User talk:Oddityoverseer13

Welcome!

Hello, Overseer1113, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Unfortunately, one or more of the pages you created, like West Johnston High School Marching Band, may not conform to some of Wikipedia's guidelines for page creation, and may soon be deleted (if it hasn't already).

There's a page about creating articles you may want to read called Your first article. 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. Here are a few other good links for newcomers:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! Dekisugi (talk) 23:58, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of West Johnston High School Marching Band

A tag has been placed on West Johnston High School Marching Band requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A7 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article appears to be about a club, but it does not indicate how or why the subject is important or significant: that is, why an article about that subject should be included in an encyclopedia. Under the criteria for speedy deletion, such articles may be deleted at any time. Please see the guidelines for what is generally accepted as notable, as well as our subject-specific notability guidelines for people and for organizations.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the article meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the article does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that a copy be emailed to you. Dekisugi (talk) 23:58, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Marching Band article

I'm sorry your marching band article is likely to be deleted. Articles are included based on substantial media coverage and other guidelines. A school's band might be tough to keep here as an article on its own, but if you could establish it's notable it might have a chance. Otherwise, you might want to include the information in the school's article: West Johnston High School. I would also be happy to set up a redirect so people looking for an article on the school's band could find the information in the school's article. Let me know if you have any questions. ChildofMidnight (talk) 00:51, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Hey Overseer, I got your message. My honest opinion is that you're going to have a tough time keeping an article on a school's marching band. My suggestion would be to include it in the school's article and we can redirect searches for the band to that article. If you want to try to keep it you need to find multiple examples of substantial coverage from media. If they are local news stories it may not be enough. ChildofMidnight (talk) 01:00, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

The easiest way is to cut and paste it. Do it from the edit window so all the formatting is saved. and then paste it in the band section of the school's article (I made a section for it so you can just put it bewlow what's there. We may have to cut it down a bit too, but I'll help format it and such. I'll set up the redirect for you after it's moved. The other way would be to have it merged, but I'm not sure that's necessary as it only saves the edit history (literally merges it into the new article). But in this case there isn't much edit history to merge, and it will be clear you are the one adding it to the school article. Is that clear?ChildofMidnight (talk) 01:07, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I set up a redirect. It was done by typing #REDIRECT [[West Johnston High School]]. I also restored the band information you deleted in the High School article. Did you want it deleted? The formatting looks okay to me, actually, as the band sections are subsections. There is communal editing here, so if someone else wants to cut it down they can. The more of it you can source with references the better. That makes it verifiable to other editors. Let me know if there's anything else. ChildofMidnight (talk) 01:22, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

What happened to the references you had? did they not get moved? I can try to move them if you don't have them any more. ChildofMidnight (talk) 01:26, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not paid. My understanding is one big-time editor got hired and was paid. Later he got in trouble for claiming he had all kinds of degrees and such that weren't true.

I think the people who work for the non-profit organization overseeing Wikipedia and other wikiprojects (wiktionary, wikiversity, etc.) are aministrative positions.

If you go to user:Jimbo Wales that's the head guy. :) Good luck.

I moved the references over.

FYI the citations are done inline, meaning the citations are actually mixed in with the text, and then they automatically show up in the Notes, or references section. This is the format:

<ref name=whatchamacallit>
{{cite web
 |url    = http://XYZZY.com
 |title  = Marching Band story
 |author = Charlie Brown
 |work   = MAD Magazine
 |date   = 2007-09-17
 |accessdate = 2008-11-01
 |quote  = The marching band knocked my socks off, and I'm still looking for them.
}}
</ref>

If that's too complicated just try to include as much information as you can such as the name of the source and the date. That way if the link goes dead we still know where the information was obtained. ChildofMidnight (talk) 01:35, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

The clean-up tag (and other tags on Wikipedia) are put on articles to indicate they need some kind of remedy or fix. That article is not written in a standard writing style and isn't formatted properly etc. Anyone can remove the tag, but normally you'd fix the article first, and then remove it. For example the references need to be improved and there is language in the article that isn't encyclopedic. ChildofMidnight (talk) 01:45, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

