Talk:Thomas Stanton (Medal of Honor)

Source and references

Find a Grave is not acceptable as a source or reference. It fails;

• 1)-WP:SOURCES; Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy.
• 2)- WP:NOTRELIABLE; Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for checking the facts, or with no editorial oversight.
• 3)- WP:SELFPUBLISH; Find a Grave is user edited and uses anonymous or pseudonymous editors.
• 4)- WP:SPS; This includes any website whose content is largely user-generated, including the Internet Movie Database, Cracked.com, CBDB.com, and so forth, with the exception of material on such sites that is labeled as originating from credentialed members of the sites' editorial staff, rather than users. Find a Grave is not currently specifically named as is IMBd but falls under "and so forth". Rational dictates that Find a Grave, while not listed by name in WP:SPS, certainly falls under the criteria.

• For rationale and consensus (aside from the policies and guidelines listed) please read WP:Find-A-Grave famous people#When creating articles which states, Remember that all articles must satisfy Wikipedia core policies of notability (WP:NOTABILITY), verifiability (WP:VERIFIABILITY) and reliable sources (WP:RELIABLE SOURCES). Find-A-Grave is not considered a reliable source., and further, For any articles you create because of this project, you can add the entry's Find-A-Grave link to the External links sections of the article.. While this deals with articles being created it also certainly applies to any articles already created. Otr500 (talk) 08:07, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Reverting this article without prior discussions is of course not required. Reverting this article with no regard to the listed policies, guidelines, and reasoning that resulted in the edit, while surely not the intent nonetheless was not proper and against those policies. I would like to ask that the reversion be reviewed and if the reversion is still deemed valid to leave a comment as to reasoning. Otr500 (talk) 16:18, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I submitted the Find a Grave link to the WP:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Otr500 (talk) 04:25, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

I saw and read the discussion at the RS noticeboard. I then came to this article to see what broke, so I went back to where you removed the F-a-G as a ref and put it into EL. I got nothing of a notice that links were broken and I didn't see anything either so I reverted back to what you did. I also added the ref suggested by Moxy at the RS board. I wonder if any of these medal winners articles can be expanded to read a little bit about the person named in the article? If there isn't anything out there about them are they to be forever a stub article? Just curious about the last part, --CrohnieGal^Talk 12:37, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi and thanks. I have been working on article links but do plan to look at every one as time allows. Your question has become a concern of mine. The idea of Find a Grave was a good one. There are many articles on Wikipedia now that probably would never have been thought about without the dedication that was applied. The problem is that at a point the project went from creating articles to just completing a list. I have ran across articles that were simply cut and pasted from Find a Grave to create a stub. I have taken an interest in Find a Grave articles not as a Find a Grave project member but as an editor that found thousands of articles that need work. I work 60 to 90 hours a week so have to work this in as I can and of course start with articles I have interest in. I created the article George Bomford and am working on one for James Vote (Voty) Bomford. My plan is to create articles that are "start articles" from the beginning and not stubs--and get some practice along the way. Maybe you could take a look at it and let me know what you think? I also, as I stated several times, do plan to expand stub articles as I can. It is my opinion that a permanent stub does not enhance Wikipedia but just fills a space. I do not plan to delete (or seek deletion) any articles unless there is just no notability. I do not have the knowledge to create a project list so I can stop on what I am doing to work on an article and resume without getting lost. With this in mind I am working on tagging articles thus creating a list. Crude but works right?

One problem I have with the editors that weighed in on all the discussions as proponents of Find a Grave is that there also needs to be editors willing to go to the next step. This would be "doing something" with the article stubs that now fill thousands of pages on Wikipedia. I wasted a lot of time that could have been used for something better and most of it was a bunch of circular talk. I feel that there is headway and plan to continue. I really think Medal of Honor recipients deserve recognition. I think the Find a Grave editor Don, that offered help but project members don't seem interested, could be a great asset. I am not proficient at many aspects of Wikipedia yet and downloading many pictures to Commons would be monumental. Don is very interested in helping as I have been in personal touch (email) with him and members of his organization. I can only do so much though and apparently there was not any Find a Grave member interest. Correspondence with Don, an editor dedicated to Medal of Honor recipients, led me to conclude that there are Find a Grave editors dedicated to quality information and a reason I do not want the site banned. I just feel that work is needed to advance an article past a stub and look for something other than a one time wonder type thing for notability.

