Please sign your messages on talk pages with four tildes (~~~~). This will automatically insert your "signature" (your username and a date stamp). The button, on the tool bar above Wikipedia's text editing window, also does this.
If you would like to play around with your new Wiki skills the Sandbox is for you.
Hey, just got your note and it said you were looking for some help. Just dropping by with some suggestions. One thing you can do if your just kinda listless and don't know where to pitch in and help out is with some of our backlogged cleanup tasks. You could help categorize articles, such as those found at Category:Category needed. You could help "wikify" articles by making sure they use wikilinks properly and they are properly organized into sections. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikify. There's actually a whole bunch of open tasks you can find at Wikipedia:Community portal. I hope this gives you a start. If you need more help or ideas, feel free to drop me a note anytime! --Jayron32.talk.contribs00:42, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Looking good so far! This is how one gets into Wikipedia, and you seem to be off to a good start. You asked about vandalism; tools for helping fight vandalism can be found at Wikipedia:Recent changes patrol and Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit, which are some WikiProjects devoted to cleaning up vandalism. The best way to catch vandalism is to check in to the Special:RecentChanges page, which lists all recent edits to the 'pedia. Look for anything suspicious. I have also written a little guide myself, which can be found here. You could also read Wikipedia:Cleaning up vandalism, which is a more general guide. Good luck, and as always, if you need any help, let me know. --Jayron32.talk.contribs19:06, 21 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Focus is the thing that gets all of us at Wikipedia. My suggestion is to find a topic you enjoy or are interested in, and work on bringing an article up to Good article status or featured article status. The trick is finding a topic which is likely to have lots of stuff out there in the world, like lots of good high-quality references, and to rewrite an article here at Wikipedia on that topic which is lacking those references and which needs general clean-up. As always, feel free to ask if you need more help! --Jayron32.talk.contribs00:53, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've added the welcome screen above, which has a lot of links to useful stuff. Not quite sure what you need to know, from your question - if the welcome screen doesn't lead you to any answers, please ask something a bit more specific. Good luck! PamD (talk) 10:09, 21 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
re: Patrolling
Heh, thanks very much :). I see you're using Twinkle, so considering that you are quite new this is probably a good place to start. You may already be, but try patrolling edits from newbies contribs. Also, some other useful tools (like Twinkle) are Mike's Wiki Tool, Lupin's anti-vandal tool (I personally find this one very good) and Twinkle (which you're already using). Once you become a more established user more options will become open to you (such as rollback and huggle), but I'd suggest getting a few hundred edits first (which you're well on track to). Keep up the good work - Kingpin13 (talk) 07:59, 25 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hi there again StNicksRocks, just a note about talkbacks, I see you used one at User:Ltwin's talk page, but you forgot to put in a link to your talk page. Where it says, "your username" replace that with your username, so in your case "StNicksRock", to have a finished result of {{Talkback|StNicksRocks}}. Cheers - Kingpin13 (talk) 15:17, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, personally I don't, and just place the message on the other user's talk page, but some users place their replies on their own talk page, and then the other user doesn't get the "You have new messages" banner, so they might not realise that they do. But if you use a talkback it means that they do get the banner, and that they knowto look - Kingpin13 (talk) 05:16, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Vandalism cleanup
Hehe, okay, sleep well. When you get back, you may want to requestrollback, I have a feeling you'd probably get it now, but don't forget to read the links on the WP:RFPERM page. Rollback allows you to revert vandalism faster, and use tools which require you to have rollback, such as huggle. It also means you have to apologise all the time for reverting people when you accidentally click it from your watchlist ;) - Kingpin13 (talk) 07:41, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I'd like to invite you to participate in the Guild of Copy Editors July 2010 Backlog Elimination Drive. In May, about 30 editors helped remove the {{copyedit}} tag from 1175 articles. The backlog is still over 7500 articles, and extends back to the beginning of 2008! We really need your help to reduce it. Copyediting just a couple articles can qualify you for a barnstar. Serious copyeditors can win prestigious and exclusive rewards. See the event page for more information. And thanks for your consideration. ɳorɑfʈ Talk!15:21, 10 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The Guild of Copy Editors invites you to participate in their September 2011 Backlog elimination drive, a month-long effort to reduce the size of the copy editing backlog. The drive will begin on September 1 at 00:00 (UTC) and will end on September 30 at 23:59 (UTC). We will be tracking the number of 2010 articles in the backlog, as we want to copy edit as many of those as possible. Please consider copy editing an article that was tagged in 2010. Barnstars will be given to anyone who edits more than 4,000 words, with special awards for the top 5 in the categories "Number of articles", "Number of words", and "Number of articles of over 5,000 words". See you at the drive! – Your drive coordinators: Diannaa, Chaosdruid, The Utahraptor, Slon02, and SMasters.
The Guild of Copy Editors invites you to participate in their November 2011 Backlog elimination drive, a month-long effort to reduce the size of the copy edit backlog. The drive begins on November 1 at 00:00 (UTC) and ends on November 30 at 23:59 (UTC). We will be tracking the number of 2010 articles (and specifically will be targeting the oldest three months), as we want to copy edit as many of these as possible. Barnstars will be awarded to anyone who copy edits more than 4,000 words, and special awards will be given to the top 5 in the following categories: "Number of articles", "Number of words", and "Number of articles of over 5,000 words". We hope to see you there! – Your drive coordinators: Diannaa, Chaosdruid, The Utahraptor, Slon02, and SMasters.
Elections are currently underway for our third tranche of Guild coordinators. The voting period will run for 14 days: 00:01 UTC, 16 December – 23:59 UTC, 31 December. All GOCE members, as well as past participants of any of the Guild's Backlog elimination drives, are eligible to vote. There are five candidates vying for four positions. Your vote really matters! Cast your vote today.
We have reached the end of the year, and what a year it has been! The Guild of Copy Editors was full of activity, and we achieved numerous important milestones in 2011. Read all about these in the Guild's 2011 Year-End Report.
Highlights
Membership grows to 764 editors, an increase of 261
Report on coordinators' elections
Around 1,000 articles removed through six Backlog elimination drives
Thank you for your recent submission to Articles for Creation. Your article submission has been reviewed. Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. Please view your submission to see the comments left by the reviewer. You are welcome to edit the submission to address the issues raised, and resubmit if you feel they have been resolved.