JSane

Welcome!

Hello, JSane, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• Tutorial
• How to edit a page
• How to write a great article
• Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question and then place {{helpme}} before the question on your talk page. Again, welcome! Sbowers3 (talk) 01:40, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Michelle Ferguson-Cohen

An editor has nominated Michelle Ferguson-Cohen, an article on which you have worked or that you created, for deletion. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also "What Wikipedia is not").

Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michelle Ferguson-Cohen and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~).

You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate. Thank you. BJBot (talk) 07:59, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

re: Wikipedia:Editor assistance/Requests

I saw your request at WP:EAR for help with Michelle Ferguson-Cohen. Since then I have commented at the AFD page, but forgot to reply to you on this page. Wikipedia has a LOT of policies, guidelines, and procedures. It's impossible for a newcomer to know all of them - and easy to get caught up in problems. The welcome message above has links to some of the important stuff. For now, I'll just highlight my favorite phrase:

From Wikipedia:Verifiability: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. "Verifiable" in this context means that readers should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source. Editors should provide a reliable source for quotations and for any material that is challenged or is likely to be challenged, or it may be removed."

The cure for most problems is references to reliable sources so that other editors can verify an article's statements. In the case of Michelle Ferguson-Cohen there are good references; they are just buried among the not-so-good references. You have three separate sections for Sources, References, and Notes and they all have a lot of stuff in them. It would be better if you had just one section and if all of the references were inline citations. And then, it would be good to pare them down to just the most informative references.

I think the article will survive the AFD. The process is based on WP policies - not on personalities. The better you know the policies - and you should carefully read notability - the better you can convince other editors that the article is good. Sbowers3 (talk) 01:59, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Michelle Ferguson-Cohen http://spam.booksforbrats.com

Accounts

Booksforbrats  (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)
JSane  (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)
72.229.10.154  (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
70.187.47.205  (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
Welcome to Wikipedia. Everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia. However, please do not add promotional material to articles. Advertising and using Wikipedia as a "soapbox" is strongly discouraged. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about Wikipedia. Thank you.
If you have a close connection to some of the people, places or things you have written about on Wikipedia, you may have a conflict of interest. In keeping with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy, edits where there is a conflict of interest, or where such a conflict might reasonably be inferred from the tone of the edit and the proximity of the editor to the subject, are strongly discouraged. If you have a conflict of interest, you should avoid or exercise great caution when:

1. editing articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with;
2. participating in deletion discussions about articles related to your organization or its competitors;
3. linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Wikipedia:Spam);

   and you must always:

4. avoid breaching relevant policies and guidelines, especially neutral point of view, verifiability, and autobiography.

For information on how to contribute to Wikipedia when you have conflict of interest, please see Wikipedia:Business' FAQ. For more details about what constitutes a conflict of interest, please see Wikipedia:Conflict of Interest. Thank you. --Hu12 (talk) 19:16, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

You mention my username as a COI. What does that mean? And why would I have a conflict of interest? --JSane (talk) 19:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

FYI: IP address 72.229.10.154 is also me. Sometimes I get logged out, but that is my IP address, so it's not related to the author. I can't vouch for the other IP address I'm afraid. Looks like it's in Atlanta or Florida. --JSane (talk) 19:43, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I just read the COI standards. I'm new here. Because I defended the references I provided and contributions I made, does that give me a non-neutral point of view? I also asked another editor to stick to criteria and not insult the subject matter. Is that regarded as a COI? --JSane (talk) 19:49, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I hope you don't mind this clarification, it not meant to be hostile, but the posts that Hu hit you with are part of some standard templates. Hu12 possibly is unaware of AfD/discussions going on around this subject, but saw the multiple links that were added and appear to be spam and as part of some clean up patrol. Thus he tagged your page with some generic templates that address some questions/concerns that he might have because he doesn't know if you have a COI or not. Excessive linking is frowned upon.Balloonman (talk) 20:00, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Looking at the post above a little closer, there apparently is a bot (short for robot---electronic tool) that tries to identify accounts that may have COI issues based upon their edit history. Using that bot, Hu12 somehow tagged this article as one which may have COI issues based upon some algorythm. It probably hit the bots radar because of your recent additions of various links---and based upon taht it probably checked your edit history (and those of the other three accounts) and discovered that those accounts only edit on an extremely narrow band of articles.Balloonman (talk) 20:06, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

