I notice you have been editing this page. Some of the statistics quoted about Leeds on this page are worryingly inaccurate. It is inappropriate to claim that Leeds is the UK's biggest financial centre outside London, that it is the UK's second biggest legal center and also its fastest growing city, and to supply such a poor list of sources, such as the Yorkshire Post, USA Today and obscure legal surveys that originate from West Yorkshire. Why is it that Ediburgh, Manchester and Birmingham's wikipedia pages aren't full of insecure boasts about their economies, all of which are more prosperous cities -and probably bigger financial and legal centres- than Leeds? I kindly ask that these claims are removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.74.189.242 (talk) 20:49, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, JeremyA,
I've added back your {{notability}} tag that had, possibly inadvertently, been removed.
The article has apparently survived a number of speedies and VfDs and WP:AfDs. And still the article remains. Technical matters aside, I would argue that that the article simultaneously demonstrates in an instant all that is wonderful and all that is woeful about the project! --Shirt58 (talk) 11:21, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
WikiProject Yorkshire Newsletter - June 2009[edit]
WP:YORKS is a leading local British WikiProject in terms of the total number of articles supported (up from 6113 last month to 6344 on May 30th). We have recently overtaken WP:LONDON which has 6283 articles. WP:GM has the lead in FAs at 38 out of a total number of 1850 articles. In the area of GAs WP:YORKS at 42 is just behind WP:GM with 44.
The number has been kept deliberately low to give us a fighting chance of improving them to at least GA status, also so we can concentrate our efforts on these first.
To bring all other top priority articles (currently 15 with 2 at FA) to at least Good article status
To set up a weekly or monthly selected article improvement drive
To produce a regular news letter for circulation to members
Browsers
According to the article Usage share of web browsers the percentage of people using the Mozilla Firefox browser has increased steadily since 2004 and it now stands at 22.56%. The percentage of Wikipedia editors using Firefox is probably considerably higher because the Firefox browser has a number of advantages for editors. Not least of these is the add-on that lets you right click on a web page to get a Cite Web pop up on the menu. WPCITE allows you easily to create a citation template. This makes the laborious task of filling in web citation templates (almost) a thing of the past.
Another advantage of Firefox is the ability to use wikiEd which is a full-featured Wikipedia-integrated text editor that adds enhanced text processing functions to edit pages. And there is a spell checker Currently, wikEd works under Firefox, SeaMonkey, Safari, and Google Chrome, but not under Internet Explorer and Opera.
Mention of these other browsers reminds me that not all browsers render pages in the same way. What appears to be a beautiful layout in one browser can be rendered as a tangled mess of text and images by another. As most browsers can be downloaded for free, it is worth having several on your computer just to check the appearance of articles. Bear in mind that many people who use Wikipedia just for reference will have only Internet Explorer, and possibly quite an old version, so some of the latest "bells and whistles" may not work for them.
My apologies to old hands who already know all this, but to new users it really is worthwhile looking into the possibilities of different browsers on Wikipedia.
September 2011, web browser usage share. Source: Median values from summary table.
The project is subscribed to a clean-up listing which lists articles tagged with various clean-up tags that need attention. The listing is refreshed by a bot on a regular basis. The latest listing was created on March 9th.
Monitor Use the watchlist to keep an eye on changes to the project's articles so that vandalism and spamming can be removed as quickly as possible.
Infoboxes Many of our articles would benefit from the addition of an appropriate infobox.
As of 30 May, 2009, we have assessed 100% of all articles with a project banner.
(Some new and additional article talk pages may still require a banner however)
Thanks
References Please remember that the list of stubs needing expansion is always in need of attention. Please take a look and see if you can help. One small edit, such as adding a reference section and reference, to an article each session would make a big difference.
Moves Please be careful when performing articles moves and ensure that you also move all the talk sub-pages and update any image fair use rational. Otherwise the archives, to-do lists, assessment comments and GA reviews get lost and the image may be deleted as it has an incorrect FUR.
Delivered June 2009 by ENewsBot. If you do not wish to receive the newsletter, please add an * before your username on the Project Mainpage.
→ Please direct all enquiries to the WikiProject talk page. → This newsletter/release was delivered by ENewsBot · 00:09, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
WP:YORKS is a leading local British WikiProject in terms of the total number of articles supported (up from 6344 last month to 6538 on June 28th). We have recently overtaken WP:LONDON which has 6318 articles. WP:GM has the lead in FAs at 39 out of a total number of 1862 articles. In the area of GAs WP:YORKS at 45 is just ahead of WP:GM who have 44.
Thank you and well done to all those who contributed.
Article Activity
Siward Barn was promoted to GA on May 10th Oslac of York was promoted to GA on May 18th Thomas Ferens was promoted to GA on June 6th Wilfred was promoted to FA on June 9th Ilkley was nominated for GA on June 11th Sheffield was nominated for a FAR on June 18th Peak District was nominated for GA on June 18th York was submitted for a peer review on June 21st
Member News
There are now 64 members of WikiProject Yorkshire! A warm welcome to the new members that have joined us since the June newsletter:
The number has been kept deliberately low to give us a fighting chance of improving them to at least GA status, also so we can concentrate our efforts on these first.
To bring all other top priority articles (currently 15 with 2 at FA) to at least Good article status
To set up a weekly or monthly selected article improvement drive
To produce a regular news letter for circulation to members
Citing sources for your text
In recent months some really promising Yorkshire articles from new editors have been appearing on Wikipedia. These editors have worked hard to produce interesting and informative texts with some exquisite images. However, some of these articles have lacked any verifiable sources, an absolute must for Wikipedia articles. Additional research is usually necessary to write a good article. An article has to be verifiable and citereliable sources which ideally should include books or peer reviewed journal articles. Editors should provide a reliable source for quotations and for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, or the material may be removed. The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation.
Fortunately, Wikipedia provides a number of easily used tools to help with this task. Beside the Firefox add on that was mentioned last month there are a couple of toolbar options to help editors.
The first is on the default toolbar. It's the <ref>...</ref> button. This places any text that is placed between the markers in the References section on the article page.
The second handy tool is obtained by going to the my preferences section on the menu tabs at the top of the page, click GADGETS, go to Editing gadgets and check refTools. Save your options and a new CITE button is added to your editing toolbar. This little wonder, when clicked, produces options for citation templates beneath the existing toolbar. It is a fairly simple task then to copy and paste the information into the template and when you've completed as much as you can, click the Add citation button. This produces an inline citation. Of course this all depends on there being a References section on the page with either the <references/> markup or {{Reflist}} template added.
