User talk:Musophilus
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Welcome, and notes on Samuel Daniel
Hi, Musophilus. Wikipedia needs experts, so I'm pleased you're here. Because you're an expert and new, as you begin to edit, you'll be in the challenging position of simultaneously knowing more than pretty much any other editor about what you're doing... and less. Consensus is important here, but in the topic you're initially attacking (Samuel Daniel), I doubt there are enough editors who are active, interested, and knowledgeable to get a real discussion started. So it's good that you're asking for input, but don't hold your breath. You don't need any permission to start. WP:BE BOLD. Clearly, you already value WP:Reliable sources, so you won't need a lesson on that. My caution to you, as an expert, is that the article must not flog your own ideas and arguments. It should be balanced and appropriate for a general readership. As to more technical advice, some thoughts:
- I think it's generally better to modify an existing article gradually, a section at a time; however, I realize as a writer it can be more convenient to develop an article as a whole. Either way, since you're new, you'll probably want to test your work before going to the actual article, so I've made you a test page here: User:Musophilus/SD where you can, for instance, experiment with formatting before committing to a live edit. (You certainly don't have to do it this way... just my suggestion.) You can then cut and paste bits to the live article when you are satisfied. Wikipedia is never done, so ultimately the only criterion of each edit is that the article is better than before... maybe 0.1% better, maybe 50 times better... either's a good edit.
- I will put Samuel Daniel (and your new test page) on my watch list, and if I happen to notice something I think you can do better, I'll let you know. And if you have any questions, of course feel free to ask. I'm not too active right now, but I do at least check in somewhat regularly.
- For style, use William Shakespeare as a model. This has been intensely vetted, so if there's a question of how to present something, it's probably doing it well. My only demurrers might be that I'd avoid a Notes section unless really needed, and I sense that editors are pretty split on whether those little floating gray quote boxes are a good idea. I don't know how you approach Wikipedia, technically speaking. My view (partly because I'm old) is that it will be advantageous to learn the Wikimarkup that you see in the "edit source" tab, rather than just relying on the visual (WYSIWYG) editor; the markup will give you better control over the result. For example, I suspect that the {{sfn}} template (as seen in the WS article) will be more fitting for the kind of inline citations you'll use than the regular ref/ref style would be. Of course, I'm happy to assist with formatting/templating types of questions. Samuel Daniel may not need quite the bulk that WS has. Keep in mind that some information, say, details about specific works, may be better linked and discussed in their own articles, rather than lengthening the Samuel Daniel article itself.
