Welcome to Wikipedia, a free and open-content encyclopedia. I hope you enjoy contributing. To help get you settled in, I thought you might find the following pages useful:
If you are stuck, and looking for help, please come to the New contributors' help page, where experienced Wikipedians can answer any queries you have! Or, you can just type {{helpme}} on your user page, and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions.
If you are unsure of how to do something, you are welcome to ask a more experienced user such as an administrator.
One last bit of advice: please sign any discussion comment with two hyphens followed by four tildes --~~~~. The software that runs Wikipedia will automatically convert this into a signature which contains your username and the date and time you posted the message, so other users don't get confused.
I hope I have not overwhelmed you with information. If you need any help just let me know. Once again welcome to Wikipedia, and don't forget to tell us about yourself on your userpage, you should start by adding {{User:PEAR/welcomed}} to your userpage.
I want to learn the conventions, so instruct me, and thanks!
What does that mean, sign your messages with ?
I am logged in, so what do I need to do?
--Doug
:Sign your name means type ~~~~ (four tildes) at the end of your comments on talk/discussion pages (not in articles). This will produce your username, followed by the date and time. I don't know what you are trying to do with the code and nowiki tags in your request. Code (code in angle brackets) makes text appear like this. Nowiki (nowiki in angle brackets) causes the wiki formatting to not do anything (so that examples can be shown). They begin <example> (replace example with the word) and end </example>.
Hi there! I thought I might drop by and say a word of greetings. I'm one of many administrators on Wikipedia. The full list can be found here. I've been editing here since March 2005, so if you have any questions about the site, please feel free to ask on my talk page. We also have this help page which might be of interest to you.
There are also specialised groups on Wikipedia that collaborate on certain topics - you can find more information at Wikipedia:WikiProject.
Oh, and one last thing: about signatures and signing - when you edit, your edit window should have a bunch of buttons at the top. There is one that looks like a squiggle. If you press that, it will automatically insert two hyphens, followed by four tildes into the text window. When you save your edits, Wikipedia will automatically convert that into your "signature", which by default, is a link to your userpage. All the best! --HappyCamper 00:05, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Nice. As of right now, I just waiting to see how many people express interest. I'll give you a link to the permanent project page if the proposal goes through. Also, when posting to someone's talkpage, you don't need to include their original post to yours. If there is one specific part you'd like to respond to, you can quote it. We were all new once. You'll get the hang of it pretty soon. If you have any questions regarding wikipedia, feel free to ask. Ungovernable ForceThe Wiki Kitchen! 21:28, 17 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
OK -- now I got it I just reply here in the talk page with my sign --Douglas R. White 21:36, 17 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm. You indented, I copied. now I didnt. Can I just erase msgs on my talk page, save what I want? I guess, we each evolve our own style. Wiki is so easy to use and to learn after the first runthrough. thanks
Well, you can keep a discussion on the same user talk page, but it's common to go back and forth. As you can probably tell, when you get a message, it displays an alert at the top of a page telling you you have one. Going back and forth allows you to know when someone has responded to your last message, without having to check your watchlist, which makes conversations quicker. It also makes it hard to overlook a new message to you on someone elses talk page, or forget that your in a conversation altogether (which can happen). If you happen to have a preference about where someone responds to messages, you can put a note at the top of your talk page (but people might overlook it). Indenting is done by adding a ":" before a message. Each time you add another :, it indents the message further. Sometimes people will use "*" before a message, which creates a little bullet point, and like the ":", the more you add, the further it will indent. The * is usually only used on pages where you are voting or adding your name to something though (but some people don't seem to understand that and use it on normal talk pages too). Adding "#" before a post will add a number list. See the examples below.
Oh, and if your ever unsure about how the formatting will work, click the "show preview" page before saving changes, that way you can see how it will actually look when saved. Ungovernable ForceThe Wiki Kitchen! 21:47, 17 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, one more tip, instead of adding new sections each time like you are doing on my page, it is usually best to just indent within the same section, that way it's obvious that it's part of the same conversation and to make it easier to follow. If you want to start a new topic, then it's good to make a new section. And although it may seem like anarchy at first, you will soon learn it's not. It is a lot closer to it than the real world though. Read What Wikipedia Is Not. Well, I'm going to go make myself a late lunch (tomato eggplant bake, it's a new recipe) so I'll talk to you later. Happy editing! Ungovernable ForceThe Wiki Kitchen! 21:59, 17 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hi again! Yes, it is customary to add a signature at the end of each edit that you make on Wikipedia talk pages (but not article pages). There is more information about this at Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages.
