User talk:Wickerkat

February 2015
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Hello, I'm Amortias. I noticed that you made a change to an article, Richard Thomas (author), but you didn't provide a reliable source. It's been removed and archived in the page history for now, but if you'd like to include a citation and re-add it, please do so! If you need guidance on referencing, please see the referencing for beginners tutorial, or if you think I made a mistake, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you. Amortias (T)(C) 18:11, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by a reliable source. Everything on this page leads to one source or another. I'm happy to provide links to anything you deem lacking.Wickerkat (talk) 00:19, 25 February 2015 (UTC)Richard Thomas


 * See the helpful information that has been added to your talk page up top. On the left, near the bottom, is "Reliable sources".  Click on it.  We'll all mostly be glad to help answer your questions.  Any old link, however, is not always reliable, so just giving us links isn't very useful. Choor monster (talk) 00:26, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm happy to adjust the content of my Wiki to link only to reliable sources—publishers, magazines, etc. instead of Amazon, I didn't realize that linking to Amazon was frowned upon. Could you revert the page back to what it was earlier today so I can fix my sources please? Wickerkat (talk) 00:30, 25 February 2015 (UTC)Richard Thomas

Richard Thomas (author)
Hi, I noticed you had never been welcomed, so I have put a welcome template at the top of this page with links to our policies and guidelines, and also how to ask for help.

Wikipedia is not a place to advertise, so we do not link to sites where books are for sale, such as Amazon; the ISBN is sufficient, since if a reader clicks on it they will be taken to a place where they can select between sites showing further bibliographic information, including Amazon and other booksellers. We also avoid in-line links to organizations, etc. In general, one link in the external links section to a person's official website and possibly one to the page for an organization they founded or are strongly associated with that does not have a Wikipedia page is sufficient.

What Wikipedia articles do need is independent references. In particular, this is the main way in which we establish notability; see here for the specific notability standards for writers, but also here for a summary of the general requirements for an article. If I have time I will search for newspaper reviews of Thomas' books and articles documenting his receiving awards, but if you can add any as references, that would be the most useful improvement of the article. Yngvadottir (talk) 18:38, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I'm fine taking out links to Amazon, I thought that was okay? Where would you prefer to have links direct? To publisher's websites? I'd be fine linking documentation of my work, my writing, my awards. What do you need? I've been reviewed by many places.Wickerkat (talk) 00:17, 25 February 2015 (UTC)Richard Thomas


 * At this point, this is an admission of Conflict of interest. You should basically not be editing your page and closely related pages.  You are encouraged to make specific suggestions on this Talk page, and let other editors make the call.
 * For starters, list here your reviews of novels, anthologies, and award=nominated stories. Choor monster (talk) 00:31, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Nobody knows my work or career as well as I do. Whoever just edited my Wiki called it Dark Horse Press when it is Dark House, for example. If I don't update my Wiki who will? Am I supposed to hire somebody to do that? Who maintains and edits King and Straub and Mieville? I don't understand. This is very frustrating. Wickerkat (talk) 00:35, 25 February 2015 (UTC)Richard Thomas

Can you explain what you mean by "For starters, list here your reviews of novels, anthologies, and award=nominated stories"? What do you want from me? Happy to provide. Thanks. Wickerkat (talk) 01:00, 25 February 2015 (UTC)Richard Thomas

As for my writing, I assume you don't want reviews that are just up anywhere. Here are a few things:

"Fireflies" long-listed for Best Horror of the Year "Chasing Ghosts" in Cemetery Dance, a top horror magazine (alongside Stephen King) http://www.cemeterydance.com/page/CDP/PROD/_cd072 "Maker of Flight" contest winner at ChiZine, a top indie publisher http://chizine.com/maker_of_flight.htm Disintegration isn't out yet, but I have blurbs from Chuck Wendig (calling it "a twisted masterpiece") and Jack Ketchum, Irvine Welsh and other are reading it. https://www.netgalley.com/catalog/show/id/60916 Staring Into the Abyss was blurbed by Stoker winners, got great reviews http://krakenpress.com/staring-into-the-abyss/ Don't know if Twitter matters, but I have 7,000+ followers there As for Stoker, yes, an anthology I edited is up, as is a collection I published, but my own work is in Qualia Nous (nominated) and in Horror 101 (nominated) http://horror.org/final-ballot-bram-stoker-awards/ Burnt Tongues, which I co-edited got good reviews: at Kirkus https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/chuck-palahniuk/burnt-tongues/ starred at Publisher's Weekly http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-60542-734-8 100 other stories in print, online, various anthologies and magazines.

