Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive 440

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Neoliberalism and how to create a new neutral page on the post-war period? (follow-up to last post)

First things first, I don't actually give a monkey's about how neoliberalism itself is presented :D .

It's not my fight and as a humanist if Rothbard is part of the crowd I find his views on children horrid.

However, if neutral encyclopaedic material is to be presented then the post-war period itself should be presented independently and then details of what took place in objective terms with interpretations underneath. Perhaps this already exists?

If not should I create a user page with this intent? This page would contain some of the following. Initially it could cover events in the USA, UK and EU.

Economic effects of the Vietnam war?
Oil shock?
Drop of the gold standard and flotation of currencies.
Explosion of interest rates propagated throughout the world in 1979 (14% in some EU countries) contributing to current public debt levels.
Relaxation of financial repression used to mop up debt due to the Great Depression and war.
Financiarisation of the economy.
Sustained monetary inflation due to money creation.
Shift in taxes to accommodate fortunes and multinationals to encourage investment.
Maastricht treaty in 1992 prevents EU member states to borrow at 0% from their national central bank.
Bail-outs of 2008.
Current $200 trillion world debt reported by McKinsey. $223 trillion according to ING.
Recent EU bail-in directive.
Current suggestions to move to a cashless society in Nordic countries.
Current suggestions to apply negative interests.

With the 2008 crisis some parallels could be drawn with the 1930s.

How would neoliberalism then fit in? The page could stand by itself to describe the ideology and it's secondary meaning as a buzzword for historical transformations.

On a new page the policies actually applied could be detailed according to their origin. For neoliberalism these would be mostly economic (deregulation, privatization...) as laws have actually become stricter for the average business. It would be added that in terms of politics most Western countries have a degree of social security, inspired from socialism and second-generation human rights so this "liberalism" is very selective.

Where am I coming from? I am absolutely certain that with hindsight people will see our time differently, and even today if people are inclined to document themselves on what has been happening. The content is probably already there on the wiki.

You will probably agree that neoliberalism and capitalism are the equivalent of the devil nowadays and even academics could have trouble being neutral on the subject. This is very convenient because anything that has a "godly" aspect can be blamed for anything and is untouchable while it is the actions of men that animate this world. This is where I'm coming from.

Some further information and different views could be added. I found this Marxist wiki which I could relate to objective and sourced content here on Wikipedia. It describes an economic slowdown to which it says keynesianism could no longer bring a solution in the 1980s due to the Marxian concept of overaccumulation while neoliberal policies offered a solution.

This could be contrasted with economic data and graphs.

There is also an economist who used to work for the World Bank with heteredox views who describes the 1970s onwards period in terms of "creditism". This could be made into another extra page. A book has been written on the subject and he has been on various shows including one on RT.

-- JamesPoulson (talk) 23:20, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse JamesPoulson. If I understand you correctly, you are proposing a page promoting an original synthesis of thought on those subjects. If that is what you are proposing, I am sorry but Wikipedia does not publish original research or promotion—even on user pages—or in fora like the Teahouse. Wikipedia summarizes what has already been published in reliable sources. Wikis including Wikipedia are not regarded as reliable sources. —teb728 t c 23:49, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

teb728 my post was obviously unclear and I admit I could work on being more concise. What I'm suggesting is a presentation of absolutely verifiable facts and figures from 1945 to the present day (post-war). One cannot be more unbiased then that.

If people then want to add a political or ideological slant then they could add a section but it should be clearly indicated as such. That includes some of what I've posted above (all the isms as well as interpretations from different viewpoints).

As a reader of conventional encyclopaedia I would expect to find something like this, not what I see at present. There is seeming conflation or amalgamation and having sources would not prevent a narrative. Some concerns are stated on the Talk page. There is seeming emotional content here even if it's subtle.

For example, it is very strange to mention the Austrian school on the page without mentioning that it's present-day supporters are actually antagonistic towards the current banking and monetary system. One has to follow the media to actually understand this and it's stated nowhere. So does the page insinuate that current day Austrians are railing against the current system just for heck of it O_o ? This is illogical.

Yes, Alan Greenspan has expressed views in favour of the Austrian School but it stops there and there is no way of knowing if he was sincere. Only facts can determine if his policies reflected that. If he was sincere for example he would have been against any interventionism. In fact, if he was pro-Austrian all the way he would be in disfavour of central banking.

Neoliberalism itself exists as a philosophy (timeless concept) and is not a buffet from which one can pick and choose, just as is the case with other philosophies.

It also exists as the buzzword for historical transformations as the worker's unions here in Belgium use the word.

These should be distinct and clearly delimited as such.

Now I'm not familiar with protocol here which is the reason for the post in Teahouse.

If the position of Wikipedia is to actually describe subjects according to the narrative of academics and such then say so. If so it would be odd as I could imagine that present-day people would have a very different view on, say, communism then simply stating what communism was about in terms of theoretical principles (=unbiased) and then describe the historical happenings that led to it's decline (=interpretation because it happened in the past and we only had the view of the West until more recently).

However, if an article simply needs to be sourced in terms of quotes and facts then I'd be prepared to put some effort in. It just remains to be seen if "post-war period" would be a valid page or if there are other verifiable terms to describe this.

Lastly, if the subject is touchy I will just leave it at that. No source on this earth can actually be neutral as we all have a subjective perception. As Wikipedia is apparently based in the States I can imagine that some subjects are up to controversy (which is why some pages are protected?) and not only since I read an article today about people on an IP from the Minister of the French Interior messing around with their page and getting blocked.