THANK YOU for your helpful response! So I was just trying to fix an article and contributed too much and now I made it worse, huh? After seeing this, I got curious about these claims and I went back in the history to see what the other COI "spams" were and after looking at the contributions from the Booksforbrats username and other Anon Address I see that Booksforbrats started the article in 2007 and appears to have been on the site one other time a month later. I use the term 'article' loosely, was about two paragraphs with no references or citiations. However, since then several of those contributions have either been deleted or verified by other editors, except the 'Sesame Workshop' statement in question and the claim she established the series to "encourage pride in the term Military Brat". So unless, those can be verified, I'd be fine with deleting them. The Anon IP address appears to have made one contribution. Editing the categories to include the author as a Military Brat. --JSane (talk) 20:25, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the details in this case; but for background, what often gets Hu12's attention in this sort of thing is when the same URL gets posted to multiple articles, or when it is repeatedly re-applied to a single article (or some combination of the two situations). There are also certain patterns frequently seen by users who are too close to the subject, and those patterns could also have gotten his attention. The perceived COI could be with either the subject of the article, or with the organization behind the URL, or both.

Again, I don't know the specifics in this case, but a few of the policies and guidelines which contain issues related to this are WP:EL, WP:NOT#SOAPBOX, WP:NOT#REPOSITORY, and WP:NOT#DIRECTORY. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 21:31, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

It's admittedly been a bit of a freakshow on this article. Lots of disputed references addition and edits because of debate on deletion. And since I'm a newbie what takes some editors one post, takes me 20. But the only conflict here has been between editors not spammers. Thankfully, we appear to be getting closer to resolving some disagreements. --JSane (talk) 21:34, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

A difficult start

JSane, you've had a difficult start in your first few weeks here. Wikipedia has a LOT of policies and guidelines. It takes quite a while to learn our ways of doing things. If you don't mind, I'm going to hold your hand, give you some advice, and try to help you out. If you have any problems with anything just drop a note on my talk page, and I'll do what I can.

The first thing I want to tell you about is some of our WP:Talk page guidelines.

1. As a general rule, don't delete previous comments (even your own) from talk pages. It makes it hard to follow a conversation. (I was momentarily confused by what you left on my page.) Instead of deleting your previous comments, the better thing is to strikethrough them. You can select your own comment, then surround it with <s></s>, e.g. old comment.
2. New comments should go at the bottom of a talk page, not at the top. The easiest way to do this normally is to click the "+" tag at the top of the page (instead of clicking the "edit this page" tab).
3. Try to remember always to add four tildes at the end to make a signature. (We all forget now and then.)

The second thing I want to mention is that personalities rarely are a part of our discussions. Almost all of us are interested in creating a better encyclopedia and we have lots of policies, etc. to guide us. The AFD proposal - if you don't understand any of our acronyms just ask - was not based on any animosity toward you or the subject of your article. It was based on a genuine belief that the subject did not meet our guideline for notability. Every single day more than 1500 new articles are created. Hundreds of them are inappropriate for an encyclopedia and are deleted. I am one of many users who "patrol" new pages. I have nominated many for a speedy deletion, proposed others for 5-day review before deletion, and submitted others for an AFD discussion. When other users have proposed AFDs I have often agreed with the deletion, and other times argued to Keep the article. I've been on the "winning" side and on the "losing" side. There's never anything personal about it; it's just something we have to do for the sake of the encyclopedia. So please try to put aside any bad feelings that resulted.

I'll have more thoughts later, but I hope these help. And remember, if you have any questions or problems, feel free to drop me a note. Sbowers3 (talk) 21:09, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you so much! I finally figured out the end of the page thing and as for deleting my remarks. I was a little freaked out. I'm sure you understand! But I think that I have established with Ballonman that my efforts to argue my contributions were not personal and he is making attempts to respect them and vice versa. Now the big problem is that apparently my contributions are considered a "Conflict of Interest". I'm not sure why, but I have a feeling I'm about to learn even more about Wiki. This comment DOES feel personal as they have idenitfied my username and my IP address as being a "spammer". --JSane (talk) 21:14, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

One small thing. On talk pages, it helps to indent your reply to separate it from the previous comment and to indicate that your comment is a reply to the previous comment. The way you do it is to insert a colon (:) or multiple colons at the start of each paragraph. I did that to your comment to illustrate. Sbowers3 (talk) 21:58, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

{edit conflicted}}Another thing that helps to make reading the text more legible is to use : at the start of your comments. That puts an indent into the text and identifies a new/different user. For example, when you accused me of 'editing' your words, per common practice, I wasn't because they were indented and individually signed/identified by me and addressing specific bullet points.

