Tim Byard-Jones

Welcome!

Hello, Tim Byard-Jones, 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 on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! Rigadoun (talk) 15:40, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

COI?

WP:COI is a funny one - have close read. Some people are completely relaxed (cuek) about it, others have absolutely no-tolerance - both of these in my opinion are missing the point of the page, rather a middle of the road approach is best, which is what I think that page encourages. Anyway, regarding your question on the Wayang talk page, have a look at WP:COI and make a strict but reasonable interpretation. Conflicting advice? Clear as mud? I'll look out for your edits. cheers and welcome to wikipedia. The Indonesia project needs more good hands!!! Merbabu 15:10, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

hmmmm - maybe I jumped the gun steering you to WP:COI - maybe that is a non-issue. It's very late here, thus I didn't really read you comments on your study that well, and I should sleep. Merbabu 15:18, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Merbabu - I did have a close read of that and found this:

• Citing oneself

See also: Wikipedia:Autobiography and Wikipedia:No original research#Citing oneself

You may cite your own publications just as you'd cite anyone else's, but make sure your material is relevant and that you're regarded as a reliable source for the purposes of Wikipedia. Be careful about excessive citation of your own work, to avoid the appearance of self-promotion. When in doubt, discuss on the talk page whether your citation is appropriate, and defer to the community's opinion.

I am certainly willing to "defer to the community's opinion", which is why I flagged it up in the talk page; but I also think that anyone who takes the trouble to read the Seleh Notes article I linked will find it relevant and interesting (considering that they took the trouble to look at an article on wayang in the first place). It's also got some nice illustrations, from photos taken by someone else. I'm also in the process of producing a series for Seleh Notes expanding on that article - two have been done so far, on 'Clowns (dhagelan)' and 'Main characters of the Ramayana', both fully illustrated. As and when they go online I would be minded to link to them as well, unless told otherwise that it's unacceptable. BTW, You were up late, assuming you're in Oz! Tim Byard-Jones 16:26, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Your contributions

You've made great additions to the articles, and you seem to be just the knowledgeable person to improve them. You haven't made any of the important mistakes, and you'll learn the standard way to do things pretty fast. A few ideas:

• Many articles have corresponding articles in Indonesian (sometimes also Javanese and Sundanese) that may give you ideas about how to structure something, or of missing topics. Do you know how to use interwiki links? If not, you can read Help:Interlanguage links. An example of what I mean about some articles that we could use is at id:Kategori:Wayang. (I assume you can read Indonesian because you studied there; I actually can't but can usually get the gist of articles)
• I would be in favor of splitting the wayang page to specific pages about wayang kulit, wayang wong, etc. because it seems like there is plenty to say about each genre and it might help some of the confusions you noted, like where there is a picture of wayang kulit but the discussion seems more relevant to wayang golek.
• You may want to include a Wikipedia:Babel box on your userpage in case people wish to contact you in a foreign language but aren't sure how well you'll understand it.
• With your interest in organology you may want to check out Wikipedia:WikiProject Musical Instruments, which just started. (I'm a member but haven't done much for it yet.)
• When writing to someone on their userpage (or adding a new comment to a talk page), you should add the comment at the bottom and separate it as a new section (using equal signs, like ==Topic==). Either that or you can use the "+" sign that is next to "edit this page" on the top of the screen.

As I've contributed to many articles related to the gamelan and watch many of them, I'm sure we'll meet again. I look forward to seeing more of your contributions in the future. Rigadoun (talk) 16:05, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Rigadoun - I am paying heed to everything you've said but it'll take me a little while to get round to it all! And thanks for being so welcoming and helpful - makes a refreshing change from some quarters of academia! Tim Byard-Jones 10:49, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I had a look at Sulukan and it looks good to me. I don't think it's too academic; I think most topics that like this are apt to be of interest only to someone who knows something about the topic and are looking for specific details, but know much of the vocabulary. That's how it is for me, anyway; you can find articles with similar approaches on science and math topics. I replaced your reference tags with a different kind, which look the same but will make it easier in case a reference is added later or things get moved around, since it automatically updates the list. Also, you should try on all your edits to use edit summaries, as they make it easier for people looking through a page history or a watchlist to find what they're looking for. I also probably wouldn't mark it as a stub, since it seems like it has a substantial amount of information, and a casual reader is unlikely to be able to add much without substantial research. (Stubs are somewhat subjective and other users might disagree with me.) Rigadoun (talk) 16:12, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks again - I copied the style for refs from the wayang article, but now I know better...

