Eric

My name is Eric. For the time being, most of my contribution to Wikipedia is through copyediting articles as I come across them. For a living, I do GIS and the occasional translation project.		LANGUAGES: Wikipedia:Babel enThis user is a native speaker of the English language. fr-3Cet utilisateur peut contribuer avec un niveau avancé de français. de-3Dieser Benutzer hat sehr gute Deutschkenntnisse. it-1Questo utente può contribuire con un livello semplice di italiano. es-1Este usuario puede contribuir con un nivel básico de español. Search user languages Majority ≠ authority This user understands that no matter how many people make the same mistake, it's still a mistake.
Le Chemin des Moines A good place to detox from woes encountered here at the New Ministry of Truth

Helpful links

Templates

Article sourcing

Wikipedia:Citing_sources

{{Cite web}} – with common parameters: <ref>{{cite web |url= |title= |last= |first= |date= |website= |publisher= |access-date= |quote=}}</ref>

if no author: <ref>{{cite web |url= |title= |author=<!--Not stated--> |date= |website= |publisher= |access-date= |quote=}}</ref>

{{Cite book}} – with common parameters: <ref>{{cite book |last= |first= |date= |title= |url= |location= |publisher= |page= |isbn= |author-link= }}</ref>

in a foreign language: <ref>{{cite book |last= |first= |date= |title= |trans-title= |url= |language= |location= |publisher= |isbn=}}</ref>

Linking to individual titles on Google Books – somewhat helpful article in Google's chaotic help mess for linking to Google Books titles and pages

• this can work for linking to a specific page: If the url contains &printsec, replace that and everything that follows with &pg=PA<page number>.

{{Notelist}} for adding in-line notes – should (must?) add separate reflist for these in Notes section, e.g.: {{reflist|group=note}}

{{NoteTag}} generates these (at bottom of section):

{{reflist}} for listing references

{{Unreferenced}} for articles without any reference sources cited (see related templates on that same page)

{{Refimprovesect}} for article sections needing more sourcing

{{Fact}} – {{Fact|date=month year}} – to call for sourcing for a specific statement

{{Reflist-talk}} – place at end of talkpage section to keep any reference footnotes in a box in that section

• good to precede it with this comment: <!-- Please keep comments in this section above this line. --> {{Reflist-talk}}
• for talkpage footnotes: {{notelist-talk}} – <!-- Please keep comments in this section above this line. --> {{notelist-talk}}

Notes

You can use {{efn|your note here}} to produce a lettered footnote at bottom of page; requires {{Notelist}} in References section.

Advice, warning:

Vandalism warning templates citing page name: Wikipedia:Vandalism#Warnings

Listing of template messages: Wikipedia:Template_messages/User_talk_namespace (includes multiple templates for disruptive editors)

External link spam: Wikipedia:Template_messages/User_talk_namespace/Multi-level_templates#External_links_spam

Edit summary templates, etc:

{{subst:Summary2}} ~~~~ – {{Summary2}}: ...you often edit without using an edit summary...

{{subst:Uw-subtle2}} (Template:Uw-subtle2) produces this:

Please explain your contributions using an edit summary. Changing information on Wikipedia (such as numbers and dates) without explanation may be confused with vandalism. Thank you.

optional parameters: {{subst:Uw-subtle2|article}} {{subst:Uw-subtle2|article|additional text (in place of "thank you")}}

Template:Edit_summary produces a much larger message

{{subst:Uw-wrongsummary|Article|Additional text}} promotes use of more accurate summaries

Well-stated talkpage post by Ammodramus promoting use of edit summaries: User_talk:WhatsUpWorld#Edit_summaries_redux (diff)

Another good one I'd like to make a template for: User_talk:Hantsheroes#Please_Preview,_Group,_Summarize

Formatting, layout

Table guidance: Help:Table – Note: "minimalist" table (no borders) omits class="wikitable"

{{ubl}} (unbulleted list) – {{unbulleted list|apples|oranges|pears}} yields:

• apples
• oranges
• pears

{{blist}} (bulleted list) – {{bulleted list|apples|oranges|pears}} yields:

• apples
• oranges
• pears

{{xt}} – various templates for generating example text – See also section has some good info and html tags

{{tq}} ({{talk quote inline}}) – for use in talkpage discussions (preferred over xt)

{{kbd}} – {{kbd|your text here}} – same effect on text as <kbd>: uses <kbd>...</kbd> (keyboard input), plus applies
some styling to it (a faint grey background borrowed from the related {{key press}}) and slight CSS letter-spacing to suggest individually entered characters);
For comparison, here is some text using the tag instead of the template

{{od}} – outdent generates this:

...to create visual liaison from deeply indented talk posts back to left margin.

{{blockquote}} – various quotation formats

This is a good one: {{Quote frame|text to quote}} generates a box that will extend up to the width of the page if necessary

{{talk quote}} does this

{{tq}}, short for {{talk quote inline}}, produces Quoted text

misc useful templates

{{convert}} Conversion templates and parameters

{{diff}} for creating links to pages that show the differences between two versions of a wiki page

{{clear}} ( = {{-}} ) Helps in controlling flow of text

Discussion, notification:

{{u|username}} – handy, basic template for mentioning/notifying a user

Template:Tiny_ping alerts user(s) to a message via Wikipedia's notification system

{{Reply to|<username>}}

Template:Please see – {{subst:Please see | Talk:<article>#<talkpage section> }}

notification triggers – mentions, etc

Template:Talkback has several templates for calling the attention of other editors

{{talkback|username}} – Facilitates keeping user-to-user discussions on one talk page

unsigned talk posts: {{subst:unsigned2| time, day month year (UTC)| user name or IP}}

