• So far, I have learned that actually stating you know something about a subject is going to bring down instant jeering & derision upon your head. Don't know why actually having credentials seems to be a bad thing, but evidently it is. That seems backwards & well, crazy. You ought to know what you're talking about. Apparently ego trumps actually having a decent article. Who knew?

• One post, one deletion. I'll just dig in my heels. I'm like that. Pick your battles. Telling you how to improve a bad article shouldn't be a battleground. It's not like this is the Middle Ages & you need to slap down a gauntlet for every little thing.

• I am definitely so far not feeling the love. The Welcome Wagon was quite rude. No one seems to have nicest manners anymore.

• Don't fence with me. I own a sword & a broadaxe :-) They came nicely honed & ready to rumble. I will not hesitate to use them when provoked.

• My interest is in history, particularly English history. And yes, I *am* a self-proclaimed expert in it, in addition to having the degrees to prove it that bolster my opinion. (But I'm not going to send them to random people on the internet to peruse.)

• If that also gets mocked, it's going to get dirty in here.

• Could some person with nicest manners kindly inform me how I get a pic in my header? TYVM in advance if you're that person. This joint has weird coding going on IMHO.

ScarletRibbons (talk) 06:54, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You are right that wikicode is an odd animal. My best suggestion would be to do what I do, steal code from someone else's page (and give them credit in the edit summary when I do). No reason to reinvent the wheel, and modifying that code is a good way to get comfortable with wikicode. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 14:05, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Oh, and regarding long posts, I've had to force myself to be more pithy around here as well, as the community frowns on long comments. WP:TLDR is worth a look and should shed some light on the concern. The best place to get answers to questions is to visit the WP:Teahouse, which is hosted by a number of friendly faces who spend much of their time helping new editors here. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 14:07, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • TYVM for the suggestions, Dennis. I'll check those out. Never seen anything like this code before. Could be because I haven't done any HTML in ages & don't know any CSS? ScarletRibbons (talk) 18:15, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • I wish. I'm quite comfortable coding in HTML, I do it by hand rather than use a program the majority of time, but Wikicode is quite different, requiring a slide rule, animal sacrifice and voodoo doll to learn properly, I've been told. As for editing here (below): Baby steps. Ignorance is bliss, and being too educated can get your feelings hurt around here. Yes, often you will be arguing with someone that you might feel is less knowledgeable than you are on a given topic, but in time I think you adjust and see the advantages and learn some cooperative skills in the process. You might find this short essay interesting: WP:Randy in Boise. Personally, I'm not a professor, nor even a college graduate, but I manage to muddle along and contribute around here, even when I'm not playing admin. The best way to contribute and actually enjoy it is to not take it too seriously, accept the many flaws that are found everywhere here, and accept making small improvements here and there. We like people being WP:BOLD (and following WP:BRD), as long as they can politely discuss the changes afterwards. It won't be easy, but you might be surprised at what you can learn by conforming just enough to get along around here. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 19:28, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Those were some interesting, yet disturbing, links! Wow. Total reverse academic snobbery. Why WOULDN'T they want, say, people like me who could write the history of the English monarchy or the Wars of the Roses without so much as opening a book? And an *expert* must have a PhD & be regularly published in scholarly journals? Yeah, like THOSE guys are lining up in droves to get in. People with PhDs usually come from money, have flourishing academic careers, teach, lecture, attend symposiums, publish books & articles, etc; like they have time or desire to give it away for free in a place where they'd definitely be sneered at. Having a master's degree in history brings down enough scorn on one's head. Posting suggestions for changes to articles to be discussed by any interested parties seems to be a no-no, which is insane; are you just supposed to play *revert the edit* after the fact & end up on the disciplinary carpet along with the territorial pisser? I thought it was only polite to propose before touching things, but evidently that translates to *rude* here! Between that & the mind-bending code, I'm beginning to think this was a bad idea. Not a Rules Girl, especially when they're upside down & discombobulated like they are here! I do appreciate your assistance, though :-)
      • I did do some mostly grammatical edits on an article about one of Edward IIIs grandchildren just now (waiting on Self-Proclaimed Queen of Wikipedia to revert them back to incoherent copy/paste sentences with zero punctuation & awkward phrasing, as they were). Changed the content of one awkward sentence for better clarity & would like to source the wee bit of new info I added regarding Philippa's son's demise, if I could just figure out that footnote tut. I also want to organize it into sections, adding a bit more info, & that seems to be over my head as well. Man, I miss FrontPage. It practically did all the HTML for you. Whatever they're using here boggles the brain & I'm fresh out of animals to sacrifice. And here I thought I *wasn't* techinically impaired. Well, off to review the WOTR in someone's sandbox. He did the whole thing in a single article, which is rather impressive, but I bet he gets people telling him it's too long & deleting 90% of it once he publishes. (Always be prepared for the worst; then you can be pleasantly surprised if all goes well.) ScarletRibbons (talk) 09:13, 16 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Another point: There's a hell of a lot wrong with a hell of a lot of Wikipedia articles. The thing to do is to spend whatever time you are willing to spend editing here putting some of them right, not spend the same amount of time explaining what changes you think need making but not doing it, and telling us how contemptuous you are of other people who have not put them right. JamesBWatson (talk) 15:55, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Another point? Where was the first one?
