User talk:Lindsay Ridgeway

Hello, welcome to Wikibooks!

You will find more resources in Community Portal. If you want to ask a question, visit the Study help desk, the Staff lounge, IRC channel or ask me personally on my talk page. For site news, see the Bulletin board. It might be a good idea to add this page to your "watchlist" so that you can see when any new information is posted there. You can do that by clicking the tab labeled "watch" at the top of the page.

Good luck! Mattb112885 (talk to me) 22:46, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Boing!
I left responses to your questions on WB:SLN. Hope they're helpful! -- SB_Johnny | talk 15:15, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Creating Outlines
For an example of creating outlines first, you might want to check out my book foundry. It's a sub-page in my user-space where I write up outlines and plans of all sorts. I plan things well in advance, so that when I start a new book, I know exactly what needs to be done. Of course, the effort I put into it might be excessive, but that's another issue entirely.

As to the issue of writing books, I've written my own book on the subject. It's a personal work, so it's in my user-space and not on a proper bookshelf. If you are interested in that, you can check it out at User:Whiteknight/New Book Guide. I'm sure this book has more information then you would possibly need at this point, but it can be a good reference to you later on. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 19:26, 9 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I did get your messages, and though they werent in exactly the correct place, it's of little consequence because I can always move them to someplace better if I need to. First, before I say anything else, I want to say "don't get discouraged!" I've been a member of this project for about 2-3 years now, and I still have to ask the occasional question about how things work.
 * "Title Caps" is not anything technical, and perhaps I take for granted that most readers will know what I am talking about. "Title caps" means that you capitalize the first letter in each word of a book's title, such as "How To Train Retrievers To Do Stuff", instead of using a lower-case convention such as "How to train retrievers to do stuff". It's mostly a stylistic guideline, that books are supposed to be titled in a particular way.
 * Every page has an associated "talk page". At the top of the page there is a tab that says "discussion". If you want to leave a message about a particular page, go to the corresponding talk page, and leave your message there. The talk page and the content page are considered to be one unit, so if people have the page on their watchlists, they will see changes to the talk page as well. For instance, your userpage, is located at User:Lindsay Ridgeway, and your corresponding talk page (this page that I am writing on now) is located at User talk:Lindsay Ridgeway.
 * If you see a spelling or grammar error somewhere, you don't need to point it out, you have the power and the authority to just fix it outright. Of course, if you dont want to fix it, you have the authority to ignore it too.
 * Changing the name of a book takes two steps: moving all the pages to the new location, and updating all the links to the book pages to point to the new locations. I could easily change the title of my book to be just "New Book Guide" instead of being "User:Whiteknight/New Book Guide". Likewise, if you create a new book and decide later that you dont like the title, you can move your book to a better title. I wouldn't recommend renaming your book too often, because it can be a bit of a pain (especially as the book grows larger).
 * I hope this helps you, I know that your questions are really helping me to figure out the kinds of helpful suggestions to give to future new users. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 22:19, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

A dog training question
From what you've been writing in your userspace, you seem pretty well-versed in the ways of the canine. I'd like to request a chapter on training herding dogs, if you have any experience there. I have dairy goats, and I move them from barn to pasture to barn with the help of a German Shepard (and yes, I know this is like using a bazooka to control mice). She's happy to be controlled, but I'd like to find a way to get her running on auto-pilot (i.e., not needing a constant stream of commands from yours truly). Is that possible? And if so, could you include that in the book? I can share my insights, but I'm not a methodical dog trainer... I just use the (very consistent) carrot-and-stick approach. -- SB_Johnny | talk 17:57, 10 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi, SB_Johnny. I'm incredibly flattered by your request, but two problems.  First of all, I have no experience with herding.  And second, I really want this particular book to focus on field training.  I'm not sure how to get a book going on herding skills, but I can refer you to DogTrek, a Yahoo! group with nearly 300 members, to at least get some answers.  I know some of the people there are into herding, some of them have (or at least love) goats, and some of them have GSDs, though I don't know how much overlap there is.  By the way, was this the correct place and format to answer your question?  I'm not sure how you'd know to look here for my response.  --Lindsay 18:59, 10 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Ah OK :). What's the "D" in GSD, BTW?
 * As for where to respond, it depends who you ask. Some people reply on their own talk page when someone leaves a message there, others leave a response on the other person's talk page. If you reply on your own talk and don't hear back from the person for a few days, just leave a note on their talk saying you have replied, with a link back to your talk page. -- SB_Johnny | talk 08:36, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, it makes more sense for me to write on your talk page, since otherwise you need to watch mine. On the other hand, it makes more sense for me to respond here and keep the whole thread together.  Hmm.  Well, I guess I'll reply here.  GSD = German Shepherd Dog, which I believe is the AKC breed name.  I've always called them "Shepherds" for short, but as I've come to learn more about the various breeds, I've fallen into using "GSD" like most of the other dog people I correspond with.  --Lindsay 17:03, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Ah, thanks. I suppose the "Dog" part makes sure we're not talking about German guys who take care of Schafe, I guess :).