User talk:Shanel

Come introduce yourself at the new users page. If you have any questions, you can ask there or contact me personally. (Donovan|Geocachernemesis|Interact) 03:06, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Trinidad and Tobago
I've created Category:Trinidadian_and_Tobagonian_recipes. Please add that category to the appropriate recipes. Kellen T 05:03, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Wikijunior Solar System Proofreading
Shanel,

Thanks for your offer to help. Please, just read the instructions and dig in! The "assignments" are at Talk:Wikijunior_Solar_System/Pluto/Proofreading, and you can follow the proofreading process link to get more.

If you think the proofreading process is a dumb idea, please let me know.

I'm just scratching my head, trying to figure out how to make this work.

Thanks!

--SV Resolution 00:14, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Fact Checking
Shanel,

You did get busy -- Thanks!

When you do fact-checking, can you mark the facts you checked with the references? Right after the fact, you put and then in the references list, you put. In the Pluto module, you can see it in action in the 10th planet beyond Pluto? section. You can see more examples in the Solar System module. As for "Images Needed" -- whatever works well for each book, I guess. I think if we focus on one book at the moment, finish it, and then move on to the next, we can get 3 out the door. --SV Resolution 12:33, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Cutting Words -- Yay
Fewer words! Good work! It's easier to read without them. --SV Resolution 11:55, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Pictures Needed
I think you idea of creating a "pictures needed" page is a good one. I don't know the best way to get visibility for it, though. You might try contacting User:Theresa Knott, who has done a bunch of diagrams already. I have found that doing a google image search using site:nasa.gov turns up a lot of good stuff.

--SV Resolution 12:58, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Grade Level
Shanel,

I used WORD to check what grade level the material is on. I copy one section at a time into WORD and work on it sentence by sentence. It needs to be readable for 4th to 6th graders. This is tough. There is really too much stuff in this book. And some of it is very complicated. The printed form is going to have to have whole sections cut out. The online version will keep them in. WORD only checks how long words and sentences are, not how "hard" or unfamiliar they are. So I took a look at the information at http://simple.wikipedia.org and the suggested "simple" word lists. I ignored the stuff about weird grammer for non-native speakers. This is a tough task. Thanks for your help --SV Resolution 15:27, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Take a look at the help on the "Grammer" stuff. do a Help search on "flesch". Under "Readability Scores" you'll see the formulas for the Flesch Reading Ease score and the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level score. You can improve both scores by using shorter words and shorter sentences. It is hard. Often you get dramatic improvement by just chopping sentences to bits. So many people have contributed, there are a LOT of extra words in many of the articles, anyway. Some concepts are very complicated for the target age group. --SV Resolution 12:58, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Missing Information for Neptune
I would think that should be added before or during proofreading. Maybe I was a little quick to put up the proofreading notice on that one... --SV Resolution 20:24, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

You can see Talk:Wikijunior_Solar_System where the grant-writer, Danny Wool, says we should be done with the proofreading process already, so we can publish it on October 3. Just a tad optimistic on this one. If he could mobilise all of the Wikipedia fact checkers and copyeditors, and bring in the simple english team, maybe. --SV Resolution 22:53, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

References from Wikipedia
I don't think wikipedia is a citeable source, because anyone can change anything at any time. In any case, that article does not show any evidence that it has been fact-checked. I consider the NASA websites to be citeable sources, because NASA employs experts to write them. --SV Resolution 13:46, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Uranus and Grade Level -- tough work
I was just looking at the work you did on Uranus and its moons. Was that uranus or was it neptune. Lots of references to silicate rocks and methane ice. OUCH! That's a tough piece of text to start with. Imagine a bunch of restless 8-11 year old hurricane refugees trying to read this! I think it is OK to cut out some facts. We may have to cut out a bunch of moons entirely. 48 pages. We only have 48 pages. Ariel is made of ice and rocks and frozen gas. That's complicated enough! --SV Resolution 00:15, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Wikijunior Solar System/Mars references

 * ''I've Started adding references to this module, but I've done it the old way (Force of habit :)). Could you fix them for me when I'm done? Thanks! --Shanel 05:07, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Will do. Incidentally, any thoughts on the thread here and here? Best wishes, David Kernow 16:52, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikijunior "running out of steam"
While in general I support "meeting" together to try and come up with a strategy for Wikijunior, I would like to point out that Wikibooks does tend to go in cycles where a burst of activity happens on a Wikibook and then a temporary lull happens... sometimes for a couple of months. There has been a general increase in the overall number of active users over the past 6 months or so, particularly with Wikijunior itself.

I have most of the Wikijunior modules on my watch list, and it seems like most of the activity right now is concentrated on the Wikijunior Ancient Civilizations Wikibook, mainly out of interest in the subject and the fact that it has expanded considerably in terms of content so there is a general pull of both existing content and new stuff going into it. Wikijunior Solar System is hitting a brick wall of sorts, because the task at hand to raise the editorial standards rather than simply add new content is a much harder task.

Now here is a thought to crunch on for a little bit. Template:WJAOTW is incredibly stale as the last time I updated it was back in August. I'm wondering if we ought to instead turn it into an article of the week and concentrate on just one book module at a time, but really work hard on trying to bring it up to some sort of high quality standard. The real question here is how to go about deciding what to put in there. The articles I selected were purely arbitrary and based mainly on my own view of what needed work at the time for each Wikijunior book. Instead perhaps we could have a vote more like Wikipedia and the COTM page, or perhaps form an "editorial" committee to select the current direction for Wikijunior in terms of what book is very close to completion and to concentrate on what weak areas in the Wikibook need attention. Any thoughts on your part? --Rob Horning 09:17, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikijunior Dinosaurs
I can't really picture what you were talking about for the cover, so could you draw something in MS paint then? ;)--Shanel 17:45, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Behold my lack of artistic prowess! First of all I thought the divisions between could be kind of ivy or plants or trees or something, rather than merely a coloured line. Also the divisions wouldn't have to be perfect, if a particular bit got a little curvy that would make the division even more natural.

Example 1
The three eras are evenly divided, with a T-Rex (everyone loves T-Rex!) sticking out of his frame and seeming to come out of the page. And he's repeated in a sort of ivy ring thing (again "bursting" out of it) to keep the back cover interesting.

Example 2
This time the third era is on the back cover, with the stegosaurus' head (yes, that's what it's meant to be) sticking around to encourage you to look at the back and see the rest of him. I may have the stegosaurus' era wrong, it's been a while. Once again the dinosaurs would be drawn to appear to be looking out of the page right at you. As a dinosaur-mad child I thought books with this "bursting" style of cover were great, so I'm sure it would appeal to modern children too. Anyway, what do you think now? GarrettTalk 21:28, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the images. Under what kind of license does Demitrios Vidal give us to use the existant images from his page? I may start some work on the Velociraptor article and it would be great if I could upload one of his Velociraptor images.--Konstable 22:55, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

The Elements
You are listed as either an interested participant or voted for "The Elements" for Wikijunior New Book of the Quarter. This message is to let you know that we are starting work on The Elements because it was selected for 4th quarter 2006. --xixtas 03:22, 4 October 2006 (UTC)