This is an archive of past discussions about Help:Getting started. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
To me this is quite an important page. A discussion in the context of the Wikipedia:Help_Project might be useful rather than randomly merging with another page as was suggested recently in the edit history. Grantbow (talk) 20:55, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
Format
I am going to try again over the next few days to format the page again so there is uniformity.Moxy (talk) 22:54, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
Semi-protected edit request on 20 February 2014
{{edit semi-protected the mane language of Bahawalpur is SARAIKI}}
In 1945 I was a Marine stationed on Okinawa when our outfit was ordered to china. Our mission was to participate in the occupation of Northern China. When we arrived in China we rode by train to Peking China and we were stationed just outside Peking. General Chang Ki Scek awarded our outfit, The Cloud and Banner for our participation in the occupation of Northern China. Our Commander (A colonel) received the medal for the unit. Does this medal only go to the Commander or to the entire Marine Unit? J C Crews≈ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.202.219.30 (talk) 10:54, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
I have an original disk of Reader Rabbit in my hands. It says copyright 1984 not 1986.
I have a picture of the disk to sell it on eBay. Learning Company has been around since at least 1982.
98.208.106.112 (talk) 19:42, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
The #Introduction section currently duplicates the information give in {{intro to box}} template. What do people think about removing the #Introduction section, just leaving the {{intro to box}} template?
The problem is that this page is for new people....the template explains nothing...just links. What should be asked is do we need the template...that just repeats links with no description of what is what-- Moxy (talk) 15:51, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
That's a good point. I see how the lists of subsections for each tutorial give a bit more information on what you're in for before you click through, particularly for a complete beginner. Sidenote: listing the number of subsections (a four part guide to...) is surely unnecessary, since the subsections are then listed immediately after. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk22:37, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
I feel we should keep both: the "introductions" text section for crystal clarity and detailed descriptions, and the "Into to box" as a pleasant graphical alternate description. --Jules(Mrjulesd)23:56, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
At WP:RFP, the following request was made, and declined by me.
"Indefinite semi-protection: For some reason, and despite notices on this page, new users seem to frequently post to this Talk page which is intended for discussion of improvements to the Help:Getting started page, not as a place to request help. Please semi-protect indefinitely. General IzationTalk 05:39, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
Declined And the newbies are trying to get started and are looking for help; after all it is in good faith. If they make a mistake and use the wrong page, so what? Graciously revert and point them to the right page, try to be helpful and welcoming. Lectonar (talk) 20:27, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
That's just lovely, and happens to be exactly what I would do, but I am not the only person who deals with these edits (and am not interested in making it my mission here). Other editors simply revert them, leaving the newbie's question unanswered; and/or the question will sit for a period of time because no one is actively watching that Talk page. Protecting this page wouldn't penalize for or prevent anyone from seeking help with their good faith questions; it would simply force them to read the content on the page and post the question in a location where it is likely to be answered. Please give this a reconsideration. General IzationTalk 20:38, 6 March 2016 (UTC)"
What do people think: is semiprotection a solution for the problem, is it necessary at all, is a more welcoming attitude perhaps a way forward? Lectonar (talk) 21:08, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
For some reason... Background is here, together with the question about how to handle this talk page. When the welcome notification linked to Wikipedia:Welcoming committee/Welcome to Wikipedia, the corresponding talk page was eventually redirected to the Teahouse. No-one there has yet said if they favour such a redirection. If you look at the history of either of the talk pages you see that new editors add a wide variety of things: no doubt we'd mostly agree that a newbie's request for help on editing Wikipedia should receive a helpful answer, wherever posted; but many of the contributions (example below) don't seem to come into this category, and TBH may not be worth spending much effort on: Noyster (talk),00:06, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
Support indefinite or extended (several weeks? months?) semi-protection. It's just ridiculous what's going on here and how often it happens, and most of the newbies' test posts or ask posts here aren't in any way answerable at all. (It's so easy for them to not even look at what page they're on, smash their keyboard and save and never come back, I'm not going to spend even three minutes to come up with a "useful" response for them.) — Jeraphine Gryphon(talk)07:02, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
Support indefinite protection as well, though I don't know if it clashes with any existing policies. I actually feel it may help new users, by instead of clicking "edit" without reading the top messageboxes and getting reverted, they may be more likely to read the messagebox contents and find the help or test pages that they're really looking for. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk10:25, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
Now it is.:). As promised, and by overwhelming consensus, the need for semiprotection is acknowledged (although it still feels wrong for me).Lectonar (talk) 09:10, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
Suggest adding some earlier clarity on templates
I've been a Wikipedia editor here and there for many years. But one thing I never quite understood was templates. Without knowing what they were called, it's quite complex to find out more about them, and that is partly because there's no mention of them on basic help pages such as this page (or as far as I can tell, even early on in any link given on this page). They're in basically every Wikipedia page (and particularly stand out as confusing in the Wiki Markup Editor) and are used to accomplish very many important tasks. I would suggest better inclusion of this topic... perhaps as a 6th link under Editing with Wiki Markup, though open to a better location. Perhaps many don't struggle with the concept as much as I did, but I've even got a bit of a programming background (HTML, C++, PHP), and it wasn't straightforward what they were or how to use them. I imagine it is that way for many new users. Just some very basic text on what they are (a way to setup a standardized section across many pages?) and basic links on where to get more information might well make a world of difference to many newer users.