  • Look, James, I'm not going to tread on territorial toes by jumping in to edit & revise, & then getting mired in one of the infamous *edit wars* I've seen on many talk pages & on my whistle-stop tour. Some people want to bite your arm off if you so much as correct a typo on *their article*. I'm going to test the waters before diving in. I can just imagine the furor had I actually edited anything. I loathe dissemination of historical misinformation, this joint seems to be lousy with it, I wasn't responsible for it, & I'm not going to have people whinge at me for touching their preciousss when they can't even take seeing a critical comment. Why bother doing an article at all if you're not going to do it up right, & then fight to the death to keep it a piece of crap? Yes, I *am* contemptuous of that sort of attitude. I've had crap hurled at me that makes me want to shove articles where the sun don't shine & take a hike out of here. What slays me is the paranoid unwelcome wagon who deleted my first comment, who's obviously put me on a watchlist so she can follow me around to sign for me if I forget the squiggles & edit things from the *hysterical diatribes of yet another self-proclaimed "historian"* that she deems worthy, was asking for help on a stub not long ago, so I looked around (kill em with kindness), & it's pasted word for word from Rootsweb. I mean, the whole article, not just a sentence; either way, I thought that was a no-no. You want to be helpful, James, tell me how to report that sort of nonsense or ask for it to be deleted, because I can't find a page to do it & the tuts are crap as well. Definitely re-thinking this impulse to create an account just because I couldn't stand looking at an horrific article. ScarletRibbons (talk) 18:15, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• • Hey, what did you do there? Show off! I wish. I can't even figure out the stupid coding yet. What I need is a Sorcerer's Apprentice! Got one of those? ScarletRibbons (talk) 09:20, 16 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Hi! Another unfamiliar person sticks her head in ... WP:Emoticons. Actually, talking about an article on a talkpage is good, too. But the tried and true way is being bold and starting in on a fix. Especially welcome if you have references to hand. People with either good home libraries or good library access are gold here. As to pictures, I see the link to WP:New contributors' help page included above, but they've redesigned it to offer a lot of initial options, sigh. Basically, [[Image:Filename of image|thumb]] or [[File:Filename of image|thumb]] makes an image appear on the right hand side at non-humongous size. Try Wikipedia:Picture tutorial for more info. (I am not a techie - Dennis' advice is excellent too, copy code from someone else's page .) You may also just possibly find this useful; it's aimed at scientists but a lot is applicable to academics/experts of other stripes: Wikipedia:Ten Simple Rules for Editing Wikipedia. Beyond that, feel free to ask me a question on my talkpage and I will do my best to help; although I should add the caveat that today I really must do my taxes so there will be patches when I am offline. Yngvadottir (talk) 16:33, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • TYVM, unfamiliar person :-) Are you Scandinavian, or just like playing at it? ;-) I own an enormous library of everything from Cheddar Man through the Stuarts, & have at least a dozen more history books in my TBR pile with an Amazon gift cert burning a hole in my pocket. That giant box full of links wasn't there when I created the page & commenced whinging on it, so I had to tour the hard way & didn't understand half of what was on those tuts. Have they never heard of screenshots? (And who ate *reply* buttons? Took me forever to figure out *edit* was it.) Usually I can get the hang of a new site pretty quickly. Wasting all this time & still not getting most of it is starting to feel like work & not fun. Maybe tomorrow, I'm WPd out at this point. Appreciate the kind offer of assistance :-) ScarletRibbons (talk) 18:15, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thank you for the brownie!!! 'Fraid I can't tell you what I am, a lot of us are mysterious like that. Thank Dennis for the slab of links, he got here first. (Yes, everything is "edit" here. Kind of like the Windows "Start" button.) I'll put you on my list to ask to look up refs. As to the problem page, here are the recommended steps to take, but note that it is pointed out there that sometimes the other site has copied from us. In any event, it sounds as though that article, whatever it is, badly needs rewriting with good sources. And now I must go make myself some coffee. See you around, I hope :-) Yngvadottir (talk) 23:55, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Not a prob, I enjoy being a woman of mystery myself ;-) I tried the page you cited...alas. It wanted the link to it, for starters, & spun round a while, & told me the internal page didn't exist LOL (it does, I bookmarked it for future reference & it's still going there even though I purged my cache thinking it would make the widget acept the link). I smell tinkering behind the scenes this week making things go wonky. Techies & their toys. The Rootsweb page pre-dated the article by yrs, so I'm reasonably certain it's a paste job. There are no other sources for it online because it's an obscure medieval personage who probably shouldn't have an article at all. What do they call that round here, notability, right? She isn't. Oh, well. TYVM for being a nice, welcoming personage yourself :-) Hope to see you around as well! ScarletRibbons (talk) 09:20, 16 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My reason for deleting your comments was that they made a dog's bollocks out of that page as well as other talk pages in which you have visited. They were left there in a rambling fashion as you snarled out your version of the facts as if you were reading the Riot Act. I did not create either article but have edited them. I really don't care whether you have a degree in history or Quantum Physics; you must learn how to state your suggestions for improvements on the articles' talk pages in a coherent, concise and organised manner.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 06:36, 16 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I don't know why I get surprised when I run into rude random internet people who lunge & snarl like a rabid cur from the get-go, but I guess I must have a little more faith in people employing their nicest manners than most. Dog's bollocks? Really? How charming & pleasant a turn of phrase you have. I can only aspire to such depths. Let me hazard a guess...Geordie?

