This is a Wikipediauser page. This is not an encyclopedia article or the talk page for an encyclopedia article. If you find this page on any site other than Wikipedia, you are viewing a mirror site. Be aware that the page may be outdated and that the user whom this page is about may have no personal affiliation with any site other than Wikipedia. The original page is located at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Thaddeus_Ballantine.
I'm here as an editor to help improve content and to participate in a truly awesome project such as Wikipedia is. I consider myself to be more of an editor than a content producer. I like to find references for obscure trivia that has been flagged. I don't like excessive wikilnks. I think they are one of the coolest things about Wikipedia, but used excessively make the body text more difficult to read. Most good things in life are best in moderation. I will bring up topics in the talk section though I don't like to debate. More that likely even if you are dead wrong I won't reply or join in the discussion unless you send a private message to me. I treat this page and my sandbox as testing ground for anything or to give me something to learn. Just remember be bold and give everyone the benefit of not having doubt in them.
A redirect is a page that has the sole purpose to automatically redirect readers to a differently named page; to take the reader where they really wanted to go. Redirects allow a topic to have more than one title. Redirects are used for synonyms, abbreviations (initialisms), acronyms, accented terms (diacritics), misspellings, typos, nicknames (pseudonyms), scientific names, etc.
To create a redirect for the term "Oof":
Type Oof in the search box, press ↵ Enter
Click on the redlink for Oof that it presents
In the edit window that appears, type #REDIRECT [[Foo]] on the first line to make it lead to the article Foo
Redirects should be organized in to categories too. Each redirect can have up to seven redirect categories. Categories go on the third line of the redirect. (Note: Plant has a subcategory within the category of scientific name; enter plant after a pipe).
Here are two examples of a redirect category using a category template:
{{R from birth name}}
{{R from scientific name|plant}}
Preview your new redirect before saving it. Make sure:
There is a big right-facing arrow to the left of the bolded name of your target page name.
That your target page is bolded in blue (if it is red, go back and double check your target name in the edit window).
That your redirect category has rendered properly and that the boilerplate it presents makes sense.
When linking an article to a category, you can tell the category how to sort the article alphabetically by using a piped link. For example, [[Category:Baroque composers|Bach, Johann Sebastian]] will alphabetize Johann Sebastian Bach in Category:Baroque composers under B instead of J.
To add this auto-randomizing template to your user page, use{{totd-random}}
Tomorrow's featured article
Hö'elün (fl. 1162–1210) was a Mongolian noblewoman and the mother of Temüjin, better known as Genghis Khan. She played a major role in his rise to power. Born into the Olkhonud clan of the Onggirat tribe, Hö'elün was originally married to Chiledu, but was captured shortly after her wedding by Yesügei, an important member of the Mongols, becoming his primary wife. She and Yesügei had three sons and one daughter, as well as Temüjin. After Yesügei was fatally poisoned and the Mongols abandoned her family, Hö'elün shepherded all her children through poverty to adulthood—her resilience and organisational skills have been remarked upon by historians. She continued to play an important role after Temüjin's marriage to Börte. Hö'elün married Münglig, an old retainer of Yesügei, in thanks for his support after a damaging defeat. During the next decades, she arranged marriages, maintained alliances, and was heavily involved in disputes between Genghis, his brothers, and Münglig's sons. (Full article...)