--JamesPoulson (talk) 00:49, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Too long, difficult to read. However, it is the position of Wikipedia to describe subjects according to the narrative of academics and other scholars, and we do say so. Your point about communism doesn't make sense. We describe communism both in terms of theoretical principles and in terms of the historical happenings that led to its decline, both in terms of how scholars have presented them. It isn't clear what you want to do. If you want to improve an article by adding material about neoliberalism as it has been discussed by scholars, I would suggest discussion at Talk: Neoliberalism. I would also caution that editing about neoliberalism in the United States is subject to discretionary sanctions. In any case, this should be discussed on the talk page rather than here. If you have questions about who are considered reliable sources, this is a good place to ask. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:30, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

"Too long, difficult to read"

Apologies. Concise reply this time.

"If you want to improve an article"

Yes, if only to bring clarity. That is the main point, clarity. It could vastly improve the quality without really changing content.

"However, it is the position of Wikipedia to describe subjects according to the narrative of academics and other scholars, and we do say so."

Thanks, that's what I wanted to know.

"Your point about communism doesn't make sense"

Say the Berlin wall is still there as well as the USSR. How can you know what you're writing is unbiased as a Westerner? Does that make sense?

In the same vein, is it actually possible to be unbiased about "neoliberalism" as we're smack bang in it? It's thrown a lot of hurt around and no-one likes it. It is in many ways the present-day devil.

Now compare communism and neoliberalism. They aren't exactly comparable but do you not sense the difference in terms of clarity and structure, even without reading the text? The first article is in fact very readable.

"It isn't clear what you want to do"

As stated above in bold, present unbiased facts about economic and political changes from 1945-2016.

Why? Because at the moment, it's all packed into a ball called "neoliberalism" on this page when we are in fact in a mixed system. The buzzword is thus meaningless.

Plus this is subjective but living in a social democracy I can really see both sides of the debate. Neither socialists or liberals are happy. So what is this creature? It's just me but I'd say that "neoliberalism" is just a label or vehicle for something more sinister. I'll leave it at that.

--JamesPoulson (talk) 03:13, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Welcome back to the Teahouse, JamesPoulson. The purpose of the Teahouse is to help new editors learn our policies and guidelines and procedures for building an encyclopedia, to share techniques for working with wikicode, to learn about reliable sources and how to summarize and cite them, and so on. Encyclopedia building 101, in friendly discussion. This is not a forum for debating political philosophies, or even to discuss in detail the content of various articles. Please respect our purposes here. Thank you. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:45, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi Cullen328, apologies if I seem unfriendly, aggressive or disrespectful. That was not the intention.

"This is not a forum for debating political philosophies"

Ok, sorry about that. I should have asked straight away how to improve the article and I did say I wanted to avoid disruptive editing the last time.

I don't know what this mention of "discretionary sanctions" entails and a sense of how things work here is like being scared of walking out into a mine field.

I will try to explain about discretionary sanctions. Your comment about walking into a mine field is more or less on the mark. There are certain topic areas which have been found to be battlegrounds. Some of them are battlegrounds because they are historically really battlegrounds, such as Israel and Palestine, or India and Pakistan, or the Balkans. The Arbitration Committee (the quasi-judicial authority that deals with disruptive editing when other methods of dispute resolution fail) has set up procedures known as discretionary sanctions for sanctioning editors who edit disruptively. American politics since 1932, while not a real battleground, is such an area, where editing too often gets heated. If you try to edit collaboratively in these areas, you will not get in trouble yourself, but you should be aware that editing in these areas is sort of like walking across a mine field. That was what I was saying about discretionary sanctions. If a topic has discreitionary sanctions, it is because it has been determined that too many editors behave badly. Just be aware that editing in certain topic areas is likely to be heated. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:18, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

"to learn about reliable sources and how to summarize and cite them"

So Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources. This is something I'm not really clear about as I didn't go to uni.

"to share techniques for working with wikicode"

This I should be able to pick up with my programming background. That's at least something.

I am willing to put effort in. If something can help you in return with daily tasks somehow then just say :) .

--JamesPoulson (talk) 06:37, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Have you tried the relevant talk page for your topic? Ramthecowy (talk) 15:49, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

My article has been declined a second time because "still not enough in-depth third-party sources overall."

Draft article title: < Draft:Beverly Kaye > Hello everyone and thank you for your offer to help. This is my first article creation; it is for a living person. I have reviewed the guidelines for notability and believe that I have provided significant coverage about the subject in reliable sources that are independent of the subject...but apparently I have fallen short somewhere. I've included national sources such as the Harvard Business Review, U.S.News, and Fortune's Growth Summit; recognition by industry-leading business bodies such as the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) and HR.com; national speaking appearances at events including President Clinton and Steve Wozniak; bibliography covering over 30 years of work by recognized business publishers including Prentice Hall, Jossey-Bass and Berrett-Koehler. I did NOT include that the subject has also been featured as a subject-matter expert in a number of other articles including the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Forbes and Fast Company; and two of her books have been noted as Wall Street Journal Best Sellers ... should I include those, would it help establish additional reliable sources. After the first decline because of inadequate inline citations I corrected and expanded those, but now the editors are asking for more sources. The subject has been prominent in her field consistently since the 1980's and been so recognized as a pioneer and thought leader (I have specific quotes and references for that) and I thought I had cited everything appropriately to support her reputation and career success. I would greatly appreciate any feedback or guidance you can offer. I understand the integrity requested and required for inclusion in Wikipedia and I take this very seriously. I strive to meet your standards (at least minimal standard) and once this article is available there are other colleagues who can provide additional details and support to enhance this entry even more. Again, thank you for your time, I understand it is valuable. Mjolevin (talk) 23:19, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

You won't convince anyone here that Beverly Kaye is notable just by writing a long paragraph saying so. The only way is to add references to the draft, to reliable independent sources that discuss her. I have looked at the references you have provided, that I have access to, and

1 and 10 are not independent
2 and 7 do not mention her
6 is to a press release, and so not independent.