If you are in doubt about an unsourced statement, try copying the phrase or sentence and pasting it into the search box of your favourite search engine. Often this turns up a source which you can then add to the article yourself by filling in one of the citation templates on your editing toolbar. If you want to request a source for an unsourced statement, consider tagging a sentence by adding the {{fact}} template, a section with {{unreferencedsection}}, or the article with {{refimprove}} or {{unreferenced}}. Alternatively, you may leave a note on the talk page requesting a source, or you may move the material to the talk page.
Please remember...
The project is subscribed to a clean-up listing which lists articles tagged with various clean-up tags that need attention. The listing is refreshed by a bot on a regular basis. The latest listing was created on June 18th. Here is an extract
The project has 15 top-importance articles. 8 of them, or 53.3%, are flagged for cleanup.
Articles with dead external links (Oct 2008), Articles with unsourced statements (Mar 2009)
Monitor Use the watchlist to keep an eye on changes to the project's articles so that vandalism and spamming can be removed as quickly as possible.
Infoboxes Many of our articles would benefit from the addition of an appropriate infobox.
References Please remember that the list of stubs needing expansion is always in need of attention. Please take a look and see if you can help. One small edit, such as adding a reference section and reference, to an article each session would make a big difference.
Moves Please be careful when performing articles moves and ensure that you also move all the talk sub-pages and update any image fair use rational. Otherwise the archives, to-do lists, assessment comments and GA reviews get lost and the image may be deleted as it has an incorrect FUR.
Delivered July 2009 by ENewsBot. If you do not wish to receive the newsletter, please add an * before your username on the Project Mainpage.
→ Please direct all enquiries to the WikiProject talk page. → This newsletter/release was delivered by ENewsBot · 00:35, 2 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In reply to your comment on my talkpage. Well, you are right. Since 2005, when I put my request up, I certainly did mean it, and I have kept my head away from Wikipedia in the time since then. Unfortunately the Wikipedia articles regarding to Genseiryu, Genseiryu Karate-do International Federation and indeed as well the World_Gensei-ryū_Karate-dō_Federation have not improved at all. On the contratry these articles have been filled with misinformation, propaganda and wrong information in such a way that it seems impossible for me to believe that these people have no knowledge of what they are doing. I do not want another edit war, but consider my present "involvement" another try on finding the right "angle" in order to actually do something good or at least make sure that the Genseiryu Karate-do International Federation is not suffering from the Wikipedia articles. And that is exactly what I believe is the case. All the misinformation is put there to make the WGKF people look more ligit and the GKIF people look like idiots, liers, untrustworthy etc. If there is nothing to be done about it, and I guess there is not, then at least consider the plea from me as an official representative of GKIF in Europa, I am the president of Europea Genseiryu Karate-do Federation with headquarters located in Denmark, and remove all parts and articles about GKIF and it's people. As I believe that my efforts as well as I felt that noone wanted to listen to facts, I simply withdraw from Wikipedia 4 years ago. But the fact remains, that the articles are not improving. The GKIF article was completely orphaned untill I put the links right yesterday, and the WGKF article contain so much wrong information that I gave up on commenting all of them. See this page, for the comments I did put there: Talk:World_Gensei-ryū_Karate-dō_Federation. It is my strongest opinion, that any article regarding Genseiryu is subject to so much propaganda, lies, misinformation etc. etc., that these articles have no place in Wikipedia. Or if you would insist that they stay, at least follow my request and keep out any all all information about GKIF and the people who are involved here. I believe it is an endless and hopeless battle if nothing is done, as the WGKF people will not accept any changes to the articles, even though plenty of documentation, citations and interviews (witnesses) have been presented. Further it should be taken into account, that the people behind the WGKF are people who have been denied membership of GKIF. My personal opinion is, that everyone in this world is entitled to his or her own opinion, and these people are indeed welcome to spread these ideas. But my understanding and opinion goes only so far, especially if it is done in such a way as by the WGKF people, especially Mario Roering, who was my opponent in the past edit war. I hereby once again request, that you take these facts and arguments into consideration for a permanent deletion of these articles, or at least delete everything in regard to the GKIF in these articles. And a personal note. My talkpage was 4 years ago a public wall for slander, and I spent all my time doing nothing else than sitting in front of the computer fighting Mario Roering. I have better things to do. So if your comment about restoring it, and my request for doing something serious about the article problems, rest with my involvement here, then consider my permanent resignation put forward. But if Wikipedia is a serious encyclopedia, which I hope it is, then we, the people of GKIF, who has roots way back to 1962, when our organization was first established, say something, then Wikipedia should listen. What we are saying is the truth, which is documented through many books, papers, meetings, videos, dvds, magazines, articles, interviews etc. Thee WGKF is an organization established in 2003 by a few rejects, people who was never allowed into any organisation and was also rejected by the GKIF. They have found each other, and peace be with them, but it should be common sense, that noone should be allowed public ways free of charge for slandering a well established organization since 1962. Of course I want to have an article about Genseiryu on Wikipedia, but I don't want the article which is present here at this time, as it is filled with lies, propaganda and delibirate misinformation. If I do something about it, it is called an edit war, if I do nothing, well, then the article must be true, if I continue to do something about it, you call me a person who complain too much etc. etc. It is a situation where winning is not possible. So, again please consider my arguments for removing these articles permanently or at least consider the request to remove any and all text regaring GKIF. Thanks. Peter Lee (talk) 08:12, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
