User talk:KathrynBassett

Welcome!

Hello, KathrynBassett, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

The five pillars of Wikipedia
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How to edit a page and How to develop articles
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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{help me}} before the question. Again, welcome! 99.137.209.90 (talk) 20:10, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Conflict of interest and sources

Hi KathrynBassett; you can write an article about your grandfather, but please be aware of Wikipedia guidelines, in this case WP:COI and WP:RELIABLE. Your family website does not constitute a reliable source. Perhaps there are objective publications which will furnish the relevant information. Thanks, 99.137.209.90 (talk) 20:10, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hopefully, I'm "answering" this correctly, as this is different from answering a "forum" type message, so new to me. I'm not William May Garland's granddaughter, I work for her as the family genealogist/archivist. Since you may not be in the Los Angeles area, you may not realize that the Garland, Chandler and Otis families were among the movers and shakers of Los Angeles in the 20th century. There are a number of pages in Wikipedia that refer to William May Garland, some linked, some not. The linked ones led to an empty page, which is why I decided to add some pertinent information. For that reason alone, I don't believe this is a COI, as I'm not "promoting my own interests"

As for the reliability, the website** is actually quite reliable in this case, as it is based on hundreds of original documents that are in the family and not available elsewhere. Granddaughter Gwen has been the recipient (via family trusts) to gather all the family papers into one place, and my job is organizing it all and citing sources in the genealogy program which generates the website. Then many of the original documents go into a collection at the Huntington Library. The average person can not access documents there either as it is very difficult to get a "reader's card" there, as it is for scholars. So, there are "objective publications", but not that can be seen by others.

I have a several new citations that will go on William May Garland's web page the next time I generate the the website (a 2 hour process, so not done often). By citing the website, I figure that people can read about those additional sources as they are added. If you would like, I can (in wiki article) cite "marriage certificate" and "death certificate" etc, but it seems a duplication of effort in this case. I'm not planning on adding anything more to the wiki page, as my purpose was some basics regarding his connection to Henry Huntington, the Olympics, and the Jonathan Club, three important connections.

- to clarify, the two specifically cited pages are reliable, and the more recent ancestors. There are many distant ancestors and cousins that have not yet had the benefit of close scrutiny, because at this time, in the multi-year project, I've only gotten through about 1/3 of the documents.

Hopefully, this information will resolve your concerns regarding WP:COI and WP:RELIABLE

KathrynBassett (talk) 18:14, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

William May Garland

Greetings KathrynBassett, I just thought I'd let you know that I saw your article William May Garland in the New Articles list-- However, I think the article seems to contain a few errors: the references in the article do not follow Wikipedia guidelines. There is a tutorial on formatting citations at Wikipedia:Referencing. It's nice to see you editing!Amy Z (talk) 15:33, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, I got your message! I'm in the process of replying now, I have just had a deluge of mail coming in, and it is taking a little bit for me to get though it. Amy Z (talk) 22:00, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]