Incidentally – the way you have provided the references is non-standard, and will need to be improved. But this is a routine matter, it could certainly be done. I am less optimistic about the existence of acceptable evidence of notability. Maproom (talk) 23:42, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Wikipedia is particularly strict about WP:Biographies of living persons, and I agree with the reviewer that Draft:Beverly Kaye is still weak on WP:Reliable sources. The subject's own publicity is not considered to be a reliable source. Can you add page numbers for the printed sources? If your colleagues have better sources, then they are invited to add them to your draft to support your submission. Dbfirs 23:50, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Notability

I am trying to write an article for Andreas Borgeas a former City Councilman and a current Fresno County Supervisor. He is also a published law professor. My article keeps getting rejected for notability standards. If an editor could please read the article and give me specific suggestions for improvement, that would be wonderful. Currently, all the feedback has been very vague. I am happy to add proof of his legislative achievements, but do not want to waste my time if that kind of addition will not help with his notability. Helkins (talk) 23:05, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi Helkins, if the draft is being declined for notability issues, there is nothing you can do. That means the person just hasn't been covered enough in third party sources to qualify for an article. White Arabian Filly (Neigh) 00:34, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

@Helkins: @White Arabian Filly: Hello, I believe White Arabian Filly is mistaken. Your draft wasn't declined because the subject isn't necessarily "notable", but because you haven't shown their notability well enough. This is an important distinction because notability has a funny meaning on Wikipedia. What it generally means is that reliable sources have given non-trivial coverage of a subject. This is what reviewers are mainly looking for in a draft.

There are also other considerations though, and you seem to have managed to pick a very difficult case in determining notability.

After about 30 minutes of research, the best answer I can give you whether or not Borgeas is notable or not is "maybe/probably". He has a massive amount of semi-trivial local coverage as a politician but not a lot of national level coverage. And as a academic, it seems unlikely that they will pass WP:NACADEMICS. Other relevant pages are WP:GNG and WP:NPOL.

Sorry, I'm not sure this is very helpful, but in conclusion, just try to add high quality sourcing about them and see how it goes. Winner 42 Talk to me! 01:09, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

In my opinion, there is a very strong presumption that Andreas Borgeas is notable enough for a Wikipedia biography. The city of Fresno has over half a million people and is the fifth most populous in the state of California. Fresno County has nearly a million people, more than the City and County of San Francisco. We have about 70 biographies of current and former members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Certainly, we can have a biography of a similarly prominent Fresno politician. And politicians of other comparable highly populated cities and counties worldwide. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:02, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi Helkins. To partly reiterate what others have said, what we want to see are citations to reliable, secondary, independent sources that substantively address the topic. Keeping that in mind, as I see it there are three main issues with the draft meeting this standard: i) you do have a few such sources, but not enough; ii) they are buried among lots of unreliable and/or primary sources making it difficult to assess, and on the same front iii) you haven't been formatting them with the detail and attribution to make their assessment easy. Recently a user used an automated tool to make the bare links you were using read better, and they do now, but that tool is still limited. To give an example of complete, tailored attribution for a decent source you already cite (though one that does not contain substantive treatment), and how you might present it (using one of our citation templates, in this case {{cite news}}:

<ref>{{cite news |newspaper=The Fresno Bee |last=Alexander |first=Kurtis |date=December 11, 2012 |title=Farewells for retiring Fresno County Supervisor Susan Anderson |url=http://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/community/clovis-news/article19515630.html}}</ref>

This will format in the reference section as:

Alexander, Kurtis (December 11, 2012). "Farewells for retiring Fresno County Supervisor Susan Anderson". The Fresno Bee.

And not, as you had it, as:

http://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/community/clovis-news/article19515630.html

I think you can see why the former is much superior to the latter for verification purposes, and would allow a reviewer a much easier time at assessment. I would thus spend time, as best you are able, on replacing sources with more reliable, non-primary ones where possible, and adding more material from such better sources. As for sources to use, have you tried looking at Google News? There's seems to be quite a few results that might be useable. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:19, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Cullen 328 thank you for your contribution. Do you think if I mention the significance of Fresno in the article, that would help?

Helkins (talk) 19:37, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fuhghettaboutit

Thank you so much for your help. One of the first things I will do is repair my cite links. Helkins (talk) 19:39, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

@Cullen328 thank you for your contribution. Do you think if I mention the significance of Fresno in the article, that would help?

Helkins (talk) 00:37, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Talk

What does the "talk" hyperlink mean? When I click on it, it brings me to a page. Is there a way to chat with an experienced editor? Helkins (talk) 19:43, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi @Helkins: Welcome to the Teahouse! You may find Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines to be a useful read. All articles on Wikipedia have an associated talk page to discuss changes to the article. For example, if you were viewing the Earth article and wanted to discuss making a change to it, you could start a discussion at Talk:Earth to get thoughts from other editors. You'll also notice that talk pages usually have notices and relevant information for editors regarding the topic. More popular topics are more likely to have active editors watching and willing to discuss the topic; talk pages for more obscure topics are less likely to be watched by editors. As a result, there's no guarantee that a message on a talk page will get replies. If you're looking to get general editing help from an experienced editor, well, you're in the right place! The help desk is another resource to get help.