If I say, "DeGrassi High School is the best in the universe. Everyone who goes there gets a great education." That's not encyclopedic. If I say, "According to US News and World Report 45% of graduating seniors went to Ivy League schools in 2007." and then included a citation to that article (meaning the date, author, etc. and a link if it's online) that would be better. I'm going to edit the school's article a bit so you can see the difference. But I'm not an expert. Also, you know you can "watch" pages by clicking the watch button on the top of the page? Then if you click "my watchlist" you will see the latest change, if there are any, each day. Most articles don't change much day by day, but that way you can see if someone edits an article you're interested in. ChildofMidnight (talk) 01:58, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

"Go Wildcats!" is not considered encyclopedic. And a lot of the other information needs citations. Strict editors would cut out a lot of the extraneous information. If you go to the main page (link on left of page) you can read carefully edited articles. ChildofMidnight (talk) 02:08, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Suggestions

• Maybe you want to seperate the band info into another section and have the marching band section all to itself.
• The preview button is a useful alternative to trial and error as every edit is saved in the article's history and reviewed (generally) by editors on a page that shows every edit made to every article on Wikipedia. So previewing is a good way to do trial and error without cluttering up the history. (I'm guilty of not using the preview button enough, but please do as I say and not as I do) :)
• The school box looks good. You seem to have a knack for editing so I will be coming to you when I need a hand.

ChildofMidnight (talk) 04:48, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I think there's room for several more sections. The article can always be tightened up with some good editing, but it's pretty easy to navigate and I think information on the various programs would be good to include. The more sources you can use the better. Anything, especially assertions about awards and such, can be removed if it isn't supported by a source. But that being said, I think there's definitely room for more information on the school and its programs. If you or someone you know wants to upload a few photo you've taken that would be great too. Seeing the marching band performing or what the high school look like, would really improve the article. There are rules about showing individual people though... but I'm not sure what they are. But I think general pics would be good. As far as editing you can search "wp:MOS" for the manual of style, without the quotes of course. Let me know if you want me to have a look after you've added something. Good luck. ChildofMidnight (talk) 22:41, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

December 2008

Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. Please don't forget to provide an edit summary, as you forgot on your recent edit to West Johnston High School. Thank you. ukexpat (talk) 14:54, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Photo

Truly I'm a novice on photos. But I tried a couple ways and it seems like the name of the photo isn't quite right. Is it in the same place or the same type of place (but for photos) as the logo? My other thought was whether it's case sensitive and you don't have it quite the same. Have you been able to put it elsewhere in the article? Here's a school article with a photo in the infobox [1]. Sorry I'm pretty useless here. Let me know if you want me to see if there's someone I can get to help who's more experienced. You got stuck with a fellow noob! ChildofMidnight (talk) 23:15, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I misunderstood. I thought the photo was named xxyyzz.jpg. My bad. :) I'm a little groggy I guess. It looks like only one photo can go in the infobox. I put the photo in the article and formatted it so you can adjust it's size. You can, of course, swap it with the logo if you want. Sorry for the confusion. ChildofMidnight (talk) 23:37, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Looks good. You can include the logo too elsewhere in the article if you want. In retrospect I realize my edit summary "added photo" kind of makes it look like I was taking credit for the photo. I apologize for that, especially if any offense is taken. That was not my intent, I was just describing what I was doing, not trying to take credit. If you want me to see about making it clearer that you added it let me know and I'll figure something out. ChildofMidnight (talk) 00:50, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I just made it a bit bigger and gave you a shout out of sorts. :) What are you working on now? ChildofMidnight (talk) 00:55, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Also, the photo looks like it's of a model of the school. I wonder if that should be made clear? Is this what the school looks like? ChildofMidnight (talk) 00:57, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Seems like you don't really "own" it. So I don't think you can use it. If it is legitimate to use it, I think it would be important to make clear it was a drawing or whatever and not a photograph. One other question I have about the article is: it's not clear to me in the marching band section is the initial mention of the band a reference to the marching band? Or is there a band program and a marching band? This needs to be clearer. ChildofMidnight (talk) 01:09, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I have a question about the copyright status of that image. Its Commons page says it is licensed as a self-made image, but is t really self-made? Just curious as to how it was created as it looks like a CG image to me. Thanks. – ukexpat (talk) 01:46, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

