I have sent the following directly to Mr. Crawford in response to his inquiry. Ec

Hi John:

I've read your desparate plea to have a question about a particular article answered, but the name of the article was not specified.

...

Courtesy of Google, I read an article on your site a week or so ago. I have a query about that article, but do not understand from your site instructions how to raise it with you.

The usual place to raise questions about a specific article is on its "Talk" page. For access to this click on "Discuss this page" in the side bar. If no other comments have been previously made about this article you will receive an edit box where you can write your question and follow that by clicking on the "Save page" button below the box.. Where their have been previous discussion you will receive a page (with a yellow background) showing all those discussions. To add your comments click on "Edit this page" wherever it conveniently appears at the top or bottom of the page or in the side bar. This will give you the edit box with all the previous discussion. Scroll to the bottom of the edit box, put four hyphens at the beginning of the line immediately below, and after a carriage return begin you questions or comments. When you finish your comments click on the "Save page" as before. The purpose of the 4 hyphens is to draw a line across the page to separate your comments from the previous ones.

Any subsequent response will be from a person interested in that topic. If your query is about making an obvious correction to the, go directly to "Edit this page" from the article itself, and make your changes right there. Extreme caution is advised if the subject matter is of a controversial nature. Using the Israel/Palestine dispute as an example you can be assured that there are supporters of each side who will be quick to revert any change that in their opinion appears to unduly favour their opponents.

...

I am not a member ? do I need to be if I wish to read the articles on your site, or raise queries about them?

Not at all! Even a "non-member" may read, query or edit almost any article. Your edits will be identified by your URL number. Any edit that is so identified tends to be scrutinized more carefully to insure that it is in good faith. This has proved an effective technique for weeding out cranks and vandals. If you intend to stick around it would be advisable to open an account with a name (or pseudonym) of your choice. Your subsequent reappearances as a trustworthy contributor can then be recognized by the regulars.

...

I have already emailed you, but do not really understand the reply which I received ? copy of both below.

The response that you received appears to be an automatic one. If there was no problem, which I suspect to be the case, your letter would have been forwarded to the mailing list without further ado. The list is only very lightly moderated as a means of keeping spam from the list. The role of the moderator is simply to make sure that you are a real person. Once you have been so recognized, all of your future postings will go directly to the list without his intervention.

I hope this answers your questions adequately.

Ray (Eclecticology)

At 12:39 PM 8/11/03 -0700, Stevertigo wrote:

In that email did you also ask him not to be such a nit?

Every time I conclude that you're not a troll, you write something like this. It's hardly surprising that someone might not immediately recognize how Wikipedia works.

VR wrote: It's hardly surprising that someone might not immediately recognize how Wikipedia works.

Nobody "immediately recognizes" anything. It took each of us time to get the wiki - and even then there are parts and conventions, rules in pencil, and verdictum-a-la-Jimbo that are still not apparent to most regular contributors. Heck, I still have no clue how certain details of how this whole internet thing actually works.

If your talking about civility - I would agree, however (though there are a million caveats to this, as well TROLL and such) and I've scheduled for myself this week a sound pounding for my misdemeanor.

:) -S-

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From: "Ray Saintonge" saintonge@telus.net

He has not yet shown himself to be a hardcore nit. Ec

I'm of the belief that all of us sooner or later, probably sooner, can qualify as a nits. The only consolation is that at times we also may qualify for full blown wit. This message of mine of course doesn't qualify for the later although making a stong case for the former as far as I'm concerned. ;-) Since, Jay B.

P.S. to the wikipedians who've put up with me and my newbieness... ...thanks for the times when I've asked stupid questions and received worthwhile answers without too much elbow jabbing.