Thanks! JeopardyTempest (talk) 07:36, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
@JeopardyTempest: They are not very well taken as a 'programming' thing, unless you are coming from the perspective of something like Lisp. Templates (or other pages) are 'transcluded' into other pages, and the help pages on mediawiki.org are the best place to start. Essentially, they are 'unrolled' into a version that reflects the actual page being viewed without transclusion, and then evaluated inside out. Reventtalk20:29, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
@Revent: Oh, it's no worries here, I worked on through it, and sorted out enough of them to make headway on the template that wasn't working properly... it's more for the next guy who comes along confused. And indeed while they're different enough from typical programming that skills don't help a ton... I think they'd be even more mysterious to an everyday Joe trying to come and help with a typical wikipedia article. Just wish to improve the info available... I've always found Wikipedia help a bit disjointed and tough to approach, and just want to help try to make it better (I'd already added some text to some of the help you directed me towards to try to clarify some things I had trouble understanding). But do you have any thoughts on adding something to the more central help here, even adding something as simple as being along the lines of: 'What's the deal with the things in {}? -- These are templates, one of the more complex tools... they're fairly complex, so you may want to wait to learn about them until later, but here's a link for when you want to learn more.' I see this page as kind of a key starting point for help (unless there's another spot??), and so vital to bring as comprehensively directive as possible :-) Thanks for your response! JeopardyTempest (talk) 22:10, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
Protect It!
You should fully protect this page!
This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.
Wikipedians forgot ALL about Twinkle's ability to welcome others with help. I just finally edited it in there. You don't need to thank me, if you don't want to.*Xyaena~* (talk) 19:32, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
Survey
Hey all,
I'm looking into doing some research about the things that users seek out help for. If noone has any objections I'd like to add a brief survey to this page to collect some anonymous data about what people are looking for and how we can help them better. I'd like to add this in the next week or so. Ping me if anyone has any issues with this. Seddon (WMF) (talk) 22:57, 27 April 2017 (UTC)
They were added to the 3 automated "New user landing pages" like Wikipedia:Article_wizard ....if you need to link the page we have short cuts.--Moxy (talk) 14:13, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
If I want to point a new editor to this page, presenting it as H:GS will not tell them what is meant. I shouldn't have written "impossible". Of course I know that there are several other ways to get the ordinary page name for cut/paste purposes, it's only impossible with my normal method: double click the page name and Ctrl+C. It just struck me as very odd when I looked at the page and there was no page name. Looking at Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Hidden title showed that it's only used on Article Wizard and Wikipedia Adventure pages – and this one. I didn't see the connection. I still don't see the need to hide the title on this page, but … <shrug />. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 14:49, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
I must support concerns raised by Michael Bednarek at the recent hiding of this page's title. I see no reason for it; it does indeed make linking to this page much harder. Showing "Help:Getting started" is never going to confuse any user - it's a convention they're going to see throughout their Wikipedia editing days. I'm currently putting an online and printed help sheet together for new editors at editathons. No longer having a clear, linkabe page title is a retrograde step in my view, and should be restored asap. I'm afraid the explanation for this (given above) failed to impart any understanding on my part. Regards from the UK, Nick Moyes (talk) 12:09, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
I have restored the title. That they are aimed at newbies is no reason these pages should break with the convention used across the rest of Wikipedia, in fact it's a reason they should follow it. the wub"?!"13:00, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
Yup....your just last to edit. Thousands of new editors get this page a day ...some like to press the thank button for fun. Have fun till someone else edits the page......lol I will take it back over....I take it as an opportunity to link them to our help pages--Moxy🍁04:05, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
Ambassador training / deprecated content
Under Training for student assignments, if one follows the link to the Ambassador training, the welcome page includes the following notice:
This Wikipedia page has been superseded by training content on dashboard.wikiedu.org and outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org, and it is retained primarily for historical interest.