Discussion move:

Templates for discussion moves (instructions at {{Moved discussion to}} and {{Moved discussion from}}), produce the following:

Moved to <talkpage section>

and

Moved from <talkpage section>

Miscellaneous reference

Access to restricted databases, journals, studies via Wikipedia Library (some you have, some you apply for)– https://wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org/partners/

JSTOR

WP:SPI – to open or re-open a sockpuppet investigation: How to open an investigation (show) > enter puppetmaster's name

Wikipedia:Administrator_intervention_against_vandalism – Admin vandalism notification page

Comment syntax: <!-- your comment text here -->

Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Titles

MOS:CURRENT – shortcut to guidance regarding temporally problematic material (Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Dates_and_numbers#Statements_likely_to_become_outdated)

Wikipedia:How_to_edit_a_page

Wikipedia:Cheatsheet

Wikipedia:Quick_guide

Help:Edit_summary

Edit summary abbreviations

Help:Show_preview - Promotes minimizing number of saves per edit session.

Help:HTML_in_wikitext

WP:GLOSSARY

Wikipedia:Sister_projects

Grolltech's useful cheatsheet of templates: User:Grolltech/Cheetsheet

Wikipedia:Screenshots of Wikipedia

Example of url for contribution listing restricted by date: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?limit=500&title=Special:Contributions&contribs=user&target=Monster boy1&namespace=14&tagfilter=&newOnly=1&start=2018-11-22&end=2019-02-25

Tools

• Σ's edit summary search – search a user's edit summaries (and section headings)
• Σ's Editor Interaction Analyser – fab
• Interaction timeline
• user contribution search – search a page's history and return edits made by a given user (note Help & Tips at bottom)
• intersecting contributions – contributions of given users on same articles in a given Wikiproject (note Namespace option)
• Article blamer – find author of given text string in given article
• copy-paste detection tool

Image stuff

commons:Commons:upload

Wikipedia:Picture_tutorial

Wikipedia:Extended image syntax
→see also caption help from Redrose64: Wikipedia_talk:Extended_image_syntax#Size_specification_and_caption_incompatible.3F (March 2012)

{{multiple image}} – template for boxes with multiple images

Help:Gallery_tag – gallery guide

Wikipedia:Picture_tutorial#Linking_without_displaying

Wikipedia:How_to_fix_bunched-up_edit_links caused by stacked images

User:Drilnoth/lefteditlinks.js/doc Drilnoth's gadget for moving section edit links over next to heading

Language stuff

Help:Interlanguage links – linking to equivalent article in another language

• Wikipedia:Wikidata#Managing Interlanguage links with Wikidata

• Example of an interwikimedia link (link to an article on another Wikipedia):

long distance footpath article on the French Wikipedia (code for linked word article: [[:fr:Sentier de grande randonnée|article]])

• adapted from Help:Interlanguage_links#Inline_links_(links_in_the_text_of_the_article):
  • Use the template {{interlanguage link}} ( {{ill}}, for short ), which does the same thing as above, but hides the German link if the English redlink turns blue.
    • {{ill|Henri Vincenot|fr}} produces Henri Vincenot (as of Jan 2024 en.wp does not have an article with this title)
    • {{ill|Hanning Schröder|de}} produces Hanning Schröder (en.wp has an article with this name)
    • {{ill|English article title|language code|Title in foreign language}} – when the title in the target language is different from the English text being linked, for example:
      • {{ill|Hooglede town hall|nl|Gemeentehuis van Hooglede}} produces: Hooglede town hall
    • To display text different from the article title (maybe only pertinent when there is more than one non-English link??), use the parameter lt: {{ill|Ascension de la roche de Solutré|lt= Mitterand's annual pilgrimage|fr}} produces Mitterand's annual pilgrimage

Template:Translated_page tags an article as having material translated from a wiki in another language

User_talk:Dismas/archive20#Gentle_discouragement – discussion about problem of low-fluency editing on en.wp

Wikipedia:Contributing_to_articles_outside_your_native_language – I find this a bit too encouraging to non-fluent editors

Wikipedia:Speakers_of_other_languages – I find this far too encouraging to non-fluent editors

Wikipedia:Competence_is_required#Some_common_types – section of essay on competence required for editing

Template:Cleanup-translation

Category:Wikipedia_translation_templates

Wikipedia:Translation/*/Lang/fr

Wikipedia:Translation/*/Lang/de

Customization

Wikipedia:Skin

User:Eric/myskin.css

User:Eric/modern.js

User:Eric/common.js

User_talk:Ilmari_Karonen/archive14#Customizing_monobook.js - Discussion on how to customize Edittools using User:<username>/myskin.js

Wikinsanity

"Discussions" and other silliness that demonstrate the tragicomic aspects of having an encyclopedia that anyone can edit:

Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_France/Archive_2

Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_France/Archive_1#Anglicisation2

Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Plants/Archive14#Douglas-fir

Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Death_threat

Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2008_August_1#Category:Religious_organizations_established_in_the_1110s

Wikipedia:WikiProject Numbers – Wikipedia has articles about individual integers! Hundreds of them!

Headlight flashing – This is actually an article in our encyclopedia.

Boston accent – No, this is not a joke, but it makes Wikipedia look like one.

Ferret-legging - according to Snopes "allegedly a 'sport' ... reported in an article ... published by Donald Katz in 1987 ... riddled with factual errors ... The Wikipedia article ... has no direct sources except for Katz's article. It has been nominated for deletion twice; both times, the votes were split fifty/fifty and the article was kept. Did Katz write a poor article on an actual sport, or did he make it up?"

Hair washing without commercial shampoo – Amazing.

Whiteness studies – H. sapiens cannot be saved.