You want to use : at the start of every paragraph in a response. EG this is a second paragraph to the one I just wrote. Thus, it has two :: to start it. You also want to use multiple : such as :: or ::: when responding to comments of somebody elses response. For example, I added an colon at the start of you response to Sbowers3 above---thus it is easy to tell where your response began. I then added two colon's at the start of mine.

The challenge, however, sometimes arises when you are dealing with two people responding to the same comment. Even though Sbowers responded, I went ahead and posted the same thing so that you could see how it works when two people respond to the same post. So if you want to respond to Sbowers above, you would insert a response above mine using three ::: at the start. Once you get used to it, it becomes old hat.Balloonman (talk) 22:02, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

What was this?

Just out of curiosity - what was your reason for this? Sbowers3 (talk) 22:26, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

No reason copying something to the wrong window. --JSane (talk) 22:31, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Michelle Ferguson-Cohen

I've been busy with a bunch of other things so haven't looked at Michelle Ferguson-Cohen in a while. I'll try to take another look and get back to you with some comments in the next few days. Just wanted you to know that I haven't forgotten. Sbowers3 (talk) 00:41, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I left a question for all editors at Talk:Michelle Ferguson-Cohen. Please answer there just for the record.

Your recent edits - all good edits, I think - were reverted. I have asked for an explanation but I think the answer is because that editor thinks that you have a conflict of interest or are inserting spam links. We'll get this straightened out soon, I hope. Sbowers3 (talk) 12:55, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

He explained that he thinks you have a conflict of interest. I'm reinserting your edits because I think you don't have a COI and I think your edits improved the article. As soon as you declare that you do not have a COI, I'll tell the other editor to take you off of his list of people to revert for COI. Sbowers3 (talk) 17:56, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. I spent alot of time on those. I don't understand why my edits and contributions keep being deleted in this article when you say they are good. What do I have to declare and where do I have to do it? And how come nobody else is being picked on??? --JSane (talk) 05:14, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

We will get this straightened out. You have made good edits. It would help if you would declare categorically that you do not have any close personal or business connection to the subject. Even if you do have a connection, you can still contribute (which apparently some people don't recognize). WP:COI states " If you do write an article on an area in which you are personally involved, be sure to write in a neutral tone and cite reliable, third-party published sources, and beware of unintentional bias." Your edits have been neutral and sourced. If you would declare a connection or lack of connection on your user page, that would be good. And LOTS of other people are being picked on - and in most cases rightly so. They try to use Wikipedia to advertise their company or their web site. So for example anyone who adds a link to booksforbrats.com will come under suspicion. But again, what matters is writing with a neutral tone and providing good references and you have been doing exactly that. Sbowers3 (talk) 09:04, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