Hope this helps. Wickerkat (talk) 02:05, 25 February 2015 (UTC)Richard Thomas

ALSO, here are interviews I've done with many different places: http://whatdoesnotkillme.com/category/interviews-all/ Wickerkat (talk) 02:10, 25 February 2015 (UTC)Richard Thomas


 * Thanks for those! Here's what I was writing; I'll leave it here unchanged to fill in more about what we mean by useful references.


 * I personally see no reason why you should not contribute to the deletion discussion, but please read those two links I gave you to the relevant notability pages. Wikipedia defines the term "notability" in an unusual way. Related to that, what is asking for is sources: where has your writing been reviewed and where can documentation of the awards be found? It helps if you can provide URLs, but offline sources are also fine: title of the article, periodical and date, author if any is named. I had trouble finding sources to add to the article partly because you have a common name (there's also someone who's written operas and musicals). I'm quite prepared to have it proven that I just failed to find the coverage. If anyone has written a complete article about you, or featured you prominently in an article, that would be really useful too. Those are the kinds of references we use as much as possible - third-party, not press releases or first-person bios. You can list them here or on Talk:Richard Thomas (author). But yes, under our conflict-of-interest policy, you should avoid editing the article itself. Yngvadottir (talk) 02:14, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

thanks, Yngvadottir. i read the links, i see what you mean now.

i provided links above which hopefully can give you the documentation you need. i liked to This is Horror announcement; Stoker finalist list; story/contest win at ChiZine; Disintegration at NetGalley with the two blurbs we have in; links to the Kirkus and PW starred review of Burnt Tongues—while Chuck Palahniuk was the big name on the book, I was an instrumental part of nominating the stories, editing, shopping and selling the collection, and working with Medallion; 100 stories published in various anthologies and magazines; i've done a lot of interviews, i listed those as well.

Staring at the Abyss was my last book, a collection of stories, here are links to some reviews: HorrorNews http://horrornews.net/67949/book-review-staring-into-the-abyss-author-richard-thomas/ British Fantasy Society http://www.britishfantasysociety.org/reviews/staring-into-the-abyss-by-richard-thomas-book-review/ Starburst Magazine http://www.starburstmagazine.com/reviews/book-reviews-latest-literary-releases/4740-book-reviewstaring-into-the-abyss hope that helps Wickerkat (talk) 02:32, 25 February 2015 (UTC)Richard Thomas
 * Yes, it does! I've added those. Got any reviews for the earlier books, articles about you, or more raves like that Starburst review? Yngvadottir (talk) 03:44, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

i don't have many article just about ME, as i've only been writing eight years, a lot of things are breaking out in 2014/215. i linked to a ton of interviews, if those count. there were more reviews of SITA, but lesser websites and magazines. i'll find some reviews of Herniated Roots and Transubstantiate and post them ASAP. thanks. 04:06, 25 February 2015 (UTC)Richard Thomas

Dark House Press, where I'm Editor-in-Chief was named Best Chicago Indie Press by Chicago Magazine in 2014: http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/August-2014/Best-of-Chicago-2014/Curbside-Splendor/ all of our three 2014 titles are in this stack. jack ketchum called The New Black, "the new high standard in dark fiction anthologies."

More Staring Into the Abyss: Book Junkie Joint http://book-junkie-joint.blogspot.com/2013/02/book-review-staring-into-abyss.html Dead End Follies http://www.deadendfollies.com/2014/08/book-review-richard-thomas-staring-into.html Herniated Roots: Dead End Follies http://www.deadendfollies.com/2013/08/book-review-richard-thomas-herniated.html

Transubstantiate Shroud Magazine http://shroudmagazinebookreviews.blogspot.com/2011/04/transubstantiate.html Dead End Follies http://www.deadendfollies.com/2013/11/book-review-richard-thomas.html Blacklisted http://backlisted.blogspot.com/2010/12/review-transubstantiate-by-richard.html

Unfortunately my first two books were with smaller presses, and they didn't do a great job with press, reviews, even the editing. 04:37, 25 February 2015 (UTC)Richard Thomas

OH, I'd like to start adding back in some short stories. I know with 100 published you don't want them all, so how do we select them? One of my latest is in Cemetery Dance #72, alongside Stephen King, I'd like to put that and some others back in as well. I'll add that, but let me know what the protocol is for new stories? If you don't want everything, what DO you want? Any advice here would be appreciated. 04:40, 25 February 2015 (UTC)Richard Thomas


 * As I mentioned below, listings of individual short stories generally don't belong in WP articles. Also note that individual blogs, like Book Junkie Joint and Blacklisted, are almost entirely useless for WP. Choor monster (talk) 13:15, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Can you find us an independent reference saying you've published more than 100 short stories? (or point out which of the ones now in the article say that). That would be a useful statement to have, but it's not the kind of thing that should be footnoted to your own website.