Other pages on Wikipedia also have talk pages. The Teahouse, for example, has its own talk page to discuss the Teahouse at Wikipedia talk:Teahouse. Each editor also has their own talk page. If you wanted to contact me, you could post a message at User talk:SuperHamster. If I wanted to contact you, I could post a message to User talk:Helkins. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 20:11, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse Helkins. Where are you finding this hyperlink?

If you post on an article or template talk page and do not get a reply in a reasonable time or if your request is urgent try putting this template (with the four curly brackets) on the talk page near your question: {{help me}}

There are also other avenues of help, starting here at the Teahouse, and continuing with: WP:Help. In order I would suggest: the Teahouse, the Help Desk, the Village Pump (technical), Phabricator. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 21:28, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Greetings Helkins, In addition to the fine answers given above, I would mention there is a Wikipedia Tip of the day for January 17 – What is a Talk page? which may be helpful as well. Regards, JoeHebda (talk) 00:42, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Demonstration of notability through references

Robert McClenon recently reviewed my proposed page on ELGA LabWater and rejected it on the grounds that it does not demonstrate enough notability through the references. ELGA LabWater, my former employers, manufacture water purification equipment to produce pure water for use in laboratories around the world. They are listed in numerous scientific publications as the source of the water used in the published research. Last time I looked there are over 1400 such references in a Google Scholar search and a similar number in the American chemical society database. These can all be verified. I just included a few in this submission. ELGA is one of the top 3 global suppliers of such equipment, which is present in most laboratories. How should I convey this high level of notability better? I would greatly appreciate your help in this matter. Thank you. Paul Whitehead Paul W1901 Paul W1901 (talk) 09:43, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Maybe ELGA LabWater is notable. If it is, it's up to you to demonstrate it, by including suitable references in the article, in a way that readers and reviewers can find. Note what the reviewer said: "Because of the formatting of the references, it is not possible to assess whether this business meets corporate notability guidelines." Maproom (talk) 12:17, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

I now see that Wikipedia already has an article Veolia Water, which is about the same business (a division of Veolia) as Draft:ELGA LabWater. I have created redirects from Veolia LabWater and ELGA LabWater to Veolia Water. Maproom (talk) 12:31, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Correction: I see that the "LabWater" division is different from the "Water" division. I have deleted the redirects. Maproom (talk) 12:53, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

How to have "the read this article in other languages" w/o problems?

Hello Wikipedia Teahouse. As of Jan14, 2016 my article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:AibE_(software) was rejected by Robert McClenon due to lack of reliable independent 3rd party references. So I send my doubts to the Teahouse after Robert's suggestion to ask here. I read the Wikipedia statements about relevance and anti-advertising policies and I thought my translation was neutral enough in the article because I just tried to make an English language version of this entry https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/AibE (in Spanish). The subject of this article is about a more than 25 year old software application that runs in several languages, but yes mainly in Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries. Both the Spanish article and the English draft show the same 3rd party references although they are solely in Spanish. Are English-written references mandatory in English Wikipedia? Other than those I've mentioned, I cannot provide other independent references, as I don´t find any source referring this matter in English. Are also external links to LinkedIn or this vendor's website a transgression to the advertising policies in Wikipedia? English is not my mother tongue, either, maybe there are some issues with my translation that didn´t match the neutral criteria about self-promotion or advertising? Mind that I don't want to be fussy or picky at this, just have this considerations clear and try to make things better. Thank you in advance. Raycaster (talk) 13:00, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Hello, Raycaster, and welcome to the Teahouse. It's not a problem to use foreign-language sources (although if you can find some English-language sources, then all the better). The problem here is that you only have three sources listed at the end of the article, which probably isn't enough to demonstrate significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the topic. A secondary problem is that you have not used inline citations, so it is unclear how much and what parts of the article are supported by each of the sources used. I suggest having a read of Help:Referencing for beginners. Cordless Larry (talk) 13:20, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

By the way, all of these concerns appear to apply to the version of the article on the Spanish Wikipedia too, although I am unsure of the notability and referencing requirements over there. Cordless Larry (talk) 13:36, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you Cordless Larry and also Robert McClenon, I'll try to mend these questions and have my draft ready to meet the Wikipedia quality standards. Un saludo Raycaster (talk) 14:06, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Sk Wasim Ali

This page I have created, but official its removed. In Google Search, the page is giving still the link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sk_Wasim_Ali , I want to remove it from search else Allow me to redirect the page to my user account. Skwasimalitoni (talk) 16:14, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi Skwasimalitoni and welcome to the Teahouse. Wikipedia has no control over Google's search results but now that it has been deleted, Sk Wasim Ali will disappear from Google in the next day or two. That sort of information (if it is about you) does not belong on you user page either. As another editor explained to you on your talk page [1]. Wikipedia is not a place like Facebook or LinkedIn for people to write about themselves or host their resumes. Wikipedia:User pages has more information about what is appropriate and inappropriate content for user pages. I see that as I was writing this you have re-created Sk Wasim Ali as a blank page. Please do not do this. This too will be deleted and will simply prolong the time it takes for the page to disappear from the search engine results. If you are interested in working on the encyclopedia itself, you might find The Wikipedia Adventure a good way to start. Hope that helps. Voceditenore (talk) 16:34, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Own photos

Good evening, I wanted to ask:

What kind of pictures do I do if I would like to put the rural landscape?
And what need galleries of photographs? Namely the need to do a lot of rural pictures (if it is about the village) with regard to landscape or landscape and to load and put the key in the content?
What kind of license?

