User:Garamond Lethe/sandbox/mentoring

Questions to tee up for my mentor, Thine Antique Pen

More immediate questions

Samuel Hubbard Scudder

On the left is a photograph of Samuel Hubbard Scudder. He is reported to have once said:

Good morning, Marge, and how are the basilisks this morning?

However, just looking at the above you wouldn't know that was a direct (if fanciful) quote, as the <blockquote> tag is indenting off of the margin, not the edge of the image.

Samuel Hubbard Scudder

One workaround this is putting the photo on the right hand side, like this...

Good morning, Marge, and how are the basilisks this morning?

...but this causes Samuel to be staring off into the margin of the page and this (correctly) annoys some readers.

How can I go about fixing the blockquote indentation?

Questions to take up a little later

1. Any suggestions as to what I should have done differently in this dyk process? Ultimately I got what I wanted and User:Poeticbent got what he wanted, so I don't think it was a disaster. Still, we had hit an impass and it was only by chance that another editor dropped by and freed the logjam.
2. I would like to learn how to review DYKs (and eventually GA and FAs, participate in peer review, etc). Would you be interested in looking over my shoulder for my first attempts?
3. Is it correct that DYK and GA are more of a process than a filter? Obviously some articles must get washed out, but given a reasonable starting point and a responsive editor is the expectation that all submitted articles will eventually make it through?
4. Other areas of potential interest further down the road: SPI clerking, WP:DRN, template construction, bot coding.

WTT Tutorial test

This test is going to be based on questions. One word "Yes" or "No" answers are unacceptable. I want to see some evidence of a thought process. There's no time limit - answer in your own words and we'll talk about your answers.

1) Q - You have just discovered from a friend that the new Ford Escort is only going to be available in blue. Can you add this to the Ford Escort article and why?

A: Yes (where page protection is not an issue) this can be added, and likewise it can be removed: the absence of any mechanical prior restraint guarantees edits are made that are poorly-sourced, non-neutral, defamatory and even illegal edits can and often are (along with much run-of-the-mill vandalism). The bulk of wikipedia policies are targeted at a different question: ought this edit be made (and a related question, if such an edit was made, ought it be reverted). In this case, such an edit cannot be reliably sourced to the friend, in the absence of other sources the strong presumption would be that the edit ought not be made. (This is not necessarily determinative. Ultimately the criteria is whether or not the edit improves the encyclopeida and I can't rule out some scenario where this condition is best satisfied by WP:IAR and adding a {{cn}} tag. But that would have to be a pretty extraordinary circumstance. In less than extraordinary circumstances do this would be just bad editing.

2) Q - A mainstream newspaper has published a cartoon which you see is clearly racist as part of an article. Can you include this as an example of racism on the newspaper's article? What about on the racism article?

A: A citation to the cartoon is sufficient to establish that the cartoon exists and (perhaps) its author and text. And interpretation of the cartoon requires a separate citation to a reliable source, and as my opinion is not a reliable source the cartoon cannot be called racist based on my say-so alone.

Assume that such a source is located. At that point an editorial decision needs to be made whether or not the coverage warrants inclusion. For example, if a couple of academics publish a book stating that a cartoon from ten years ago in the New York Times is racist, then that's a reliable source; but if that's the limit of the coverage then WP:UNDUE issues would be sufficient to prevent adding the cited material to the wikipedia NYT article. The bar would be even higher in the wikipedia article on racism. Given the unfortunate wealth of well-sourced material, the question to ask is why this particular cartoon should be given such a high profile, even in the presences of reliable sources. An easier case might be made to include the carton in a "list of cartoons considered racist" where there are a sufficient number of entries so that the weight accorded to each is minimal.

3) Q - You find an article that shows that people in the state of Ohio eat more butternut squashes than anywhere in the world and ranks each of the United States by squashes per head. Interestingly you find another article that ranks baldness in the United States and they are almost identical! Can you include this information anywhere on Wikipedia? Perhaps the baldness article or the butternut squash article?

A: It can be included as an example to avoid in the WP:OR policy....

4) Q - Would you consider BBC news a reliable source on The Troubles? Would you consider BBC news to be a reliable source on its rival, ITV?

A: The presumption would be yes to both. I would be willing to change my mind given sufficient reliable sources that demonstrated the Beeb was not a reliable source in a particular domain, and that case would be easier to make if if was time-limited (say, "The BBC has admitted that its coverage of the Troubles from 1960-1965 was tainted by systemic reportorial misconduct"). A harder case would be whether or not (say) the Wall Street Journal would still be considered a reliable source regarding new owner Rupert Murdoch. The more controversial the fact being cited the less willing I would be to allow its reliability; that's really going to be a situation where I would not want to trust a single source. GaramondLethe 23:03, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

5) Q - Would you consider Ben and Jerry's official Facebook page a reliable source?

A: Perhaps for the fact that Ben and Jerry's have an official Facebook page, but beyond that, no.

6) Q - A "forum official" from the Daily Telegraph community forums comments on Daily Telegraph's stance on world hunger. Would this be a reliable source?

A: If the "forum official" is using their real name, is employed by the Daily Telegraph to make such statements (a "Press Officer" or similar", states that they are speaking in their official capacity, and there is permanent URL to the conversation, then yes, reluctantly, that probably is sufficient. Absent any of these conditions, no.

7) Q - Would you have any problem with http://www.amazon.co.uk/ or an "iTunes" link being used in a music related article?

A At one end of the spectrum there's newsworthiness: that the Beatles held out for so long and finally allowed iTunes to carry their work is a unproblematic citation. At the other end of the spectrum there's promotion ("Buy our songs here!") either explicit or implicit, and that's verboten.

8) Q - Would you have any issue with using the About Us page on Xerox as a source for the history section of the Xerox article.

   A -

9) Q - Everybody knows that the sky is blue right? An editor doesn't agree - he says it is bronze, do you need a source?

   A -