User talk:Ann McGrath

Welcome[edit]

Hello Ann McGrath, and welcome to Wikipedia. Thank you for your contributions — thank you for introducing yourself, I'm sure there is so much that you can contribute to Wikipedia (see my user page if you would like to know who I am). I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! By the way, you can sign your name on Talk and vote pages using three tildes, like this: ~~~. Four tildes (~~~~) produces your name and the current date. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome!

Gareth Hughes 16:47, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thank you Gareth[edit]

The picture tutorial is just what I needed next.

Thank you so much for your friendly welcome, and for these oh so useful links. Jez 19:24, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

No, thank you for signing up. I've only been here just over four months: suddenly things change from the Wikipedia being 'out there' to you being a real part of it. Have a look at some of the links at the Community Portal and explore the Wikipedia community of which you are now a part. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask me, any of the other users you may come across or to post a message at the village pump. The help:contents page is another one to look at if you're unsure of how to go about anything. If Wikipedia is feeling a little too big, you could check out the WikiProjects: groups of wikipedians who work together on a single subject area. You can start putting together your watchlist of pages you're interested in so you can keep track of your own little corner of Wikipedia. You can add any page to your watchlist by clicking the watch tab at the top of the page, or by checking the Watch this page tick-box that appears underneath the edit window when you're editing. Enough advice, I hope you enjoy the Wikipedia experience. Gareth Hughes 19:54, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

A question, then. I've read the Cite_sources page, and find it does not cover how to cite conversations with People Who Know about my subject. I initially learned a fair bit from web sites that are no longer there, as well, and wonder if I should worry about citing the sites in absentia. Your insight would be appreciated. Thanks again. Jez 20:08, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC) (I notice the 4 tildes fit my deadkey layout beautifully - if I were to use 3, I'd have to hit the space bar to make the 3rd tilde materialize)

There is a policy against original research on Wikipedia. I found the policy quite hard to understand at first, but it goes hand in hand with the verifiability policy. Basically, as this encyclopedia is built by a community, the community has to know how it knows something. Therefore, it is no good saying that Professor Plum, an expert in this field, told me. If she did tell you, you'd have to ask for a reference (to her book or the book she read it in: also for journals, newspapers and websites). Then you put the reference at the bottom of the article (or inline text). If we do this, someone else can check that what Wikipedia is saying is true. If you want to reference a web article that no longer exists, you might want to try looking for it one of the various web caches (I think Google has one). I hope that makes sense, and doesn't come across as overly officious! Gareth Hughes 20:34, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Talk to Ann McGrath[edit]

Glad you like it. Xiong 20:17, 2005 Mar 10 (UTC)