User talk:Vidale

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Welcome!

--Fangz 03:24, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Checking how this all works John 03:37, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Some minor pointers

Just a few minor issues...

I've removed the categories and the stub template from your userpage. That's because these things are really only meant for actual encyclopedia articles, and Userpages are generally not considered as normal encyclopedia articles - Userpages are supposedly user home pages, and so not subject to the usual standards for articles, so mixing them in with normal articles is generally bad and confusing. If you feel a John Vidale article is appropiate however, create that. (Your participation in PNSN may make such an article appropiate, but be careful - Users creating encyclopedia articles about themselves have lead to problems in the past, and is generally not recommended.)

In general, articles begin with:

Blah blah is a <short defn>

etc etc

The three dashes in the wikicode mean bold formatting, and it's a convention for the first mention of the topic itself to be bold (or in the case of works of art, bold italic) to make it easier for readers.

--Fangz 23:24, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointers. No need to make my own page, I hadn't read the guidelines before the inept attempt to make my userpage an entry. I'm still shaky on a lot of the finer points here, but may try to clean up some of the seismological entries if I have time. John 00:12, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Now I see what you mean with the mention of bold formatting, on checking back to the PNSN entry, very good. John 05:23, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question

Regarding that ref - I don't see any mention of water in it? Only reference I find to contraction is "the cracks are caused by the ground having contracted rapidly due to the sudden cold"... – Chacor 05:36, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

As I mentioned on the "talk" for that subject, you're right that I overstated the inaccuracy of the statement, I should have just questioned whether it mattered. (John 05:53, 2 April 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Conflict of interest

If you have a close connection to some of the people, places or things you have written about in the article John Vidale, you may have a conflict of interest. In keeping with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy, edits where there is a conflict of interest, or where such a conflict might reasonably be inferred from the tone of the edit and the proximity of the editor to the subject, are strongly discouraged. If you have a conflict of interest, you should avoid or exercise great caution when:

  1. editing articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with,
  2. participating in deletion discussions about articles related to your organization or its competitors,
  3. linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Wikipedia:Spam);
    and you must always:
  4. avoid breaching relevant policies and guidelines, especially neutral point of view, attribution, and autobiography.

For more details, please read the Conflict of Interest guideline. Thank you.

By all means delete the entry if it is deemed unsuitable. I wrote it before reading all the guidelines, and tried unsuccessfully to delete it, then filled it in a bit to look more legitimate. Although it looks neutral to me, I won't object in the least to its removal. (John 22:27, 13 April 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Focal mechanism

If you have the time, I would appreciate you having a look through the focal mechanism article that I just started. I'm a structural geologist so I'm having to rely on what I can find online and dimly remember from Master's lectures from Geoff King and Rick Sibson on seismotectonics. Thanks. Mikenorton (talk) 16:24, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks John, I never intended to start a page on focal mechanisms but I wanted to edit the Naturally occuring earthquake section of the earthquake article using a reference to deformation partitioning in the Zagros area based on them. I'm always nervous writing about stuff so close to the boundaries of my knowledge and understanding, so I'm very glad you looked it over and tightened it up a bit. I'll leave it to others to expand and get back to editing in my comfort zone of geology. Mikenorton (talk) 08:55, 29 May 2008 (UTC)