User talk:ArchivisteQuébécois

Hi Saforrest I have researched professionally the entry and this is the fairest I can make (no copy and paste).I find no evidence to support the previously added line 13 so I suggest prudence,esp if such add-ons are not applied to all such public persons. Hi Saforrest, in the course of my professional job as archivist I came across payne entry some time ago and then noticed some bio errors, which I felt should be corrected, and did so. which you reverted.i am familiar with most Quebec pols so can help you if you wish.ArchivisteQuébécois 22:51, 5 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi ArchivisteQuébécois, and welcome to Wikipedia. Sorry, I did not mean to give the impression I was reverting your contributions for no reason.

At first glance it appeared the entire article had been replaced wholesale with alternate text, while at the same time not retaining all the information present in the previous draft. Sometimes this happens as part of a copyright violation (people replacing content with an official bio taken from elsewhere) which concerned me. However, I was more concerned with the fact that your revision omitted the following facts from the previous revision:

Payne's birthday,
Payne's birthplace,
the fact that he is of Irish heritage,
the fact that the Montreal Mirror reported he had been arrested for drunk driving.

Do you believe any of these statements are erroneous? If so, please explain.

Anyway, my intent was not to revert everything you had added, but to revert to the previous version (which included the details you removed) and then incrementally add in the facts from your revision. I just hadn't gotten around to the second part yet. --Saforrest 14:12, 6 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Saforrest, I am not familiar with Wikipedia oir its rules but I support the initiative. I dont want to become a Wiki tho! In the course of a separate research I came across the payne thing the other day, and it struck me as a fragmented and ameterish. I dont imagine you wrote the original. But I did my own version of payne which corresponed much more to known and verifiable reality of the guy. and I checked some archival stuff. You are right his birthday is as originally stated (I dumped it because we have taken to not giving birthday details any more for security post 9/11.)I removed it for this purpose not because it was wrong. Similar for birthplace. Not of Irish heritage from what I know and others believe with whom I checked, tho he has been very active in Irish Community I am told having sponsored a major intitiative to rehabilitate Grosse Ile the quarantine island of 1844 in Quebec, of famine fame. I also checked the impaired driving and was told the Mirror reference was erroneous. Apparently I was told he was stopped at a check-point but not arrested, and not Montreal.Also he was not only Anglo in PQ. My main point was to add a few items of significant interest which are veriable. eg Intrusion of Denis Lortie and his publicly commended role of bravery (Le Devoir etc). Publications (in Editions du Quebec etc). I checked a few other things and 2 colegues told me they were inaccurate. No graduation from Louvain, I understand just a diploma. I appreciate your interest in accuracy, we share same values.Where should we go from here. archivistequebecois

Hi Archiviste: when you reply to me, please do so on my talk page, User talk:Saforrest, so that I see your reply immediately. (Otherwise the onus is placed upon me to keep checking your page for replies.)

Your dedication to researching details is commendable. That said, we have various conventions for writing biographical articles here on Wikipedia (relevant documents include WP:NOTABLE, WP:NPOV, WP:RS).

Most critically, we need to cite reliable sources (policy: WP:RS). While you might research a fact and find it to be true or false, we need a reliable source in order to assert it in Wikipedia.

To respond to a few of yours point:

Payne's birthday: while I appreciate that birthdays may be considered personal information, the convention on Wikipedia is generally to include them when they are public. As it stands, his birthday is given on his profile at the National Assembly, so there is need for privacy.
Who was/were the other anglo(s) in the PQ caucus during Payne's terms as an MNA?

Lastly, when writing Wikipedia articles, please try to use Wiki formatting, link to other wiki articles when possible (using double-square-brackets, like this: [[David Payne]], and consult the Wikipedia manual of style. --Saforrest 06:14, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]