(talk page stalker)Monarcho-Gothic fan of Lee Harvey Oswald from Cali, I believe... Basket _Feudalist 11:02, 16 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• You're supposed to tell people you changed things when you do it, not when you can be arsed to try your hand at a smidge of pot-stirring a few days after leaving a snarky remark as the *reason* for your *edit*. In point of fact, it would have behooved you to politely explain whatever position it is you have, & left it to ME to *edit* rather than delete with a bad attitude.
• Those weren't *my* version of the facts, Sunshine, those *are* the facts. You must read up more if you can't recognize that.
• If you're not the *creator* then you have no dog in this fight you're obvs salivating to have, do you? You merely want to play Obsessive Boleyn Fangirl or something on the Shelton article, since you so graciously *allowed* my comments on the Philippa article (that's singular, not plural as it is in your reality) to stand...so far. (Revert those edits, & I'll have you in dispute resolution well before you can grab something age-inappropriate off the rack at Forever 21 to swan over there wearing.)
• I think you do care about my academic credentials. Don't deny it. Embrace it. You do keep bringing them up each occasion you deign to speak to me (or around me), after all.
• Your education system has failed you if you could not comprehend my comments. It's plenty *coherent, concise, & organized* to copy a slice of the article into my comment, set it to bold italics to signal *new suggestion coming* loud & clear, & then address it directly beneath before moving on to the next bit. I did inquire if your preference was for me to break it up into smaller bits after you deleted my very first WP comment with your lovely insults (which are against the rules, but I reckon those don't apply to you, do they?), & your response was to delete yet another comment.
• Now I don't give a rat's arse what your preferences may or may not be. You've proved yourself to be...well, I ought to just stop my fingers right there, hmmm? I shall just, as Dennis recommends above, *be bold*, & edit what I please where I please, rather than suggest in advance before doing so. Or perhaps I might still suggest. Not up to you, is it? You're a sad little nobody with an extra button as far as I'm concerned, & if you continue to use it on me just because you can, expect the usual consequences for running amok drunk on the power you think that button gives you. You don't intimidate me one whit & I think it's high time you ceased trying. It's pathetic, really.
• Quit following me round & go find some other noob to take the piss out of; you're getting tedious & predictable. I see your little *ignore the troll game* didn't quite work out as well as you hoped, as you had to come over here to try yet another tactic of provocation to get some attention when deleting my posts didn't compel me to wade through your MySpace clone & go off on a tear there. I'm not the person designated to give you the instant gratification you crave this week, sorry. Rude random internet people are very low on my to-do list.
• Get me off your watchlist & get off my back. Bother me again, & I'll erase your bad attitude right off my page (that means *don't reply*; I thought I ought to spell that out since you seem to have issues with my prose). You don't get to decide what & where I post or how gloriously TLDR it gets. I do. Don't like it, then stop stalking me. Surely you can go find another noob to reduce to a quaking, gelatinous mass of aspic in fear of She Who Thinks She Must Be Obeyed. I'm not that person. We're done here. Do go away. ScarletRibbons (talk) 10:43, 16 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm going to take this opportunity to gloat & say *nyaah-nyaah* like a 6 yo :-) You know those comments you deleted? They just got restored. They were valid. You were overruled. You were wrong. (Did I mention you were rude as well?) I trust this interesting development means an end to this irksome relationship? Buh-bye. ScarletRibbons (talk) 12:00, 16 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This user just sank your battleship.

Beware! This user's talk page is patrolled by talk page stalkers.