About restoration of my talkpage. That is NOT what I requested, actually I requested the contrary. I guess there is no hope for a constructive dialogue here on Wikipedia in regard to Genseiryu and GKIF? You seem to have completely ignored any and all my replies to you. What must one do to get something done here on Wikipedia as well as having some meaningfull dialogue with people who actually care about the contents of the articles here? Please let me know, as I seem to have tried and tried again and again without anyone, including you listening?!!??!?! Peter Lee (talk) 11:06, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hi JeremyA. Thanks for your last input. I understand about the protocol for the deletion and the restoration. I guess it is as it has to be. But, as you know from the past, my talkpage, as well as a lot of other talkpages was used for slander, propaganda etc. by Mario Roering making everybody too busy taking up time and making it impossible for doing anything else than replying to all of this. Restoring my talkpage, with this in mind, may start it all over again, which is of course not what I want. That was my sole concern (in regard to the restoration), but if that is the protocol, well, then lets wait and see what might or might not happen. Anyway, I thank you for your comments and guide regarding the request and process of deleting pages on Wikipedia. Thanks. Peter Lee (talk) 16:05, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hello JeremyA. The war has begun. Mario Roering is back and of course deleted a lot of text in the article World Genseiryū Karate-dō Federation. I have checked all edits very carefully, and no additions has been made, only deletions. So I have taken the liberty of reverting the entire thing. Well, the war is here once again.....wasting everybody's time. Peter Lee (talk) 00:36, 18 November 2009 (UTC) UPDATE: We have been at it with reverts and edits for no other reason than simple escalation of the war step by step. It is indeed tiresome. Maybe it is time for a few more thoughts on deleting/removing the articles completely from Wikipedia?? At least, I hope something will/can be done about this war. Awaiting your reply on the matter. Thanks. Peter Lee (talk) 03:35, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A very easy way for you to avoid an edit war--don't do it! —Jeremy (talk) 02:16, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, here I am, trying to determine whether I should make a request for deletion of Genseiryu, Genseiryu Karate-do International Federation and World Gensei-ryū Karate-dō Federation or not. There is no doubt, I prefer the deletion of the article GKIF, as this is so full of errors and misinformation put there by other editors not having any knowledge of GKIF. I could improve it, but I don't want to waste my time as I feel that I indeed did in 2005. Then I believe it better to delete it. But now back to my main issue here. Delete or improve. The article that is most off is the World Gensei-ryū Karate-dō Federation page. In my opinion (pleaser offer your view) this is a candiate for speedy deletion, as more than half the text is about Kunihiko Tosa of the GKIF, who has nothing whatsoever to do with WGKF. Irrelevant information so to speak. But if I improve the article in accordance with my best efforts, I am sure to be accuseed of vandalising the article. So, I think we are only one corner away from yet another edit and revert war. In other words, I think it is a dead end street. But please offer your opinion. As you followed the problems four years ago, I thought you might be the right person to ask for a valid opinion on the matter. Peter Lee (talk) 06:15, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I noticed that you're the user with most edits to the above article so I thought you might like to know that it's currently undergoing a Featured Article Review. The article was promoted to FA status back in 2005 and needs a lot more in line references to be considered up to standard; the problem is that since it was promoted nearly 4 years ago most of the editors involved back then have probably left wikipedia, however your familiarity with the subject would be very useful for getting the article up to scratch. The review has been open since the middle of June so is likely to close soon with the article being demoted, but it would be a real shame if the article didn't regain FA status at some point. Happy editing, Nev1 (talk) 10:59, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I was looking at the wiki article on hurricane Elvis and seen the picture that you took. I am writing a book for Amateur Radio operators that are volunteer storm spotters. The book, which is due out next year, will be called The ARRL Storm Spotter's Handbook. I am looking for original, weather related photos. Could I use your hurricane Elvis picture?
Politicians altering their Wikipedia articles[edit]
I saw your edits to Angela Christine Smith. Have a look at Gillian Merron and edits by Tomfromlincoln. It seems almost as though they are gearing up for an election and trying to wipe out references to their "negative" sides. Let me make it very clear, I am not political and couldn't really care for any of them as I feel they're all the same. But the Wikipedia must be neutral, giving, yes their good points in their career, but also pointing out their bad. All with references I must quickly add. I feel there is such a campaign going on to alter the Wiki pages of politicians that there should be a Wiki task force to just monitor politicians pages.--BSTemple (talk) 18:15, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your reply. I'm a Member of Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography, so I will look into that line. I'm just trying to keep a balanced neutral view on the Wikipedia. If I can help you at any time, just let me know. Cheers.--BSTemple (talk) 08:09, 18 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your note about this - I've undone my revert. Warofdreamstalk 09:19, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Deletions of Chicago Aldermen "Toni Foulkes", "Willie Cochran", "Lona Lane"[edit]
Hello Jeremy, I got your name from the WP:CHICAGO page. Do you have time to try to help me restore 3 article deletions with a simply friendly request to a fellow admin rather than a formal DRV appeal?
I've been plugging away for a couple few years now, mainly on our esteemed alderpersons. I don't mean to make more of it than it is, but I'm proud of my contributions, in particular my commitment to the citation templates in this work. I hope I have left WP better than when I found it.
About a month ago I started 3 articles on minor members of the pantheon, of course marked as stubs and needing help w/ refs. Then i got distracted with updating WP to reflect breaking news regarding Burke and Carothers. This week the 3 were deleted, with no process beyond a 2-day speedy deletion notice on 1 of the 3 that I completely missed because I failed to log on to WP over the weekend last.
I am not sure notability can be established for these 3 but I would like to try. I ask only for the courtesy due an experienced Wikipedian of restoration with "under construction" and even "speedy deletion" badges which could be accomplished witha very few keystrokes of the deleting admin. I will pledge to promptly add additional text and references. I am more than willing to discuss BLP issues and notability and the appropriateness of refs, etc. on the talk pages, and to eventually accept non-notability, but I don't think it is fair to me to do so from the position of already deleted articles. I've been around a while but i am nota great typist and I don't think I need lessons driven home by having my data entry deleted. Can you please help with a brief note to the administrator User:DragonflySixtyseven? Thank you. Hugh (talk) 22:51, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
Thank you! Hugh (talk) 14:25, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Dear JeremyA.
