Talk:Sun State Roller Derby

Sourcing

Tomorrow night, I think I'm going to take a crack at, or ask some one else, getting this article to five fold expansion for WP:DYK. I've started some clearing some of the unsourced or improperly sourced information. Wikipedia needs information to be verifiable. This is doubly important when trying to get something to WP:DYK. It is great that people want to improve the article and know from first hand experience facts related to this. If you can provide sources for that, it would be great and we'd love to include that information. If you can't, it will probably be removed. --LauraHale (talk) 09:23, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia also needs info that's accurate. Just because you find something on the web, doesn't make it accurate or useful Notjackbrown (talk) 12:02, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Laura - we at Sun State, as a league, have just recently discovered your creation of our league's wiki page (originally incorrectly named 'Sun State Roller Derby League'). We would like to add much more information and flesh out the wiki, and most of the information required is on our website under one of several sub-pages which can be individually referenced. It's important to note that it may take a day or two for us to nut out our specific references for an individual sentence or piece of information that we are 100% certain is true. We'd like the edit-lock to be removed as soon as possible, and would prefer if your issues with citation or structure could first be noted in the talk page in future, allowing us more direct control of the wiki content itself, and allowing us to learn the nuances of Wiki while fixing any errors/mistakes, all while keeping a civil mood over the page and the editing required. Thoughts? Jennifah (talk) 12:16, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

It is important as a league for us to have a accurate wiki page. This page would be a vital source for media personnel and even the general public. As someone studying communications you would understand the importance for the information on the page to be correct, but also as you said, cited correctly. We would like to have control over the content of the Sun State Roller Girls wiki, if all information is referenced correctly, I don't see why you would need to edit it anymore. — Preceding unsigned comment added by IzzySunState (talk • contribs) 12:21, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

A quick google search reveals referencing that could be added if the page was unlocked - for example, searching for a couple of minutes on the info under Contributions to the community finds the following references - http://interderby.wordpress.com/tag/sun-state-roller-girls/; and http://www.suitedtosuccess.org/sites/default/files/2010_Annual_Report_FINAL.pdf (p.2). We could be adding references if the page was unlocked. We may not be versed or experienced in the workings of wikipedia, but we certainly have the correct info and can find the sources needed given time. Ratta toohey (talk) 12:36, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Mission

I've removed this section twice. Both times for the same reason: The source was the main page for the league's website. The text does not appear on the site. That means the article could have a potential copyright violation. I don't think that is intentional. I think it is a good faith edit to make their mission clear. (And it really does fit with the mission of most roller derby leagues that I've seen in Australia.) It just absolutely cannot be in the text with out a properly formatted source that correctly identifies where it comes from in a way that can be verified. Beyond that, I don't think the quote should be in the article. It should be condensed down to prose and probably put into a section about league governance. If it needs to be in its own section, it really needs other sources talking about the mission in order to justify the weight given to the section.--LauraHale (talk) 10:22, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Laura, take the hint. If you stop deleting the content I can work on it. I'm really disappointed in how you've acted here. As tempted as I am to rip into the CRDL page as you've done here - I won;t. Please try not to be so unreasonable Notjackbrown (talk) 10:50, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi Laura, not sure why you've taken it on board to be in charge of a wiki page for a league that you are not a member of. notjackbrown is one of our longest serving league members, and has plenty of qualifications in media, and the factual knowledge to be making modifications to a page about our league. What was an attempt to fix a lot of false information that you had put up, was a quick band-aid fix, to get the right information up, and we were going to cite the information properly within the coming days and weeks. Your "reverts" are unwelcome, as they are putting INCORRECT information back on OUR wiki page. While I understand you think you are doing something good for the derby community, and your INTENT is appreciated, I, as a Sun State Roller Girl, and many others who have seen this page, and been made aware of the content changes, would appreciate it if you could please stop reverting our changes, so that we can make the information correct, and accurate. We have no intention of leaving information cited incorrectly, but we have MUCH LESS desire for FALSE information to be put on a page that represents us as a league. I am sure you can understand and appreciate our position, and please now, leave the editing to us, and our media & promotions committee which we have in place to deal with these such items. Thanking you in advance for your co-operation, as I am sure that now you know who is making the edits is in fact the people that page is about, you have no need to moderate the page.203.206.25.156 (talk) 12:19, 25 October 2011 (UTC) --User:Mischa

congratulations

I've been blocked from editing the sun state roller girls page. What an awesome warm welcome to wikipedia. The page was started by LauraHale - who apparently hasnt taken kindly to my edits and wants to keep deleting content. I keep reverting her deletions so that I might add references... and in return I've been blocked. LauraHale - you win. I'm really disappointed in this experience. Laura, you go make a completely inaccurate page that follows all the rules - if that's what wikipedia is all about Notjackbrown (talk) 11:14, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

