Talk:ZERO1

Discussion on the article

{{helpme}}

I had added quotes from artists around the globe to add references and provide citations. Most of these have been deleted and at the same time have been asked again to provide references and sources. Also, most of the external links have been deleted. I have added back the biennial link. ZER01 is aimed to encourage digital art and culture and the biennials are large scale festivals that bring together artists from around the world. Such festivals are important for cultural growth of all nations and so the article should be a part of wikipedia.What more can be done to improve it?

Manasmom (talk) 17:03, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi Manasmom, sorry for the delay in responding!

The material that was removed was considered by a couple of editors (both experienced) to be promotional in nature, with the suspicion that they were copied from promotional leaflets or something similar. If you want to include this material, I would suggest that you find reliable sources of information from independent, third-party sources.

Also, the purpose of this page (the article's 'talk page') is for interested editors - if you have future queries on material to be included or removed, it might be best just to leave a message here without the {{helpme}} tag! -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 20:49, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi Phantomsteve, Thanks for your help. I understand that initially there was some material from the Zer01 website without references and citations but later on I had added quotes from the artists around the world. I also added links to newspapar articles that talk about the biennials. The biennials are festivals that invite interests from around the world. So far, only two biennials have been organised. From my understanding the newspaper articles and quotes from the artists are the best reliable resources. What more can we expect from a festival and organisation that are comparatively newer than the other festivals.Also,the link to the San Jose biennial authenticates Zer01 as a cultural organizsation.What I am wondering is why should we delete the quotes and newspaper articles. What other reliable resouces can we depend on? Thanks again for your help Manasmom (talk) 17:12, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Hand-picked testimonial quotes are characteristic of advertisements, not of encyclopedia articles. If this is a new festival and organization, that may mean that it fails our standards of notability and should not be in Wikipedia at all? --Orange Mike | Talk 16:03, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

My factual account of one of the events from the 2006 zero one festival was deleted. I'm tempted not to make the same mistake of wasting my time again, so good luck with gaining legitimacy when you won't let people add objective content to your page. Reconsider what wikipedia is and how it works. It's not the perfect face of what you want the sum total of your effort to be, it's a historical account that's open to all opinions and participants. While I'm not a huge fan of orangemike and his heavy handed approach of deleting the cultural history that san jose has, you also need to realize that if you try to control every aspect of the page, you will continue to feel the heavy hand of wikipedia editors like orangemike. The fact that I even remember the ryoji ikeda show at all should be something you would *want* me to document here. Would you try to censor the fact that Kurt Cobain would smash the crap out of guitars on stage during their shows because you thought it was unpleasant? It's not even like I swooped in and left a poor quality addition. I had *two* links to other wikipedia articles for referenc. One to the california theater and to ryoji ikeda's page. Stevecooley (talk) 19:29, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

• Hi Stevecooley. A couple of observations:

1. The two links to Wikipedia articles: Wikipedia cannot be used as a reference for itself! Linking to articles is OK, but the sentence (Ryoji Ikeda's show at the California theater was so loud that some people got out of their seats and left. One audience member yelled "It's not supposed to hurt!") is unsourced. That is why it was removed. Whether it is objective or not is debateable - without a source of information, it could be that you were there and said this! That is certainly the impression that I get from what you wrote above. If it's not you who said it (as in that case, it wouldn't be objective, would it?) then please provide a reliable source which mentions this quote - it needs to be an independent source (preferably a national newspaper, national news broadcast, etc) - not a blog, or a comment to a news story, or a press release, or something on Zero1's websites.
2. OrangeMike's "Heavy hand": OrangeMike added some tags about what is needed to improve the article; he removed a quotation which is unsourced (if a reliable source for this quote could be found - again, read Wikipedia:Reliable sources - then it might be acceptable to say something like "Cory Arcangel said that he believed the 01SJ Bienniel to be..."), from an artist whose article does not mention Zero1. He removed the "Mission" and "Vision" which are too advert-like.

I am sorry that you feel that we are not being objective. I would contend that the fact that these additions were removed are because we are being objective - one of the foundations of Wikipedia is that information is reliably sourced. Information needs to be from a reliable, independent source. This does not necessarily mean an online source (although they are easiest to verify) - but it needs to be independent of the subject. Blogs, advertising leaflets, company/organisation's press releases - these are not independent and/or reliable.

If the subject is indeed notable as you contend, I would expect there to be plenty of reliable sources of information. I especially would expect this for something which was founded in 2000 - an organisation that was founded in 1979 and ceased existing would be less likely to have online information - any entity which has been around during the "internet age" I would expect to get coverage online. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 20:20, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks everyone for this helpful discussion. I have linked some articles under References. I hope this works as an independent source and makes the article better.Manasmom (talk) 17:43, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

• Fixed the references and added ZER01 activity since 2009 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hhwong (talk • contribs) 18:49, 29 May 2013 (UTC)