As you know, I have wanted to delete these articles: Genseiryu, World Genseiryu Karatedo Federation and Genseiryu Karate-do International Federation. I have thus put a notice on each of the articles more than one week ago. The time period have expired without any complaints to my requests. The deletion notice on the Genseiryu article was deleted by User:ThaddeusB 30 min. prior to the expiry of the limit with a naive reason. Anyway, I would request that you delete these articles on the grounds we have already talked about, and the reasons I have stated in addition in the notice on each article including the Genseiryu one despite of User:ThaddeusB's comments, which are not valid reasons for not deleting it in my opinion. Thank you. Peter Lee (talk) 10:33, 22 July 2009 (UTC) :: I was mistaken regarding Genseiryu. The deletion notice was not removed before the 7 days limit. This is evident here: [1]. All three thus meet the criteria for a prompt deletion. Thanks. Peter Lee (talk) 10:45, 22 July 2009 (UTC)::: Well, thank you for your input, even though I am greatly disappointed with the ways things are done in this particular case (the past 4-5 years all included). The criteria is clear, so are the facts, but for editing the articles there is no way possible, unless some are given priority over others in weight of editing. And as we have seen before, that was impossible 4 years ago. That is also the reason for me quitting at that time. In my experience, nothing much has changed in this regard since then, which actually was my hope. So your advice is to either edit the articles and thus risk another edit war, or simply put them up for deletion at the AFD instead of PROD as already tried. The fact is, that I am an editor, actually the main editor or co-main editor of those three articles. And I request them deleted. In the criterias that should also be enough, but to no avail so far. I cannot accept these articles having so much wrong information in there. Of course, no one should be able to accept that, unless they have a clear goal of filling the articles up with false propagandal, lies or similar in order to benefit one party. As nobody will do anything about this, I will now delete the contents regarding the WGKF, and Kunihiko Tosa. This is an official request from the Genseiryu Karate-do International Federation, Europe, of which I am the president since 2001. I am the main or one of the main editors of these articles, I have put forward my case 4 years ago, I have done it this time as well, and I have followed procedure here as well. To no avail. I don't want an edit war or create a bad atmosphere around my person, but this has gone on long enough. If no one will take affair on the matter, then there is no hope and I believe there should be. If Wikipedia really cannot take a plea such as this one seriously, then what is Wikipedia? Nothing more than a place of propaganda and a place for displaying the less knowledgable's view of any given article. In my understanding, wikipedia is supposed to supply proper, validated and documented facts, not articles that has been disputed for four years just to increase the number of articles. Well, so far I cannot see much of that. Peter Lee (talk) 00:07, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you once again for clearing things up for me. As you suggested, I have already begun to delete and correct the false information of these three articles, but I am sure an edit war will commence as soon as MarioR learns of this. You wrote that me being the president of the GKIF-Europe only presents a conflict of interest in me contributing to these articles. Well, as anyone writing and contributing to these articles present a conflict of interest, and because it is impossible to find any third party, without any conflict of interest, the articles should, as I have already proposed, be deleted. They are not suited for Wikipedia in my opinion. Peter Lee (talk) 01:05, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hi JeremyA. As you know, the editwar has started. I warned about this, but nobody listened. We shall see how far it goes. Peter Lee (talk) 08:42, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Jeremy, this one is all yours--it's IP 94.189.247.150, blocked for 24 hours by Fastily, making possibly good-faith but challenged edits: see Milorad Dodik. I hope your mop and bucket came with cookies and patience. Happy days, Drmies (talk) 03:04, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Replaceable fair use Image:Electrelane01.jpeg[edit]
Replaceable fair use
Thanks for uploading Image:Electrelane01.jpeg. I noticed the description page specifies that the media is being used under a claim of fair use, but its use in Wikipedia articles fails our first non-free content criterion in that it illustrates a subject for which a freely licensed media could reasonably be found or created that provides substantially the same information. If you believe this media is not replaceable, please:
If you have uploaded other non-free media, consider checking that you have specified how these images fully satisfy our non-free content criteria. You can find a list of description pages you have edited by clicking on this link. Note that even if you follow steps 1 and 2 above, non-free media which could be replaced by freely licensed alternatives will be deleted 2 days after this notification (7 days if uploaded before 13 July 2006), per our non-free content policy. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. decltype (talk) 13:23, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I reverted your deletion of the Newbury Library link in the Mike Royko article, I think it fits in quite well, provides a lot of info and resources for a researchers. I'd haved guessed before reading the above that you were unfamiliar with Chicago. The Newbury Library is definitely a first class institution, and it's the repository for Mike Royko's papers, so it is very relevant. Since Mike's heros often spoke at bughouse square (aka Washington Square Park, or home of the Newbury Library) it's very fitting.
I understand that not every link can be put on a page, but this is a quality scholarly link that adds info, and fits the page. You might even check some of the other links you deleted from them to see if you overdid it. But on this one you definitely did. Thanks. Smallbones (talk) 18:06, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My apologies for the misspelling. I obviously agree with the 2 comments below, but let's not bite an anti-spammer for being a bit over-enthusiastic. Smallbones (talk) 21:20, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The name of the library is the Newberry Library. By adding external links to our finding aids, we are not trying to spam Wikipedia with unnecessary links. We are an independent research library concentrating in the humanities with an active educational and cultural presence in Chicago. We are free and open to the public. All of the links that I added have been carefully researched for cohesion and fit. I am simply trying to make researchers and scholars aware of archival and research material that is available. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Newberry Library SC (talk • contribs) 19:27, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
For example, I added a link to the article on the Ravinia Festival in Chicago. The description of this link is as follows: Correspondence, photographs, reports, and publicity relating to the Ravinia Festival, a summer music festival held at Ravinia Park in Highland Park, Illinois, since 1904. This link was deleted. A link that is supposed to be the Chicago Sun-Times' article on the festival's Centennial actually simply links to today's front page of the Sun-Times. Currently on the front of the Sun-Times website is an article about Vice President Biden and the recession. Ravinia's centennial is nowhere to be found. So which of these two links (the deleted one from the Newberry or the current one that is simply free advertising for the Sun-Times) is more relevant to the Wikipedia article on Ravinia Festival? I implore you to re-think your hasty deletion of all the pages I have added links to. