User talk:Rdengrove

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[edit] Welcome to Wikipedia!

Dear Rdengrove: Welcome to Wikipedia, a free and open-content encyclopedia. I hope you enjoy contributing. To help get you settled in, I thought you might find the following pages useful:

Don't worry too much about being perfect. Very few of us are! Just in case you are not perfect, click here to see how you can avoid making common mistakes.

If you are stuck, and looking for help, please come to the New contributors' help page, where experienced Wikipedians can answer any queries you have! Or, you can just type {{helpme}} on your user page, and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions.

Wikipedians try to follow a strict policy of never biting new users. If you are unsure of how to do something, you are welcome to ask a more experienced user such as an administrator. One last bit of advice: please sign any dicussion comment with four tildes (~~~~). The software will automatically convert this into your signature which can be altered in the "Preferences" tab at the top of the screen. I hope I have not overwhelmed you with information. If you need any help just let me know. Once again welcome to Wikipedia, and don't forget to tell us about yourself and be BOLD! FrankB 15:58, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your Message on Mephistopheles

I gave Mephistopheles a quick once over, but I'm a bit bemused as to why you contacted 'Me' in particular.

I'm into myth, history, et. al. as an eclectic reader of mature middle-age, but not really familiar with FAUST. One of those 'things' on my 'Read up on this someday' To-Do list, which alas, always gets longer!

Hence, this is one a tad beyond my crystalized knowledge to give you the best read on and feedback, but it looks pretty good to me in a quick once over. It fails in that one bolded 'alias' (Text Search: 'Murphy'), doesn't get mentioned again in the body of the text, leaving me, an engineer who is well on guard against Murphy's Law to wonder whether this is the origination of that folkism! <g> I should probably try looking THAT up on wikiP too!

Haven't the time right now to look at the scope of your changes using the history tab... I'm over my morning budget on wikiTime, but I'll try to look a bit more in depth, if I can get back this evening. In the meantime, I'll refer it to at least three (or four?) academics I know and a few (all those listed after) other sharp and well educated people as well in the hope of finding you at least one good reviewer: User talk:BD2412, User talk:HappyCamper, User talk:HereToHelp, User Talk:Mel Etitis, User talk:Pegship, Septentrionalis, User talk:Quiddity, User talk:Slim Virgin, and User talk:TantalumTelluride who all may be glad to make your aquaintance— most are admins (WP:ADMINS + list), have mature judgement, and are very frequent contributors.

I'm currently minimizing WikiTime, and at least half of what little I do have is half-spent on the Wikimedia Commons right now. Perhaps one of the others can suggest a WikiProjects group up your alley, so to speak, from the info on you user page. Try browsing Wikipedia:List of WikiProjects for some of your other interests as well.

Feel free to ask whatever, whenever. If I'm unqualified to answer, I can at least try to get you to someone who might. This online community is pretty helpful overall, with the usual smattering of the occasional bad apple! There is a lot to learn however, when starting on wikipedia, so lean on me when needed!

I have a special talk page for longer discourses here and you would be well advised to poke through this in edit mode along side a second browser window (sort of an 'tutorial' workpage) to see some basic techniques. If you post a query there on the 'TUP' page, drop me a note (Just see 'TUP' ~~~~ will do!) on the main talk or an email, as I don't patrol it as often as I should. My Watch List is way too long, so I tend to ignore it save for weekly checks! See also: WP:WC which is also off point, but good to access as a newcomer. Best wishes // FrankB 15:58, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Frank asked me to help out with Mephistopheles; I have commented as far as my knowledge permits. Septentrionalis 16:51, 29 June 2006 (UTC)


I commented to you Frank because you commented about my article. The same is true of you Septentrionalis. The comments both of you made were good, and they have given me some ideas. Remember I am a newbee, frankly a little lost here, and trying to find my way. Being new, I was wary of offending anyone with my changes. Also, if I commented to the wrong person or in the wrong venue, I am sorry. Right now, however, I don't even know if this is the way to get a message to you guys.

-Rich Dengrove

[edit] Miscellaneous

Welcome, although I see you have been welcomed already.

  • You can sign your username by using ~~~~ (four tildes).
  • Experience suggests that you may be prudent to leave your signature at an initial.
    • All wikipedia articles attract cranks; Mephistopheles is likely to be as bad as any, although there was even an outburst of Welsh Nationalism on Talk:Bertrand Russell. (Really; I'm not making this up).
    • Some cranks can be truly vicious.
  • Do look at some policies and guidelines, especially Verifiability, Neutrality, and original research (also WP:MOS).
    • These are mostly common sense, and as far as I can see, you haven't infringed any of them; but these are what WP expects.

Be bold! Septentrionalis 17:09, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Just checking back. What Paul (Septentrionalis) says, with your favorite condiments. Do feel free to ask for help to most anyone. Especially anyone on the WP:WC and Admins (left above) lists. Double ditto for anyone you see posting help answers on Wikipedia:Newcomers help page. OTOH, all will have expectations that you are trying to teach yourself, so be familiar with things like WP:FAQ and do a lot more reading 'link to link' in guidelines, et. al. than editing for a while.
The learning curves are steep at first but the 'societal norms' aren't all that mysterious, though some will pontificate too sharply at times on this or that 'guideline'... all of which carry a disclaimer that they don't always cover all cases, so do use editorial judgement.
If something is 'raising the ole blood-pressure' it's a pretty good sign to give it a day or three and perhaps ask for advice or ask for a meet to talk whatever out on the article talk with a cross-post 'Notification' on the 'offending' users talk. A simple Please see [[Talk:TheArticle]] and reply there // ~~~~ should suffice.
WikiTalk pages are our corporate documents, so discourse there-in tends to civilize disputes. If you make extensive changes to a 'stale' page, it's a good idea to see the history and see a handful of folks that made quality edits to same, and ask them on their talk what they think of your changes. That courtesy goes a long way, and helps build online relationships and circle of contacts to boot.
See ya! (Sorry I couldn't be more help on the article proper, but a wise man knows his limitations <g>. The list of contacts I gave you is golden though! (and I'm still curious as to how you picked me to contact-drop me an email-anytime on anything! <g>) // FrankB 15:42, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Psellus

A pdf is not necessary; but a page (or column) from Migne would be helpful. (You can post pdf links directly on WP, if you want; just include the URL within [single brackets].) Btw, you may want to adjust your sig: User:Rdengrove and User:RDengrove are not the same place. Septentrionalis 17:42, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

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