I'm not quite sure what the definition of a 'stub' is - I certainly haven't put everything into the sulukan article than can or intend to, but would rather get all the articles I would like to see present started and then use the collaborative process to hone them rather than slave over one article at a time and then get into a huff when someone else edits it (not that I would, unless it was deliberate vandalism like I've seen on some other articles). I tried to put enough links in that a genuinely baffled reader could find 'wayang', 'Javanese', 'gamelan' etc with a single click rather than try to explain everything for the complete novice within the text. After all, you're unlikely to stumble across sulukan unless you know something about wayang or gamelan first. That's my logic, anyway. And I promise to remember edit summaries from now on. BTW, I've taken up your suggestion about the 'Babel box'. Thanks!Tim Byard-Jones 16:34, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Don't forget, that although everyone loves to say that 'I created that article', the most important articles are generally already started, but more often than not are in need of vast improvement. Ie, fixing these articles is equally, if not, more important than creating new ones. There are plenty you'd be good at. What about you working to get Gamelan to GA status, even FA status? You'd do well. Merbabu 12:36, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I still feel like I'm something of a beginner at the moment, and would rather hone my editing skills a bit on less important articles before wading into something that's more likely to be noticed. I plant to be involved on an ongoing basis, and will certainly get round to some of the bigger articles at some point - wayang is in crying need of a major write-through, and gamelan certainly has room for improvement. Give me time! Tim Byard-Jones 12:45, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

A late welcome

monggo pak - welcome - and hope all your experiences of it is friendly SatuSuro 00:12, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Maturnuwun, pak. As I'm a newcomer, feel free to correct anything I'm doing wrong - explanations of why are particularly appreciated. Tim Byard-Jones 10:55, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah the basa jawa dosnt go much beyond that - must share notes on Yk and Sk (as I used to find the refs in some Yogya libraries and texts) at some point - really Im just a west ozzie who tried with hopes for great things from fieldwork in yogya in the mid 90s and it never really got to where it should have - anyways most of that is off wiki stuff - the greatest goldfishbowl on the planet :| SatuSuro 14:14, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Sulukan

Thanks - I got your message. Not much time for wikipedia tonight. Sorry. Hopefully I can get to it in the next few days. Maybe SatuSuro (above) can look too. Merbabu 13:51, 20 June 2007 (UTC) Neither I (time that is) - however - the sections of the reference area contrast with that of the body of text - better to have section headings for the text rather than the refs (!?) on a very quick check. might be worth going to the welcome / article construction or the MOS - will try again tommorow - maaf - slow - v v cold tempat ini - :| SatuSuro 14:02, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

UPDATE: OK, I had a quick go through. I left edit summaries to explain my thinking - to you know how to click though and compare different versions on the history tab? Please correct any factual errors I may have introduced, but I think I was OK. Also, I added some section headings. Please re-arrange or re-name as you think appropriate. Merbabu 14:32, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Re: Merbabu's comments (in the edit history) about being a citation nazi, it is better to include too many refs than too few. It's not uncommon to have one for every sentence, just because it makes it easier if somebody comes along with another reference that makes sense to interpolate between two things you said, it is still easy for a reader to figure out which reference says what. The end result is that Wikipedia articles tend to have far more references than you would see in a scholarly publication, but then you can't edit those. In particular, it may be good to have a reference cited for the Sanskrit etymology, to make it parallel with the other.Rigadoun (talk) 15:25, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I found a wikipedia article on sloka to link to, which I hope will do for now. Tim Byard-Jones 12:46, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Indonesia collaboration = Jakarta

Hello there Tim Byard-Jones, this fortnight's Indonesia project collaboration is > > > Jakarta < < <. Please contribute. The most important thing is to find reliable references for all existing information, and for any new info added.

Also, please help nominate an article for the next collaboration at the collab nomination page. An underdeveloped or stub article is preferred over a long and developed article. Please nominate up to two articles. any questions, please let me know. Kind regards and happy editing. --Merbabu 11:46, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

A new Oxbridge user box

Tim Byard-Jones...I am currently in the process of writing a user box for all of the colleges that are part of Oxbridge. This template is meant to replace your current college template. Please take a look at the work in progress and comment on it. My main concerns are college abbreviations and color choice. I am using scarf colors for the colleges. Thank you. - LA @ 17:08, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Asian 10,000 Challenge invite

Hi. The Wikipedia:WikiProject Asia/The 10,000 Challenge has recently started, based on the UK/Ireland Wikipedia:The 10,000 Challenge and Wikipedia:WikiProject Africa/The 10,000 Challenge. The idea is not to record every minor edit, but to create a momentum to motivate editors to produce good content improvements and creations and inspire people to work on more countries than they might otherwise work on. There's also the possibility of establishing smaller country or regional challenges for places like South East Asia, Japan/China or India etc, much like Wikipedia:The 1000 Challenge (Nordic). For this to really work we need diversity and exciting content and editors from a broad range of countries regularly contributing. At some stage we hope to run some contests to benefit Asian content, a destubathon perhaps, aimed at reducing the stub count would be a good place to start, based on the current Wikipedia:WikiProject Africa/The Africa Destubathon which has produced near 200 articles in just three days. If you would like to see this happening for Asia, and see potential in this attracting more interest and editors for the country/countries you work on please sign up and being contributing to the challenge! This is a way we can target every country of Asia, and steadily vastly improve the encyclopedia. We need numbers to make this work so consider signing up as a participant! Thank you. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 04:46, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

you are missed

there is still cleanup needed all these many years later - hope you can resurrect your editing sometime soon ! JarrahTree 07:58, 19 July 2020 (UTC)