Talk:For Dummies

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Books Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Books. To participate, you can edit the article. You can discuss the Project at its talk page.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the Project's quality scale. Please rate the article and then leave a short summary at in the comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article.

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the For Dummies article.
Article policies

Contents

[edit] "A reference for the rest of us" is a registered trademark maybe

The photos are fuzzy but seemingly say "a reference for the rest of us" is a registered trademark? So when quoted in the article we should show that? I have no idea how. I guess we could begin with an "(R)" symbol and hope a more talented editor then volunteered to render that symbol more elegantly? -- Pelavarre 02:13, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "The Part of Tens"

"The Part of Tens" may be worth mentioning - the last part of every For Dummies book contains a number of short chapters, each being a list of ten things that the reader should know. --Palnatoke 18:33, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] List of ... for Dummies Books

The link: "list of ...for dummies books redirects back to the article. weird. someone should fix it or remove it. (signed User:Gohst - not signed in)

I am deeply dissapointed that the page with the list of the ... for Dummies books was deleted. The fact that Wikipedia is not a directory doesn`t explain why that list was deleted. I`m reading the discussion about it and can´t find a good reason. The ...for dummies books are a commercial success and, for example, if someone want to buy one of these, but since there is so many of them available how in earth is gonna make a good choice? In short, the exitence of the list doesn`t disagree with the definition of WP:NOT#DIR--ometzit<col> 22:56, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reversion without discussion

  • 02:04, 2 October 2006 A Man In Black (talk • contribs) (Talk | contribs | block) (redundant with the external link below)
  • 02:50, 2 October 2006 JJay (talk • contribs) (Talk | contribs | block) (rv- not at all redundant- one is a wikipedia article - the other is an external link for which we have no control)
  • 04:00, 2 October 2006 Aaron Brenneman (talk • contribs) (Talk | contribs | block) (Looks redundant to me.)
  • 22:39, 3 October 2006 JJay (talk • contribs) (Talk | contribs | block) m (rv)

I am deeply dissapointed by the editing pattern displayed here. When there is an editorial disagreement, and in particular when more than one editor is involved, reversion without discussion or even an edit summary is unnacceptable. - brenneman {L} 23:25, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I guess I missed the part when you attempted discussion when you reverted. However, while you are here trying to overcome your "deep disappointment", please explain why linking to a wikipedia article that is undeniably directly related to the topic of this article is "redundant". Please expalin why you think an external link is preferable. And if you are still deeply disappointed by "editing patterns" or edit summaries, please read mine from yesterday. It said everything that needed to be said (unlike your four word opinion). --JJay 23:47, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
There are two issues here. One is the article, the other is the manner in which you've edited the article. I'll address you first.
  • Someone makes a change, you revert it. That's fine, you used your edit summary, all good.
  • Someone else comes and disagrees with your revert, and re-reverts. That's fine too, edit summary and all.
    • The first editor (A Man In Black here) can't do that. He has to defend his edit on the talk page. To do other wise would be rude, unproductive, and how edit wars start.
    • Don't undo reversions to your own changes. That's really easy, but you haven't done that.
  • You, unwisely, choose to re-revert with no discussion and no edit summary.
  • Shall I just do the same then? Where would that leave us, but for being blocked shortly for 3RR violations.
If you want other people to respect you, take more care to demonstrate respect for them. When two people disagree with you over content, don't revert without comment or edit summary. Ever.
With regard to the utterly useless article that is sourced only from the same website, if you fail to understand why this is a problem I'm not sure any explanation I can make will have an impact. The "list" article is only from the website, so why do we need both?
brenneman {L} 00:46, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Glad to see you've resolved your deep disappointment. The only issue is editing this article. Wikipedia articles take precedence over external links, particularly ELs that fail our guidelines. Please review WP:EL at your earliest convenience. Otherwise, if you want people to respect you, I would suggest you not start edit wars, avoid charged subjective phrases such "utterly useless", or engage in pedantic lecturing. --JJay 01:00, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Future editors may wish to know that List of ...For Dummies books was nominated for deletion. Should the article survive I think the wikilink obviously belongs here (I'm not sure what other articles would logically link to it). The content dispute is better solved by properly nominating an article for deletion rather than burying it. --Dhartung | Talk 14:23, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Use of ellipsis in title

Why does the title of this article utilize a series of three periods for an ellipsis instead of the … character (Unicode 2026)? MacGuy(contact me) 22:25, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reversal of Anonymous Edit.

I have reversed an anonymous edit made by a user identified only by IP address 68.187.1.132 . This anonymous user deleted an edit which I had made to this for dummies page. The edit which I made to the page originally was nothing more than give some acknowledgement/credit to Ed Tittel, the auhtor whose book image, HTML for Dummies has been getting used for several years on wikipedia as the trophy for Dummies image. The reversal made by the anonymous user stated "removing advertising for author's site", which I find to be an incredible statement. The author never "advertised" his site. I made the edits, not the author, Ed Tittel. I do not know Ed Tittel, nor have I ever met him. I live in the UK and as far as I know he lives in Austin, Texas, from what I can gather from his website, and I have never in my life been to USA far less Austin, Texas. I find it incredible that some anonymous user would suggest this is a cheap stunt for a free advert by the author, particularly when Andy Rathbone, Dan Gookin and John Levine have clear mentions, or should that be adverts? I have read several of Ed Tittels for Dummies HTML, XHTML and XML books to name just some of the over 200 books he has authored, in my time as a student of computing and internet languages. I hardly think he needs cheap adverts on wikipedia when his website has several backlinks from the IBM site (PR 10) about 100 from php.net (PR9), so please, whoever this anonymous user is, stop from inferring this was some cheap advertising stunt! Wikipedia has been using the man's book as their trophy for Dummies image for years, so let's not start infering slurs about cheap advertising, please.

Chrissyboi 03:28, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Advertisement

Hi, everybody! I haven't been here in a while. Anyhow, I think that the article is reasonably well written, but toward the end of the history section it starts to sound like an ad. I cite the overuse of exclamation marks as an example of this. I'll try to cleanup, and anyone who wants to help is free to join. --Supernerd 10 13:46, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Created a collapsed table

I created a collapsed table on The_Complete_Idiot's_Guide_to... which had a long list of idiots guide books. This is maybe something that can be done here with the list of dummies books. Travb (talk) 03:44, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dummies vs. Idiots

Which came first, Dummies or Idiots? One is clearly a takeoff on the other. Since this article links to the Idiots article, it would be worth mentioning which one was the originator of the concept.

Wechselstrom (talk) 18:11, 26 May 2008 (UTC)