Thank you. P.s I answer and read it tomorrow, after the concert (own) --L.ukas lt 13 --Talk 19:49, 14 January 2016 (UTC)Lukaslt13

Greetings, and welcome to the Teahouse Lukaslt13.

Take the pictures yourself, or upload existing ones from The Commons.
Articles do not need many photos and there is not usually much room for them unless you thumbnail them in to compact galleries.
If you want to publish your own work (not images harvested from the web), use The Commons Upload Wizard
The Wizard will coach you on licensing. It will suggest the default licensing, but there is an adjacent link to choose more licensing options.

Here is a link to a tutorial on things such as galleries: Wikipedia:Picture tutorial Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 21:19, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Hello, if you like to go out and take pictures, a great place to start is Category:Wikipedia requested photographs by location. Navigate through until you get to your area and see what is requested. It will even make a map for you. Happy Squirrel (talk) 04:00, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Very thank you all!! I use this help for my photos. Really very very thank you!--L.ukas lt 13 --Talk 17:24, 15 January 2016 (UTC)Lukaslt13

A new page that I wanted to create got deleted

I just started editing a new page and it got deleted right away by someone named Liz. Why is that?XLNC11 (talk) 17:57, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

@XLNC11: As was noted in the message on your user talk page, there was no assertion that the subject of the article was significant or important. Any such article is subject to immediate or speedy deletion. Articles can be speedy deleted for a number of reasons; one reason is when the article is about a person and there is no indication that he or she is a significant or important person. —C.Fred (talk) 18:07, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

See the explanation on your talk page. User:Everymorning nominated it for speedy deletion as not making any plausible claim of notability, A7. Administrator User:Liz concurred with the nomination, and deleted it. I suggest that you use the Articles for Creation process to get review before moving the article into article space. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:09, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

How do I actually find stuff to edit?

Again, I'm a new guy here. I am learning Wikipedia markup and all so no problem with that. I've found one thing I can edit. But I'm unable to find anything else. I've tried just going through like 75 random articles but all of them usually already have content beyond my capability of contribution. Is there any place I can find articles that need resuscitation? Thanks Ramthecowy (talk) 15:56, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

My experience is different. When I am teaching someone, face-to-face, how to make edits, I get them to click on "Random article", read the one that comes up, spot a mistake in it, and correct it. Sometimes they need to click two or three times. Anyway, if you really want a challenge, have a look at List of Légion d'honneur recipients by name, read its talk page to learn what's wrong with it, and correct it. (That's not altogether a serious suggestion – it's a large very boring task that needs doing and requires no particular skills.) Maproom (talk) 16:04, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

(edit clash)Hello Ramthecowy - welcome to the Teahouse, and congratulations on completing the Wikipedia adventure and for your enthusiasm to contribute. There are several approaches, depending on what appeals to you. Here are some that occur to me:

If you have skills or an interest in a particular topic, there may be a "Wikiproject" on that area. You can see the list of Wikiprojects under "Finding a project" at Wikipedia:WikiProject. Then for example, if you look through that list, and its sub-lists, and decide you're keen on insects then you could go to Wikipedia:WikiProject Insects. Most Wikiprojects have a list of articles that need attention.
If you want to hone your editing skills by working on articles with a particular problem, then you can take a look at the lists at Wikipedia:Community portal/Opentask or Wikipedia:Cleanup.
You can check out new users' contributions at Special:Contributions/newbies - some of them are good, some are ... not.

I'm sure other editors will have some suggestions, but these might help to get you started. Good luck!--Gronk Oz (talk) 16:22, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

If you want to make minor improvements to articles, and you read and write English at the native level, Category:Wikipedia articles needing copy edit consists of articles that have been tagged as needing copy-edit. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:23, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for their replies, I've made a note of the things you've all said and hope to get somewhere some day! Thanks again! Cheers, have a good one Ramthecowy (talk) 20:50, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

REference format and reference manager

I usually use ZOTERO reference manager with a WORD plug-in to make my life easier. My questions are 1 Is there a ZOTERO plug-in for Wiki? 2 My default reference format is VANCOUVER. Does WIKI prefer a difference format? Thank you Moose139 (talk) 21:43, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't know if there's a plugin for Zotero, Moose139, but the best way to cite sources is by using citation templates, which deal with all of the formatting automatically. Cordless Larry (talk) 22:00, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not mandate any particular way of formatting references Moose139, but the format should be consistent within an article. As Cordless Larry says, the citation templates are a good approach, but they are not compulsory. WP:Zotero has some information which may be useful to you. (Hint: to find out about any topic in editing Wikipedia, try putting 'WP:' before it and searching - that's how I found that page). --ColinFine (talk) 22:47, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

proposed deletion

my article is going to be deleted in seven days. Please help me to save it. What if i don't have a reliable source for my article? What am i going to do? Save it please. Iamkheypop (talk) 02:46, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

@Iamkheypop: Welcome to the Teahouse. Looks like the problem with the page is that there aren't any reliable sources (newspapers, magazines, etc.) in it. For articles featuring content about living people, they must have a reliable source. If you can find a source and add it, you could feel free to remove the template upon doing so. Zappa 24 Mati 02:56, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

