User talk:SoilMan2007

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Welcome!

Hello, SoilMan2007, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question and then place {{helpme}} before the question on your talk page. Again, welcome! --arkalochori ^|talk| 02:41, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Contents 1 septic system vs septic tank 2 Your recent edits 3 Conservation tillage systems 4 Strip-till farming 5 Message to Kablammo and Cgingold 6 Proposed move 7 Introduction 8 Wikiproject classroom 9 Panicum virgatum

[edit] septic system vs septic tank

I support moving content from septic tank to septic system, but would like to hear from User:Velela as to why septic system was redirected by him in June 2006. -- Paleorthid (talk) 16:00, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Above, I envisioned a cut-and-paste approach. A quick check indicates that is not a good way to do it (I've been inactive for a bit, but should have rememmbered something that basic). Preferred is an administrative-level rename-and-move, and I've tagged the article talk page accordingly. -- Paleorthid (talk). —Preceding comment was added at 16:48, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks for your help with this. I'm sorry I'm not following the correct form. I'm new to all of this. Regards, SoilMan2007 (talk)

[edit] Your recent edits

Hi there. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. On many keyboards, the tilde is entered by holding the Shift key, and pressing the key with the tilde pictured. You may also click on the signature button located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you! --SineBot (talk) 17:12, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Conservation tillage systems

This is a good addition. The article would benefit from references to external sources. That would reduce the likelihood of deletion or merger of the article into another one. If you don't know how to add in-line cites yet, you can do this for internet sources: Just put the url between two brackets [] and add it after the proposition in the text for which it stands. I'll clean it up. Regards, Kablammo (talk) 01:43, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

And if you wish to add cites to written works which are listed at the bottom of the article, you can open the edit screen and place your cursor at the place in the text where you wish to add the footnote. Then move the cursor down below the edit box and select from the Wiki markup symbols beneath the box the <ref></ref>. That code will then appear in the edit box where you want to insert the footnote. Then move your cursor between the <ref> and the </ref> and place in there the author and page number. That will automatically generate a footnote to a notes section.

To add the notes section, just add a title for it, for example by adding a ==Notes== under the text, and underneath that add {{Reflist}}. The footnotes will then appear. (My apologies if you are already familiar with this.) Regards, Kablammo (talk) 01:58, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Here are some suggestions. First, review the Manual of Style, WP:MOS. There is a Wikipedia style which includes, for example, what the lead section should consist of, capitalization and bolding, headings and subheadings, use of the first person (which is deprecated), etc.

There is no single reference system; the important thing is consistency. But in-line cites are becoming more common and even required, so that the reader knows exactly what authority was used for each proposition. An example of the use of printed and internet sources, with in-line footnotes referencing those sources, is Turret deck ship, an article I recently expanded.

Look at Wikipedia:Citing sources, and especially the part about in-line citations. Among the approved forms are the Harvard system, which appears to be the system used at Sand-based athletic fields. If you want me to convert these to inline footnoted cites I will do that, but there should be page numbers for the paginated resources (usually books or other print resources, but also present in some .pdf sources). With page numbers I will go through and convert the article (or part of it, and let you do the rest) to footnoted references.

The content you are adding is good and adds value to Wikipedia as a general reference. It is easiest to add cites while you are writing the piece, as presumably the sources are right in front of you then.

Finally, if you want to keep this thread together, you can reply here. I've put your page on my watchlist. Kablammo (talk) 21:59, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Hello and welcome -- I see that you are new to Wiki. I thought you would like to know that I have just added 3 Categories to this article. They're at the bottom of each article, and help readers find other related articles. Without categories, it's much more difficult for readers to find an article in the first place, so it's always very important to come up with good categories. Best, Cgingold (talk) 23:52, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Strip-till farming

Hi again! Just wanted to let you know that I've "moved" (i.e. changed the name of the article) Strip-till to Strip-till farming to achieve greater clarity for readers. This is consistent with the related article, No-till farming. I also added the same 3 Categories that I used for your other article. Btw, you might want to take a look at those categories and see if you agree with my selections, or perhaps add another that makes sense. Regards, Cgingold (talk) 00:07, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Message to Kablammo and Cgingold

Thank you both for your generosity. I am working on the conservation tillage pages. I'm thinking it would be better to call this page tillage systems because there are 3 categories types, intensive, reduced, and conservation. More detail needs to be added. Regarding to the name strip-till farming. I think the official names for these are no-till agriculture, strip-till agriculture, and so on. But I can live with farming. I"m going to try work on how to correctly cite stuff. Thanks guys. Kind Regards, SoilMan2007 December 6, 2007.

