User talk:Dr.Rivers

Comment on recent edit
Hi, Dr.Rivers. I'm concerned that your latest edit on 2014 Oso mudslide could be WP:OR, and may violate WP:NPOV, as it could be interpreted as "Wikipedia says that logging contributed to the disaster." This section is well written, and all the citations support the process explained here, but you give no citations of secondary sources stating or speculating that logging contributed to this particular landslide. The section could be useful in the general landslide article, but I'm dubious it belongs here. Not yet, anyway.

I'm also posting this comment on the talk page for discussion. Please reply there. Thanks. - Gorthian (talk) 21:01, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm intrigued that someone so new to Wikipedia, with only 57 edits to their credit and having edited really only one article is so versed in Wikipedia policy and guidelines and is handing out warnings to other editors, Lattetown. -- Winkelvi ● ✉ ✓ 00:42, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

I assume you mean you're surprised that new a editor to Wikipedia actually read the MOS & CITE that you so kindly pointed out ;) The great thing about a community of editors is that's it's not just the view of one person (whether new or not) but of several, as Gorthian  also kindly pointed out, Winkelvi -- Lattetown

I'm concerned that the new logging effects section could be WP:OR, and may violate WP:NPOV, as it could be interpreted as "Wikipedia says that logging contributed to the disaster." This section is well written, and all the citations support the process explained, but there are no citations of secondary sources stating or speculating that logging contributed to this particular landslide. The section may be useful in the general landslide article, but I'm dubious it belongs here. Not yet, anyway. - Gorthian 21:05, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, both my concerns were addressed by Lattetown while I was writing the above. I'm really too slow of an editor to be working on current events; I'll go back to copyediting now. ;-) - Gorthian 21:17, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Gorthian, Lattetown and Winkelvi. Thank you for your constructive comments. I am revising the section based on your input and will resubmit something shortly, which I encourage you to review to ensure it addresses your concerns.

On a related note, the actual name of the landslide is the Hazel Landslide. It is just near the town of Oso, and thus the media have been calling it the Oso landslide. Further, the article really appears to be originally set up to deal with emergency information about the disaster, not to discuss the geology, history, land use impacts etc. of the slide. It seems to me it makes sense to create an Article titled "The Hazel Landslide" and this to redirect all of the non-emergency information over to that site, with a quick explanatory sentence near the heading. What do you think? Dr.Rivers 16:49, 31 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Skipping over the squalling (on your Talk page feel free to delete at will), it is an interesting idea to distinguish the site from the event. But they are so intimately connected that this seems impracticable. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:42, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Citation
Yikes, your citation templates at Oso are terrible! Okay, I am here to help. How much do you want to start with? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:05, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, not pretty. I use Zotero as a citation manager, and they set up the template so it is "easy to read" so if you have recommendation for changing the template in that program fire away, otherwise I can waade through the user manual. If you have another program, that is fine too, but it would be helpful it it can import Endnote citations (and if it is free!). -- Dr.Rivers (talk) 01:04, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

PS. I am following the recommended format described in the wiki page below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_sources_with_Zotero -- Dr.Rivers (talk) 05:07, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

The template illustrated at WP::Citing_sources_with_Zotero is just an illustration of a result. Unfortunately, it is an extremely poor example of a template. Please ignore it! I am going to give you a copy of my standard boiler-plate.

I don't know how you are using Zotero, but in your results (though I can't see how much of this is "Forestrystudent") I see two MAJOR kinds of problems. First, some of the templates have data values lacking any parameter to assign them to. In the Citation and Cite xxx templates, every argument (separated by the vertical bars) should be of the form "parameter = datum". I suspect this lack may be due to how Zotero is set up.

Second MAJOR problem: inappropriate assignment. Typically assignment of "NPR", "KUOW", or "Seattle Times", which are publishers, as the "last" name of an author. (Again, possibly FS, but still needs fixing.) Also, use of "coauthors=" (deprecated), and particularly cramming multiple authors into one parameter. Similarly, cramming "title=" with other data. If these result from Zotero it is likely due to misassignment of the data at the start.

Now it needs to be noted that citation is a very emotional topic at Wikipedia, with many styles, and many passionate advocates; it is wise not to argue about it. I will hazard to recommend the following.
 * For full citations use Citation templates (vs. Cite xxx templates).
 * It quickly becomes both tedious and difficult to have more than one full citation of a source. To "re-use" a citation use the Harv family of templates to create short cites. (Such as "Miller,1999".)
 * Formatting per the sample. (Which I may explain later.)

Here's my standard form, which I modify as needed. Note that "journal=" can be replaced by "newspaper=".

A couple of other comments. Many of these sources do have authors, which should be included. (Their names parsed into "firstx" and "lastx", of course.) Benda et al. 1988 is not acceptable here, as it is unpublished. And when citing a story that originates from the Seattle Times the original url should be used, not that of an aggregator.

Enough for now. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:52, 2 April 2014 (UTC)