User talk:Jlmurphyosu

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Hello, Jlmurphyosu, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions, especially what you did for Spirit Fruit Society. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using 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 your question on this page and then place {{help me}} before the question. Again, welcome! Wikipelli ^Talk 11:39, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Barnesville Petroglyph

Mr Murphy, I'm sorry for being unclear. First off, let me note that experts are welcome at Wikipedia, and as long as your research has been published, it's great if you cite yourself. For a while, Dr. William Whittaker of the University of Iowa was active as User:Billwhittaker, and nobody's ever seen anything wrong with the way he used his own work at articles such as Edgewater Park Site.

The situation with the Barnesville Petroglyph article is slightly complicated. In general, we try to record what different sources have said, even if they disagree; however, the best way from Wikipedia's point of view in cases like this is to say "Source 1 said this, but the later Source 2 showed that". What I meant about contradictory statements is that we don't want the article to contradict itself; our neutral point of view policy says that it's best to mention contradictory positions, but we try not to have statements such as "Dozens of boulders of Dunkard sandstone, both small and large, are littered around the hilltop, but only one presently bears any sort of human carvings. [Actually, rock carvings remain on at least three separate boulders.]" You definitely don't need to wait for agreement at a talk page to make improvements, by the way; you might be encouraged by a page called "WP:BOLD".

As a student at Indiana University, I have access to the Ohio Archaeologist; I'll check it later this afternoon after I get off work (I'm on lunch right now) and figure out the best way to harmonize Swauger's incorrect conclusions with your research. Thanks for the help! It's good to see that you'd like to help Wikipedia; if you have any questions, feel free to ask me.

One other question — is this you? Please understand that Wikipedia policy specifically says that you're never required to identify yourself, so please don't answer my question unless you'd like so to do. Nyttend (talk) 17:14, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the additional and I will try re-editing the Barnesville Petroglyph article. It is not so much Swauger whose conclusions were incorrect but he did complicate matters by including the designs on the second ("lost") rock, which he later found. The 113 number (he also uses 114 on one of his diagrams), for example, actually includes the designs on both rocks. I think this is clarified in the Ohio Archaeologist article, which is, incidentally, available on the web, if you google on "Murphy lost Barnesville."

Yes, that is my COS profile and I certainly don't mind identifying myself. I am still somewhat perplexed by how the Talk function works but gather that "editing" is "replying."

One question: when I am prepared to re-edit the Barnesville Petroglyph article, it would be simpler to Undo your edit and re-edit my previous version, since you essentially restored the original. This this considered acceptable?

Jim Jlmurphyosu (talk) 18:26, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Hm, okay, I misunderstood Swauger's conclusions; thanks for the correction. Thanks, too, for telling me how to find the OA article, which I didn't know was online; I've added a note to the article's talk page. While the main point of a talk page is to discuss how to improve the article, it's also fine to use it as a dumping ground for resources to be used later. As far as replying on people's talk pages — there are two common ways to do it. Either you can edit the other person's talk page and add your response, or you can leave the response on your own talk page; many people like the latter because it keeps conversations from being fragmented, but many people like the former because it's easier for the other person to read. If you reply on your talk page, it's good to leave a note on the other person's talk page to say "I've replied", since most people don't pay attention to others's talk pages enough to realize that there's been a reply. As far as the bits about the article itself, please feel free to start editing it immediately. Undoing my edit is fine, although I'd recommend for simplicity's sake that you copy/paste the contents into Notepad and work on it there — this is how I almost always do it, since I find it somewhat clumsy to edit in my browser. If you'd like to undo my edit, go to the "History" tab at the top of the article, click "undo" next to "articles; moving to talk)", and it will give you the code for the page as it was when you finished your edit. One final note — I hope to be working on it this evening as well, so there's a slight chance that we might get into an edit conflict, so it's another good reason to have your text in Notepad or another offline text editor. Nyttend backup (talk) 22:35, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

By the way, you'll note that I'm signing as "Nyttend backup"; I have two accounts because I don't want to use my main account's password on the public library computer I'm using, lest it get compromised. If you want to leave a note at my talk page, please go to User talk:Nyttend. Nyttend backup (talk) 22:36, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

I've restored your corrections to the article. Thank you very much for the help! I'm sorry that I took several days to correct the situation. I didn't have any clue how many works you'd placed on the Knowledge Base; I found your Newlove Works article quite a long time ago, but I'd never before found any others. I've now added a link from the Wikipedia article to your "Unrecorded Petroglyph Site in Belmont County" article, which I'd already been using as a reference. Nyttend (talk) 02:14, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Eagerly awaiting your improvements :-) I have one set of questions about the site itself — is it publicly accessible? And if so, how does one get permission to visit it? Several months ago, I was in Belmont County and took some photographs, including at the Tower Site a few miles north of the petroglyphs, but at that time, I couldn't find who owned it or whether it were publicly accessible. Nyttend (talk) 13:22, 2 July 2011 (UTC)