Neither of these suggested links appear to be on this page. (I realize they might be a second degree of separation.)
Could someone more familiar with this help space look at these links and decide whether to add them to this page?
Also, I suggest that a new section be added for content that is now considered "of historical interest." Thoughts? Zatsugaku (talk) 15:55, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
1900+ sentences for ... getting started?
Used an online utility to scan readability of what should be an introduction:
Indication of the number of years of formal education that a person requires in order to easily understand the text on the first reading
Gunning Fog index: 20.45
Approximate representation of the U.S. grade level needed to comprehend the text:
@Jasonbrown1965, I'm very much not a fan of this page either. It should be formatted more as a back-end list of different attempts at making a starting page than an actual starting page itself, and it should never be the place we send newcomers. I think Help:Introduction does a somewhat better job, although it's still longer than it ought to be. Overall, Wikipedia has an inherent amount of complexity that'll never fully be simplifyable, but we can do a lot better. Regarding your search box idea, the present search box at the top of each page is capable of location help pages if you just prefix your query with "WP:" or "Help:". Of course, that's only useful if people actually know to do it... {{u|Sdkb}}talk06:43, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
Had a quick look at Help:Introduction and yes much better job.
Suggestion: Could an interim answer be as simple (ha!) as beginner/advanced toggles?
And/or, more appropriately, simple, well-flagged wikipedia pages.
@Jasonbrown1965, re the toggle suggestion, we have {{beginner version}} for pairing more advanced and less advanced help pages.
For your second suggestion, if I understand it correctly, you're looking for better collaboration between writers and technical editors. Is that correct? mw:Growth/Article creation for new editors is a project that seeks to eliminate some of the technical obstacles to article creation.
Article drafting should ideally take place in sandboxes, either in draftspace or userspace, not on talk pages, which are really more for discussion about e.g. what should or should not go in an article. {{u|Sdkb}}talk20:30, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
Pardon me for the very late reply, but even this talk-page is a forest for non-tech people. As for the "beginner version" oh my goodness, thank you for the link, most kind. How may I ask this, most constructively ?
Jasonbrown1965, no disrespect to you, either, but you seems to have found one of the countless help pages that are neither policies nor guidelines, and are quite obscure. This page was created 15 years ago, and is neither frequently cited nor often recommended by Wikipedia editors. I am highly active yet I am barely aware of it. I think I watch it because it got vandalized once. There are many, many, many other pages recommended by active editors every day that are far more important to improve than this backwater. Keep in mind that any editor in good standing can create an unofficial page like this. That's my opinion. Cullen328 (talk) 09:43, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
It may also still be linked from some other places I haven't managed to ferret out and switch to H:I. Feel free to help out by changing any you notice.
Last thing we should do is send readers to an accessibility nightmare page. That said we could trim this page of all the junk....lead readers to our 3 main pages.
why send our readers to a page where only 1/4 of the page is devoted to serviceable info that is all sandwiched Moxy🍁 15:42, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page Help:Getting started. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. --ElHef (Meep?) 19:21, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:34, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
Not done as you have not requested a change, but I suspect you are in the wrong place, as this page is only to discuss improvements to Help:Getting started. - Arjayay (talk) 11:05, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
Declined And the newbies are trying to get started and are looking for help; after all it is in good faith. If they make a mistake and use the wrong page, so what? Graciously revert and point them to the right page, try to be helpful and welcoming. Lectonar (talk) 20:27, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
