User talk:3GirlsDad

John Dawson

User Mudwaters has uncorrected corrections to the entry for "John Dawson (musician)" and sites the Obituaries as his source. The obituaries that note Dawson's birth place as Detroit Michigan are incorrect as are other details of his early life. How they were so wrong about this is not known. 3GirlsDad has re-corrected the entry to refelct the correct information regarding "Marmadukes" birth place and early life. This current information is from a family member and is accurate. It is hoped that no further "corrections" will occur from misinformed sources. 3GirlsDad 22:31, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Hello, 3GirlsDad. Welcome to Wikipedia. Thanks for your contributions to the John Dawson (musician) article. Although I never saw Mr. Dawson perform live, I'm a big fan of his music. About your edits to the article: Although this sometimes seems a little strange to new editors, the policy for Wikipedia content is that it be verifiable, using reliable sources. What that means in Wikipedia terms is that information in Wikipedia articles should based on sources such as books, articles in newspapers, magazines, or journals, or certain online sources -- blogs and internet discussion forums don't count. For example, the San Francisco Chronicle, in Mr. Dawson's obituary, says that he was born in Detroit, and moved to the San Francisco Bay area in the mid 1960s. So that's a reliable reference in the Wikipedia sense, even though such so-called reliable references are sometimes wrong! Now let's say you have "inside information" that Mr. Dawson was in fact born in Chicago, and moved to California in 1952. Maybe his brother or his cousin told you that. For all I know you were there when it happened. But, again according to the policies of Wikipedia, your personal knowledge is not an appropriate source for the contents of the article. The idea is that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, so it should summarize material from secondary sources, and sometimes primary sources. I saw a hypothetical example of this somewhere on Wikipedia, but I can't find it at the moment, where a scientist publishes an article in a peer reviewed journal. Suppose now that you're a Wikipedia editor, and you go visit the scientist in his office, and he tells you, yes, I wrote that in the article all right, but now I've done some more research, not published yet, and I've thought about it some more, and I've decided that my earlier research was wrong, and I think the opposite of what I said in the article. So as an editor you know for sure that the scientist has changed his mind about what he said in the article. But you're not supposed to say that in the article, because there's not a reliable reference for it. The only reliable reference is the published article. Now, if there is a reliable reference, in Wikipedia terms, that says that Mr. Dawson was born in Chicago, then that can be used in the article, but otherwise it shouldn't be. So, my current plan is to reverse those edits again, unless another editor does it first, which could easily happen. But I thought I'd post here on your talk page and explain all of this. Here are a few pages for you to look at, that explain all this in great detail:

• Wikipedia:Verifiability
• Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth
• Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources
• Wikipedia:No original research

If you just read the lead section of each page -- the part that's before the table of contents -- you'll get the idea, the full pages are quite long and detailed and I wouldn't ask anyone to read all of that! Anyway, that's what I think, so feel free to let me know if any of this makes sense. If you reply here, I will see what you say. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 00:05, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Mudwaters, Thanks for these articles...you have given me some very useful enlightenment. I would never have considered that life experience was not verifiable or true per se in the Wikipedia sense or that a source was a verification simply because it was published regardless of its accuracy. Now to the "truth" of the matter. John was my brother. He was born in Chicago and I in Lake Forest along the North Shore. There were four of us in all, now 3. We did move to California in 1952 and he never took Guitar lessons from Joan's sister. He did go to Occidental but never to Foothill College but again I can't verify any of this in the wikisense. Oh well. I guess we will have to settle for John being born in Detroit. If the Chronicle says it's true who am I to argue. I'll look at the bright side. He may have actually played Detroit at one time or another so that will have to do. I guess you will go ahead and make your edits (unless someone else beats you to it) and return to the verifiable story. There were so many obits going around when he died some of them wilder than the SFChronicle. I think one of them actually had him born in New York so go figure. Regards 3GirlsDad 3GirlsDad 03:33, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining your position. And although life experience is not a verifiable source for a Wikipedia article, it's still the truth. I freely admit that Wikipedia is highly imperfect. You're right to be annoyed about this. Mr. Dawson was a very popular musician, and he brought a lot of happiness to a lot of people. And thanks to the NRPS albums, his legacy lives on. But here is Wikipedia, one of the most widely used websites in the world, purporting to be a reliable encyclopedia, yet they can't even get straight a basic fact like where he was born. I couldn't say, but perhaps Marmaduke is looking down and laughing at us. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 03:45, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Mudwaters, And my thanks to you. What I have learned is really good. And yes John is probably up there laughing at us. He did have great sense of humor. He probably thinks I am way to anal. I was searching a few other obits on the subject and the LA Times has him born in San Francisco http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-john-dawson26-2009jul26,0,3544803.story and the NY Times makes no mention of birthplace at all http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/arts/music/24dawson.html?_r=0 The last is more interesting as they were the only ones I am aware of who contacted my family (mother) and got their facts correct. They knew he was born in Chicago but chose not to note this in the obit. I have listed the links above to LA Times an NY Times but I have no idea how to make them "hot" in this page. Regards 3GirlsDad 20:29, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

The New York Times obituary is already cited as a reference in the article. I've added the Los Angeles Times obit. That's of particular interest because it contradicts the Chronicle, in saying that Marmaduke was born in San Francisco vs. Detroit, so thanks for that. In thinking about this some more, it seems to me that the best approach is to start a discussion about this on the talk page of the article itself, so I've done so. That way other Wikipedia editors are more likely to see the discussion, and can participate if they want to. Feel free to join in, or not, as you prefer. It's at Talk:John Dawson (musician)#Place of birth. Anyway, thanks again for the info, and the discussion. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 02:50, 14 November 2012 (UTC)