As always, thank you for your help! I've declared on numerous occassions I don't have a conflict of interest (unless you consider a love of children's books a conflict!) and have done it again at your behest. After reading threats to have my IP address blocked, I feel obligated to share this with you. I hope you don't mind, but I have not seen a tone of neutrality at all. But it's not because of me or the others listed on this SPAM page or to the benefit of the article or its subject matter. Frankly, I don't see proof that anyone who was accused of spamming has a COI either. I contributed to this article on two occassions (and one other page) before I was dragged back here by an article for deletion notice. Now after attempting to respond to claims and contribute citations, I'm being attacked as a spammer, and bitten as has anyone else who even mentions the subject matter at all. I've seen verifiable claims and citations randomly removed over and over, and read unsubstantiated claims about the subject matter that are nothing short of slander. I'm a newbie, but these actions don't appear netural. Perhaps there are editors here who have their own commercial interests, but I won't be run roughshod over anymore in their efforts. I'd also like to learn more about what's appropriate on the bio of living people, because if this is considered appropriate by Wiki standards I want no part of it. --JSane (talk) 15:01, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Just for reference, I reviewed my one contribution on Feb 29, 2008 prior to the contentious request for deletion and as far as I can see, I divided the article into subjects, added a bibliography, deleted a good portion of the text and made some trivial edits. The only reason I went back to the article is because of the AFD post on my talk page. Then again because of the COI post. I'm beginning to think I'm being baited so that somebody with a bone to pick can make a point out of either me or the subject of this article. What on earth can their motives be for attacking a children's book author so aggressively? But then why would people post on my talk page requesting contributions or responses only to claim I have a COI? I didn't have any personal relationship to this article, but somebody there does. And considering the attacks, and my history on this page. I now consider it personal to me, especially since some person who has not even reviewed my contribution is threatening to block my IP. Either that, or there's a bigger picture about grinding an axe against a living children's book author, which I can't imagine why anyone would do! Unless they're a commercial competitor or something. I wonder if it is part of the standards to also identify people who have a conflict of interest that is detrimental to the subject matter instead of beneficial which is what I believe is happening here at this point. P.S. Did you see that the awards that were cited were removed and not replaced? They were called niche and specialty. In my research I understand that for authors, awards are an important part of the article and conferring notability which was in question. This is the kind of thing that raises a red flag for me. --JSane (talk) 19:53, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Hu12 was not demanding to know your identity. He requested to know how you are related to the subject. And in case you did not want to disclose that publicly, he offered to have you send it privately. If you are not at all related (which I believe to be the case) then the simplest thing is to put on your user page something like: "I have no business or personal relationship to the subjects of any of the articles I edit."

Not a problem doing that. But I've already stated it numerous times on the discussion page only to receive this message at his talk page: " Your contributions to wikipedia consist entirely of editing this one topic, how are you related to the subject or topic?. If you feel more comfortable disclosing who you are in private, reply to me using the wikipedia email." I have contributed equal parts to other articles, I only contributed more here at the behest of other editors because of and AFD and COI post on my talk page.--JSane (talk) 23:07, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I think (cross my fingers) that he will not revert my reinsertion of your edits. I'm pretty sure that there will not be any need for you yourself to persuade him of your innocence. I'm pretty sure that nothing further will come of the "spam" list or black list, and I don't think there is any likelihood of your IP being blocked. I recommend that you go ahead and edit other articles and let this one alone for a while. When I find more time, I'll probably work on it a bit more.

Today is a perfect example. I went to remark on another author today and saw these comments from Hu12, so I had to spend any free time dealing with them. I have spent so much time on Wiki dealing with Balloonman and Hu12 it's getting to be pointless. What is their motive?--JSane (talk) 23:07, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

In Hu12's defense, let me say that he's doing a tedious job that somebody has to do, and by some accounts he does it better than many. Wikipedia is one of the most visited sites on the entire internet. Anything in Wikipedia ends up with a very high placement in Google. People and companies know that if they can get something into WP, that it will help drive people to their own website, simply because so many people use google and their website will be one of the earliest in the list if only they can get some mention in Wikipedia. Many people and companies write articles about themselves, or they add links to their websites into existing articles. This happens hundreds, probably thousands, and maybe tens of thousands of times every single day. Editors like Hu12 try to find all of this "spam" and remove it from the encyclopedia. They look for patterns of behavior to help them find it. It's like criminal profiling. When the police look for someone Asian, 5'10" tall, 160 lbs., with a scar on his left cheek, they occasionally will find someone matching the description who is the wrong guy. And sometimes they'll even prosecute the wrong guy. I hope you can forget about it and go on to edit lots more articles. Sbowers3 (talk) 22:55, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

When Hu can manage not to refer to me as a spammer, I'll think about contributing here again. But so far he has claimed several patently untrue things about me, and I'm a little tired of being on the defense. At least people can READ things and engage in debate before making assumptions and accusations. Frankly, I don't see this article as being beneficial at ALL for a children's book author. This was not a debate about facts at all. It's inflammatory and in many places it's slanderous to the subject matter. Something that I am noticing as a trend here.I'm already concerned for the other author's that I've made contributions to, as I don't want them to be the focus of this nastiness. Sorry, but my patience has been worn out.--JSane (talk) 23:07, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Did you see Hu's last statement on his page? What bothers me about all of this is that it appears people can make any accusation then you are guilty until you prove yourself innocent. Not a terribly democratic process is it?