[edit] Proposed move

SoilMan: Go ahead and rename the article. Your proposed name is more accurate, given the scope of the page. Go to the article, look at the top of the page, and select the "move" button. In the box that says "To new title" delete the old title and type in the new one. Put in a reason why in the next box, and then select the "Move page" button beneath it. The article will then be renamed.

You can do the same on the other pages, changing "farming" to "agriculture". The old page will still exist, but only as a redirect-- anyone who searches for the old name will automatically be redirected to the new one. Kablammo (talk) 03:48, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

One other thought-- there is already an article on Tillage. Do you think it and yours will cover the same ground? Kablammo (talk) 03:50, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I made the move but I didn't know there was a page called tillage. So I copied that information from tillage and put it at the bottom of tillage systems. But I"m not sure what to do about tillage. Thanks, SoilMan2007

You did the move fine. I should have mentioned that if you want to combine the pages, you should not just copy-and-paste one into the other. The existing tillage page has been around for a while, and has a history with a number of editors who have worked on it. If you paste the page into your article that history will be lost. Instead, why don't you work up your article, and then work your changes into the existing article. Another method is to set up a sandbox wherein you can make changes to an article and when finished add it to your mainspace. Should I set one up for you? (Once you combine the articles, you can rename the old article-- with your changes-- to the new name; the old name will stay as a redirect.) Kablammo (talk) 04:15, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, i've merged them and I"d like to combine it there. IF you could help, that would be great.

Thanks,SoilMan2007

I've moved my stuff on that page and how can i delete my tillage system page and forward it to tilllage. thanks, SoilMan2007

I turned it into a redirect. Now you can edit the combined page at Tillage and not worry about the old one. Kablammo (talk) 04:33, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. You think it would be for me to change the name of the tillage page to tillage system. Or should this be asked. Thanks, SoilMan2007

WEll, after looking at it, I guess I don't need to. Looks like the new page is now tillage systems. Thanks, Dude! SoilMan2007

You are welcome. Keep up the good work! Kablammo (talk) 04:49, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

One other comment on page moves: If you have just started an article you will not meet much resistance in renaming it to another name. But if others have edited it, or if the move may be controversial, raise it on the article's talk page first. There also are a number of Wikipedia projects which have standard naming conventions; if you propose a move on the article's talk page you will find out if your move is acceptable. Also take a look at Help:Moving a page for more information. Good luck (and good night!) Kablammo (talk) 04:56, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. Hey, Most of these contributions are from students in the class I'm teaching. I'd say its going pretty well. No vandalism so far and the quality is great! It really helps that there are people who are so generous with there time like you. Thanks again, so much. SoilMan2007

[edit] Introduction

Welcome. and Thanks for editing. I tend to watchlist soil-related articles, mostly looking for vandalism, which gets me looking at the article. I see you are doing a solid job editing, and jumping in on the discussions. You're picking up on where to place discussion points, using more edit summaries and such pretty quickly, so Thank you for that also. I'll be happy to assist as you learn the ropes and will watch your talk page. Consider posting questions at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Soil, which can be effective at times. Cheers! -- Paleorthid (talk) 06:01, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

And on non-soil related agricultural matters, you can post questions at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Agriculture. You may also wish to consider joining both of those projects. Kablammo (talk) 18:32, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks guys, I joined soil and will think about the other one. I just added one more of my students today but its still a bit messy. It's switchgrass. Have a great weekend. SoilMan2007