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Newberry Library SC (talk • contribs) 19:45, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Jeremy, your deletions came up on my watchlist. I see someone beat to your talk page to comment. I checked several of the links when they came up on my watchlist yesterday and I checked them out. The ones I checked were, uniformly, good additions to the articles, so I left them. Did you delete these out of general principle or did you actually bother to check whether they improved the quality of the articles? That's a rhetorical question, because I checked your contributions and saw that you deleted almost 30 citations in one minute, so I know you didn't bother to see whether the links improved the articles. Please review your deletions and see whether you should have used a rifle rather than a nuclear bomb. -- DS1953talk 20:07, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, I have deleted hundreds of external links pursuant to Wikipedia:External links and detest spammers, but if you really think that these links violate the policy on external links, would you please cite the specific provisions that you think are violated so that I can discuss these with you. -- DS1953talk 20:14, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Replying here to reply to everyone at once. First let me say that I am well aware what the Newberry Library is, indeed I am a patron of the library. It is a very worthy institution and I fully support its goals. However, I don't think that that means that every article on Wikipedia for which the Newberry has something relevant in its collections should have a link to the Newberry website. I did not examine every single link that I removed, but I did examine several, and those that I did were simply lists of the Newberry's holdings on a particular subject. WP:ELYES gives the kind of links that should be in an article: 1, the official website of the article's subject -- clearly not applicable here. 2, articles about books or music etc should link to sites hosting a copy of the media -- not applicable here either. 3, Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article -- I don't see how this applies either. WP:ELNO gives the kind of links to avoid: 1) Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a Featured article -- I would argue that whilst the Newberry's collection includes unique resources, as they are not available through the linked website the website itself does not satisfy this criterion. If you disagree with me there then there is also 6, Links to sites that require payment or registration to view the relevant content -- to get at the content listed on the linked sites you would have to visit the library, where you would be required to register to view the content. So, though I bear no grudge against the Newberry, and in fact I am a very satisfied patron, I do not feel that the links that were added to these articles meet the criteria at WP:EL. On the other hand, if the holdings at the Newberry for any of these subjects are so unique that they are worth mentioning in the body of the article itself, then the linked pages may be suitable for use as citations for that text. —Jeremy (talk) 21:43, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think we really disagree at all, in principle. The difference is that I think at least the links I looked at do contribute significantly to the articles in question. When I was working on the article on James Jones, I added external links to the two universities that had significant collections related to Jones (and someone else later added a third). The two collections I cited are each unique. They do not significantly overlap and are important resources for anyone researching Jones. I see nothing that requires that the resources be "worth mentioning in the body of the article itself, then the linked pages may be suitable for use as citations for that text." By that standard, we would never have external links at the end of the article. If that is what you think is required, then as to that conclusion, I respectfully disagree. I am too busy to recheck the various links at this point, but I do hope to add back the ones that I think indicate a *unique* resource, as I do agree that simply having materials on the subject of an article does not meet the WP:EL standard. -- DS1953talk 02:33, 7 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My comment about mentioning the Newberry collections in the articles was not a statement about policy, it was a suggestion: The web pages linked to did not provide access to the collections at Newberry, they just provided information about what the Newberry holds. My argument is that if these holdings are significant enough to be noteworthy then that should be mentioned in the article body, thus removing the need for an entry in the external links section; if the holdings are not significant enough to mention in the article body, I see no need for an external link. —Jeremy (talk) 16:22, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
From the Newberry Library Special Collections:
These links were meant to provide a pathway from the Wikipedia article to finding aids of our unique collections of personal papers and archives relevant to that article.
Our aim in providing links is to enrich the research capabilities of the Wikipedia tool, as well as to utilize a website that often used as a first step for people conducting research. To use an example: The external link in the Mike Royko article in Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Royko#External_links -is to the inventory of Mike Royko’s personal papers, which Mike Royko’s widow donated to the Newberry Library. His personal papers include letters, photographs, notebooks, drawings, and other material that Mike Royko created or received during the course of his life. These materials are unique. They are unpublished. The Newberry Library is the only place that they are available. A link to the inventory - http://www.newberry.org/collections/FindingAids/royko/Royko.html - provides interested readers the opportunity to locate this important collection, understand its contents, and make use of it. We verify the facts in the Biographical Note and the Scope and Content Notes to make sure they are accurate and useful. We describe these unique materials down to the folder level so that someone interested in pursuing a research topic will have a good idea of the types of primary source materials are out there, and where to go to get more information. If one were to include all the information found in some of these finding aids in the wikipedia articles, the articles would be prohibitively long. Newberry also does not have the time nor resources for such an undertaking. To give you an idea, our intern spent an entire day adding links to our finding aids for various articles. These links were all deleted in under a minute. This does not mean that the information we are trying to give readers access to is not useful and important. For example, if someone wanted to know if Joan Baez ever played at Ravinia, they need only to go to the Ravinia Festival wikipedia site, click on the Newberry Library finding aid link, and see that indeed, she played at Ravinia and the Newberry has a picture of the event. Is this something that needs to be in the text of the Ravinia article or the Joan Baez article? No, but it is still important and useful information that is available to the general online public.
This is hardly an unprecedented effort. There are already many external links in Wikipedia to finding aids created by other academic institutions, including Stanford University (Ernest Hemingway, Nathaniel Hawthorne), and the Harry Ransom Center for Research in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin (Edgar Allan Poe, Kay Boyle).
No. 1 “Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a Featured article.” The editor argues that ‘whilst the Newberry’s collection includes unique resources, as they are not available through the linked website the website itself does not satisfy this criterion.” The inventory is itself a unique resource to a unique collection. Each Newberry link provides access to a unique directly relevant collection that cannot itself be made available in digital form, at least with current funding.
No. 6 “Links to sites that require payment or registration to view the relevant content” We intepret this statement to refer to a website, not a physical location. The Newberry website does not require payment or registration to view its content. The Newberry Library itself is free and open to the public. Like in a public library, readers register when they come to the library and obtain a readers’ card. The library also provides reference service and provides copies of its collection material by mail and email, without requiring a reader’s card.
We feel these links provide an important avenue to rich and directly related unique content in Newberry Library collections of unpublished personal papers and organizational archives. They allow Wikipedia users the option of learning more about a wikipedia article topic, if they choose. Links are particularly useful when they connect short Wikipedia biographies of unknown or lesser known figures to primary source material created by these individuals or organizations. They provide access to further knowledge that is not available elsewhere.
That said, the Newberry Library would like to continue to add links to relative articles. We have a wealth of information that we want to make available to the general public. However, we do not want to spend more time and resources adding links that are only going to be deleted. We would like to see this debate concluded. Newberry Library special collections would like to be assured that should we continue to add links to various finding aids in the future they will not be hastily and summarily deleted without proper investigation and discussion to their relevance and usefulness to wikipedia readers and researchers worldwide.