--JSane (talk) 23:38, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

(outdenting) I forgot to mention: the "duh" is a cute addition. :) Sbowers3 (talk) 00:00, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I do hope that you will stay and contribute but sometimes it's a good idea to take a "Wikibreak". I've thought about it many times but there's always something I want to do. DON"T feel guilty about anything. You're a volunteer, have no obligation to do anything, and you have done nothing wrong. You've made that article better. Even if it's a "mess" - and for an encyclopedia article it's probably about average. With more than 2 million articles, there are probably a million that are pretty bad. I scan a dozen or so brand new articles each day and some of them are so bad that I nominate them for an almost immediate deletion without any discussion. Others aren't bad enough for deletion but they are in terrible shape and I make some small improvements and mark them for other editors to make more improvements. Whether you decide to take a break or to jump in to some other article, you're always welcome to ask for help or advice, or just to say hi. Sbowers3 (talk) 17:29, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, compared to lots of other author's articles I've seen, this one is pretty good despite some of the vicious attacks on it. I'm nervous about contributing more because I don't want to ruin another author's bio, though I have yet to see behaving this way toward editors or the subject matter on other articles, I feel insecure now about people following me around. The main point is that there appears to be no appeal process for removing this COI and identifying me as a spammer. Despite evidence to the contrary it's been decided and that makes it so. Hardly makes me enthusiastic, you know? Hu mentioned 'verifying' that I'm not and said you could help, but I'm not sure how that is done. --JSane (talk) 19:47, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I hope you haven't missed me. I took a mini-Wikibreak. If you edit a different author with a different publisher it would be pretty near impossible for anyone to claim that you have a conflict of interest. I'm hopeful that we'll soon remove the COI tag at Michelle... I've asked for an independent opinion to reinforce mine that the article is written with a neutral tone and has good references. Sbowers3 (talk) 22:45, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Blacklisting

I was just about to reply to your first message when I received your second message. Just FYI, a few days an administrator was caught in the same "trap" and broadcast a plea for help. So it can happen to almost anybody. As I think you have discovered it was the link that was blacklisted. And sometimes it can be a link somewhere else on the page even though you yourself didn't add it. That can sometimes cause a little problem trying to find the culprit link. I'm glad that you're okay now. Sbowers3 (talk) 23:54, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

A blacklisted link is one that is of questionable content. The link may be acceptable today, but somebody realizes that the source is faulty, and it is added to a blacklist. For example, imagine somebody uses rotten.com as a resource. Well, Rotten.com has a stated interest in shocking not education others. They do have some interesting articles in their library, but questions have arisen about the reliability of said articles. Some articles on Wikipedia undoubtably have links to these articles. Now suppose that the powers-that-be determine that Rotten.com is never reliable or is engaged in activities that could get Wikipedia in trouble. The powers-that-be then decide to blacklist the website making it impossible to save a page that contains links to it. You may log onto the page and try to make and edit, but if that page has a blacklisted link/reference, then you won't be able to save it. But that is not why I came here... I wanted to let you know that you do have other options in regards to Hu12. You could goto Administrator Intervention and get their input. You could also do an Request for Comments.Balloonman (talk) 21:05, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

UPDATE: FYI found a better resource with the same info. Link accepted. I am attempting to work with Hu to resolve this. --JSane (talk) 22:43, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Welcome back

Welcome back after your week-and-a-half absence. I'm glad to see that you haven't been frightened away and are making contributions on other articles.

I wouldn't worry about CzechOut's comments over at MF-C. I doubt they would have led anywhere. I saw them a couple of days ago and decided not to respond until and unless something significant resulted. Sometimes it's just not worth stirring the pot. I left a small comment over there after yours.

One small thing: On talk pages the protocol is not to insert your comments in the middle of another user's comments. It is common to do that when responding to email, but not when responding to talk comments. It's a small thing so don't feel bad about it.

Cheers. Sbowers3 (talk) 01:58, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you :) The break was a good idea! There are many places where I can contribute positively with my expertise. And MF-C was a fantastic bootcamp for many author's bios that are less developed. And my fears that these attacks were similar everywhere on Wiki or that similar aggressive people lurked on author's pages were unsubstantiated, most people are eager to be productive. Unfortunately, because of that realization, I'm finding the comments on this article more and more suspect, frankly. The COI issue has still not been resolved at MF-C and there continues to be a tremendous amount of uncited negative comments from people who otherwise never comment on authors or books at all. It's hard not to think something is going on here. Maybe attack was the wrong word, but there is a TREMENDOUS lack of objectivity or policy specific comments on this article. On other articles I am finding people who are knowledgeable and helpful and generally eager to make articles better instead of come up with random insults and non-policy specific attacks, because they don't think the author is "worth it".