Also, there are differences between user talk pages, and article talk pages. For the former, you will find that different Wikipedians have different styles of annotating edits on their talk pages. Some have all the posts together, while others prefer to post where the first thread is located. There are many other variations. Some more information about this is found here. --HappyCamper 00:58, 18 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I saw somewhere that you wanted something done with images :-) This edit might be of interest to you? Also, take a look at the page history of changes that I made in another article. I've tried to illustrate why edit summaries can be useful. Oh, yes - you can change the number (currently set at 200 in the article) to make the image larger or smaller. --HappyCamper 04:52, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your feedback! Don't worry if you can't keep up with every suggestion that is out there on talk pages - you are not expected to do that. I've been introducing various Wikipedia concepts to you, so that you will have encoutered them early on in your Wikipedian career. From my experience, I've found that this generally helps integrate newcomers into the community better. I've tried to highlight things which reflect community norms. I suppose not everything will be immediately useful to you at the moment, but hopefully down the road you will be able to pick up on all the good stuff :-)
I have to tell you that talk pages are not always quite so productive - sometimes, talk pages can degenerate into a mess(!), sort of like a shouting match. It is a good idea to get accustomed to picking out which bits of information are useful to you, and which ones are not. There is a lot happening at once on Wikipedia; one needs to be judicious about which things need responding to. A good balance always makes for a healthy Wikipedian!
Oh yes, one last note. In case you are not aware of this, you can add pages to your watchlist. Simply click the "watch" tab at the top of each page you want to add. When you click on "my watchlist" at the top of the page, you will see all the pages and changes which have taken place on those articles. This is one way how Wikipedians keep track of their contributions and whatever interests them. --HappyCamper 19:43, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it looks like someone already answered your question, but if you need more clarification, I gave an example on the talk page of my proposal (where you asked). Ungovernable ForceThe Wiki Kitchen! 05:27, 21 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have to take a break at the moment, but I'll be back later. By the way, I keep up with your contributions by checking the edits that you have made here. I have an analogous page as well - you can get it by clicking on the "user contributions" link in the toolbox on the right of your screen. It shows up whenever you visit a Wikipedian's userpage. --HappyCamper 20:37, 21 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I see you figured out how to do that. Good, I was about to go work on that, but now I don't have to! So, I started my archaeology class today, and I start Native People of North America in a couple weeks. Ungovernable ForceThe Wiki Kitchen! 01:45, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have communicated with The Ungovernable Force regarding the proposed anthropology project which you indicated an interest in, and have gotten the OK from him to move the project into wiki-space and make it active. He indicated that he is busy in school right now, but will be as active as he can be given that. The project page as it now exists is only a minimum page, and could use the input of interested parties such as yourself. Personally, I did noticably poorly in the one cultural anthropology class I took in college, so I'm bowing out of this one, but wish you and the other members of the project the best of luck with it. Thank you. Badbilltucker 21:45, 8 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Doug - just dropping by to say a word of greetings. Your account has been active for about 9 months now. How are you finding the collaborative environment here so far? --HappyCamper 18:28, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Help with Polygynous Marriage and Affinal Kinship?[edit]
First: thank-you for contributing to Wikipedia in such a scholarly manner! (It's truly an honor, etc., etc.) I'm writing to ask your help with the article on Marriage. As you may be aware, "This is a controversial topic, which may be under dispute." But recently there has been good cooperation, and we are now making progress on the article. With the hope of keeping that spirit alive, I would like to get better source citations for two claims regarding topics in your domain of expertise. The first occurs in the section Origins in human culture, which asserts that "One universal and unique attribute of marriage is the creation of affinal ties (in-laws)." Can you help us understand this assertion? Is it a tautology? (Also in this section is the assertion, "Marriage of some kind is found in virtually every society." Is there a good source to cite for this one?)
The second area where your help would be greatly appreciated is the section on Marriage restrictions, which makes the assertion, "perhaps less than 3% of all Muslim marriages are polygynous." I don't even know if this claim is meaningful. Elsewhere I have read that in some African countries, the husband must state, at the time of his first marriage, if the marriage is monogamous or polygamous, and he is later bound by that choice. If the husband opts for polygamy, is his marriage polygamous even though he has only one wife? Assuming however it means, "actively polygynous", is there data to support this claim?
Thanks in advance for any help you can provide, either in edits to the article itself, or its discussion page, or on my User_talk:Sdsds talk page! Sdsds 16:24, 12 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have added a "{{prod}}" template to the article James Moody (sociologist), suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but I don't believe it satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and I've explained why in the deletion notice (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may contest the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page. Also, please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. PKT 17:35, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not aware of any formalities regarding the removal of tags on Wikipedia, but a good rule of thumb to follow is adequate discussion and consensus. I took a look at the article histories and the situation seemed to fit into that category, so I removed them. I left it open for others to reinstate the tag, although it seems likely that merging isn't in the works yet. Hope this helps! --HappyCamper 03:47, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm...I'm a little confused by your query. I can see from your edit history that you tried another edit about 2 hours later. Did that work out? I am not sure if this is related, but sometimes I find that if I refresh/reload the page, these synchronization problems go away. If you are using Firefox, you can press Ctrl-Shift-R to do that. This should force the browser to load the most current copy of the page for you to edit. --HappyCamper 21:35, 6 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I respectfully recommend you review our conflict of interest guidelines. One of your recent edits seems to be in violation of those guidelines. --ElKevbo 15:58, 7 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Image copyright problem with Image:Jroberts.GIF[edit]
Image Copyright problem
Thank you for uploading Image:Jroberts.GIF. However, it currently is missing information on its copyright status. Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously. It may be deleted soon, unless we can determine the license and the source of the image. If you know this information, then you can add a copyright tag to the image description page.
