Talk:Ray Blackston

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[edit] More info

Hi. We require more info on the author, including a free, non-copyrighted image of him. Currently, the article does not contain much information apart from his books. Also, we need to create an article for Flabbergasted. aJCfreak yAk 00:40, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Award-winning and reception of Flabbergasted

An explanation for providing the "News" section of the author's website to reference award-winning in the lead:

1. Flabbergasted was selected by the Dallas Morning News as the Inspirational Novel of the year 2003. Since I did not know if it had won any other awards, I referenced the "award-winning" to the author's website. Since Wikipedia's guidelines on citing sources mention that the best reference for a subject is their own (although not isolated - I understand the need for third-party references). If there is a problem with referencing the author's own website for this info, we could use the info from here. I just thought it would be better to get some consensus, if possible, before changing anything. :)
2. The reception of Flabbergasted (including the comments on the cover) is evident from the sources cited as references. The various reviews of it, etc. The book was also a finalist for the Christy Award - hence, I termed the phrase as "moderately received by critics and readers". Any ideas on a better way of writing this information?
3. I've always believed that inline Citations are supposed to be grouped under ==Notes== while ==References== details the material referenced to while writing the article. I've been looking all over the guidelines for Citations, Footnotes, etc. but unable to find where I read that bit. :( Anyways, anything wrong with grouping the two under the different heads?

I sincerely hope that none get offended by the points put forth here. Please feel free to respond as you like. :) All in the purpose of wiki-ing, aJCfreak yAk 20:44, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Ajcfreak, no offense taken... after all this is intended to be a collaborative process. To address your points:

1. I somehow missed mention that Flabbergasted had been selected by the Dallas Morning News as the Inspirational Novel of the year. Given the guidelines, the blog might be a better source (though use of blogs is also discouraged). Of course, the best source would be the Dallas Morning News itself, even if the piece isn't currently online.
2. The reception given Flabbergasteds cover might be improved by providing a quote from a review in which the cover is actually praised (did anyone actually use the words "fresh feel", for example). I may have dropped the ball concerning the phrase "moderately received by critics and readers". It seems fair. Don't know what I was thinking in asking for a citation.
3. I'm not sure I've seen a guideline concerning the grouping of Notes and References - which isn't at all to say that it didn't or doesn't exist. I do note that a few of the links are now duplicated under the Reference section I created, so have taken the liberty of moving these into a new "External links" section.

Hope all this makes sense.Victoriagirl (talk) 17:48, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, your points are pretty ok, I guess. I'd better go research some more... aJCfreak yAk 21:49, 22 November 2007 (UTC)