I'd help you out in the articles but don't know Tudor nearly well enough. However, the essence of the wiki method is that if you do mess something up, and don't manage to fix it yourself, someone will be along to work on it. Here's how to insert a footnote. <ref>Text of your footnote</ref> plus at the bottom of the article, usually under the heading References, there must be either ((Reflist)) or <references/> (They used to output different-sized print but the latter was borged by the former a while back.) There are umpteen different formats for what goes in the references, including combinations of references and Bibliography. (There are even a few articles that use parenthetical references instead, and a woeful number that just list Sources at the bottom and have no footnotes; most of those are templated as needing to be fixed.) Policy is to follow whatever referencing format is already established in the article. In practice many people use the citation templates. These live here and there is also a widget one can install to get them semi-automated with a touch of a button in the toolbar. However, I personally don't like the Harvard style that was chosen, or the difficulty of fitting in complicated stuff like authorially revised translations taken from a particular edition or multi-volume works. So I just use a slightly simplified MLA style and type into the footnote. See any of the articles I list on my talkpage as having started. For the new-style academic References and Bibliography style, see for example Thor. (You can hit edit to peek under the hood at the code.) Remember that the History tab and the Diff link next to each edit there let you see how an article was changed, including the code, and make it easy to undo or modify what you yourself have done. Here's the official beginners' page: Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners. Yngvadottir (talk) 19:07, 16 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I was dabbling in Plantagenets in addition to Tudors; needed to source a demise on Philippa, 5th Countess of Ulster (I am a font of useless royal/noble info:P). Oh, templates are fab, TYVM for that link. So are widgets. They should just make widgets standard & already in there. This is the weirdest WYSIWYG I've ever encountered. I think you wrote in English LOL I'm usually not this stupid when it comes to article guts, honest, but here I am scratching my head over little things like how to insert a superscript [3] for the footnote. I'll have a looksee at yours to see if I can get the gist. So basically your standard HTML ref tags with the URL|name of splendid scholarly site source works? Really appreciate your help :-) ScarletRibbons (talk) 07:24, 18 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Basically. But when it's a wikilink, the link text is piped: [[page|link text]]; however, when it's an external link (like to GoogleBooks), the link text goes after a space: [html//:whatever link text]. The footnote number magically gets inserted by the interplay of the ref tags and the references section below. It ain't WYSIWYG. The Foundation geeks are interminably working on a WYSIWYG interface, but meanwhile we have the witch doctory that Dennis described above. (I actually started editing because someone presented me with an empty MediaWiki wiki and I had no idea how to make pages in it. That was a while ago :-) ) --Yngvadottir (talk) 11:53, 18 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, pardon me, I meant to say it was the misbegotten bastard stepchild of WYSIWIG that's allowed free rein of the castle showing off its gruesome deformities to important royal visitors & making them vomit into the rushes whilst its stepdaddy looks on fondly instead of locking it in the dungeons like a proper wicked stepfather ought :P Because it's trying to be both & ends up being voodoo soup with a side of eye of newt. OK, I think I may have it, but then the magical interplay threw me. Should I add the source at the bottom before adding the footnote in the text to cast the spell? ScarletRibbons (talk) 17:28, 18 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

LOL not unless you are using that to me inscrutable last name/year/page .... separate Bibliography format used at, for example, Thor. Which would mean not using the citation templates. So, no. So long as there is a References or Notes section at the bottom with one of the two magic words, the footnote will show up there and a number will appear in the text. Try preview first to make sure. Yngvadottir (talk) 18:39, 18 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

[doing happy dance] I think I got the footnotes thingy! Yes, of course I gave up & cheated LOL Copied code from another one (not on a history article, but a mountaineering one, go figure, I'm eclectic), stuck in my URL after adding in a little-known factoid about the guy, was astonished when I previewed it & it looked OK. It did magically change the numbers on the ones after it, & I didn't even burn incense & chant! I can now add this skill to being Resident Spelling & Grammar Nazi :P TYVM for your help! Oh, & I found a good external link to add to Jon Krakauer's article from your NYT link, so TYVM there as well. ScarletRibbons (talk) 22:38, 1 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Per Wikipedia talk page guidelines, I see Nyttend already restored your comments to the talk page. See, your comments about Margaret and Mary Shelton should be put back for posterity (and for the archives, eventually). Otherwise they will be impossible to find using the search engine. OTOH, what replaced them in response looks like user page material, and might be moved there. So Nyttend went to the history tab of Talk:Margaret and Mary Shelton, and activated "undo". (You can still go back and edit your comments. Nothing wrong with that if they're not part of an edit war.) I would put your replacement posting on User:Jeanne boleyn's talk page if you want that to be searchable, but she looks like a very productive editor for the history articles on Wikipedia. Check out her contributions: activate "User contributions" in the sidebar, while on her user page.