It looks like this is about MyungEun_(Kim_Myung-soo_and_Son_Na-eun). The message at the top says to not remove the notice. If reliable sources are found, then mention that at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/MyungEun_(Kim_Myung-soo_and_Son_Na-eun) RudolfRed (talk) 03:27, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Looks like they changed it. When I looked at the page, it was around the same time as this edit, so it was under PROD at the time. Zappa 24 Mati 03:32, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

My suggestion would be to acknowledge that the article doesn't pass the criteria for retention in article space and move it into user space. The criteria for user pages are much less strict than for article pages. In particular, the lack of references will not normally cause a page in user space to be tagged fpr miscellany for deletion. The Articles for Deletion discussion will be made moot by its move into user space. ~I don't know for a certainty, but am willing to guess, that this is one of the rare cases where the removal of an AFD template is permitte. Robert McClenon (talk)

Is a newspaper (LeMonde.fr) considered a valid source?

About editing or any of the process of contributing something to a Wikipedia article.

Is an excerpt from an article from Le Monde considered as a valid source? Or should sources solely be in English?

--JamesPoulson (talk) 23:22, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Sources in other languages are acceptable, though sources in the language of the Wikipedia (English, here) are preferable if available. I believe that Le Monde is a well-respected French newspaper. Maproom (talk) 23:29, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse, JamesPoulson. Le Monde is a highly respected newspaper in France, comparable to the New York Times in the U.S., or the London Times in the U.K. Accordingly, it should be clear that Le Monde is a reliable source most of the time. But no source is 100% reliable. For example, we expect that medical claims be cited to survey articles in respected peer-reviewed medical journals, not daily newspapers. And if Le Monde says something, but if four other reliable publications disagree and criticize the Le Monde reporting, then we need to be extremely cautious about citing that source in that specific case. Le Monde is a great source. But it is not a perfect source. No source is perfect. Editorial judgment is what is required. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 02:36, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Pet peeve: it's just The Times. --ukexpat (talk) 02:44, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Ukexpat means that the London newspaper is simply The Times, which, to disambiguate, may be qualified parenthetically as The Times (of London). In New York, if someone says "The Times", they probably mean The New York Times, but the unqualified name actually means the London newspaper, and Le Monde and both of them are respected reliable sources, but, as noted, no source is perfect. Also, if a peer-reviewed medical journal refutes a medical claim made in a newspaper, both should be cited, but Wikipedia should state that the claim in the newspaper was refuted. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:02, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

OK, The Times (of London). I think everyone knew what I was talking about. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 03:35, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you everyone :) . I did my first edit. Just added a phrase and figured out how to add a reference. Not that complicated after all.

In terms of fact checking, it would be nice to have a list of newspapers and such overall with a "weight" in terms of credibility (measure of accuracy) and what they stand for.

Wikipedia itself was put to the test with some scientific articles and it compared favourably with a conventional encyclopedia.

--JamesPoulson (talk) 11:24, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi, JamesPoulson. As with a lot of questions in Wikipedia a list like that would not necessarily be a good thing, because, as others have said above, so much depends on the particular case (and also, if such a list exists, somebody will probably use it for wikilawyering, saying "this list says XXX is a reliable source so you have to accept my edit".) The reliable sources noticeboard is a place you can ask about individual cases, and you can also search the archives of that page. --ColinFine (talk) 12:34, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi ColinFine, thanks for the link to the notice board.

This is outside the scope of the question here but evaluating information interests me greatly as a programmer.

Weighting sources alone would only be a first step. I can sense the problem with the mention of "Wikilawyering" and I can see parallels with the legal system.

From there on it would require human interaction according to an argumentative approach (pro- and anti- columns). A source could be confirmed or invalidated by other sources.

This would not guarantee absolute certitude but with time and participation could measure a degree of how factual a statement or piece of information is.

Again, this is outside the scope here but ideas from anyone reading this are welcome :D .

--JamesPoulson (talk) 04:10, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Privacy photos

Good evening-night, I wanted to know 1. If I can capture your most important things (well certainly not candy and load) and add to Wikipedia, and indicate that the photo will be published on my (Lukaslt13) page? Is there a big invasion of privacy? And another intriguing question me 2. As to take account of changes 272 in 5 months? Or just how far ^_^?--L.ukas lt 13 --Talk 19:52, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the answer to the second question, so I'll just cover the first one. That probably does count as an invasion of privacy--at least, to some people. Some people post so many photos online they probably wouldn't care. Others, like me, do not like posting personal information online where anybody can see it and would be mad. If you want to take pictures for Wikipedia and they will include people, it might be a good idea to ask their permission first. White Arabian Filly (Neigh) 21:22, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm having difficulty understanding you, Lukaslt13. I don't quite know why you are asking about uploading personal pictures: please remember that our purpose here is building an encyclopaedia, not running a social media site. There is some latitude for user pages, but in general pictures should only be uploaded if they meet the criteria in commons:commons:Project scope.

I have no idea what you are asking in your second question. --ColinFine (talk) 22:42, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

I have taken a number of photos for Wikipedia of public places, and I edit the photos to blur any people's faces or car licence plates so as to protect privacy.

