User talk:Jbmurray

I prefer to keep both sides of my discussions together, so if you leave me a message here, I will reply here, probably with a copy to your page. But if I left a question on your talk page, feel free to reply there or here, depending on your preference. Thanks!

El señor Presidente, etc.

Thanks for the message. I'm not really a literature person, but I'll keep an eye open, maybe help out with the shovel work. Regards, Aille (talk) 14:28, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Murder Madness and Mayhem

I saw a discussion of your wikiproject in this blog. I wanted to say I think it's a really great idea.

I have a suggestion for you - Wikipedia has an in-house newspaper of sorts, the Signpost. I think you might want to drop a note at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions - the Signpost's tip line - mentioning your wikiproject and what it's up to. You'd have plenty of people ready to help you if they knew about it. Raul654 (talk) 06:32, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Welcome message

Hi Jbmurray. I've left welcome messages for your project members that hadn't already been welcomed (I love your idea!), and noticed there may be a registration problem for User:GarethShort. This username is displaying as not registered, so the page link is essentially to a non-existent user at present. You (or he) will need to re-register this username. All the best, EyeSerene^TALK 16:01, 1 February 2008 (UTC) and

WP:MMM

What you are doing is great. I understand entirely the hesitance among your class to make edits: they need to be told to be bold. If they make mistakes, it doesn't matter, because this is a wiki. Edits will simply be reverted by another editor, sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly. If the revert is wrong, tell them to stand their ground and then explain on the talk page.

Also, I think it is worth telling your class to have fun. One place to do this is edit summaries. Good editors add edit summaries to every single edit they make. This is a way to communicate with other editors without using talk pages. You can explain what you are doing, add thanks, or even make jokes, or create a spirit of competition. The edit summary is limited to very few characters, but the modern texting generation know exactly how to make use of such a system to full advantage. Geometry guy 00:36, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Marquez + various

Hi Jb. I just put Gabriel García Márquez on my watchlist, per the project of bringing your class together with experienced editors. I noticed this set of edits and thought I'd offer up a couple of things.

First, some articles are more equal than others. The three students who have signed up for Marquez, have probably signed up for a much greater workload than most of the others. I'm hesitant over whether that article should be a first FA attempt for new editors—at the same time, it would be excellent to make it featured. So, I'll just leave the thought with you.

The influence field is stupid, I agree. It might be useful if it were capped at, say, three influences, but that might lead to argument over which three. I also agree that he is "probably Latin America's best-known writer" does not need a citation—but then editors at FAC might ask for one.

I bring up these points because Wikipedia itself doesn't always agree on things. Is there a definite infobox or citation format? No—there are acceptable formats, and you should be consistent with whatever you choose. Anyway, you've been around almost a year and probably have some idea of the working anarchy anyway... Let me be the latest to congratulate on your excellent idea for a class project. Marskell (talk) 20:43, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

This is an issue to keep in mind, both from tha FA-Team perspective and the SPAN312 perspective. In this particular case, though, not only is the article of interest to Marskell, who's an expert on FA, but also it is being watched by Willow and Awadawit, both prolific FA contributors. Now if I know these last two at all, I very much doubt they will be content to restrict themselves to copyediting and MoS fixes: they are more than likely to dive into the sources and help with content, and I hope they do. This may more-than-compensate for the fact that this particular article is a bigger challenge than some of the others. However, it is purely a matter for Jon to decide how to assess the students based upon the variable challenge of the articles they work on and the level of support they receive from other editors. This is not Wikipedia's business: the primary goal of Wikipedians such as FA-Team members, as I'm sure Jon appreciates, is simply to improve the encyclopaedia. Geometry guy 21:40, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks to you both for your advice and input. Re. the point that some articles are more equal than others... I am aware of this. And I realize it's my problem, not yours. I'm interested, however, that you think that the GGM one is probably the most difficult. I've been thinking that The Dictator Novel probably offered the most challenge, mostly because it doesn't easily fit a recognizeable format, as do the biographical or bibliographical articles. In part I hope to compensate for these variabilities by being an active editor myself, as you can no doubt already see. It's very much a project in which I'm also involved. Regarding assessment, I also very much like the idea that students are being assessed by the wikipedia community for something that they are contributing to the public domain. Of course, that works only if they do manage to bring the articles up to having a decent shot at GA and/or FA review. We're still some distance from that. Anyhow, in sum, this is all very much an experiment. So I all the more appreciate your advice. Some days I'm confident; other days, less so. Having the good will of the wikipedia community and the benefit of experienced eyes such as those of yourselves certainly makes me breathe a little easier. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 22:14, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I'll only say that I commented, not as an expert on FA, but as a literature major and an enormous fan of Marquez ;). Marskell (talk) 22:37, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Manuel Scorza