Specifically addressing your situation and statements. You'll see, it'll all make sense. You seem to know that when you say are digging in your heels. Welcome to the mess! The search engine is your friend: please see "wp: intitle: expert" and see (at least) your Expert rebellion, et.al, for an example of its helpfulness. Also, to begin get a grasp on the vast volumes of Wikipedia to find articles at your level of "messy" see "category: incategory: History" or equivalently: Special:CategoryTree/History, where categories (C is for category) and articles (P is for page) for history is just the tip of the iceberg. — CpiralCpiral 22:58, 16 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose *be bold* doesn't include using bold print when your mind gets blown by a bad article :P Could you tell I really loathe it when an encyclopaedia is getting something all wrong & people are going to take that as historical fact when most of it isn't? I've already found another one that needs a bit of tidying up. Less so than the Sheltons & a lot easier to fix, so I think I shall tinker with that one. (I should probably make a tinkering list.) TYVM for the links. Did not know there was a *messy* page! ScarletRibbons (talk) 07:40, 18 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Took your suggestion & did edit my original suggestions a bit (& also made a note at the end that I did so). What slays me is, the comment I replaced it with when it originally got deleted, surprise, surprise, fresh flame attack from said deleter appended. So I erased the whole thing, as it wasn't really needed anymore once the original had been restored & I'm so done with her nonsense, & by the time I pushed *save*, the comment had been deleted AGAIN. Poof begone. Which is perfectly fine with me; it had served its purpose & if it was done to try to get my goat, I don't care. ScarletRibbons (talk) 17:11, 18 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Please remember that everyone here is voluntarily giving their time and effort to the project, and almost everybody is doing so in good faith, trying to do their best to help the project. This is so even in cases where you believe that those efforts are misguided. It is really more helpful to be civil to other editors. I hope, of course, that you will do so in order to be more pleasant to those other editors, but if you don't care about that then perhaps you can do so out of self-interest, because you are much more likely to find that other editors are amenable to your views if you do so, and you will find less opposition to your editing. JamesBWatson (talk) 08:35, 18 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Not counting those who think WP is their own private kingdom of course. Basket _Feudalist 09:29, 18 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, James, now that you have suitably chastised me for the crime of not taking shite from some weirdo who has seen fit to stalk me all over WP raining insult after insult upon me, perhaps you would like to meander over to her talk page & give HER a refresher course on good faith & civility. Just sayin'. Because, I dunno, I see someone having civil interchange with everyone but that one person, I'm going to think it's that one person who's the problem, not the noob. And she's rude. Did I mention rude? I've just had another comment deleted —AGAIN— because she appended rudeness to it & was starting a flame war on a talk page. As an *experienced editor*, she ought to know better than to come out swinging when someone steps past the threshold. If I could stop tripping across her glowering at me all the time, maybe I could get some editing done. She's even yelling at my trusty talk page stalker, for pity's sake! I'm not putting up with someone acting like the disturbed Goth in the school lunchroom freaking out on the new kid in town. Remind HER of how to behave, & all will be serene. Zen-like, even. TYVM for your concern in the matter. ScarletRibbons (talk) 16:54, 18 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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Thank you for introducing yourself and contributing to Wikipedia! ~ Anastasia (talk) 19:26, 19 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

More goodies! TYVM Anastasia :-) (Pardon my delay, it was far warmer at the 'rents than it was here, so off I went.)

OK then....dassn't open one's mouth on the talk pg of a GA article. Because that's perfect & may not be touched. (Even though I do believe there is a category or 2 above that, & pray, how are people supposed to know it's GA when it merely says it's been submitted for GA status & no one bothered to slap up another banner stating it was approved for such?)

Nobility styles are whatever the hell people want them to be, not what they ought to be. Got it. Let's just embrace the mess rather than fix it.

It's so jarring to read *Lady Dudley* or *Lady Amy* (the latter of which is totally wrong) a gazillion times in a single paragraph when the eye could just slide over *Amy* & not be distracted from article content (in addition to lowering the word count considerably). She was born plain Amy Robsart; knight's (or baron's or baronet's, who are born with the style of *Honourable* appended to their first name) daughters are not referred to as *Lady Amy*. (And why would an article be titled *Amy Robsart* when the opening line calls her *Amy Dudley*? That's not how history recalls her. You go with the more common use.)

That *is* how historical biography handles it. Authors do not continuously refer to ladies by their titles but by their given names. She's just *Amy*. Period. Really irksome to keep seeing *Amy Dudley* used 3x in as many sentences in a row. We got it the first time! She got married & her surname changed from Robsart to Dudley. She's still just Amy.