If your second question concerned your own contributions, you have made 259 total edits since Sep 18, 2015, 2:49 PM. If you want to check this at any time, just open your "Contributions" page (linked at top right) and at the bottom of that page you will find the link to "Edit count".--Gronk Oz (talk) 02:20, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I just the second question asking whether this is a good bit of changes? And the photographs, I just winched own user page as the gallery :)--L.ukas lt 13 --Talk 09:40, 16 January 2016 (UTC)Lukaslt13

Template for posting insects

I am looking for the complete template to expand post on Odonata refer List of SA Odonata It is rather frustrating to da a page. Line people up to post photos to the galery and find that the page has been modified to another style. JP labuschagneJP Labuschagne (talk) 18:10, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

What are you specifically looking for / want?--L.ukas lt 13 --TalkLukaslt13 —Preceding undated comment added 19:55, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Having cleaned up a couple of these, I believe the editor is referring to their adding galleries to Odonata stubs and then placing the only image of the article in there, rather than integrating it into the text. Judging from the above, this is apparently done to get other users to add images? I would suggest that as long as there is only a single image, placing it into a gallery looks somewhat weird, and the picture is better placed in a suitable location in the text. A gallery can then easily be implemented by anyone wishing to add further images.

As for other "style" changes, all of them are standard in species articles (Description before Habitat & distribution) or articles in general (full sentences rather than bullet-type fragments), and I would suggest taking them on board, using any well-developed species article as a reference.-- Elmidae 09:40, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Are Interviews SELFPUB?

For example, if the subject of an article mentions in an interview that his brother is a chef in New York, would it be OK to write "His brother is a chef in New York". In other words, should interviews, press conferences, etc, always be preceded by "He said/declared/etc"? How do we treat interviews? DevilWearsBrioni (talk) 10:52, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse, DevilWearsBrioni. If the interview is published in a reliable source, and if the person is actually notable, then the interview can be used as a source for basic, non-controversial biographical details. Common examples are place of birth, schools attended, early jobs, marriage and children, and so on. Referencing the interview is sufficient, instead of using "he said" qualifying language. Regarding your specific example, we do not usually mention the places of residence or careers of siblings, unless the sibling is also notable. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 20:37, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, Cullen328! DevilWearsBrioni (talk) 09:49, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Guilds

Is there a list of Guilds on WP? Is it possible to start a Guild of Educators? Zedshort (talk) 00:27, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi Zedshort. Are you possibly thinking of WikiProjects? If so, a list can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Directory/All. I ask because I only know of one collective of Wikipedians referred to as a guild, the Wikiproject, Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors. There is already an overarching education Wikiproject, Wikipedia:WikiProject Education (which appears to have about 170 members though many of them could be inactive), and a number of specific ones like Wikipedia:WikiProject Education in India, but I see none for "educators". Starting a Wikiproject, if relevant to your question, has little formality associated with it but the trick is designing it well, having a clear focus and organization and having people join and participate. There are many, many Wikiprojects that exist on paper but do very little or are defunct. Anyway, for advice on starting one, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk)

Thanks much for a solid and direct answer. Zedshort (talk) 03:21, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

You're most welcome.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:16, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Mustafizur Rahman

I am currently working on the article Mustafizur Rahman. It contains a family image of the cricketer, File:Mustafiz with his familly; photo taken by Masum Ibn Musa.JPG. I was wondering if is eligible to keep because I barely see family images on sportsmen pages. There tend to be images with once spouse or siblings, but this one got the whole family! Thanks! And don't forget to mention as a notification along with your reply. Ikhtiar H (talk) 06:41, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Ikhtiar H: you could use a cropped region of the image in the article. Or you could download the image, crop it at home, and upload an image showing just the cricketer. Or you could request me to do either of those for you – but only if you tell me which of the two young men in the picture is the cricketer. Maproom (talk) 09:20, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

@Maproom: the one who is sitting in the middle. I appreciate your help! Thanks! Ikhtiar H (talk) 09:33, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

This exchange is a good indication of why the image should be cropped! Cordless Larry (talk) 09:38, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Done. Maproom (talk) 11:02, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

@Maproom: thanks a lot! Ikhtiar H (talk) 11:37, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

How create a page on wiki

I have created the page, two times but its deleted, can anybody tell me the reason?Chandila Deepak (talk) 10:50, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Your user page on Wikipedia is not like your profile on Facebook, Linnkdin, Twitter etc. It should not be used for self-promotion. You are welcome to say what you intend to contribute to Wikipedia, and what expertise you can bring to the project. Dbfirs 10:57, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a social networking project, as told Dbfirs. You do not have to publish your page, too much of your privacy information that does not get you in trouble. Perhaps because of this and removed your options, as well as mine, but I use userboxes. --L.ukas lt 13 --Talk 12:01, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Vandalism observation

Hi, I would like to stay vandalism observer. Where do I browse observe that the first case of vandalism? And how do I reject etc.? I really want it to work ^_^ --L.ukas lt 13 --Talk 11:59, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi Lukaslt13. Wikipedia:Vandalism has various information. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:28, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

@Lukaslt13: From my experience, ClueBot NG is able to spot and revert most cases of obvious vandalism immediately. Human users might use STiki or Huggle to look for vandalism. Manually, you could do recent changes patrol, which is as simple as clicking the "recent changes" link on the "Interaction" bar on the left, though it would be painstakingly tedious work with little output. It is advised that you have sufficient editing experience before using the aforementioned tools, STiki, for example, requires 1000 edits as a prerequisite. The Average Wikipedian (talk) 13:34, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Lukaslt13 – There are two Tip-of-the-Day which may be helpful.

