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)

Please review these titles

Landon, this is about the red-colored titles (of articles not yet written) in the Relates Articles subpage;

• Order of Survey: Should it be "Order of survey" ?
• Swamp and Overflowed Lands: Should it be "Swamp and overflowed lands" ?
• Fraudulent Surveys: Should it be "Fraudulent surveys" ?
• Public Land Survey System, History: Should it not be "History of Public Land Survey System" ? Or even better, should it just be a section of the main article? A good many of our articles include a History section in the main article.

Landon, the only reason why I raise the above questions is (as Howard and I have mentioned) that it is a bit of a hassle to change titles later when those unwritten (red-colored) arrticles are written. Milton Beychok 22:32, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Howard, I note that Landon redirected the definition subpage of "Cadastral Systems" to "Cadastral systems". But I see that the lemma article "Cadastral Systems" (black colored) in the Related Articles subpage and wonder if that lemma article needs to be changed or moved to "Cadastral systems" as well. I guess this is one of the reasons I like to write the main article first and then get into the tedious detail of the subpages. I have never bumped into lemma articles before.

Also, now that we are discussing a specific article, should we not move this converstion to the article Talk page? To that end, I am copying some of this page to the PLSS article Talk page. Milton Beychok 22:32, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Your watchlist

Landon, if you go to your new article Public Land Survey System and click on the "watch tab" on the top, from then on you can keep up with changes made by other people in the main article and with new messages on the article's talk page by simply clicking on the "my watchlist" tab at the page top. You can place any article in CZ on your watchlist whether or not it is one you created. For example, I have over 100 articles on my watchlist. Just thought you might want to have this info. Milton Beychok 23:52, 24 March 2009 (UTC)