She's only *Lady Amy* from her marriage date until her father-in-law's attainder. Then she's plain old *Mistress Dudley* until Robert gets knighted. Then she's *Lady Dudley* until her demise. It's a lot easier to just call her *Amy* throughout (especially if that stuff is not going to be explained every time the way she is referred to changes), & that is why historical biographers do that.

Men had many secondary titles. Like, say, Henry of Bolingbroke. That's what he was when he was born. Then he became the Earl of Derby. Then he became the Earl of Hereford. Then he became the Duke of Lancaster. Then he usurped his cousin Richard II & became king of England. Does anyone see his name continuously changing in a biography? No. It's just Henry, or Bolingbroke because his birthplace doesn't keep changing. Period. You don't keep changing the name of the bio subject every time he's granted a new title. It's too confusing for the reader. Henry's father, John of Gaunt, is almost never called *Lancaster*, but simply *Gaunt*. There are too many royal earls & dukes of Lancaster & calling him Gaunt is an instant identifier.

However, if they lose a title, like through attainder, it is not appropriate to keep referring to them as *Lord Robert*, even if his daddy *was* an earl when he was born & then a duke before he lost his head (children of earls, marquesses, & dukes do get the style of *lord* or *lady* appended). Attainder means your goodies, & those of your descendents, are forfeit, end of discussion.

When you are no longer the son of a duke, you are just plain old *Robert* until royal favour falls upon your head again (if ever). Try going to court in those days & see if the monarch still calls you *Lord Robert*. Not done. *Master Dudley* it is. OK, he got tapped to be invested as a Knight of the Garter? Then he gets to be *Sir Robert*. It's the sole goodie he's got. You don't keep calling him *Lord Robert*! You especially don't call him *the Earl of Leicester* in an article about his first wife, who died 4 yrs before he was granted the title! Amy was never Lady Leicester.

WTH is this stupid *rule* that one may not call people by their first names? Seriously?

I certainly don't see medieval kings of England being called *Plantagenet* throughout biographical articles! Nor their queens being called by their country of origin! They're Edward & Philippa, not Plantagenet & Hainault, for pity's sake. First names are used for them in articles, & that's the proper way to do it. Do we say Henry VIII & his 6 wives, Aragon, Boleyn, Seymour, Cleves, Howard, & Parr?

It's ridiculous to shove modern US-only journalistic practice into historical encylopaedia articles (this is not done in the UK or the Commonwealth; they are still polite there & never refer to people by last name only in a news item, always calling them *Mr, Mrs, Ms, or Miss* as appropriate). Why is this a WP *rule*? It's stupid & it's not followed consistently in historical bio articles.

And what is this rubbish where *king* & *queen* & lesser titles are constantly capitalized, as in *The Queen did this* or *The Duke did that*? No. Not done. (Only in UK/Commonwealth papers for the sitting monarch, not dead ones.) You can refer to them as *the King of England* or *the Duke of Northumberland*, sure. But the title itself is never capitalised. Just the county/country part. *King* is not a proper noun. *England* is. *Duke* is not a proper noun. *Northumberland* is. The King of England is the only time it gets a capital letter. Not that difficult a styles rule!

Then they UN-captalise stuff that should be. Like, Queen regent or Queen consort. No. Both of them get capital letters, or neither of them does. It's Queen Regent or Queen Consort, or queen regent or queen consort. *Queen* not a proper noun, again, unless it is appended to something. It's a title. Therefore (with the exception of prepositions, of course), everything after it gets a capital letter if you're going to randomly capitalise *Queen*. If not, then it doesn't. But you can't capitalise it & then not do the same for its appendage.

Oh, & *the longer the paragraph, the better*? Seriously?

That goes against every rule of good writing! No one wants to run into a solid wall of text that goes on & on (as a long-winded person, trust me, I know this). It makes people skim & not read. Um, TLDR? The shorter the paragraph, the better, is what the rest of the planet uses, save for WP. That's nuts. I go past 7-8 lines, I get antsy & want to start breaking it up because it's too long. A paragraph shouldn't be any longer than that, tops.

Like, I saw that someone wanted people to look over a Wars of the Roses article before it was submitted for publishing. I love the WOTR. I've written a series of articles on it myself. It interests me. So I go over. And I must confess, I couldn't finish it (I am going to try to) in a single read-through because I constantly hit enormous walls of text.

Then I see articles where people are trying to edit them down because they've been told they're too long! Seriously?

If that's what it takes to get all the info on the subject into an article, it's not too long! Some things have more info than others. Tackling as lengthy a timeframe as the Plantagenet dynasty is not going to be a stub! And then telling them to take out the list of Plantagenet monarchs to cut length? What? That belongs in there! It's not a proper article without it. Why have a separate article for the list? What, is this Cracked?