Wikipedia:Tip of the day, January 29 Vandalism-level indicator
Wikipedia:Tip of the day, July 17 Join the fight against vandalism

Regards, JoeHebda (talk) 14:02, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

The Average Wikipedian I almost done 300 changes, but many have created. Yes, very little compared with 1000. The ratio of 300 <1000 :|. JoeHebda what do you have in mind? Care should be taken, and to combat with parasite, which spoils the wikipedia :) --L.ukas lt 13 --Talk 14:11, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

P.s PrimeHunter very thank you, I let's read. --L.ukas lt 13 --Talk 14:13, 16 January 2016 (UTC)Lukaslt13

Mass reformating of the source code of references

There seem to be a number of different ways commonly used to format the source code of the {{cite foobar ... }} templates. Some with lots of carraige return characters, some with none, and some inbetween. It seems different editors like to put there {cite ...} refs in in various formats.

My question: what has been wiki-policy or guidelines on making mass reformats of others cite templates? E.g., if some editor wants to say remove all the paragraph marks in a citation formatted like this (which is a format we see quite often in the English Wikipedia) on all of the many citations in an article:

<ref>{{cite book
| last      = Turner
| first     = Orsamus
| title     = History of the pioneer settlement of
Phelps and Gorham's purchase, and Morris' reserve
| publisher = William Alling
| place     = Rochester, New York
| year      = 1851
| id        = {{OL|7120924W}}
}</ref>

Others code refs this way (two-line format, with no extra carriage returns). My question would apply if someone went into articles and changed every reference from this format, by adding a bunch of paragraph breaks in every citation.

<ref>
{{cite book |last=Turner |first=Orsamus |title=History of the pioneer settlement of Phelps and Gorham's purchase, and Morris' reserve |publisher=William Alling |place=Rochester, New York |year=1851 |OL=7120924W}}</ref>

This could obviously cause some conflict between editors who might prefer format A, or format B, or some other/different format C, and all of the changes would not improve the article space, but may likely cause a bit of editor conflict. So has this been discussed previously? Or is there a policy or guideline on it? Cheers. N2e (talk) 22:18, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

In my experience, much commoner than either is this one-line format

<ref>{{cite book |last=Turner |first=Orsamus |title=History of the pioneer settlement of Phelps and Gorham's purchase, and Morris' reserve |publisher=William Alling |place=Rochester, New York |year=1851 |OL=7120924W}}</ref>

with no carriage return after the initial <ref>. I find this odd, as the multi-line format is much easier to understand and edit, and makes the surrounding text easier to follow. My guess is that because the templates conveniently provided in the edit screen use the one-line format, most editors go with what they do. I believe that all these formats are acceptable. Maproom (talk) 22:46, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. The single-line format is more common, as is the super-expanded multi-line format. I've also seen the two-line format as it puts the <ref> tag on the line with the prose, and then leaves the citation clearly visible ({{cite ...}}aligned with left-margin).

But that just makes my point. There are more than one (or two, or three) ways this is done. So I'm assuming that some editor conflict has occurred on this mass-reformatting over the years; that is why I'm looking for policy or previous discussion of the matter. Cheers. N2e (talk) 23:17, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

I've wrapped the citations in <pre> and <nowiki>, since the point of the question is about the layout of the citation in the source. --ColinFine (talk) 22:55, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

@N2e: The closest I know of to anything in policy or guideline that addresses this is WP:CITEVAR. The letter of its language ("style") could even be interpreted as making it directly on point, but in application, I don't think the intent of "style" was to address this formatting issue, but rather (as indicated in the "To be avoided" section), a more radical change of the type of citation itself, e.g., a switch from some other system to list-defined references. But it certainly could be pointed to in any discussion of the issue (in support of saying please don't do that). It's pure individual preference AFAIAC but I find the multi-line format very annoying to look at and never use it and find editing single line no barrier. An article with 100 reference is not uncommon and if each has: template name, last, first, title, url, page and date (if not more) that's 600 extra lnes in edit mode to view.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:40, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

The "Cite" toolbar generates on-line citations, so it's no surprise they are the most common. Other templates such as Infoboxes are more often multi-line. Personally I don't mind and I think if anybody went on a rampage to try and convert them all to their preferred layout then "animated discussion" would ensue.--Gronk Oz (talk) 02:10, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I think the best guideline/approach here is probably "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". If you are doing a big cleanup of the citations (adding missing template parameters, correcting template or parameter usage, generally improving them significantly), then you generally get to choose your preferred style for the source code. Similarly, if you are doing a lot of good and legitimate work on a section of an article, you will probably be ok including minor adjustments to citations in that work. On the other hand, if you go around trying to just impose your will in terms of the "better" source code style, without actually making any substantive improvements to either citations or content (minor copyediting wouldn't really be a good justification for mass citation reformatting, for example), then storm clouds may well form in the vicinity of talk pages. If you blast through hundreds of articles changing format and very little else, without a strong pre-discussed consensus behind your actions, you should probably consider investing in some Nomex clothing! If someone else changes a citation you worked on, and the generated reference is still good and of equivalent quality, it's really not something to start a fight over, and there are far more useful things to put your energy into caring about. --Murph9000 (talk) 10:03, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks very much Fuhghettaboutit, Gronk Oz, and Murph9000. Sounds like a consensus that such mass refomatting of all refs in an article is not good practice, but that there seems to be nothing in policy or guidelines that clarify that specifically. I might take the guideline Fuhghettaboutit referred to (WP:CITEVAR) and propose a bullet that clarifies its application to this situation. Would any of you care to be invited to comment on such a proposal? Or any others who read this? If so, I'll be sure to get back to interested parties an and invite then to the discussion if I ever start one. Cheers. N2e (talk) 16:16, 16 January 2016 (UTC)