant.

Wiki pages: pages that are about Wikipedia itself, such as Wikipedia:Community portal (on the sidebar)

Visual editor!!!

If you are new, switch to the much easier visual editor. (Why this isn't default who knows.)

Make an account if you don't have one (otherwise you can't use visual).
Click on the "Edit source" tab (in between "Read" and "View History").
In the bar at the top of the edit box (starts with B I buttons), to the far right is a pencil icon.
Click the pencil icon, and in the drop down menu select "Visual editor."
Voilà
From then on, the edit mode defaults to whatever you last used. You can change it to always prefer one in Preferences.

Note: Talk pages can only be edited in source mode. :/

Merging

Wikipedia:Merging

Source page = content to be merged; destination page = page to be merged into

If uncontroversial, skip steps 2-5
Create discussion on destination page
Tag source page with [merge from] and destination page with [merge to] template (see below)
Close the merger discussion with [discussion top] and [discussion bottom templates] after consensus

Copy-editing resources

Pillars, policies, guidelines, essays

Pillars = core policies of Wikipedia; policy = widely accepted, should normally follow; guideline = best practice, good to follow; essay = no consensus

Wikipedia:List of policies and guidelines

Pillar 5: "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it."

Lead text for lists (guideline)

Describe the subject of the list. Good example at List of Benet Academy alumni.

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section#First sentence

Helpful mark-up

Article links

[[article first|display second]]

display second

Section links

[[page#section]]

Help:Link#Section linking (anchors)

To write script without formatting:

<nowiki>script here</nowiki>

Merges

{{Merge to |FirstPage |discuss=Talk:FirstPage#Merger discussion|date=February 2021 }}

{{Merge from |SecondPage |discuss=Talk:FirstPage#Merger discussion|date=February 2021 }}

Alerts or pings

Replies/pings: {{re|Fredlesaltique}} or {{reply|Fredlesaltique}} or {{ping|Fredlesaltique}}

@Fredlesaltique:

User name: {{u|Fredlesaltique}} or {{user|Fredlesaltique}}

Fredlesaltique

Bold/Italics

Two marks for italic ''italic''

Three marks for bold '''bold'''

Five marks for bold and italic '''''bold and italic'''''

Templates

In source mode, templates go between double braces {{template}}.

In visual mode, click Insert > Template. Search for and add the quoted template name below.

Uncited statement

Use "citation needed" or "cn."

More citations needed

Use "more citations needed."

No citations in article/section

For article, use "unreferenced."

For section, use "unreferenced section."

Date formats

For British style, use "use dmy dates."

For US style, use "use mdy dates."

Citation styles

To add a source that isn't a default one (website, book, news, journal), after clicking on "Cite," click "basic form" then click "insert template." Here are some useful ones:

Laws

Use "cite act" template.

"[Title]" [[trans-title]]. Article [article], [Type] No. [index] of [date] (in [language]).

Use [url] parameter to add hyperlink.

(Unfortunately, no way to mention database law was taken from, or date of translation.)

Other tips

Sandbox

Helpful tool to edit an article without publishing it after every session!

At the top left, click Sandbox and then click edit (visual or source, doesn't matter). You should be in edit mode now.
In another browser tab, open the article you want to edit and likewise click on edit (visual or source, whichever your sandbox is in).
Then, while in edit mode, copy the text from the article you want to edit, go to Sandbox, and paste.
Voila, now you can edit away at leisure with all the links intact. Save by publishing changes in the sandbox.
When you're all done, do the same steps in reverse, and publish the article.

(This is super helpful for translations and for longer edits to infrequently-updated articles).