If I can respond to UKexpat, it's appraently from the school's website. So unless the owner grants fair use and allows it into the public domain, it's not appropriate (legal) to use it on Wikipedia. ChildofMidnight (talk) 01:56, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I suggest two things: 1) remove and delete that photo from Wikipedia ASAP (as soon as possible). Identifying it as your own was not appropriate. 2) I would just get a digital camera and take a photo of the school, or ask someone to do this. The rights of that photo are unlikely to be easy to obtain and I don't think the effort is worthwhile. You could certainly ask school administrators, but it looks like a part of an architecural project that was probably done as part of the construction project. As such, I suspect identifying the owner and clarifying the rights involved would be a rather complicated legal issue. ChildofMidnight (talk) 20:11, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Football page

what the heck that page was one that we're making it wasnt finished you werent supposed to merge in with ASU DCsniper207 (talk) 23:56, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Football page

i already moved it to Arkansas St. Football--DCsniper207 (talk) 00:10, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Bowling terms

The bowling article is pretty short so it could certainly be merged, but I think it would be nice to post a note on the relevant talk pages. That way you can see what people who've worked on the articles think. If no one responds after a day or two do what you want. :) It's basically a matter of whether it fits and is appropriate as a stand-alone article or in the bowling article. I'm not sure, it could go either way. There's room for it, but as a list it might be good to keep separate. I'd probably merge it.

It sounds like you've been having fun. The other thing I'd suggest is including articles in the appropriate "projects". This brings people in to look at and assess the articles. So for bowling terms I went to the bowling article, checked the talk page, copied the projects, and pasted the appropriate ones on the bowling terms article's discussion page.

And make sure you don't take it personally if and when you get criticized. Some of the "oldtimers" are rather abrupt. Everybody makes mistakes, and opinions are like... do you know that saying? Just have fun and let people know that nothing is hard to undo and you didn't mean any harm. Thanks for thinking of me to ask a question! It's fun to check out random stuff. Where did you come across the articles you've been working on? ChildofMidnight (talk) 00:15, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually I wasn't talking about the above messages. The grumpy peeps don't post notes, they just issue warnings usually by template. That's great you've been working on the backlogs. Can you post a link of what page that is for me? Which backlog? Also, you can post welcome templates by putting {{Welcome}}~~~~ on the talk pages of new users. Like on bowling terms article you can tell they are new because they are a red link and their talk page is a redlink so it hasn't been used. Do you already know how to "watch pages" and check out contribution histories? ChildofMidnight (talk) 00:55, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Contribution history is nice because you can see what people have been up to. So if I check my contribution history and paste in your name instead, I can see everything you've been working on, what you put in your edit summaries, etc. Very interesting! :) Article histories are useful too, because you can see who created an article if it's new and how long it's been around if it's not new, and get an idea if a lot of people work on it or not. It's often useful to communicate with the creator of an article as I did with you (I think). Often a new user won't know how Wikipedia works, so all they get are a bunch of template warnings and automated messages. So it's nice to say hi and leave a note (or at least just a welcome template). It's great that you've been helping with the orphans.ChildofMidnight (talk) 01:21, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

There doesn't seem to be an easy way to get a message when an article you're watching is edited. But I think most people use their "mywatchlist" to see when articles they're "watching" get edited. Here are the welcome templates you can use [2]. And the last message on my talk page is from a musician and a very experienced editor who is extremely helpful, so you can watch his talk page and ask him if you have any questions too. He's experienced with photos too and sometimes uses ones from Flikr with permission.ChildofMidnight (talk) 01:41, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I think they are a pretty new user. They probably just want the subject to have its own page. There are all kinds of personalities on here. When I first started editing, I assumed there were an almost infinite number of editors (that's how it seemed). But it's not that big of a community. So it helps to know who you're dealing with. Are they new? Are they experienced, an Admin? Getting in an argument with an Admin is a quick way to get blocked. Another place that might interest you is wp: articles for deletion. If you like voting that's the place to be. Also it's a place where you can sometimes rescue the occasional half way decent article that needs work. How do you already know how to do merges? I suppose you already know how to find policy pages by searching "wp:" and then "thetopicyou'relookingfor"?ChildofMidnight (talk) 01:56, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

