How to contact me
A couple of years ago I wrote a biographical article on a guy, and his descendants wanted to contact me. It dawned on me the other day that readers may not necessarily know a good way to contact an editor. So here is what you do: go to my talk page linked above (but for convenience here is a link) and then just edit the talk page. I get alerted about the message to my email, so I will see it fairly promptly. You need to decide if you want to leave a callback address or not, but if you do leave your email address I will hide it from public view as soon as possible but note that Wikipedia never completely deletes everything so in principle it can still be obtained. Many email providers have the capability of creating a temporary pseudo-email, so you might want to try that.
Note that anybody can edit any Wikipedia page, you don't need an account. Just hit "edit" and type away. If you are doing it for the purpose of contacting me, the format makes no difference so just blunder forward any way you want, I'll still see it. Don't forget to save the page though.
I will treat all correspondence professionally and sensitively. I am not fishing for social contacts, or interested in drawn out debates, etc. All I am interested in is improving Wikipedia.
What to do about vandalism
- Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace
- Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
- Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism
Listening to Wikipedia edits
"Listen" and "watch" edits in real time
Convenience link to other Wikimedia
- Internet Archive uploads
- url2commons
- Commons main page
- Wikimedia watchlist
- Wikisource
- Wikisource:Main page
- Wikisource:Special:Watchlist
- Wikisource:Portal:Niles' Weekly Register
About me
Formerly I was editing as User:Jonwurl. I have never really quite understood the issue of using pseudonyms, and in fact I even wonder if that may evolve as time goes on. After all, in non-electronic writing (notably early American pamphleteering) this has been a fad that has come and gone. However, I do not want to buck the system and everyone seems to use pseudonyms so I guess I will also.
The only reason I did not change the account name earlier was that I feared that somehow I would not get "credit" for work previously performed. I realize now that issue is for the most part completely meaningless. For the record, as of right now account Jonwurl has 300+ edits, but as the Editcountitis essay explains, almost nothing should get read into the edit count. There is some minor significance to the count, but it is more in the realm of "be careful what you ask for" because it is used when requesting admin privileges, and I do not have time for that! And respect all you wonderful admins who do it!!
There is something to the fact that there is a certain "immortality" to a user's contributions, and also I shamelessly try to impress my friends. So the edit count is important to my ego, no doubt about that! That's why I mention it! (Repeat: it is 300+.)
As Jonwurl I have been signing my talk articles for a while as Laurentian Shield (with a space) so that's a good name to re-use. It is also the name of my my erstwhile blog.
That is all for now, because now I do need to re-establish a reputation as a non-abuser, etc, etc, to make future articles easier, etc, etc.
Wavelet
Pythagorean theorem – thanks to John Blackburne
User boxes
 | This user has access to JSTOR through The Wikipedia Library. |
| ScienceDirect | This user has access to Elsevier's ScienceDirect through The Wikipedia Library. |
| NEWS | This user has access to Newspapers.com through The Wikipedia Library. |
 | This user remembers when television programming was only in black-and-white. |
| 1+ |
 | This user wastes far too much time editing Wikipedia. |
 | This user believes that a user's edit count does not necessarily reflect on the value of their contributions to Wikipedia. |
 | This user thinks you can learn a lot by editing an Encyclopedia. |
 | This user is a participant in WikiProject Wisconsin. |
 | This user is a participant in WikiProject Rivers. |
 | This user is a member of WikiProject Invention. |
 | This user is a member of WikiProject Mills |
 | This user is interested in the U.S. State of Wisconsin. |
 | This person attends or attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison |
| MS OE | This user is a friend of the Milwaukee School of Engineering. |
| UWM | This user attends or attended University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. |
 | This user attends or attended the University of California, Berkeley. |
| GB | This user is a fan of the Green Bay Packers |
| LV | This user is a fan of the Las Vegas Raiders. |
| SF | This user is a fan of the San Francisco 49ers |
In that order!
 | What do you want? I n f o r m a t i o n. | Nº2 |
| Nº6 | You won't get it. | |
 | All in all this user is just another brick in the wall. |
| {{!!!}} | This user over-uses userboxes. |
Quick help links
Subsections with expanded info
Manual of style
BTW on line breaks after section headings: "Include one blank line above the heading, and optionally one blank line below it, for readability in the edit window (but not two or more consecutive blank lines, which will add unnecessary visible white space in the rendered page)." (emphasis added)
Citations
Cut-and-pastable citation templates:
<!--
{{cite book |last= |first= |authorlink= |title= |url= |accessdate= |year= |publisher= |location= |isbn= |page= }}
{{cite journal |last= |first= |date= |title= |url= |journal= |publisher= |volume= |issue= |pages= |doi= |accessdate= |format=PDF }}
{{cite news |last= |first= |date= |title= |url= |newspaper= |location= |publisher= |accessdate= }}
{{cite web |url= |title= |last1= |first1= |last2= |first2= |date= |website= |publisher= |accessdate= }}
{{cite encyclopedia |last= |first= |editor-first= |editor-last= |encyclopedia= |title= |url= |accessdate= |year= |publisher= |volume= |location= |pages= }}
-->
BTW someone changed the cite book suggested parameters on the "citation style help" page (see below) and the above is a better choice.
Also note that this makes a good reference to "foreword" in a book:
- {{cite book |last=Faragher |first=John Mack |authorlink=John Mack Faragher |chapter=Forward |editor1-last=Merk |editor1-first=Frederick |editor2-last=Merk |editor2-first=Lois Bannister |title=Manifest destiny and mission in American history: a reinterpretation |url=http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/33866051 |accessdate=November 8, 2013 |year=1995 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, MA |edition=First reprint |isbn=0-674-54805-1 |page=ix-xiii}}
Really good essay on citation issues
Infobox river
For more information:
<!-- The following few lines create the "Infobox" table template.
