User talk:Kurama 9tails
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Kurama 9tails, you are invited to the Teahouse!
[edit]Hi Kurama 9tails! Thanks for contributing to Wikipedia. Be our guest at the Teahouse! The Teahouse is a friendly space where new editors can ask questions about contributing to Wikipedia and get help from peers and experienced editors. I hope to see you there! Technical 13 (I'm a Teahouse host) This message was delivered automatically by your robot friend, HostBot (talk) 16:07, 12 February 2015 (UTC) |
A summary of site policies and guidelines you may find useful
[edit]- "Truth" is not the only criteria for inclusion, verifiability is also required.
- We do not publish original thought nor original research. We're not a blog, we're not here to promote any ideology.
- Reliable sources typically include: articles from magazines or newspapers (particularly scholarly journals), or books by recognized authors (basically, books by respected publishers). Online versions of these are usually accepted, provided they're held to the same standards. User generated sources (like Wikipedia) are to be avoided. Self-published sources should be avoided except for information by and about the subject that is not self-serving (for example, citing a company's website to establish something like year of establishment). Up-to-date scholarship is generally favored over out-of-date academic works.
- Articles are to be written from a neutral point of view. Wikipedia is not concerned with facts or opinions, it just summarizes reliable sources. Real scholarship actually does not say what understanding of the world is "true," but only with what there is evidence for. In the case of science, this evidence must ultimately start with physical evidence. In the case of religion, this means only reporting what has been written and not taking any stance on doctrine.
- Material must be proportionate to what is found in the source cited. If a source makes a small claim and presents two larger counter claims, the material it supports should present one claim and two counter claims instead of presenting the one claim as extremely large while excluding or downplaying the counter claims.
Ian.thomson (talk) 00:01, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
- Also, if I had to guess why Omo Obatalá reverted your edits: a book from 1894 may be a reliable source, but it is preferable to cite more up-to-date (and less colonial) sources instead. Older sources are usually only used when there are no newer works, or if an older work is still regularly cited by modern scholarship. For example, when I recently worked on the article Decans, I cited a 1936 book titled Dekane und Dekansterbilder because all the modern sources I found all cited it. As much as I love Sacred-texts.com, it is usually not the best source for non-primary sources. I recommend using Google books, making sure that the source is from an academic publisher (not pay-to-print). Ian.thomson (talk) 00:14, 24 February 2015 (UTC)