I'm not worried about CzechOut's comments other than the fact that it seems a little peculiar that someone who has pretty much only contributed to Czech politics took the time to write a lengthy comment about the article based on nothing. I don't regard it as relevant debate because he didn't really address anything as it applied to standards or policies or cited references.

Thanks for clarifying that about the comments. I hate to do anything that's bad ettiquette! And earlier I said that I thought that was bad form when Ballonman kept doing that to me, but he told me that it is perfectly acceptable on Wiki. Good to know the real deal with that. It seems more logical to me that it is not! --JSane (talk) 02:40, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I've been a little slow on the COI thing. I asked at WP:EAR for someone else to take a quick look but was given a suggestion to ask elsewhere. That's on my to-do list but I haven't done it yet. As to intermingling comments, it's pretty rare but sometimes justifiable in order to keep a comment in context. I don't think I've ever inserted in the middle of someone's comments because its hard to see who said what because there isn't a signature on the preceding paragraph. On rare occasions I have inserted between two separate signed comments instead of at the bottom. I indented an extra amount to try to make it clear that the comment below mine did not follow mine. Sbowers3 (talk) 14:09, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to stick with not inserting comments at all then. I didn't like it when it was done to me and even if it's ok, I'm going to make a personal policy from this point on not to do it. I think it's too confusing. As for the COI, curious to see how that pans out. It just feels like a black mark on my record and I hate it. --JSane (talk) 20:44, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

hello. I saw the seeming problems in the Michelle Ferguson-Cohen article and tracked it down to here. I am amazed at the trouble :( I have also been editing mostly author biographies as well as a few other articles that I thought I could contribute to, and I had also tried to shore up this MFC article against deletion at one time, because I think her work is notable and the information is verifiable. I have never got the trouble that seems to have come JSane's way though, been lucky I guess :) It does strike me that the M F-C article isn't quite written in a neutral tone yet. It needs some work to be less slanted and press-release like. I will attempt to do that soon, I hope I can come up with rephrasings that are more neutral without losing readability or information, I'm sure you know that's difficult to get right! Anyway, wanted to post to wish you luck and continuing success on other author pages. I have recently added two that seem to be doing well. Making the original page is like planting a seed, it takes time to grow, but with luck and care it can grow into full bloom of a great article. Felisse (talk) 21:42, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Felisse, I'm amazed as well. Despite the attacks on MFC, I'm the only person who actually deleted potentially "non-neutral" or uncited comments. Most of what I'm reading on the discussion page is pure editorial and I don't think the intent of some people here (except Sbowers3) is to improve the article. This article could use some work, but there seems to be something else going on that I have not encountered on other articles. What strikes me is that I've actually had an easier time on here finding citations than I have on most articles. So I thought it would be a no-brainer. The problem here is there is alot of discussion about things that are unrelated to Wiki standards or the actual article. It is really becoming a time-waster and I am curious about the motivations of some of these people. As you can see from my edits, I did my best to neturalize it. I would really appreciate seeing your edits to the article if you have the time!!! They might help provide a little guidance in that arena.

"As for the other articles I'm working on, as with MF-C I'm really using information I get from verifiable sources in the press and now I wonder if that comes out sounding too slanted. It's a tough call when you have to use press to verify statements and the press is too positive or negative. I encountered some not very nice things about another author and chose not to make the edit or add the citation. That might not seem too neutral, but I believe as Wiki does that it's very important to be careful with Living People bios. After this nightmare, I don't know if I'll ever have the confidence to start an author's page, though I noticed a few good ones missing! For the time being I'll do what I can to contribute. --JSane (talk) 19:55, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

PS tell me what pages you started. I'd be happy to contribute where I can!--JSane (talk) 21:06, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh, sure. The two I started recently were Sarah Bird and Shelby Hearon - and the previous ones that were the first two I started for authors were Whit Masterson and Carl Fick. Any editorial help you can give on those to make their phrasing better or make them clearer, or any information you can find to add, would be wonderful. Felisse (talk) 15:36, 11 April 2008 (UTC)