User talk:Profjsb

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Psychoanalysis edits
Psychoanalysis is the current subject of Article Collaboration and Improvement Drive, which attracts editors like me to improve an article. Your last 5 edits have undone many of the corrections we have done, so I disagree - while appreciating your previous contributions to the article. I have little training in psychoanalysis, but my objections are about Wikipedia style, not science. Wikipedia has agreed on a Manual of Style to give the finished product a consistent appearance.

The first such edit (click here) is to undo this edit (click here) by BorgQueen. She previously cited the WP:LEAD policy ("...concise overview..."), so you should at least mention her reason rather than simply revert such an experienced Wikipedia editor without explanation. Once again, this is about Wikipedia style, so scientific credentials are not the issue. You also unbolded the subject of the article, psychoanalysis. This bolding is required by Manual of Style, which states, "The first (and only the first) appearance of the title is in boldface...".

In the second such edit (click here), you were correct to add "Several researchers..." but you were wrong to sign your name. Signatures states: "Any post made to user talk pages, article talk pages, or other discussion pages should be signed. Edits to articles should not be signed, as signatures on Wikipedia are not intended to indicate ownership or authorship of any Wikipedia article. Rather, the edit history takes care of the need to identify edits with users."

The third such edit introduced a problem corrected by the fourth such edit (click here), but that edit also introduced another signature, once again in violation of Signatures. I'm unaware of a problem with the fifth edit.

Other than stylistic problems, thank you for your contributions to the article. Art LaPella 05:05, 22 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I would add to Art LaPella's comments that the sometimes bulky additions you, Profjsb, have made, do not contribute to conciseness of the article (one of Wikipedia's top criteria), and, in the absence of appropriate citations, read much like an essay rather than an encyclopaedic article. Please be concise and intelligible for the general public in your writing, and confine yourself to what can be directly supported by published sources, and reference it; explicitly avoid analysis or insightful review. Suggestions for what constitutes reliable sources are given in WP:RS and related guidelines. Thank you. Separa 12:19, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

from Profjsb
comments are not coming our right either -- sorry

I am grateful to those who set up the site originally, and apologize for not having learned all the wiki skills yet. I found the original data in the psychoanalysis section so "off" that I thought it was critical to immediately correct the content. It took many hours, for which I obviously am not getting paid, so the time element was a probem in getting the material into the article. there is much more to say, and I take to heart your advice to make it more user-friendly. That's an editing and rewriting task. I did delete some stuff that was too archaic or incorrect, but left the majority of the criticisms, although many are sort of fringey and polemic, etc. I may try to get a committee at one of our professional organizations to help.

I am a certified psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Medical School Professor, Supervising and Training Analyst, and Fellow of the International Psychoanalytical Assn. I work all week and teach, and am writing my second book, so don't have a lot of free time. However, I plan to try to learn more of the formatting skills and eventually clean up the references, etc. I will ask my son, who is an engineering student who uses wiki, to help me learn more over thanksgiving.

I am slowly trying to learn the referencing stuff, but it is all new, and when I have tried it, it doesn't seem to come out right. . I think it might be good if somewhere you had a page that said something like,

"To add a reference to the end of a page, do this . . . . ." and "To put in an embedded reference, do this . . . . ". Right now, the instructions are a bit opaque. I have looked at the templates, but when I use that format, I get stuff in the text that says "template" etc. It took me over 10 minutes just to figure out how to respond to your comments!

Anyway, thanks for your comments. I will continue to persevere, will look forward to your editing advice and criticisms, and will both revise and add references as we go along.

Sincerely,

Jerome S Blackman, MD Virginia Beach


 * Some paragraphs for your son to study: "To add a reference to the end of a page" probably means "External links": see Help:Link (and ignore the CSS stuff). "embedded reference" probably means Help:Footnotes. If using a template produces the word "template" then you probably don't know about the curly brackets { and } to the right of the "P" on your keyboard, so copy into the edit page of Sandbox and see what happens. (Copy the brackets and the template name "Contradict", not the "nowiki" on this edit page.) To correct the "I am grateful" paragraph: Remove the space before the "I". Art LaPella 05:16, 1 November 2007 (UTC)