After you've been involved in some good old fashioned content disputes (edit wars), and dealt with some of the madness that goes on here you'll really appreciate this article: Wikipedia:WIKISPEAK. Also you can watch interesting editor pages such as User:JimboWales and Wikipedia's Robin Hood user:Giano. Then your watch list will give you an idea if there's anything fun going down. :) ChildofMidnight (talk) 02:17, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Band information

You can always save content in your userspace and then if you decide to add it back later you still have it. You might be able to "condense" the season by season account into a bullet point list and see if that flies. Article editing is based on consensus, so no one editor gets to decide. I think the subsections for each year is a bit much, but bullet pointing the information might work. I would try that and see how it looks. ChildofMidnight (talk) 06:26, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

It's up to you how much information you want to try to leave in the article verse how much you want to cut out. The sub-header format was a little overwhelming. I think bullet points made with asterisks

• would tighten up the section
• might allow more of the information to be included

Foamy looks interesting. I'm not familiar with the series, but I'll try to check it out. Has it been covered by the media? You'll probably need two substantive media stories (generally) to keep an article from being deleted. By substantive I mean they can't just mention that it exists, but have to discuss it meaningfully. ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:10, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

"There are a bunch of fan sites and such things like that. Do you think those would work?" No.

Maybe contact the website and ask them if they have had any media coverage. The coverage doesn't have to be available on the web, but you need to cite it. You can also include quotations in the actual citation, which is sometimes helpful if there's a question about whether the article or book really discusses the subject and how it is discussed. Do you know how to do wp: references? ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:21, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

The other way to go is to find the subject area that IS notable and include some information there. So if it's a web comic see what that article looks like or if there are sub articles where your content would fit. If it's had zero media coverage, it may be treated as advertising by other editors (assuming you add links to the website). But it doesn't hurt to try if you think the information is encyclopedic and makes Wikipedia better and more sueful. ;) ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:23, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

No, statistics on traffic are like a big give away that someone is trying to add something with zero notability (per wikipedia guidelines). I would just mention it as an example and reference the link to Foamy's website. If there's a list of webtoons that would be a good place for it. Without any real coverage all you can do is provide references to the site itself to prove that it exists, but you may not be able to talk about it much. Doesn't mean you can't try though. When there's more coverage you can add to it. Do you know how to do references? ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:41, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

The ideal ref format is posted above in the Marching Band article section. I usually go with <ref>''name of article'' by Fred Smith December 12, 2012 The New Foamy Times accessed 12/12/08 http://www.wondersofthewebsitehere.com</ref> Page numbers are nice too if it's a long article or just to help people find it in a hard copy. Links often go dead. The access date lets people know when it last worked so they can check for cached information and know that the link actually worked at some time (I don't always include when it was accessed). Some people remove dead link references, but if there is a hard copy that's obtainable the referenced source doesn't have to be on the web. Books are perfectly legitimate references, for example. ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:49, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Foamy the Squirrel

This one might be a problem. Generally, we require at least two pieces of substantial content regarding the subject itself in reliable sources for something to receive a separate page, and at this point I haven't myself seen evidence of such sources. So, unless such sources can be produced, my guess would be that a separate article on the subject would at this point be unlikely. The subject could perhaps be included in existing articles relating to webcomics, but I regret to say that I'm not so much of an expert in that field for my opinion to mean much. My best advice would be to contact either User:Hiding, probably our most experienced comics-based editor, about the subject, or the Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics or its daughter project Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics/Webcomics work group, and seek input from the generally better informed editors there. John Carter (talk) 17:00, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Arkansa St. Football

it would help if more people helped expand people just leave it their and foreget about it DCsniper207 (talk) 21:04, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Deletion of Neurotically Yours

For the reasons given in the deletion log, ie. no evidence of notability. See also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jonathan Ian Mathers. Deb (talk) 19:15, 12 March 2009 (UTC)