Please scroll down to edit the main content of the article. -->
{{Infobox river
| name =
| image_name =
| image_size =
| image_alt =
| caption =
| image_map =
| map_size =
| map_alt =
| map_caption =
| native_name =
| native_name_lang =
| other_name =
| origin =
| origin_coordinates = {{Coord|37.000000|N|120.000000|W|display=inline,title}}
| mouth =
| mouth_coordinates = {{Coord|37.000000|N|120.000000|W|display=inline,title}}
| progression =
| basin_countries =
| location =
| etymology =
| length =
| length_km =
| length_mi =
| elevation = {{convert|1000|ft|m}}
| elevation_m =
| elevation_ft =
| mouth_elevation = {{convert|1000|ft|m}}
| mouth_elevation_m =
| mouth_elevation_ft =
| discharge =
| discharge_m3/s =
| discharge_cuft/s =
| watershed =
| watershed_km2 =
| watershed_sqmi =
| river_system =
| left_tribs =
| right_tribs =
| blank_name =
| blank_info =
}}
<!-- End Infobox template table -->
Other templates and help
Special note on Template:Infobox_person
- I found by trial and error that for {{Infobox State Senator ...}}, {{Birth date|1825|03|21}} results in March 21, 1825, while {{Birth-date|March 21, 1825}} 1825-03-21. I have not investigated as to whether this is generally true for all other person infoboxes, or whether this is a glitch for the state senator. In any case, this is counter-intuitive, is it not??
Notable article contributions
Actually, right now I only have one article to discuss: Foo Lake. How it got started was I was watching the List of lakes in Wisconsin article, and someone added a jillion lakes, probably via the DNR web site. It was getting a bit cluttered, and so I re-organized it a little -- made it three columns for most counties (left it as one column it the list were smaller). In the course of that I noticed there is a Foo Lake in Sawyer County.
In the computer world, the word foo is ubiquitously used to represent a generic name of something when demonstrating or explaining code. It is a placeholder name of convention. It is (sort of) intended to sound comical. My immediate suspicion was that a vandal injected into the article to see if it would get caught. Upon checking the standard references for lakes (GNIS and the DNR), I found out that it is indeed real, albeit probably one of the most nondescript lakes in the world that still has a name.
So I will admit that the only reason I wanted to move it up in my priority list is that I want to be able to make the following boast: while I may not have written the article on Foo, I did write the article on Foo Lake.
I was also curious, of course, if it would get noticed by someone watching new page creations and get some type of tag for immediate deletion due to lack of notoriety. I was prepared to defend it, and partly the defense was going to be that just out of the novelty of the name, and the (presumable inadvertent) association with common computer jargon, it was noteworthy.
I still haven't figured out this whole ego thing in Wikipedia, but I am not going to deny that for me it is a real factor in my motivation :)
Draft articles
User:LaurentianShield/sandbox/Black Republican (Historical term)
User:LaurentianShield/PlankRoadDraft Starts as copy of existing article, but I expect to make major revisions.
User:LaurentianShield/FrederickMerkDraft The article exists, this "draft" is a major rewrite which actually starts from the existing article.
User:LaurentianShield/JoshuaStarkDraft
User:LaurentianShield/ListOfLakesInLincolnCountyDraft
User:LaurentianShield/TimothyAChapmanDraft
User:LaurentianShield/AndrewTainterDraft
User:LaurentianShield/DanielTenneyDraft
User:LaurentianShield/sandbox/LafayetteBunnellDraft This is intended to be a major rewrite. Eventually I will get to it, but I need some help from Anne S to get information at the Minnesota Historical Library (requested in Oct 2012, but it is almost a year later and I need to get back on top of it). Update 2015-10-24: copied from User:Jonwurl due to confusion about this as a draft.
User:Jonwurl/AndrewJacksonTurner Note: subsequently an article was written, and I received a request to update it. So far all I did was add an infobox and an image, but more can be done.
User:Jonwurl/RiceRiverReservoirDraft
User:Jonwurl/PhiletusHaleDraft
User:Jonwurl/EdwardMcGlachlinDraft
User:LaurentianShield/sandbox/MariposaCountyHistory
User:LaurentianShield/sandbox/Spark-gap transmitter article exists, but needs rewrite -- see notes in this sandbox article
User:LaurentianShield/sandbox/JohnHaroldMorecroftDraft
List of first aid books
- Wilkerson, James A., M.D., ed. (1967). Medicine for Mountaineering & Other Wilderness Activities (4th ed.). Seattle: The Mountaineers. ISBN 0-89886-331-7. Retrieved February 11, 2015.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link) - Forgey, William W., M. D., ed. (1995). Wilderness Medical Society Practice Guidelines for Wilderness Emergency Care. Merrillville, Ind.: ICS Books. ISBN 1-57034-011-0. Retrieved February 11, 2015.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link) - Hackett, Peter H., M. D. (1980). Mountain Sickness: Prevention, Recognition & Treatment. New York: American Alpine Club. ISBN 0-930410-10-6. Retrieved February 11, 2015.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Benner, Gordon A.; Church, Richard E.; Feild, Lance (1987). Emergency Medical Procedures for the Outdoors. Birmingham, Ala.: Menasha Ridge Press. ISBN 0-89732-051-4. Retrieved February 11, 2015.
Books
Really just want to see if the "books" remain permanent if I disable the app.