User talk:Electra Navarone
Hi,
Let me start by saying welcome to Wikipedia. It's always good to see another Australian editor.
The reason I'm posting here is that your recent edits to Glochidion ferdinandi violate Wikipedia policies and can't be included in their current form. Wikipedia has an overriding policy that all material included needs to be verifiable. For more details please read WP:VERIFIABILITY. In fact, the principle is WP:Verifiability,_not_truth. While I encourage you to read the linked policy to understand the details of this, in simple terms it doesn't matter whether any editor believes that something is true. All that matter sis hwtehr it can be verified by a reliable source. This may seem strange, but the main point of Wikipedia, or any encylopaedia, is to collect together knowledge on subjects. It's not meant to produce new knowledge, just collect what other people have said.
In the case of your recent edits, you claim that it's "well known" that possums eat the leaves and fruits of these trees. The problem is that of things that are well known are wrong. It's well known that sharks don't get cancer, it's well known that lemmings leap off cliffs and so forth. Those sorts of things are all well known, and they are all demonstrably wrong according to every expert on the planet. That is why Wikipedia has a policy of verifiability ahead of truth. People know that all sorts of things to be true that all the experts know are wrong. So to avoid confusion, Wikipedia doesn't care whether something is true, it just cares whether we can find a reliable source that believes it is true.
Unfortunately editors don't count as reliable sources. If you want to include this material you need to find where somebody in a book or a newspaper has stated that possums eat these trees. If you can;t do that, the material can't be included.
I have also removed your photographs because they violate WP:OI. In simple terms, you can't add image sot illustrate a point that doesn't already have a verifiable source. The reason for this can be seen in your photographs. You claim that the photos prove that possums eat these trees. But all I see is a possum in this tree. The possum could be in the tree eating scale insects, it could be just using the tree to move between two other trees, it could have a nest in the tree etc. The photo itself doesn't establish the claim being made.
Personally I don't doubt for a moment that possums would feed on these trees: they eat everything else. However the claim can't be included unless you can provide a source that also makes the claim.
I urge you not to take this personally. there are rules about what can and can't be included in Wikipedia articles and it can take a while to get the hang of how those rules work. I hope you will stick around and continue to make contributions despite the fact these latest edits can't be included.
Thanks for your work, Mark Marathon (talk) 07:20, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
- I note that you have stated on my talk page that "This is not original research, it is common knowledge throughout wildlife groups". If that is the case then all you need to do is name those wildlife groups, demonstrate that they are reliable sources of such information and tell us where it has been published that this is something that they commonly know. If you can do that, then I will reinstate the material. If you can't, then it is indeed original research.11:18, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
There actually is no difference if the photographs and knowledge is published on wikipedia or in newsprint really. In all honesty I don't have time to bother with this wikinazi politics, so I've decided that I won't be participating in wikipedia or donating to it any further.