HI could you expand this? Thanks ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 13:44, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Timelines

At first, the goal for the project was to have all the articles be FAs by April 10. By that timeline, in order to have a chance at reaching the goal, each article would probably need to be at GA-class by March 10. I don't know if this is possible, though. What are the plans on your end? Wrad (talk) 19:29, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Wrad, my thought has been that the articles should be submitted for FA Review by April 10. Does that make sense? --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 20:25, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Sure. That makes things simpler. Thanks for clarifying. Wrad (talk) 20:29, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Miguel Angel Asturias

Our article is a B status! Yay! --Reabell (talk) 23:12, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Um...I'm not sure if this is how I "talk" to you, but I was wondering if it's "Asturias'" or "Asturias's". It seems to be different in various books I'm reading. I realize this isn't crucial to the article, but would appreciate the info. Thanks! (Erica) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Span312 (talk • contribs) 18:29, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Reviewing Miguel Angel Asturias for GA

Hi there,

I'm reviewing the aforementioned article for GA, and while I recognize that you are not the nominator, you do seem to be a significant editor, so I was wondering if you could help address a concern?

Overall, the article looks excellent: broad coverage, nice prose, sufficient number of sources for GA, etc. The only problem is that the lead image is the only picture in the entire article. I'm not going to fail this article just b/c it doesn't have images, but nor do I feel comfortable promoting it, when the criteria clearly ask for a basic level of illustration. If I put the article on hold for a week, would that be enough time to get a few good images incorporated into the body of the article?

Regards, Malachirality (talk) 00:16, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for looking at the article so speedily. It actually seems to me that the article needs rather more than a few images for GA status! But we'll be working on the things that do need doing. It may be tough to get too many more appropriate images: have you any thoughts of what they should be of? --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 12:42, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels

The Novels Project is a Wikipedia group dedicated to improving the quality of articles on novels. If you would like to help, please consider joining: seeWikipedia:WikiProject Novels/Members. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 15:57, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

A little motivational tool for your students

Being a student myself I know one of the biggest turn offs for writing a paper is the lack of readership. Basically the professor, who's not really learning anything new since he supposedly already knows the subject, reads the essay and then it goes straight to the bin.. On Wikipedia on the other hand, as you know, you do get a large readership and to show you (and especially your students) just how large that is, take a look at this little tool: Henrik's tool. Just type in the article name, select the month you want the statistics for and then it'll give you the daily statistics for the chosen article. Pretty nifty huh? :D Acer (talk) 10:08, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

RE: WP:MMM "B-class" review

Don't mention it, most of those up ratings were overdue.. I guess most people were focused on GA and forgot B-class. The two I didn’t up rate need more content to be comprehensive and that’s the main criteria I use for B-class assessment. The Feast of the Goat already has some sections laid out but aside from the plot summary they're skeletons, no meat. Augusto Roa Bastos is lacking them altogether. Once they're expanded I'll up rate them, though they're gonna have to go beyond that for GA. PS: I really liked what you did with the statistics, glad it was helpfull :) Acer (talk) 11:57, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Tiny point of Wikipedia etiquette

Even if you know someone off-wiki, it is customary to refer to them only by their username on-wiki. They may not wish to reveal their entire name on-wiki for various reasons. It is also easier for others on the 'pedia to know who you are talking about. Thanks! Awadewit | talk 22:51, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Gotcha. I have wondered about this, in fact. I'm not sure how much these particular wikipedians identify with their wiki personae. But anyhow. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 22:54, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Consistency

Yeah, I was wondering about that myself. Whether to call him el Supremo, El Supremo, the Supreme, Francia, DR.Francia, etc. Every source I have refers to him in a different way, depending on what they are talking about considering his naming contributes to his meta sense of being, so we need to agree to call him one thing. "The Supreme" works for me. Also, I don't know if I'm the only one that feels this way, but I've grown to feel supremely weird about editing this entry about I the Supreme and el Supremo, mainly because the entire book is about the ways in which different sources and documents create/obscure history and myth, and so technically, aren't we just contributing moreso to it? I feel like I should include a section on the page's irony or something.