User talk:Sinsterud

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Hello, Sinsterud!

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Happy editing! Cheers, John Maynard Friedman (talk) 10:03, 29 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

--John Maynard Friedman (talk) 10:03, 29 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Edit summaries and minor edits

Please read WP:Minor edit (size does not matter: "not" to "now" is one letter but is not minor) and

Hello. Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. I noticed that one or more recent edit(s) you made did not have an edit summary. You can use the edit summary field to explain your reasoning for an edit, or to provide a description of what the edit changes. Summaries save time for other editors and reduce the chances that your edit will be misunderstood. For some edits, an adequate summary may be quite brief.

The edit summary field looks like this:

Edit summary (Briefly describe your changes)

Please provide an edit summary for every edit you make. With a Wikipedia account, you can give yourself a reminder by setting Preferences → Editing → Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary (or the default undo summary), and then click the "Save" button. Thanks! 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 00:31, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@JMF: I don't believe that this was necessary; it certainly comes off as WP:BITEy. First, WP:Minor edit is explanatory text, not policy. Second, removing whitespace and adjusting the layout of an image are explicitly allowed as minor edits; so would a minor spelling correction (e.g. "not" to "now" would qualify as a minor edit so long as the change does not affect the *article*'s meaning). In fact, I don't see anything in their edits to that article that would fail to qualify as a minor edit; and certainly not anything that amounts to such an abuse of the tag that it would warrant an instruction like this. Please be more careful when issuing these kinds of warnings to new users in the future, and take care not to revert well-meaning edits simply for being marked as minor. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 00:52, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Swatjester:, it would have been more appropriate to make your observations on my talk page. But since you have started here, I may as well continue:

For no obvious reason that I could discern, Sinsterud

introduced redundant spaces in named reference names
moved an image from right to left (if this was to optimise the layout for a particular screen size, then see MOS:IMAGELOC) and
merged adjacent paragraphs, incidentally burying a file: in the process.

I reverted the edits, not because of the use of the M tag [an error made by almost every new editor, including me no doubt], but because the last of the above errors disimproved the article. Yes, I could have just corrected that error (as I have now) but how would Sinsterud learn from the experience?

And fwiw, change "not" to "now" would not be a minor edit because it can change a key meaning of a section. The purpose of tagging an edit as "minor" is to tell page watchers that was an insignificant change that they can safely ignore – so if there could be any doubt, don't use it. The most common reason that new editors misunderstand M is because they think it refers to a brief change, irrespective of its significance.

Also, I am aware that edit summaries are not mandatory but they can pre-empt misunderstandings like this one, so it is good practice.

----

Sinsterud, welcome again to Wikipedia. I have no doubt (and never did) that your edit was made in good faith and that your intent was to improve the article. Nothing you did was significantly wrong, it just wasn't obvious why you did it – which made me think you have misunderstood something. Editors will frequently disagree about additions and changes, indeed we have a formal process called WP:Bold, revert, discuss for such things. It is part of what makes Wikipedia articles worth reading – because they have been forged from the work of many editors cooperating to reach a WP:CONSENUS. (Wikipedia policy shortcuts are written in capitals, it is just a convenient convention even though they look shouty.) 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:52, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your comment! I moved the images to better fit the layout of the article (tested on several devices). In my view, moving an image from left to right is a very minor adjustment. I apologize if any redundant spaces were added during the process. I will make sure to include comments with all my edits moving forward. Sinsterud (talk) 12:40, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@JMF Sinsterud (talk) 12:41, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Cite book

fyi, in {{cite book}}

you don't need to set language=en in en.wiki. No harm if you do, though. Just needless extra work.
Wikipedia doesn't endorse any particular bookseller, so it is best to avoid giving the URL of the Google bookstore. Except that sometimes you can get a reproduction of the precise page from Google, but in that case the correct approach is to use page= [<Google page URL> <page number>]
- A link to Archive.org is better still if they have it.
And if you are really keen, you can use Worldcat.org to get the OCLC for oclc=, which people where the nearest lending library with a copy is

𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:54, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]