I have asked for wider input on this at the talk page of WP:EL. Regardless of the outcome of these discussions the reassurance that you seek that additions made by your account will not be removed cannot be provided to you by any editor. Wikipedia is editable by any one; there is no restriction on editors changing pages as they see fit (assuming that those changes are not vandalism). That is why every time you edit a page you are presented with the message: "If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed for profit by others, do not submit it." —Jeremy (talk) 20:30, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Jeremy, what was the outcome or consensus on the wider input you asked for on the talk page? To clarify, we are not requesting that nothing the Newberry edits is ever deleted, what we are asking is that YOU, or another editor, not delete whole swaths of links without ever examining their relevance. As another user noted earlier in this conversation, they had "checked your contributions and saw that you deleted almost 30 citations in one minute." One surely could not have visited each site and carefully scrutinized the 30 added links' relevance in under one minute. Thank you for your continued attention to this matter and the Newberry Special Collections staff is eager to hear the outcome of the wider input you asked for.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Newberry Library SC (talk • contribs)
The discussion continues on the WP:EL talk page here. Please feel free to add comments to that discussion. As you will see there is a mix on opinions on the matter. I would say that the consensus is that some of the links were OK and some were not. For the record please note that the time taken for the action of removing the links does not reflect the time taken making the decision to remove the links--I did not remove any links that you added until I had reviewed a good portion of them at which point I decided to remove them all.—Jeremy (talk) 19:31, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
WikiProject Yorkshire Newsletter - August 2009[edit]
WP:YORKS is a leading local British WikiProject in terms of the total number of articles supported (up from 6,538 last month to 6,651 on July 27th). WP:LONDON have had a major tagging spree by a bot and now have 12,595 articles which is twice as may as this project. WP:GM has the lead in FAs at 39 out of a total number of 1,946 articles. In the area of GAs WP:YORKS at 46 is just ahead of WP:GM who have 45.
Thank you and well done to all those who contributed.
Article Activity
Peak District passed a GA review on July 2nd Ilkley failed a GA review on July 19th Arctic Monkeys kept following GAR reassessment on July 21st York nominated for GA review on July 21st Geoffrey Boycott nominated for GA review on July 25th
Member News
There are now 65 members of WikiProject Yorkshire! A warm welcome to the new members that have joined us since the July newsletter:
The number has been kept deliberately low to give us a fighting chance of improving them to at least GA status, also so we can concentrate our efforts on these first.
To bring all other top priority articles (currently 15 with 2 at FA) to at least Good article status
To set up a weekly or monthly selected article improvement drive
To produce a regular news letter for circulation to members
Images
This month we focus on a recent requirement for images in articles—that of supplying alternative text for each of the images. This has been raised in FAC debates and is now a requirement for FA articles and as a result there is a general push to get all images marked-up. For example the {{Infobox UK place}} is currently undergoing changes in preparation for the use of alternative text on its images.
Alternative text is text added to the image mark-up to describe the image to someone who cannot see the image. The alternative text is in addition to the caption and should not duplicate information in the caption. It should be added, without any wikimark-up or line-breaks in it, using the alt= parameter of the image mark-up. For more information on this see WP:ALT.
Example
The exterior of York Castle, including a large portion of the motte.
[[Image:York castle exterior.jpg|thumb|100px|alt=A tall, circular, roofless building of honey coloured stone positioned on top of a high mound of grass.|The exterior of York Castle, including a large portion of the motte.]]
(If you are using a standard graphical browser and want to read this image's alt text, ask the browser to display the image's properties. Usually right click, properties.)
The same requirement is to be applied to Math-mode formulas but is probably less important to this project as very few of our articles contain such mark-up.
Please remember...
The project is subscribed to a clean-up listing which lists articles tagged with various clean-up tags that need attention. The listing is refreshed by a bot on a regular basis. The latest listing was created on June 18th.
Monitor Use the watchlist to keep an eye on changes to the project's articles so that vandalism and spamming can be removed as quickly as possible.
Infoboxes Many of our articles would benefit from the addition of an appropriate infobox.
References Please remember that the list of stubs needing expansion is always in need of attention. Please take a look and see if you can help. One small edit, such as adding a reference section and reference, to an article each session would make a big difference.
Moves Please be careful when performing articles moves and ensure that you also move all the talk sub-pages and update any image fair use rational. Otherwise the archives, to-do lists, assessment comments and GA reviews get lost and the image may be deleted as it has an incorrect FUR.
Comments, questions and suggestions about this, or any, issue of the newsletter are always welcome and can be made by pressing the feedback button below...
Just wanted to say nice job on this. It's almost there, and your efforts have been admirable. I've helped out a little with throwing refs on there, and will work on it more tomorrow. Dabomb87 (talk) 04:18, 7 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Good luck, I'll try to help out too. Dabomb87 (talk) 16:26, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately the articles about Genseiryu are changed by Peter Lee. He is writing these articles in favour of his own believes and is insulting people by speculation. I don't want to involve some edit war on these articles because it takes to much time and anyway he can change everything back. But just to make it clear to somebody who involved also in the past. These articles are not correct. I hope you can give me some advice how to deal with it.
WP:YORKS is a leading local British WikiProject in terms of the total number of articles supported (up from 6,651 last month to 6,881 on August 23rd). WP:GM has the lead in FAs at 41 out of a total number of 1,972 articles. In the area of GAs WP:YORKS at 47 is just ahead of WP:GM who have 44.
The number has been kept deliberately low to give us a fighting chance of improving them to at least GA status, also so we can concentrate our efforts on these first.
To bring all other top priority articles (currently 15 with 2 at FA) to at least Good article status
To set up a weekly or monthly selected article improvement drive
To produce a regular news letter for circulation to members
Summer treasures?
As the summer holiday season draws to a close, it is likely that many of our project Yorkshire members will have visited the Yorkshire coast. Some will have digital photographs stored on their camera cards or have leaflets and guide books about places they have visited. Now is the time to put all that wonderful treasury of information onto Wikipedia, before they all get lost in the run up to Christmas. (Ah yes, I can see supermarkets selling off barbecues to make room for baubles.)
There are two major categories for our coastal venues Category:Coastal settlements in North Yorkshire and Category:Coastal settlements in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Many of the articles in these categories are not kept up to date on a regular basis. Although it has to be said that some of the articles about the more popular resorts are well maintained and regularly watched for vandalism. Some tend to suffer from being overlinked to commercial enterprises but most sit there waiting patiently for a bit of TLC.
Fish and tricks at the seaside
Our own watchlists often become unmanageable after a while, so here is a way to make the task of keeping an eye on specific articles much easier.
You can create your own separate Watchlist for any articles that you are interested in helping to maintain or expand by:
listing the articles on a clean Sandbox page
clicking on "Related changes" in the toolbox area to get a list of recent changes for your adopted articles
copying and pasting the URL displayed on the address bar of your browser to a convenient place, maybe your to do list.
And, of course, you can change the options at the top of the page to display more or fewer changes, as usual.