Let me know what you think of the article, feel free to rip it up as might be needed, and I can use this to work on the article about his son. Thanks for your interest and help. Otr500 (talk) 10:42, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I just noticed the conversation here. I'm not sure if this is the best place for this lengthy discussion but... I noticed your comment about what did it break. Well it looks ok on the page but try clicking the link, it leads to a broken page. There are dozens more like that. Aside from that one of my primary intersts here in Wikipedia are the Medal of Honor recipients. If you haven't seen my Userpage here is a link to a page I created to identify which had articles and which did not. I need to update it a bit because some were created with alternate names than what I had but for the most part the ones with red links still need articles. Any help that can be provided in any form to cleanup and expand these is greatly appreciated. There are several users that actively work these (Myself, JWilbur, Packersfan, and a number of others). You are correct in the assessment that many are just a stub with the Medal of Honor citation and your right they need improving. Here are some of the things I did to clean them up:

1. All should have infoboxes
2. All should have persondata
3. All ships are linked to the USS ship template or equivelant
4. All talk pages have the happropriate banners for Biography, MILHIST and US (some have others as well)
5. Most have a standard structure
6. All have portals and links to the associated Medal of Honor list

Some other things that I am working on are to make sure they all have links to Marine Corps Whos who, DANFS, Hall of Valor, the Army Center of military history, etc where applicable.

1. Make sure they all have inline citations (at least 1 for the citation itself)
2. I was also trying to make sure they all had the Find a Grave as at least an external link for the ones who had little info but that's a waste of time at this point because some would rather the article didn't have the valuable info of birth, death and burial than to have the find a grave link.

I also do not agree with the use of the Home of Heroe's site. It is by all accounts a fan site and it typically contains the exact some information as the Army Center of military history or other sites. The Military times hall of valor site is also based on the data from teh Home of Heroes site but IMO is better to use since its supported by the Military times and they vett the information a bit before posting it. In fact I had it on my list to either remove from the article or move it to External links. The site is written by 1 person.

I also think it would be great to get the images from Don but IMO if we can't use the site then the data on teh site is fruit of the poison tree. --Kumioko (talk) 13:34, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Your comments are related as far as I can tell. So what does it take to make repairs to fix the problem? I assume provide the proper link that does not go through a template or is there another problem? I have not looked but will do so.

You seem to be a great person with far more experience than I will probably gain in the next few years (I have mentioned something to this effect) but it seems to me you sometimes have issues with either wanting to understand something or maybe comprehending what has been offered. This is just an observation but has been noted by others. Find a Grave is not acceptable as a reliable source. Information from Find a Grave, even though reliable per say, can not be considered as reliable because the site the information is gathered from is considered unreliable. Separate the reliable pictures from the unreliable source, given the proper release to conform to Wikipedia standards, and they can be used. I hope I have explained this so it could be understood.

Here are some possible solutions;

1. - Get in contact with Mr. Don and have him provide a release (provided for by Wikipedia if he is as interested as he states) then the pictures can be downloaded to Wikipedia commons and would you believe they can then be used on an article! Pictures can be attributed as provided by: "Mr. Don ______, an editor of Find a Grave". This would be right on the picture caption. This will of course allow the direct use of an acceptable picture that will serve to supply proof of the information.
2. - Get in touch with Mr. Don and see if he would be interested in downloading released pictures to Wikipedia commons. This would be good but unless he wants to get involved in editing he may not want to go in this direction and it would be better if an interested and experienced party was involved to see things were done right and completed.
3. - Drive to all the grave sites and personally take pictures and download them to Wikipedia commons. I am just thinking that #1 or #2 would be easier and cheaper since the work is already done.
4. - Last but not least is to not worry about it and do nothing. This will assure AFD's on some articles that might otherwise be afforded references to satisfy notability. As I have taken an interest in proper links someone will probably at a point decide to clean up career stub articles as lacking notability.

Along with released pictures Mr. Don may have information and references to add to at least some of the thousands of stubs to possibly aid in expansion. You state a primary interest in Medal of Honor recipients and Mr. Don states he is very passionate about this. One has a key and one a pair of roller skates so I just figured that the two of you could get together and try to match you see. Sounds like a song right? Of course he reportedly has 3000 pictures which would be a serious undertaking if he agrees but would be easier for someone with experience.

I have not deleted any Find a Grave links from external links. Even though I don't use the site I have been moving links from references and placing them in an external links section as I feel someone wanting to follow the links can view the information that I feel is important. Unless there is a decision to disallow the use of Find A Grave on Wikipedia I do not have a problem with this. Did I use the Hall of Hero's site? Otr500 (talk) 21:24, 27 April 2011 (UTC)