User talk:Crow

Welcome to my talk page! I prefer to reply to messages in the same place they're started, to keep things easy for others to follow.

DYK for Jimmy the raven

 — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:27, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Sandsledding

Sorry! I hope I'm not being really annoying... I'm new to wikipedia... I'm not trying to start an edit war. I was able to find a source for the fact that sandsledding is an actual thing that is different from sandboarding. I also want to put this image into the article http://www.nps.gov/grsa/planyourvisit/images/web285sandsledding_girl2012.jpg but don't know how... Also I think it actually might need to be listed as sand sledding with two words but I dont know how to change it. Thanks for any help!

• Hello Ikamjh, I think you're better off at this point by editing the Sandboarding article and creating a section on Sledding. At some point, if the sledding section warrants it, it will be split off ("forked") into its own article, but only if it gets big enough and is notably different from 'boarding. The source you listed discusses both under the same topic, since the only difference is the board one rides upon, so we should probably do likewise.
• As for the photo, since it is from NPS, a government agency, and the photo is credited to an NPS employee, it is considered Public Domain, so you can upload it here. Go to WP:UPLOAD for how to do that. Then when it's uploaded, you call it in the article like this: [[File:whateveryounamedthefile.jpg|thumb|right]], to add it, thumbnail-size it, and put it on the right side of the page where single photos usually go. Let me know if you have any questions. Crow^Talk 22:07, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

User:Mrdullins

Good morning. You sent a message that my new page appeared to be advertising. I am still in the process of building it out, but rest assured, it is not advertising we are seeking. We are one of a group of higher education schools, and our other campuses have Wikipedia entries, so my administration asked me to create one for our school as well. It will simply be our history, founding, etc. There will be no content related to current enrollment, etc. Hopefully this will be acceptable.

I am brand new to Wikipedia, so if there are any suggestions you have to make, I am certainly open to ideas or pointers. 22:07, 8 September 2014 (UTC)Thank you, Brian (mrdullins) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrdullins (talk • contribs) 16:16, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

• Hello Mrdullins and thanks for the reply and the explanation. The issue is that you've created this entry in your "userspace". Notice the title of the page is User:Mrdullins. That is a specific section of the wiki that all users get to use for things directly related to their on-wiki activities. Notice my page for example: User:Crow. Apart from a public-domain pic of a bird, the rest is things like articles I've created, pictures I've uploaded, etc. Regular articles (such as for your other campuses) are in what is called the "main space" or more appropriately, the "article space". There will be no prefix for the titles there. A good summary from the official policy is:

"Wikipedians have their own user pages, but they should be used primarily to present information relevant to working on the encyclopedia. Limited biographical information is allowed, but user pages should not function as personal webpages or be repositories for large amounts of material that is irrelevant to collaborating on Wikipedia."

• So what you have there now isn't really how it is supposed to be used. And more importantly right now (because of legal ramifications for Wikipedia), it is a copyright violation by having content directly copied from http://www.dallasinstitute.edu/. That will have to be cleared fairly quickly to avoid having your page deleted entirely. I understand you're new and so aren't aware of these nuances, but no harm done. The best thing would be to take 15 minutes and read THIS page on all the steps needed to create an article, including where to work on it until it is ready to "go live", how to collect and cite sources, and so on. And I'll be glad to try and help out as best I can. Thanks, and welcome! Crow^Talk 22:20, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the info. From what I was reading, I thought that one of the options for creating a page was to build it first in my user space and then copy it over. I'll work to resolve that issue asap.

Also, it is the administration of the college (who owns the website you referenced) that requested the page be built in the first place. So how do we go about clearing the copyright issue you pointed out?

I'll check out your links as well, but any "short answers" you can provide would be most appreciated. My comfort zone is the classroom, not building online web pages. :)

Thanks again. Mrdullins (talk) 19:59, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

• Hello again Mrdullins! (I link your name so it fires off that red flag up top, just so you know!) My apologies that I left out one preemptive answer to your question which is: Yes you can absolutely work on article drafts in your userspace. Its just preferred not to do so on the main page but rather a sub-page or sandbox page. Sandbox is easy: click the "sandbox" link up by your name to open that page and edit freely there. If you want to do a sub page (useful mainly if you have multiple articles in work), is to create a page called User:Mrdullins/WhateverNameYouWantHere. Again, sorry for leaving that not-quite-insignificant item out.
• Copyright. The tricky thing about copyright is that Wikipedia content is freely usable by anyone else for pretty much any purpose, so we need all content to be similarly free. The easiest way to stay compliant there is to just paraphrase the copyrighted source in your own words. Conversely, if the owners of the copyright want to also release their content under a free license, then we have no violation anymore. Note that they would have to release it under This License, which would let anyone anywhere use it for any purpose, even commercially, as long as they credit where they got it from originally. If they do want to do that, see This Page for the procedure they would need to do to release that content. I hope this helps! Crow^Talk 22:21, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Request

I am opening a case for Arbitration. Can I add you as a party, so you will be able to comment.

Thanks, --Fevrret (talk) 23:07, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

• User:Fevrret, Arbitration is not the right place for this. That's the last step in a long string of Dispute Resolution locations, and so a request will be declined as premature. The better venue for this is right where it is now. The admin that closes the discussion will review all comments, and should hopefully address the personal attack. If they don't, a note on that admin's talk page referencing it would be the first step. I would again reiterate to be careful when performing cleanup-type tasks though, as between the NAC and the moving of the other guy's comments, a raised eyebrow is understandable, though personal attacks of course are not. Crow^Talk 23:22, 10 September 2014 (UTC)