Talk:Pilgrim Paths of Ireland/Archive 1

Archive 1

January 2015

Hello again! Here are my initial comments:

1. We really need sources. Specifically, we need some third-party sources that are independent of the organization itself. If there has been coverage in reputable media like newspapers, certain books and magazines, and TV news organizations, then we've got something to work with. The ideal sources, like the ones I mentioned, are ones with established reputations for fact-checking and editorial oversight. They are considered to be the most reliable that verifiy the statements made in the article.
2. The organization itself can be considered a valid primary source of certain facts, but not interpretations of those facts. For example, "Pilgrim Paths Ireland was founded in 2013" is a fairly obvious statement of the date of organization's establishment, so the organization's website would be considered a valid source for that information. However the statement of "This was a highly successful event" is a subjective statement that comes from the organization, which of course has an interest in portraying its activities in the most favourable light.
3. Continuing on that last point, the language in the article must be from a neutral point of view, as if the topic were being described by a disinterested third party. If you're a science fiction fan (like me), think of it as if a Vulcan were asked to describe the topic. They would describe it in only plain, factual terms with no emotional influence.
4. If you copied this text word-for-word from another website, it would be flagged as a copyright violation and removed. Wikipedia has strict rules about the use of copyrighted text, which could be summarized in three words - don't do it! The thoughts in Wikipedia articles must be expressed in an original manner. Small bits of copyrighted text, enclosed in quotes, can be considered acceptable if properly cited.

That's probably enough for now - let's tackle the source issue first. I think the organization's website had some links to press coverage, so that would be a good place to begin. --Drm310 (talk) 00:28, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

February 3, 2015

Hi, just a question and then some comments for you.

Is your article about the pilgrim paths themselves, or the organizational body? It's not clear exactly what the main focus is, but it seems to be mainly the latter.

Wikipedia articles begin with a lead section, to serve as an introduction and summarize the key points of the article. A good way to start is with a concise, one or two-sentence description of the organization, perhaps like this:

Pilgrim Paths Ireland is a national representative body for Ireland's pilgrim paths. It was founded in 2013 to oversee the development of walking routes along Ireland's medieval pilgrimage paths.

Then I would divide the rest of the article into sections, as per the standard layout guide. Each section begins with a heading - to make a heading, simply put two "equals signs" (==) before and after the word(s) you want in the heading. That will create a heading that is larger and bolder than the body text. There are several levels of headings, but this should suffice for now.

Since you don't have a lot of content, I'd stick with two headings, perhaps "History" and "Members". After that you'll want a "References" heading, under which you'll place a {{Reflist}} tag. That will display in list form the citations that you implanted throughout the body text.

If you want to link a word to another Wikipedia article, you just have to surround it with two square brackets on either side, like this: [[Ireland]] goes the article about Ireland. That method is case-sensitive, though. There are other tricks to linking to an article using different words using the "pipe" (|) symbol... more about that at Help:Link.

Avoid using Wikipedia as a citation, though. Wikipedia articles cannot be considered as reliable unless they are back up by reliable sources. This introduces the risk of a circular reference, so use the reliable source directly.

One more thing - you should omit your signature from the article draft. Signatures are only used on talk or project pages (like this one) to make discussions more readable. --Drm310 (talk) 20:43, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your kind help, it is much appreciated. I'll digest what you've written and go back and edit the article again.

Deasy66 (talk) 09:05, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Hi Drm310,

I've tried this again, taking your suggestions on board. It's a lot shorter, but maybe that's for the best.

One thing I didn't understand. The guy who originally reviewed this article said it 'does not meet the general notability guideline' for Wikipedia but quite a few of the paths in the group are already included in Wikipedia. I thought that a bit odd.

Again, any suggestions greatly appreciated.

Diarmaid.

Deasy66 (talk) 21:59, 9 February 2015 (UTC)