This place is weird. It has stupid rules that only get followed *if* people feel like it (but Jesu forfend *I* suggest a deviation) & stupid code that's harder to learn than quantum physics. I dunno. Maybe I'll just become a spelling & grammar Nazi. At least that's easy to do, no coding required, & people don't yell at you for it. Well, not yet, anyway, I'm sure someone will. ScarletRibbons (talk) 21:20, 1 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, ScarletRibbons. Your question has been answered at the Teahouse Q&A board. Feel free to reply there!
Please note that all old questions are archived after 2-3 days of inactivity. Message added by David Biddulph (talk) 03:14, 2 May 2013 (UTC). (You can remove this notice at any time by removing the ((teahouse talkback)) template).[reply]

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Peter Hillary, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page National Geographic (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

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Nag, nag, nag. I was going to take it out anyway because I noticed it had already been linked in another section. Dusted. ScarletRibbons (talk) 23:41, 5 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, ScarletRibbons. Your question has been answered at the Teahouse Q&A board. Feel free to reply there!
Please note that all old questions are archived after 2-3 days of inactivity. Message added by öBrambleberry of RiverClan 15:22, 6 May 2013 (UTC). (You can remove this notice at any time by removing the ((teahouse talkback)) template).[reply]

Hello, ScarletRibbons. Your question has been answered at the Teahouse Q&A board. Feel free to reply there!
Please note that all old questions are archived after 2-3 days of inactivity. Message added by Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 21:44, 6 May 2013 (UTC). (You can remove this notice at any time by removing the ((teahouse talkback)) template).[reply]

Perhaps you saw the later responses to your question about referencing, but in case not, here are some basics. Typing <ref name=refname> (without quotation marks) will work fine, but <ref name=ref name> and <ref name=refname1> will not; the system only works when there's a single word, and it appears to think that "single word" means a group of consecutive letters or a group of characters inside quotation marks. Meanwhile, if you're using different pages from the same reference, you can omit the page number from the citation itself and then add it with ((rp)) after each copy of the citation. See what I've done at Bieker-Wilson Village Site, for example. Nyttend (talk) 04:22, 7 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Peter Hillary, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Asia-Pacific region (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

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Don't go blaming me for your crappy software. Maybe there wouldn't be an issue if y'all programmed it to *not* incl DABs, just articles. Problem solved & you, o annoying bot, are out of work. ScarletRibbons (talk) 15:35, 18 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Any amusing dealings with our resident plank recently?!

• Nah, but I expect said plank to show up shortly. I'm going to dare edit a royalty page *gasp*. Said plank does not like such things. ScarletRibbons (talk) 07:00, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Just saw your question at the teahouse. I know sometimes the helps doesn't help because I have trouble too, they are sometimes confusing. I am not a teahouse host and someone there may be able to answer better than me (they will respond to your question too) but this might help. See below where the image name is just typed in there? It is not a url it is the exact name of the image. Hope this helps a little better than my post at the teahouse.

{ {Infobox person |name = Casanova |image = Casanova_self_portrait.jpg |caption = A self portrait of Casanova ... |website = } }

I put an extra space between the two (( just so it wouldnt show up as a box here. Nice to meet you. Tattoodwaitress (talk) 08:15, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Nice to meet you, too, & TYVM :-D. This code drives me nuts! ScarletRibbons (talk) 05:06, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

PS> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippa,_5th_Countess_of_Ulster

Hello, ScarletRibbons. Your question has been answered at the Teahouse Q&A board. Feel free to reply there!
Please note that all old questions are archived after 2-3 days of inactivity. Message added by ~~JHUbal27 09:17, 20 July 2013 (UTC). (You can remove this notice at any time by removing the ((teahouse talkback)) template).[reply]

Hello, ScarletRibbons. Your question has been answered at the Teahouse Q&A board. Feel free to reply there!
Please note that all old questions are archived after 2-3 days of inactivity. Message added by Matty.007 09:10, 30 July 2013 (UTC). (You can remove this notice at any time by removing the ((teahouse talkback)) template).[reply]

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Robert Venables, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Carlingford (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

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Hello, ScarletRibbons. Your question has been answered at the Teahouse Q&A board. Feel free to reply there!
Please note that all old questions are archived after 2-3 days of inactivity. Message added by Yunshui ^雲_水 09:19, 13 June 2014 (UTC). (You can remove this notice at any time by removing the ((teahouse talkback)) template).[reply]

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that you've added some links pointing to disambiguation pages. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

Laurence Luckinbill

added a link pointing to Where The Heart Is

Meredith Lord

added a link pointing to Another World

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• Nothing wrong with either of those links. They point to the correct page, not a disambiguation page. If they're going there, then it's Wikipedia's fault. ScarletRibbons (talk) 10:59, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Joan of Lancaster, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Lancastrian. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

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• Yeah, yeah. Fixed. ScarletRibbons (talk) 10:55, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You are invited to participate in the 50,000 Challenge, aiming for 50,000 article improvements and creations for articles relating to the United States. This effort began on November 1, 2016 and to reach our goal, we will need editors like you to participate, expand, and create. See more here!