[edit] Wikiproject classroom

SoilMan: I thought you might be interested in this project: Wikipedia:WikiProject Classroom coordination. Last summer, several folks on the Minnesota Wikipedia project helped out a University of Minnesota composition class with Wikipedia articles; you may be interested in how that was handled. User:1013-josh/archive. Best wishes. Kablammo (talk) 19:21, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Kablammo: Thanks, I will read through this stuff. There is another page to (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:School_and_university_projects). I'm going to look through this stuff and fine tune some of the writing after the semester. Thanks, SoilMan2007 (talk)

Also see WP:EIW#Learning, WP:EIW#Research, and User:Teratornis/Tips for teachers. Does your school have its own school wiki? Your students could learn to edit there, before coming to grips with the added complication of dealing with all of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Any of your students who want to do serious editing should consider creating their own accounts, to make it easier for other Wikipedians to communicate with them. --Teratornis (talk) 18:34, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

And of course see WP:EIW#School. --Teratornis (talk) 19:18, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes I agree. Last semester went well. I hope to do better in the fall. SoilMan2007 (talk)

Another option is to have other Wikipedia users adopt your students. If we start this at the beginning of your semester, by the end of the semester your students should know how to edit on Wikipedia, in particular how to master the complicated procedures for citing references (WP:FOOT, WP:CITE, WP:CITET, and WP:EIW#Citetools). One of the biggest stumbling blocks on Wikipedia for new users is the need to cite references, and the fact that it takes a bit of effort to learn how to do it here. It's not rocket science, but you will need to master this and make sure your students do too, before unleashing them on articles. On Wikipedia we need more references from scientific journals, so your students could really help, if only they learn the right way to do it. If you have any questions, let me know. I've thought about making a screencast (training video) that shows how to create citations on Wikipedia, but reading the instruction pages isn't too terribly hard, just a bit tedious. --Teratornis (talk) 23:23, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Panicum virgatum

We still have some unresolved problems with the Panicum virgatum (i.e., Switchgrass) article, specifically with the references not following the correct format. Did you and your students understand the instructions in these pages: WP:FOOT, WP:CITE, and WP:CITET? If you have a student who is free to work on cleaning up the references, I can tell him or her what to do. I looked at the references you and/or your students added, and several are somewhat difficult for me to fix since they seem to be print references, and are not easily available on the Web. Online references are more convenient for other users to fix because we can use citation tools to easily create the {{Cite web}} template calls to cite them properly. To cite printed references properly, we probably have to have access to the printed books or papers, unless we can find them in Google Books or in our own local libraries. If you could tell us what library your students are using, that might help. --Teratornis (talk) 23:18, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

• I'm sorry for the delay. I'm a bit overwhelmed .... I have two papers due this week, one to review, and a talk to give. It seems like it never ends. Can you list here the references you can't find. I will try to track them down. I will also contact the student and request some help. She may have some time now that it is summer. can we communicate by email on this. Regards, SoilMan2007 (talk)

On Wikipedia there is no hurry. Since your students are doing most of the work, I can communicate with one or more of them. We prefer to communicate on talk pages because that keeps the discussion available for the other 7,284,438 users to see. Wikipedia is a mass-collaboration project, so we want to avoid backchannel discussions. Communicating on Wikipedia is the best way to communicate about Wikipedia because we can easily link to pages on Wikipedia, such as all the instruction pages I am citing. Is User:Lcodat the student who may have some time to work on the Panicum virgatum page? If you are at a large university, the odds are very high that someone in your area is skilled at Wikipedia editing and could provide hands-on help. There are WikiProjects for most of the states in the U.S. and some for smaller entities such as cities. If you see Wikipedia articles about things in your locality (schools, cities, sports teams, etc.), then there are probably local Wikipedians who could help your students, if your students do not have time to figure out how to learn the "Wikipedia way" of interacting with distant strangers. --Teratornis (talk) 00:13, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I have contacted and asked the former student to respond on line. I will also be checking this page and will help with the edits.

Thanks for looking into this. I will go through the citations and try to put them into citation templates. I'll make a list on Talk:Panicum virgatum of the references I either cannot locate, or cannot match up with the claims in the article they are supposed to sources for. --Teratornis (talk) 05:54, 20 May 2008 (UTC)