User talk:Landon Blake

Welcome!

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 CZ:Getting Started for other helpful "startup" links, and CZ:Home for the top menu of community pages. Be sure to stay abreast of events via the Citizendium-L (broadcast) mailing list (do join!) and the blog. Please also join the workgroup mailing list(s) that concern your particular interests. You can test out editing in the sandbox if you'd like. If you need help to get going, the forums is one option. That's also where we discuss policy and proposals. You can ask any constable for help, too. Me, for instance! Just put a note on their "talk" page. Again, welcome and have fun! Jitse Niesen 12:30, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I have created a personal sandbox for you

Landon, I have taken the liberty of creating a personal sandbox page for you. To access your sandbox, just click on the link labeled My sandbox in the upper, left-hand corner of your User page. Once you get there, you can click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the page and you can:

• Practice writing articles in the Wiki markup language.
• If you already know the Wiki markup language, you can draft any articles you want to write and keep changing them until you are completely satisfied with them ... and then you can create a new article by cutting and pasting the sandbox article into the new one.
• You can invite other Citizens to visit your sandbox, review a prospective article that you wrote in sandbox, and ask for their comments/critique before you proceed to cut and paste it into a new article.

Don't know what the Wiki markup language is? Click ==>CZ:How to edit an article. Another excellent way to learn the Wiki markup coding is to click on the "Edit" tab at the top of any article and see how the markup coding was used there.

Enjoy! Milton Beychok 17:23, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I am going to let Howard answer your last emailed question

I am going to let Howard answer your question since it is his way of doing things and I might just confuse you.

If you have looked at some other articles, you will note that each Main article is part of a "cluster" that includes a number of "subpages" named "Related Articles", "Bibliography", "External Links" and sometimes others as well. When the main article is finally created with the {{subpages}} written at the very top, tabs with those names will appear above the main article. Then those subpages, when created by you and with {{subpages}} written at the very top of each of them, will be ready for use. I know it is all confusing at the moment ... a few weeks from now, it will be second nature. Once more, studying some other articles first is a good idea. Milton Beychok 20:47, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Apologies if I misled you; I was taking it a step at a time. If you look at Public Land Survey System now, you will see that those subpages show up on the main page; I filled out the metadata template. It's tricky to get to the metadata template; the simplest way, from the main article page, is to click on "Talk", then, at the top right, click on the "M" in a circle. That will take you to the rendered metadata page, which you can then edit to see how I filled in fields.

Also, click on the Related Articles tab. You will see that the various definition-only entries you created now show up as black names to which you can link in articles, as, for example, Land surveying. The article pages have magic that copies the definition into it. You can start adding article text to the main pages, although the definition will show at the top until the metadata template is created. Howard C. Berkowitz 21:30, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I see you managed to move Cadastral Systems to Cadastral systems, which is consistent with the naming conventions — great! Not being familiar with the topic, I didn't know if it might be a company name, for which capital C-S would have been appropriate. Many people don't pick up on those conventions and I'm happy to see you have.

Once the cluster/metadata is created, moving things can be tricky; don't hesitate to call for help. Howard C. Berkowitz 22:00, 24 March 2009 (UTC)