User talk:Wikkwriter

Welcome!

Welcome to Wikipedia, Wikkwriter! Thank you for your contributions. I am Dougweller and I have been editing Wikipedia for some time, so if you have any questions feel free to leave me a message on my talk page. You can also check out Wikipedia:Questions or type {{help me}} at the bottom of this page. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

Also, when you post on talk pages you should sign your name using four tildes (~~~~); that will automatically produce your username and the date. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Dougweller (talk) 08:03, 19 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A few comments

Glad to see you working on the article of this interesting man. A few points. A minor one - as articles should be written in a formal tone, using abbreviations such as CU is probably not a good idea. Your edit to the lead resulted in " In 1990, Deloria taught at the University of Colorado Boulder until 1990" - you meant 2000. " Focused on the Native American tribal sovereignty and the book stood as a hallmark of Native American Tribal Self-Determination at the time." Sorry, but among other things, the grammar is now a problem. The original was ". Focused on the Native American goal of sovereignty without political and social assimilation, the book stood as a hallmark of Native American Self-Determination" which I think is much more explicit. And note that your edit turned a blue link, which goes to an article, to a red one which goes nowhere.

This next one is tricky. The article said " the Bering land bridge never existed," and you've changed it to "the Bering Strait never existed,". Now I know he disagrees with the geological evidence that there was a land bridge, but the way the article reads now is that he is saying that the strait (which is a body of water) called the Bering Strait, never existed. Now that is nonsense of course as it's obviously there, but the problem is that you are right, that's what he said. "Not only does the more recent interpretation of human evolution militate against American Indians being latecomers to the Western Hemisphere, an examination of the Bering Strait doctrine suggests that such a journey would have been nearly impossible even if there had been hordes of Paleo-lndians trying to get across the hypothetical land bridge. It appears that not even animals or plants really crossed this mythical connection between Asia and North America. The Bering Strait exists and existed only in the minds of scientists." I'm guessing, but it can only be a guess, that he was either a bit careless there or was using "Bering Strait" as shorthand for the concept of a land bridge.

So if we leave it like that, using his literal words, it's a bit confusing that "Bering Strait" doesn't go to Bering Strait but to Beringia. And it makes him look a bit stupid, and he was clearly a very intelligent person, even if he was wrong. Maybe using the quote (and quotes don't have wikilinks normally) would be best. Dougweller (talk) 08:52, 19 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]