I've put in the Shroud magazine review and the Dead End Follies one for Herniated Roots. Since points out the others are just blogs, and since I'm not sure about Dead End Follies in that respect, I didn't put the others in; see Reliable sources. But the article now has a healthy ref. coverage. Up to you whether you post at the AfD; I differ from Choor monster on this&mdash;although the discussion is supposed to be policy-based and therefore tends to be offputtingly full of abbreviations, both linked and unlinked, I personally always expect editors to contribute to the discussion on articles they wrote. I'm still hoping a couple more non-blog references can be found to cement notability; right now it's looking as if it will be kept anyway, whether I concede or not, and we certainly have a much more encyclopedic article. Yngvadottir (talk) 21:28, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Yngvadottir. Disintegration is going to get a lot of attention this year, first book of a two-book deal with Random House Alibi. Got two good blurbs in, and Irvine Welsh, Jack Ketchum, and others are reading it now. Already got foreign and film rights interest in it. Takes time. I appreciate the help. Sorry about the blogs, wasn't sure, hard to tell sometimes what's a blog and what's a website/magazine/etc. Thanks for the refs, that's really amazing. You actually found a few things I'd never seen, so I really appreciate the help. I know this must be a ton of work, you're all doing a great job. 21:45, 25 February 2015 (UTC)Richard Thomas

Nominated for deletion
I looked for sources to cite in Richard Thomas (author), added a few, but could not find evidence that he meets our notability standards. So I have nominated the article for deletion. Please see Articles for deletion/Richard Thomas (author); the article will be discussed for at least one week and you are welcome to participate in the discussion, and especially to add further sources to demonstrate that the subject of the article meets our notability standards. Yngvadottir (talk) 21:31, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Why would you delete this? This entire page has been managed and cited for years. Notability standards? Are you kidding me? I've published 100 stories, six books, won awards. Wickerkat (talk) 00:15, 25 February 2015 (UTC)Richard Thomas
 * No one noticed. The discussion is going on at the relevant link, so far slightly in your favor.  You are encouraged to amplify here as suggested, you are basically not allowed to contribute to the deletion discussion. Choor monster (talk) 00:36, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

I didn't realize that a lot of the information was incorrectly posted, and excessive. What am I supposed to do when there is news? Am I to edit the page, or send that information to somebody else? I just wanted the page to be accurate, and my apologies if it was overdone. Not intentional. Wickerkat (talk) 00:47, 25 February 2015 (UTC)Richard Thomas


 * For the most point, we don't mention short stories unless they have achieved some tiny kind of notability. It does not have to be full article-worth-writing notability.  Being nominated for an award or included in a best-of-whatever anthology, or being published in one of the established general-literary magazines (from Harper's and New Yorker to Antioch Review and Tin House) should suffice.


 * You are definitely allowed to copy-edit articles you have a conflict of interest in, and revert vandalism. Dark Horse -> Dark House was absolutely a good edit, especially since Dark Horse is a well-known comic-book publisher.  If you get married or have children, adding your spouse by name or children by count to the infobox is acceptable.  I'm happy with you adding in forthcoming novels and anthologies you edit, but for the most part you should play it safe and post such information on Talk:Richard Thomas (author).  There are likely going to be several WP editors watchlisting that page for news, and you can also put request edit on the talk page.  (Not as effective as the bat-signal, though.)  Note that  with enough (professional) reviews, individual books of yours might qualify for their own articles, but please don't attempt that yourself.    Your own user page (that is, here) is normally not a good place, but it is fine for this kick-off discussion.


 * Keep in mind we are all unpaid volunteers, and this is hobby-time, and most of us have multiple WP interests, so turnaround can be sluggish.


 * I was incorrect about implying you are not allowed to contribute to the deletion discussion, but I do recommend you stay out of it. Remember that while no one is on your side, no one is against you either.  The discussants are all familiar with WP policy, and as such are fluently discussing your page with those issues foremost in mind.  Any contributions you directly attempt would probably come off as amateurish, if not downright irrelevant, and while we also pride ourselves on rising above newbie mistakes, it doesn't always work that way.  Your best way to contribute is to add requested information here, and let us third-parties translate it into quality, policy-based arguments in your favor. Choor monster (talk) 12:58, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Choor. I guess with short stories, when I look at MOST author pages, they have short stories listed. Even those that haven't done anything but get published. Heck, King has an entire Wiki dedicated to his short stories. Cemetery Dance is one of the top horror magazines, and several places I've been in have a <1% acceptance rate. Some also nominated me for a Pushcart prize. Could I/we just list original fiction in print?:

“Chasing Ghosts,” Cemetery Dance #72, January 2015 “Little Red Wagon,” Litro Magazine #138, October 2014 “The God of War,” Pantheon Magazine #6, July 2014 “Rapture,” Pantheon Magazine #5, March 2014 “Head Like a Hole,” Pantheon Magazine #4, November 2013 “Chrysalis,” Arcadia #6, May 2013 “Garage Sales,” Midwestern Gothic #9, April 2013 “Flowers for Jessica,” Weird Fiction Review #3, October 2012 “Tinkering With the Moon,” Gargoyle #58, May 2012 “Fireflies,” Polluto #8, May 2012 (Honorable mention, Best Horror of the Year) “Terrapin Station,” Pear Noir #5, January 2011 (Pushcart nomination) “Victimized,” Murky Depths #14, January 2011

I assume that would okay. Here are the anthologies, as well:

“Chrysalis,” XIII, Resurrection House, March 2015 “Bringing in the Sheaves,” Dead Harvest, Scarlet Galleon Publications, January 2015 “White Picket Fences,” Shadows Over Main Street, Hazardous Press, October 2014 “The Jenny Story,” Qualia Nous, Written Backwards, October 2014 (Bram Stoker-nominated anthology) “Because the Night,” Trouble in the Heartland, Gutter Press, October 2014 “Damon’s Truth,” Truth or Dare, Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing, October 2014 “Flowers for Jessica,” Gaia: Shadow and Breath, Pantheon Magazine, June 2014 “This is How It Ends, My Love,” Vignettes from the End of the World, Apokrupha, April 2014 “Bloodline,” Daddy Cool, Artistically Declined Press, February 2014 “The Wastelands,” Into the Darkness, Necro Publications, January 2014 “Trinity,” Reloaded: Both Barrels, Shotgun Honey, January 2014 “Playing With Fire,” Chiral Mad 2, Written Backwards Press, November 2013 “Victimized,” Best of the Horror Society 2013, October 2013 “The Culling,” Fear the Reaper, Crystal Lake Publishing, October 2013 “Dance, Darling,” Cipher Sisters, ThunderDome Press, August 2013 “Surrender,” The Booked Anthology, Booked Podcast, June 2013 “Rudy Jenkins Buries His Fears,” Slices of Flesh, Dark Moon Books, March 2012 “Say Yes to Pleasure,” Warmed and Bound, Velvet Press, June

Thanks so much. 14:14, 25 February 2015 (UTC)Richard Thomas


 * When I find an author with short story lists, I usually trim them into nothingness. For a good example, look at Jonathan Lethem.  A literary megastar, yet almost none of his individual stories/essays are listed, just his collections and a few that are high-profile.  The exceptions are pretty much restricted to the megamegastars, short story as a genre does not attract the same attention as novels. Choor monster (talk) 19:55, 26 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Okay, thanks. I guess I see A LOT of people with short stories listed. I'll add stories that have been nominated or awarded or winner of something to the that category then, if it's? I'll post up a few and leave it to your discretion. I guess with a place like Cemetery Dance, they have a 1% acceptance rate, so even getting in is like winning a contest. A few other places I'm in as well. Thanks. 19:52, 27 February 2015 (UTC)Richard Thomas

I suspected this was the case
Many aeons ago, I was HonSec of MITSFS - I figured out that you were notable pretty quickly, I think. It would have been a crime to delete your biography. Collect (talk) 21:20, 25 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Somebody just posted up some Amazon rankings, and I'm #62 in Most Popular Authors in Horror. http://www.amazon.com/author-rank/Horror/digital-text/157060011/ref=ntt_dp_kar_B003L29OEM#7 For a week where I won awards for Best Anthology (as editor) and Collection (as publisher) as well as getting four Bram Stoker Nominations (one for editing, one for publishing, one an anthology where I have a story, and one for an anthology where I have an essay) it stung a bit, I guess. LOL. But I see the points you all were making about citing sources, and what notability means, reputable reviews, etc. It was way too much before. Thanks. 23:44, 25 February 2015 (UTC)Richard Thomas


 * Note that Amazon rankings are not considered "reliable" for us. We are certainly allowed to notice them and take that as a strong hint that hunting for reliable sources will lead to an acceptable way to improve WP.


 * Yes, may not quality as "reliable" just pointing it out. 19:43, 27 February 2015 (UTC)Richard Thomas


 * Note that I indented your response to Collect. I do not know if you use a HTML editor or a visual editor.  In the former case, add colons, and in general we prefer nesting.  In you use a visual editor, I have no idea how to indent more, but it should be obvious.  Choor monster (talk) 20:00, 26 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks. 19:43, 27 February 2015 (UTC)Richard Thomas

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January 2022
Hello, Wickerkat. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about on Wikipedia, you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a conflict of interest may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for organizations for more information. We ask that you:


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