User talk:ObscureAuthor

Complain about me here, or thanking me would be nice, too. -- ObscureAuthor 04:21, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Great improvement on The Saga of Eric the Red! --Menchi 04:14, Aug 27, 2003 (UTC)

Greetings
Welcome Morgan,

You have done a good job so far in Wikipedia (a.k.a. 'Pedia or WP). I can see that you're a serious Wikipedian interested in improving our project. If you stay for a while, you'll discovered that collectively, we're a cooperative and friendly community. We are all here to learn, and hopefully can give something back. If you have questions or doubts of any sort, do not hesitate to post them on the Village Pump, somebody will respond ASAP. Other helpful pages include:
 * How does one edit a page
 * Manual of style
 * Naming conventions

Just keep in mind that while relevant discussions and constructive criticisms and are welcome, unproductive and/or destructive insults are not (see Wikiquette & Neutral point of view).

Who knows? Perhaps you'll soon become a Wikipediholic in the list of Most active Wikipedians! :-) --Menchi 04:29, Aug 27, 2003 (UTC)

Singular/plural
Encyclopedia articles are in the singular (despite the topic may have counterparts everywhere, e.g. "country", not "countries") -- unless the subject is a collective, e.g., the "Nereids" and the "Eight Immortals". (More @ Naming conventions)

However, those rules apply to "actual article". As you have discovered, we have redirects as well, where naming rules do not apply. They are there for convenience of wiki-linking.

So, Chambers of commerce will need to be moved to Chamber of commerce. You can do this by just clicking on "Move this page". (Beforehand, I, however, deleted Chamber of commerce in this case, because you made two edits to it. The system prevents moving if the target has more than one edit in history.) Drop me a note if there's a problem. --Menchi 05:08, Aug 27, 2003 (UTC)

Oops, I forgot to delete it. :-D It is a common noun with small-c's, right? --Menchi 05:17, Aug 27, 2003 (UTC)

You said that you were accidentally logged out after your 1st major contrib (John Murrell (bandit)), but would like to like the blame/claim. I believe developers could somehow systematically merge IP with logged in names. But since you have no major contri history in that IP, that may not be necessary. What I'll do is manually delete that page, and you log in (make sure that! See if you have "This is a minor edit" button -- don't click that though) and re-post that article. Will that work for you? --Menchi 01:26, Aug 28, 2003 (UTC)

Alright. Deleted. --Menchi 01:29, Aug 28, 2003 (UTC)

John Murrell (US) comments
I'm having a look now (I snagged a copy before it was deleted). Looks good so far. - Hephaestos 01:30, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)
 * Couple points: time frame and country of origin, and a description of why Murrell's famous, should go in the first paragraph. Also Google informs me that John Murrell is "one of Canada's foremost playwrights" so this will probably have to be disambiguated at some point. - Hephaestos 01:33, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)
 * Very good article! Thank you.  All I can see it needs now is some very minor copyediting, I might do that either tonight or tomorrow.  Well done. - Hephaestos 01:48, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)

As Hephaestos points out, birth-death date (approximately if unknown), occupation, and nationality are very useful in the introductory paragraph. It is very NPOV to point out that his famous finger and toes are "reportedly real". Good job!

There's one thing I'm not sure if is encyclopedic: The conclusion that "Of it all, only one thing is absolutely certain: Anyone who speaks with authority about John Murrell doesn't know the whole story." It's certainly 100% true, and it's very humorous! :-) But maybe the humour is better suited in a biography-book, and not so much in a biography-encyclopedia. However, there are those Wikipedians who think humour is appropriate in encyclopedia like it is necessary in some books. Either way, so long as the humour is good-natured and don't turn vicious and offensive, I think you won't run into much opposition here.

I enjoyed reading about this unusual and mystical thief. A very appropriate choice to include in Wikipedia. Thanks for the informative article, your efforts are appreciate in Wikipedia! :-) --Menchi 01:53, Aug 28, 2003 (UTC) p.s. You don't need to "erase" your old messages in other's Talk. Most people have a trimonthly cleanup/archiving or something like that. :-)

Disambiguation
Disambiguation pages can be made like John Smith. (You don't need that intro explaining its popularity in this case though). Move (not copy-&-paste) John Murrell (bandit) to John Murrell (__something__) first, I did a stub on the playwright: John Murrell (playwright)

More info on disambiguation, see Disambiguation. --Menchi 02:07, Aug 28, 2003 (UTC)


 * You've done the disambiguation and the moves (several times) -- which most newbies don't want to or are afraid to try. And you've been here for less than a week! :-)


 * One small thing: I renamed John Murrell (bandit) to John Murrell (bandit), because the playwright is American too. He has dual citizenship and is unlikely to have denied himself as American. --Menchi 05:41, Aug 29, 2003 (UTC)

Natchez Trace feedbacks
Natchez Trace..bravoArk30inf 05:02, 29 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I did one on Windsor Ruins which is right near there. The whole area is haunted with history.Ark30inf 05:17, 29 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Sure thing. That reminds me, I forgot to do the copyedit on the other one. :) - Hephaestos 05:06, 29 Aug 2003 (UTC)
 * Great article! - Hephaestos 06:04, 29 Aug 2003 (UTC)

You make an old trail sound exciting! Well, I'm sure it should be, but I've never been there, so all I have are other travellers' words!

The photo doesn't work. Btw, are you having problem with of the John Murrells? --Menchi 05:19, Aug 29, 2003 (UTC)


 * The photo works now. --Menchi 05:57, Aug 29, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks, I am going to concentrate pretty much on Arkansas until it gets to a decent state. Sooner or later I will put it together into a history of Arkansas. Not a great deal has been done on the South. Talk to you after the weekend. Cheers.Ark30inf 20:20, 29 Aug 2003 (UTC)

John Murrell (bandit)
In doing a little research on organized crime, I came across the article on John Murrell that you authored. I've had a little trouble coming to a solid definition of a "land pirate." No luck on the search engines or dictionary sites. Do you have any idea where I can find one? Thanks Arx Fortis 03:02, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLPs
Hello ObscureAuthor! Thank you for your contributions. I am a bot alerting you that 1 of the articles that you created  is tagged as an Unreferenced Biography of a Living Person. The biographies of living persons policy requires that all personal or potentially controversial information be sourced. In addition, to ensure verifiability, all biographies should be based on reliable sources. If you were to bring this article up to standards, it would greatly help us with the current Category:All_unreferenced_BLPs article backlog. Once the article is adequately referenced, please remove the unreferencedBLP tag. Here is the article:

Thanks!--DASHBot (talk) 05:06, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Frankie Avalon -