User talk:Ebbn

Welcome!

Hello, Ebbn, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions, especially your edits to Liz Danforth. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:

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Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing 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 for help on your talk page, and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome! --GRuban (talk) 15:45, 27 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A bit less canned: I emailed Liz Danforth, asking if she would release an image for us to use on her article. (I do that occasionally.) She said that she'd get to it eventually and meanwhile a friend would be trying to edit her article. Would that be you? I see there's been some back-and-forth over the article recently; can I help out? I'm fairly experienced, have been here for a while, so might be able to help. I see the IP editor that is reverting you is complaining that you are trying to make major changes all in a single edit, which makes it less clear what you're trying to do; if you can say a few words about what your main goals are for the article, we might be able to make changes in logical chunks, that might make it more clear to the IP editor, so might be more acceptable. For another thing, I see you tried to put a connected contributor template on the article talk page, per Wikipedia:Conflict of interest#How to disclose a COI presumably - that's great, but in making it a separate section with a heading you seem to have implied that you're paid; are you paid for this, or just a friend? They're similar, but there are differences. --GRuban (talk) 15:56, 27 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, if you can work with GRuban on the article so that your goals are clear, I am sure I would have no problems with that. Also, most of the information is attributed to sources, and your edits removed some (but not all) of the existing sources - if a source is reliable and independent, it should not be removed without a good reason. Thanks. 73.168.15.161 (talk) 05:06, 28 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

GRuban, I definitely appreciate your help! We did approach this article as a complete rewrite, which I better understand now presents different problems than either maintenance editing or writing a completely new article. I'm fairly sure I will be removing some broken links if I can't fix them. Regarding the COI, I am a friend but also paid. Would this mean that I did the COI correctly? If you're comfortable with conversing via email, I'll be happy to ask Liz to forward my email address. I'm fine with being public and "on the record" here also, albeit a bit clumsy still! Ebbn (talk) 05:15, 30 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for taking your time and slowing down with your edits, because it is easier to see your thought process. GRuban may be able to help you with your COI/paid editor questions. I am curious as to why you refer to "Desingers & Dragons" by Shannon Appelcline as a "questionable"/"bad" source, though? 76.231.73.99 (talk) 21:22, 30 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The only problem I have with "Designers & Dragons" is that it was used as the source for one piece of information which I know to be factually incorrect. I don't allege bias or sensationalism or anything like that, only that there are other sources for the information I can independently verify so I'd rather use those.

There will need to be a larger, "faster" edit relatively soon because the article needs to be restructured (creative vs. academic work is less informative and less useful than giving different creative categories their own headings, and the subject has published/been involved with a number of "new" projects since the page was created). I'll preview that on the article's own talk page, which is probably where we should be further discussing this if needed.Ebbn (talk) 09:06, 31 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

One bit of info may not bias the whole source; when I get a chance I will look again at which parts were removed and re-evaluate those. 73.168.15.161 (talk) 13:09, 31 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Ebbn. I'm going to take the liberty of fixing the COI template on the article talk page based on what you wrote, if any of that isn't correct, please say. I'm glad to see you've reached accord with the IP editor, and are moving forward. (By the way, 73/76... - have you considered creating an account? It makes working with other editors a lot easier, for one thing we can be more clear when you're one person, and when you're several, for another you can build up a reputation with your edits. Also we wouldn't be tempted to look into where those IP addresses resolve to. Please, it would help us out.) For the most recent "citation needed" tags, you could probably link to Liz Danforth's own pages, her LinkedIn for example, since things like where she was born and where she went to school are usually not considered controversial, so we can usually cite the subject's own words for them. For more controversial things, we prefer citations to Wikipedia:Reliable sources, meaning published works by reputable third parties - books, magazines, newspapers, etc. That's why it's a shame that Designers & Dragons is wrong at times, because it's a published book, and there aren't that many of those on the history of the RPG industry. I haven't gotten your email address from Liz, but if you have registered your own email address in your user profile, you can click the Email this user link by the side of my user page, and I should get that, and will respond. Thanks for your help! --GRuban (talk) 18:42, 2 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]