(This trick works for any special little watchlists that you might like to create!!)
Please remember...
The project is subscribed to a clean-up listing which lists articles tagged with various clean-up tags that need attention. The listing is refreshed by a bot on a regular basis. The latest listing was created on August 18th.
Monitor Use the watchlist to keep an eye on changes to the project's articles so that vandalism and spamming can be removed as quickly as possible.
Infoboxes Many of our articles would benefit from the addition of an appropriate infobox.
References Please remember that the list of stubs needing expansion is always in need of attention. Please take a look and see if you can help. One small edit, such as adding a reference section and reference, to an article each session would make a big difference.
Moves Please be careful when performing articles moves and ensure that you also move all the talk sub-pages and update any image fair use rational. Otherwise the archives, to-do lists, assessment comments and GA reviews get lost and the image may be deleted as it has an incorrect FUR.
Comments, questions and suggestions about this, or any, issue of the newsletter are always welcome and can be made by pressing the feedback button below...
Delivered September 2009 by ENewsBot. If you do not wish to receive the newsletter, please add an * before your username on the Project Mainpage.
→ Please direct all enquiries to the WikiProject talk page. → This newsletter/release was delivered by ENewsBot · 08:27, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There is currently a discussion regarding splitting of the Leeds article. As you were involved in the previous merge discussion you might be interested in this. Quantpole (talk) 22:00, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
WikiProject Yorkshire Newsletter - October 2009[edit]
WP:YORKS is a leading local British WikiProject in terms of the total number of articles supported (up from 6,881 last month to 7,532on September 26th). WP:GM has the lead in FAs at 41 out of a total number of 1,993 articles. In the area of GAs WP:YORKS at 49 is just ahead of WP:GM who have 47.
For those of you who made changes to the coastal places articles after last month's feature. I think that the Scarborough article got the most attention and improvements during the month.
There has again been a number of suggestions on the ToDo list at Yorkshire Portal and this has been kept up to date.
The football and rugby editors have continued keeping abreast of most, if not all, of the top clubs. Great!
WikiProkject Yorkshire editors have been busy on vandal patrol at watchlist. Thanks.
A big Thank you to all the editors who help make this WikiProject what it is; no edit goes unnoticed.
Priority Articles
The top priority articles that have been identified to date are as follows -
The number has been kept deliberately low to give us a fighting chance of improving them to at least GA status, also so we can concentrate our efforts on these first.
When looking at school articles please take time to check the Ofsted links in the article and the references as the site has been restructured and the links to the reports may just redirect to the main page. These need to be corrected if any are found. The link in the infobox has been corrected so that one should still operate correctly.
Please remember...
The project is subscribed to a clean-up listing which lists articles tagged with various clean-up tags that need attention. The listing is refreshed by a bot on a regular basis. The latest listing was created on September 4th.
Monitor Use the watchlist to keep an eye on changes to the project's articles so that vandalism and spamming can be removed as quickly as possible.
Infoboxes Many of our articles would benefit from the addition of an appropriate infobox.
References Please remember that the list of stubs needing expansion is always in need of attention. Please take a look and see if you can help. One small edit, such as adding a reference section and reference, to an article each session would make a big difference.
Moves Please be careful when performing articles moves and ensure that you also move all the talk sub-pages and update any image fair use rational. Otherwise the archives, to-do lists, assessment comments and GA reviews get lost and the image may be deleted as it has an incorrect FUR.
Comments, questions and suggestions about this, or any, issue of the newsletter are always welcome and can be made by pressing the feedback button below...
WP:YORKS is a leading local British WikiProject in terms of the total number of articles supported (up from 7,532 last month to 7,738 on October 30th). WP:GM has the lead in FAs at 43 out of a total number of 2.034 articles. In the area of GAs WP:YORKS at 52 is just ahead of WP:GM who have 47.
The number has been kept deliberately low to give us a fighting chance of improving them to at least GA status, also so we can concentrate our efforts on these first.
The addition of the popular pages facility to the Yorkshire sidebar last month has thrown light on which of our articles Wikipedia readers actually access most. The first month for which there is complete data is September when Arctic Monkeys were in pole position with an average 6,869 hits daily. In second place with 5,781 was Wuthering Heights followed by Dracula with 4,996. The table is sortable on a number of attributes but the sort takes a while to complete.
As the page has a link to current data it is possible to see and compare current raw data for daily hits. So far the October statistics (up to October 20th) reveal that Dracula with 5,474 daily hits is well ahead of seasonal favourite Guy Fawkes with 4,411, and last month's favourite, Arctic Monkeys, are pushed into third position with a daily hit score of 4,259.
Three football clubs Leeds United A.F.C., Hull City A.F.C. and Middlesbrough F.C.get into the top 25 along with several pages about literary topics such as the Brontë family and their works. Television personalities are well represented, Jeremy Clarkson (4,559) is 4th overall in the list and Judi Dench is 23rd with a hit score of 1,577. Do the history topics in the top 25 suggest homework assignments?
It will be interesting to monitor the rise and fall of pages on the list which will also suggest where our efforts as a project might best be directed for maximum impact.
Please remember...
The project is subscribed to a clean-up listing which lists articles tagged with various clean-up tags that need attention. The listing is refreshed by a bot on a regular basis. The latest listing was created on September 4th.
Monitor Use the watchlist to keep an eye on changes to the project's articles so that vandalism and spamming can be removed as quickly as possible.
Infoboxes Many of our articles would benefit from the addition of an appropriate infobox.
References Please remember that the list of stubs needing expansion is always in need of attention. Please take a look and see if you can help. One small edit, such as adding a reference section and reference, to an article each session would make a big difference.
Moves Please be careful when performing articles moves and ensure that you also move all the talk sub-pages and update any image fair use rational. Otherwise the archives, to-do lists, assessment comments and GA reviews get lost and the image may be deleted as it has an incorrect FUR.
Comments, questions and suggestions about this, or any, issue of the newsletter are always welcome and can be made by pressing the feedback button below...
Hi, I've no real preference but retitling the William Flockton article to perhaps "Flockton (architects)" could be an option but I leave it to you to decide. BTW I could not get a picture of Endcliffe Hall when I was up there the other day as the whole place is fenced off by the military, thats why I've had to use the old picture in the article. Regards Mick Knapton (talk) 22:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
WikiProject Yorkshire Newsletter - December 2009[edit]
WP:YORKS is a leading local British WikiProject in terms of the total number of articles supported (up from 7,738 last month to 7,870 on November 29th). WP:GM has the lead in FAs at 43 out of a total number of 2,045 articles. In the area of GAs WP:YORKS at 52 is just ahead of WP:GM who have 51.
