LosAngelino

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Hello, LosAngelino, 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:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! 

The above is simply the standard welcome template, but it has some useful links. Welcome, and thanks for your comments on the List of major opera composers. I'm a singer and wanna-be musicologist, who happens also to be an administrator on this site, so if you have any questions feel free to ask me. If you have a lot of spare time for writing, you might want to check out List of female composers, which I've been working on expanding. All the redlinks are articles which are still to be written, so if any of them strike your fancy, have at it! Again, welcome. Mak (talk) 16:39, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I myself like to keep my identity private, although if anyone really wanted to figure it out and was in the right circles they could do so pretty easily. The longer I've been on WP, though, the more glad I am that I've kept my real name hidden, since I've come across some users who are frankly mentally ill and unstable. There have been instances of people having their employers contacted about edits they've made on Wikipedia. Generally a casual editor doesn't have to deal with such things, but it is a possibility. You'd be surprised at what people get upset about on here, for instance, this guy made changed a bunch of instances of "recorder" to "blockflute", and I changed it back, and then he flamed me for being an ignoramous who doesn't understand why blockflute is the best name for that particular instrument. Other editors just don't worry about it and put their real names on their userpages. Part of it depends on your job, and whether it would be a big problem in your personal or professional life if a troll made an obnoxious call to your employer/partner/mother. For some people, that just wouldn't matter, for other people it's more tricky.

That said, don't worry too much about mean users, generally if you stick to editing your articles of interest, you'll mainly find some pretty interesting and stand-up editors. Some other editors who edit classical music pages who I've found to be really helpful are User:Antandrus and User:RobertG, and User:Moreschi is very helpful, and likes cooperating on articles. Cheers, Mak (talk) 04:47, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I add my welcome, too. I hope you enjoy being a Wikipedian. I don't have much to add to Makemi's comment above. I subscribe to Mel Etitis's thesis that there's not much use using a pseudonym if you then blurt out your mundane identity— as he says, where would that have got Batman? If once you divulge your real identity, there is no mechanism on Wikipedia for retraction! --RobertG ♬ talk 08:21, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Pile-On Welcome.

Welcome to Wikipedia! I've just posted my comments on the talk page of the List of major opera composers. Speaking for myself, I was absolutely delighted by the absolute calmness and reasonableness of your post both there and elsewhere. I must admit that I was somewhat cringing in fear of this Round 2, and instead we get a contributor who looks to be an complete gem in the making, much more likely to be writing the WP:FA Concerto delle donne than winding up in front of ArbCom. I am really superlatively happy to have you here.

Re: anonymity. It's an interesting dilemma. Personally, I wouldn't. While for someone in Makemi's position, that of an administrator who has to deal with a lot of vandals, revealing your name is an obvious no-no, even for someone like me who stays away from the more confrontational areas of WP, I have still taken great pains so that no one knows my real name. You just never know when someone will seriously object to somehing you've written (like that whole "Recorder/Blockflute" business), and things can turn nasty very quickly. The vast majority of editors will cause no problems, but there are one or two social misfits who just cannot cooperate and get along with other people, and I would not like them to know who I really am.

Anyway, if you want any help with various areas of Wikipedia, then just leave a message on my talk page, and I'll be delighted to help out. If it's about an article you're writing and I actually know something about the matter in question, I'll be even more delighted to help. For me, anyway, writing articles is where all the fun is is. Happy editing! Best, Moreschi 13:58, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot to give you the pros of giving out your real name, which include that if you are successful in your chosen field people are more likely to know your interests and exact expertise, and might defer to you (maybe), but will have a better idea of what to ask you arcane questions about :) For an example, you can check out User:Andrew Dalby's talk page. Cheers, Mak (talk) 15:31, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

List of major opera composers

I'm not sure what to do about evidence for the list, but it's entirely possible to give a lead-in analysing possible (well, we can probably agree: actual) problems in the list, provide a list of major women opera composers, and generally make it clear what biases are likely playing into the compilation. Until books are published, or we can otherwise collect sufficient "proof" of the notability of women composers, this may be the best that can be done, given the limitations. As I said on IAWM, it's not great, but it's probably a start.

Also, forgive all the nastiness on that workshop page - I'm trying my best to keep it moderated, but I'm afraid there was a lot of nastiness a while ago - completely tangental to the problem at hand - and it seems to be spilling out. Adam Cuerden ^talk 12:35, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Reply to questions

Yes, you need to create another login for the French version of Wikipedia. The developers are working on making it so you don't have to, but as it is right now, you do. I haven't had much interaction with the French community, since my French isn't really good enough to contribute there. Someone who I know who sometimes contributes there is User:Bastique (fr:Utilisateur:Bastique). I believe the French wiki community is a lot smaller than the English one, which can be nice, because you'll have more elbow room. I believe a number of professors have had some success in giving their students assignments to create or improve Wikipedia articles, you can read about some of them at Wikipedia:School and university projects. Cheers, Mak (talk) 15:39, 14 March 2007 (UTC)