Talk:Michael Dobson (author)

Advertisement Tag

Note: copied from User talk:Diego Grez -- Mildly Mad^T_C 02:41, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Could you please explain why you think that the Michael Dobson (author) page reads like an advertisement? Twice now you've reverted with no explanation at all. Simply placing a template on a page and walking away isn't necessarily very helpful. 24.148.0.83 (talk) 01:37, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry. I read it. --MisterWiki talk contribs 01:40, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

OK, I know you added it again, but why? I mean, I'll even take the little's explanation to mean that you have a valid reason. Just give me a sentence, a phrase, a few words... anything. Try as I might, I can't understand why you think the article in its current state reads as an advertisement, and you haven't given me any clues to go by. 24.148.0.83 (talk) 01:45, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I was clicking Random Page and the page appeared. So it appeared like an advertisement of a unknown person for me, so I tagged it. --MisterWiki talk contribs 01:47, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok, well, that's something of an insight to your thought process then. I'd like to seek out a third opinion though, and I'll drop the subject based on what they have to say. 24.148.0.83 (talk) 01:51, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Third Opinion

Hi, I found this on WP:3O. I don't see anything that's immediately wrong with this article. It seems like a fairly well-written biography and doesn't scream WP:ADVERT to me. The only possible problem I see is the article is mostly WP:OR and lacking in sources. User:Diego Grez, could you provide some specific reasons for why you think the article sounds like an ad? Mildly Mad^T_C 02:41, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

As I said before, I just found this article clicking Random Page, and It sounded to me like an advertisement, and I tagged it with Friendly. My apologies :) --MisterWiki talk contribs 02:49, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I think most of it comes from the Dragon magazine article, but I could go back and check - maybe more citations would help? I also agree that it could use more than one source, to help strengthen its WP:V and WP:N, so hopefully someone at some point will come up with the goods. ;) 24.148.0.83 (talk) 04:09, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Michael Dobson here...

I haven't had any dealings (direct or indirect) with my Wikipedia page, nor do I intend to start, but in the interest of providing additional citations and bibliographic detail, I've published a long career retrospective, available as a free PDF here: https://efanzines.com/RandomJottings/RandomJottings22-Again.pdf. If you've been involved in this page because of my TSR work, there's a retrospective on my time with the company included. Hope you enjoy it. Michael Dobson (author) (talk) 15:19, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

PS - I've added an author photo to Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Michael_Dobson_(author_photo).jpg. Michael Dobson (author) (talk) 15:26, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

I do see that there is a corrected DOB in that fanzine article, I'm sure the incorrect DOB came from this Dragon article where the editor clearly (and apparently incorrectly) listed it as September 9: I don't remember if it was me who added that information in the first place, but sorry for any misunderstanding. BOZ (talk) 22:03, 6 July 2025 (UTC)