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Hello, ScarletRibbons. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

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Hello, ScarletRibbons. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

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Hello, ScarletRibbons. You have new messages at Talk:Edward IV of England.
Message added 19:00, 27 February 2018 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the ((Talkback)) or ((Tb)) template.

...SerialNumber54129^{...speculates} 19:00, 27 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Can't believe how long that's been sitting here before I noticed it! My bad. Sappening? I've been banned because they think I'm an evil tech genius. ScarletRibbons (talk) 20:21, 11 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, ScarletRibbons. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

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You posted a comment at Talk:Edward_M._Kennedy_Jr.#Cancer. Assuming you are correct, that cancer is over represented in "one small branch of the family", then the answer is oncogenes. They are now quite well known. Nick Beeson (talk) 16:24, 4 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That was interesting! I know you were here like 6 mos ago, but I was kinda busy in April....

Learning how to walk all over again. Long story short, weird illness dramatically escalated itself into massively invasive surgery, blood transfusions, + heavy-duty antibiotic "cocktails" to kill the pre-surgical sepsis resulting from dramatic escalation before it killed me. When I got a look at myself in a mirror 10 days after surgery, I was the whitest white girl EVER. I've never seen anyone THAT white who actually WASN'T dead. Add all that to being WINCHED out of bed & whisked off to PT, & we're talking fun times.

But I digress. I didn't want you to think I didn't have nicest manners by not thanking you for taking the time to amble over to my talk pg w/ that info. So....TYVM! :-) ScarletRibbons (talk) 05:58, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).

ScarletRibbons (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

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Request reason:

Caught by a web host block but this host or IP is not a web host. My IP address is _185.209.178.61______. However, What is My IP has my location as New York City, which is incorrect. Confused by that, why would it be 100s of mi away? And I just did 3 edits (1 to my talk pg) yesterday! Now I can't even edit my own Sandbox. I don't get/can't find the rest of the Template: Autoblock pg. Not a tech whiz. Plus checked list of active blocks & it says I am NOT blocked. More confused. Just wanted to edit an article riddled with spelling errors. ScarletRibbons (talk) 02:40, 10 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Decline reason:

Something has changed between the 8th and the 10th where it seems now like you are editing from a proxy, VPN or webhost, specifically provided by MaxiHost. As it looks like it's on the same computer, you should try looking for programs installed during that time. Disabling this will allow you to edit again. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 05:12, 11 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

---

If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the ((unblock)) template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

.

Have you recently changed the physical location at which you use Wikipedia?(I don't need to know where specifically) Are you using a VPN? 331dot (talk) 08:49, 10 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

But I haven't installed anything during that time frame! As I said, not a tech whiz. I'm not really sure what a proxy or webhost IS. I always thought a webhost was something along the lines of, well, Wikipedia, somewhere you could create pages. I have the same stuff on my laptop as I had on Oct 8th. I've added nothing new. What do you want me to look for, when I haven't changed a thing? So the answer is simply NO, due to some tech glitch over which I have no control? The notice said I was banned till January! What happens then, more banishment? Because I have no idea what is causing this, so I can't fix it.

I have not changed my physical location recently, either. I've been living where I'm still at since 2018, and was capable of editing after I moved. I have no idea if I have a VPN. Internet comes with my apartment. It's the same connection I've been using since I moved in as far as I know. Also highly doubt, since it's in working order, that anyone would be tinkering with it on a weekend day.

I have not even been editing on Wikipedia since January 2020, because I almost died that month, spent a long stint in rehab after being discharged from the hospital, and have had a very lengthy recovery process from what nigh on killed me. Oct 8th was the 1st time since I got home that I've had a Wikipedia look-in. I tend to edit in spurts due to ill health in general, and then ignore Wikipedia for a while.

I am sorely disappointed in this decision. I generally keep to myself, fixing spelling/grammar errors, once in a while revamping an article that needs it. It's a nice little hobby. I'm so not a tech whiz, I don't even understand the block appeals process, and if I did, how am I supposed to do that when I can't edit anywhere but my own talk pg? ScarletRibbons (talk) 20:07, 11 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

PS> Just for the heck of it, I re-checked & my IP is apparently static & has changed. It also no longer says MaxiHost (whatever that is) but the correct ISP. Does this means I'm now magically unbanned? ScarletRibbons (talk) 20:34, 11 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 7 December 2020. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate in the 2020 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add ((NoACEMM)) to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:33, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]