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them at the media copyright questions page. Thanks again for your cooperation. NOTE: once you correct this, please remove the tag from the image's page. STBotI (talk) 21:49, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I put the copyright information in the box describing the photo, as I am not familiar with the correct copyright format -- could you help? thanks Douglas R. White (talk) 21:54, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Instead of seeking copyright or arguing for a proper tag for this black and white image, I asked members of the John Roberts family to provide a color photo. His son promised to get back to me, and it is fine that the photo is deleted Douglas R. White (talk) 18:19, 20 January 2008 (UTC).[reply]
Thanx for your offer to give some assistance! At present another WikiProject Anthropology member has identifed a range of core articles requiring attention on Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Anthropology.
I myself have proposed that we work through that editos list plus any others .. as part of s series of 'monthly collaborations' .. and at present the kinship article has been suggested, nominated and supported as a recommended first 'core' articles needing attention.. to be worked on over the mid_Jan to mid_Feb 2008 month?!
If you'd be interested in assisting with this first 'small'(!) core concept article .. please contribute, watch and/or assist ..otherwise, keep an eye on upcoming monthly collaborations for others you may be able to help and assist with!! With thanx Bruceanthro (talk) 14:22, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I edited the Kinship entry tonite and left my procedure somewhere in the notes to that page Douglas R. White (talk) 07:01, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hello. There's a paragraph in the article on Galton's problem which I think you wrote mostly. It says in part:
Expert investigation of this question shows results that "strongly suggest that the extensive reporting of naïve chi-square independence tests using cross-cultural data sets over the past several decades has led to incorrect rejection of null hypotheses at levels much higher than the expected 5% rate." The investigator concludes that "Incorrect theories that have been ‘saved’ by naïve chi-square tests with comparative data may yet be more rigorously tested another day.” ... Consequently, a large proportion of published results that rely on naive significance tests and that adopt the p <.05 rather than a p <.005 standard are likely to be in error because they are more susceptible to type II error, which is not to reject the null hypothesis when it is true.
Are you sure you meant what that last sentence says? First of all, a type II error is "not to reject the null hypothesis when it is FALSE", not "true". But more importantly, the rest of the paragraph says people are incorrectly rejecting null hypotheses, that is, committing type I errors, not type II. Lowering the p-value cutoff to .005 would decrease the probability of type I errors to .5% when the null hypothesis is true. It seems to me that the last part of the paragraph should read "because they are more susceptible to type I error, which is to reject the null hypothesis when it is true."
beacuse too many cooks spoil the broth, the Culture article has been a disaster. And there were lots of valid criticisms on the talk page, and many sometimes ill-informed suggestions. I just did a major overhaul and would appreciate your checking it out. I hope you will not find cause to revert my changes. I hope you will see ways to improve them. My one request: just do not add missing information without thinking of the overall organization of the thing (otherwise, it will soon turn chaotic again) ... that is, if you think I did a poor job of reorganizing it, I hope we can discuss it and work out a better organization. (be forwarned I have emphasize the Americans because culture is a more core concept to American anthropology than British but appreciate very much your help)Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 22:54, 19 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You once made some very helpful edits to the articles on kinship. The article on Marriage needs work, too - I started a discussion here. Perhaps you would have some constructive contributions? Slrubenstein | Talk 12:54, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I trid to start a serious discussion of Western bias but one editor dlearluseems very deliberately not to care. Maybe my promosed wording was flawed or inadequately sourced, but wew can do better.Slrubenstein | Talk 09:55, 16 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Social-circles network model until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. Madcoverboy (talk) 15:37, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Notification of automated file description generation[edit]
Your upload of File:Belen-gen-vrml.gif or contribution to its description is noted, and thanks (even if belatedly) for your contribution. In order to help make better use of the media, an attempt has been made by an automated process to identify and add certain information to the media's description page.
This notification is placed on your talk page because a bot has identified you either as the uploader of the file, or as a contributor to its metadata. It would be appreciated if you could carefully review the information the bot added. To opt out of these notifications, please follow the instructions here. Thanks! Message delivered by Theo's Little Bot (opt-out) 13:06, 28 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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) 16:09, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, Douglas R. White. 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.
A file that you uploaded or altered, File:43drwphoto.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for discussion. Please see the discussion to see why it has been listed (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry). Feel free to add your opinion on the matter below the nomination. Thank you. TLSuda (talk) 18:14, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
[reply]
Category:Politology, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Rathfelder (talk) 16:05, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
[reply]
You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated files}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the file's talk page.
This bot DID NOT nominate any file(s) for deletion; please refer to the page history of each individual file for details. Thanks, FastilyBot (talk) 01:01, 27 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated files}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the file's talk page.
This bot DID NOT nominate any file(s) for deletion; please refer to the page history of each individual file for details. Thanks, FastilyBot (talk) 01:02, 28 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.
