User talk:Andrew Watson

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Tasks: start a new article • add basic, wanted or requested articles • add definitionsadd metadata • edit new pages

Welcome to the Citizendium! We hope you will contribute boldly and well. Here are pointers for a quick start. You'll probably want to know how to get started as an author. Just look at Getting Started for other helpful "startup" links, our help system and CZ:Home for the top menu of community pages. Be sure to stay abreast of events via Twitter. You can test out editing in the sandbox if you'd like. If you need help to get going, the forum is one option. That's also where we discuss policy and proposals. You can ask any administrator for help, too. Just put a note on their "talk" page. Again, welcome and have fun! John Stephenson (talk) 12:59, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Hello! and question about AE vs BE in metadata

Andrew, First of all, welcome to Citizendium!

I stopped by the Data_visualization article and I will be excited to see how you grow it. I noticed that the article was started using American English (AE) in its metadata--and in the spelling of the article name itself--but you seem to be using the British spelling, which is fine. Would you be okay, then, if I move Data_visualization to Data_visualisation and change the metadata to show it using British English instead? Just drop a note on my Discussion/Talk page so I'll know if that's okay. I also added some links to the article; but tell me if you'd rather I hold off on those kinds of edits for now.Pat Palmer (talk) 02:20, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

The -iz- variant is also used in the UK, but -is- is more common. Actually -iz- came first and the Americans retained it. There's a tendency to hypercorrect in some cases, e.g. it's supposed to be advertise on both sides of the Atlantic but you may see advertize. John Stephenson (talk) 11:26, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks!

Just dropping you a line to say thanks for your work so far - I hope you carry on here! Any problems, let me know. John Stephenson (talk) 10:44, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Images

Andrew, there is an "Upload file" link in the lower left. That will allow you to upload an image, and after you've uploaded, somewhere in the middle of the image page, it will also show you the code to paste into the article to add the image, something like this code which is from the article on Bottles:

   {{Image|Ship in a bottle Gaff schooner1.jpg|left|300px|Ship in a bottle (Gaff schooner)}}
Ship in a bottle (Gaff schooner)

In the above, there is first the image file name, then 300px is the thumbnail size, left can be changed to right, and the rightmost text is the caption.

The other issue to be aware of with images is licensing. if you created the images, just post them and (ideally) release them as public domain, which means others can reuse them. The menus should be clear on how to do that. But if from someone besides yourself, you'll need to make sure the image is licensed for reuse. One frequent source for images in an encyclopedia such as this is Wikimedia Commons (started to support Wikipedia but used widely by others also). I assume, for now, you'll be posting images you've created yourself, so licensing is easy enough. Let me know if you need any help.

Image uploads and positioning is one of the more tedious of wiki jobs, but the results can be very satisfying!Pat Palmer (talk) 17:46, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Write-a-Thon this weekend

This Sunday, we're getting together on the wiki for the first time in a decade to create and edit articles loosely themed on planets, stars, galaxies and cosmic entities - or anything that involves words like those! For more information, see What's a Write-a-thon? etc. Hope to see you there! John Stephenson (talk) 16:35, 7 January 2021 (UTC)