User talk:Afrikaans speaker

Welcome

Hello, welcome to Wiktionary, and thank you for your contributions so far.

If you are unfamiliar with wiki-editing, take a look at Help:How to edit a page. It is a concise list of technical guidelines to the wiki format we use here: how to, for example, make text boldfaced or create hyperlinks. Feel free to practice in the sandbox. If you would like a slower introduction we have a short tutorial.

These links may help you familiarize yourself with Wiktionary:

• Entry layout (EL) is a detailed policy on Wiktionary's page formatting; all entries must conform to it. The easiest way to start off is to copy the contents of an existing same-language entry, and then adapt it to fit the entry you are creating.
• Check out Language considerations to find out more about how to edit for a particular language.
• Our Criteria for Inclusion (CFI) defines exactly which words can be added to Wiktionary; the most important part is that Wiktionary only accepts words that have been in somewhat widespread use over the course of at least a year, and citations that demonstrate usage can be asked for when there is doubt.
• If you already have some experience with editing our sister project Wikipedia, then you may find our guide for Wikipedia users useful.
• If you have any questions, bring them to Wiktionary:Information desk or ask me on my talk page.
• Whenever commenting on any discussion page, please sign your posts with four tildes (~~~~) which automatically produces your username and timestamp.
• You are encouraged to add a BabelBox to your userpage to indicate your self-assessed knowledge of languages.

Enjoy your stay at Wiktionary! --Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:10, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Alphabetisation

In entries, Translingual comes first, then English (because this is English Wiktionary), then all other languages alphabetically. So Afrikaans follows English. Thanks! --Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:18, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

OK, I've fixed them all. Also, make sure you get your translations right, please. Tsjad is Chad in English, for example. --Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:32, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Checking your edits

It might interest you to know that all new edits show up on a list (labeled as "recent changes", on the side of the page), and there's an extra flag for admins to keep track of whether an admin has checked them. That means that most edits get checked pretty quickly for basic formatting errors, although we tend to leave matters of language content for those with knowledge of the language in question. The huge volume of stuff to be checked means people don't always stop to explain things- which can be unnerving. Your error rate is not bad at all: it's better then mine, when I started actively editing 6 months ago (though my range of edits was a bit more ambitious). There's a huge amount of information to absorb in order to do basic stuff, but you can contribute quite a lot even so.

My best advice is to read all the pages linked to in the welcome message, learn from corrections to your edits, and don't take things personally- they're rarely meant that way. Honesty and willingness to learn go a long way here, even if a lot of people here aren't good at letting you know how you're doing when you're not making mistakes. Chuck Entz (talk) 20:58, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Right. My knowledge of the language isn't that what is in question. My knowledge of Wiktionary format is. I'll have a closer look at our current batch of Afrikaans words (and Dutch too, I could probably help out there) and the things at the top of my page, and I'll start filling in some glaring omissions in no time. --Afrikaans speaker (talk) 14:21, 30 July 2012 (UTC)