The number has been kept deliberately low to give us a fighting chance of improving them to at least GA status, also so we can concentrate our efforts on these first.
To bring all other top priority articles (currently 15 with 2 at FA) to at least Good article status
To set up a weekly or monthly selected article improvement drive
To produce a regular news letter for circulation to members
Christmas Greetings
Welcome to all our active members. This is the twentieth newsletter, the Christmas 2009 issue, and by the time it reaches members there should still be time to drop some helpful hints about seasonal gifts for Wikipedians. The obvious things are computer and digital stuff, and books. (On Wikipedia socks are only for those with a sad identity crisis.) What sort of things? Well, computer stuff can be anything from a high spec laptop, through wireless networks, antivirus software, graphics software to memory cards and memory sticks. Digital cameras are coming down in price and an MP3 player can double up as a memory stick.
A useful book for apprentice Wikipedians is, "Wikipedia: The Missing Manual" by John Broughton, it's full of tips, tricks and explanations and can be bought at about half the price on the cover if you shop around. "The World and Wikipedia: How We are Editing Reality" by Andrew Dalby has just one five star review on Amazon, and the review of "The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World's Greatest Encyclopedia" by Andrew Lih says "it's a book that will certainly make you think, but it will also leave you frustrated!". It might be a better idea to go for a reference book about your next favourite sport, hobby or indulgence. A good atlas always comes in useful as does a thesaurus, for when you come across the seventh time a word has been used in a paragraph! Or the good old phrase "is the home of" turns up yet again.
Stocking fillers include pens and pencils, to replace the ones which fall on the floor and are never to be found again, and notebooks of all shapes and sizes. A ream of printer paper and the odd ink cartridge might be useful too.
Happy Christmas.
Please remember...
The project is subscribed to a clean-up listing which lists articles tagged with various clean-up tags that need attention. The listing is refreshed by a bot on a regular basis. The latest listing was created on November 6th.
Monitor Use the watchlist to keep an eye on changes to the project's articles so that vandalism and spamming can be removed as quickly as possible.
Infoboxes Many of our articles would benefit from the addition of an appropriate infobox.
References Please remember that the list of stubs needing expansion is always in need of attention. Please take a look and see if you can help. One small edit, such as adding a reference section and reference, to an article each session would make a big difference.
Moves Please be careful when performing articles moves and ensure that you also move all the talk sub-pages and update any image fair use rational. Otherwise the archives, to-do lists, assessment comments and GA reviews get lost and the image may be deleted as it has an incorrect FUR.
Comments, questions and suggestions about this, or any, issue of the newsletter are always welcome and can be made by pressing the feedback button below...
Hi there JeremyA. I posted this text also on NeilN's page, but he seems very preoccupied with other inquiries, thus I put the same request here.
Just wanting some advice please. I tried to work on the article of WGKF for an hour or so, but it seems to me, that there are so many references in there, which are not easy to check up on. The ones which are websites, are easy though. The text on these websites are in some cases in accordance with what it is supposed to reference in the WGKF article, but the information on the websites are maybe not in all but in many or most cases based on none researched subjects, opinions or at best lack of facts. For example (without being too specific), the year of establishing Genseiryū, is completely different going from 1949 to 1953, some state that Taidō was invented in 1962, some in 1963, 1964 and 1965 etc. There is absolutely no consistency to the contents of the references. These homepages are written by people who have (obviously) no other specific references to rely on. I mean, they seem to base their own stories/sites on information taken form other sites. Sort of a go-around-information. In some cases I believe, the information has been "copied" or "transferred" but not entirely correct thus some information has been lost or changed. I have not deleted any of the references, but only changed a few things in the article. Most of my time went by because of reading the references. Even the main site in Japanese seems to not be completely correct. Perhaps written out of memory more than having documents etc. in front when writing it. In contrast to this, I have about five shelves full of pictures, news papers, transcripts, magazines, interviews, faxes, books etc. all research material going back to early 1955 or there about. Most (not all) of the information I have found on the websites contradict what I have here. My thinking right now is, that it may be nearly impossible to construct an article with references (even if these are allowed not to be third party references) that do not contradict. My question therefore is this: Could you suggest a way to go about it, as I don't want to be the "bad man" from GKIF attacking everything out of the WGKF. I want to make a fair article, but I now believe that it will not be possible under the circumstances. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Peter Lee (talk) 10:05, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Peter. If the websites in question are self-published or personal websites they should only be used as sources for non-controvertial facts, and, if better sources can be found, they preferably would not be used at all. If a variety of dates are given, then I would consider that a controversial fact which would therefore require a higher quality source. One option for dealing with sources that differ on dates is to include two, or a range of dates in the article—look at the 'History' section of the article on Beauchief Abbey for an example (sources differ on the date of its foundation).
As to the information that you have in your collection—if this is published information then it is acceptable as a source, even if it is a rare or, hard to find book (obviously, ideally someone wanting to check your source should at least be able to have some chance of being able to find it in a library). I would regard a published book as a more reliable source than a website. Information that has never been published, no matter how good or accurate, is not an acceptable source—I know that this can be frustrating… there are many times that I have had to leave information that I know out of articles I am writing because I can't find a source for it.
Always remember that when talking about sources for Wikipedia articles, the term reliable has a specific meaning. Reliablility in this context is more a measure of how many people were engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing of the publication in question. By declaring a source unreliable an editor is not saying that it is necessarily factually inaccurate, just that it may not meet the standards of fact checking etc. that are needed for sources for an encyclopedia article.
Hope this helps —Jeremy (talk) 19:47, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Jeremy. Thank you very much for taking time to explain. It is indeed frustrating, to not have a source included, which one know 100% to be accurate, or in particular if you are in fact the source. I understand what you wrote, and I shall keep it in mind when editing. Thank you very much for your time. Peter Lee (talk) 00:11, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, my question is fairly simple, I added a link of "How To" article on this page of wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_release
But now it has been removed by you, can kindly explain my mistake. Kindly suggest is it appropriate that I add content on "How to write a press release" on wikipedia and then link to a site?
kh.Mohsin (talk) 15:13, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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