incorrect information

Why so much incorrect information? Notjackbrown seems to want to put correct information in. As a member of SSRG I find it really offensive that someone from outside the league is putting information in the wiki that is wrong. Seems like vandalism to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.150.94.76 (talk) 12:07, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I understand that LauraHale is trying to make this all fit within the wikipedia guidelines, but cut us some slack. We are SSRG skaters and just trying to get the right info up about the league that we skate in, know about, and love. I'm sure if you offered to give us a hand with referencing, we would gladly take it, but this incessant re-editing of a page which I am not too sure why you feel so passionately about, is very confusing to me. Please, give us some time and space to get the references and info up. If this was reversed and someone was beating on you about problems with the CRDL page, would you prefer they gave you constructive help or continue as you have? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Firstbornsonrun (talk • contribs) 13:02, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Remember, not everyone has been on here as long as some please do not bite the newcomers Firstbornsonrun (talk) 13:18, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I can see that there are several league members who are trying to improve this article, in good faith. Wikipedia has a lot of rules and guidelines, and it's not always easy to satisfy them. If there is information still in the article which is incorrect, it'd be great to know exactly what it is (and, ideally, where correct information can be found to replace it). If there is missing information, then it should be added, so long as it can be reliably sourced. The league website is fine as a source for uncontroversial information, the reference just needs to point to the correct page of the site. If you're keen to add more information for which you don't yet have a reliable source, it's best to create a draft on your userpage. There's some useful advice on all this at Wikipedia:Starting an article. There's no need to reproduce long chunks of text from the website, though, as people can easily click through and read it there (and without explicit permission from the league, it's not good from a copyright standpoint, either).

LauraHale has been making great contributions to all sorts of articles on roller derby, and on women's sport in general, and I am sure that she has nothing but good intentions here. I hope that we can all work constructively to produce a really good article on the league.

Incidentally, one way to improve the article would be to include some pictures of the league playing or training. If you've got any which you're happy to make freely available, you could upload them to Wikimedia Commons, and they could then be used to illustrate this article, and perhaps other articles about roller derby. Warofdreams talk 16:46, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Warfodreams - thank you for your comment here. However you just need to read the talk page for the main Roller_derby article to see that this isn't the firat time LauraHale has been unhelpful and changes pages to the extent that the page is no-longer correct. While it's one thing to have a page that follows all the wikipedia rules - isn;t better if the page also contains useful information? How deleting content is helpful is beyond me Notjackbrown (talk) 22:49, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

It is great to add useful information and to add new, factually correct information to an article that is sorely in need of it. If there are issues with things being factually incorrect, by all means, please fix them. It would be great to see the article improved. The issue when it comes to edits that you've made is that we don't know that these facts are actually facts. That's why Wikipedia policy asks that facts be accompanied by verifiable references. Verifiable references would include things like links to specific pages on the league's website that have that information, newspaper or magazine articles, videos created by television shows and networks like ABC or Channel 10, radio interviews that people can listen to, links to roller derby magazines or other leagues that mention your league. It isn't enough just to have the facts: You need the sources to accompany them. I'd be happy to help you with that if you could give me an idea as to some sources. --LauraHale (talk) 22:59, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I'd suggest, for a start, going past the front page of the league's website. Perhaps, originally, all our citations were to the front page, however the vast majority of the information originally written by Notjackbrown is located on the website on one of the sub-pages. We were planning on updating these citations before the page was locked due to edit warring. The website includes detailed histories of the league and all previous bouts played, as well as vast amounts of other information. We're also aware of several media clips and news articles which would be difficult for an external party to source (due to locality/access) and have access to copies of these on our own internal files. I believe we'd do a pretty solid job of writing the wiki page ourselves, providing the facts and sources if/when the edit lock is removed. Jennifah (talk) 23:20, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I've been adding citations to some of those pages this morning and provided examples that you can hopefully model. The article lock should expire soon and you should be able to add information with citations from the league's subpages quite easily. I'd just like to repeat that the regular contributors to Aussie derby articles think it is fantastic that you are contributing and we really urge you to continue. Sometimes Wikipedia can be confusing, and we do goofy things. The league appeared to discover the article shortly after it was nominated for speedy deletion and I was working a bit frantically to find sources to find sources to help further with Wikipedia notability policy and we just got our wires crossed. Honestly, no harm and no foul on either of our parts. (The lock should expire later this morning and if doesn't, I'll ask an admin to lift it.) --LauraHale (talk) 23:33, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Laura, while I understand that you're trying to help - you have just added a heap of info that is (as of very recently) out of date and needs to be changed. Please revert to the content that I added yesterday (which is useful information to the audience) and, if you want to help, help us to get it into shape. There was no need to completely delete the Intraleague competition information, or reorgainise the content the way you have. Notjackbrown (talk) 01:43, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

... if you're after an example of what I mean, this sentence "They were created in 2007. The league has competitions between members of their own leagues, and has a team that competes in interstate bouts." is not only factually incorrect, but is grammatically terrible. Again if you want to help us get the CORRECT information into shape so it follows wikipedia's rules then that would be awesome, but please stop adding content on a topic you don't know anything about. We all want the page to be Trustworthy, Objective, Complete, and Well-written. So please work with us, not against us. Notjackbrown (talk) 02:07, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

The league's website says it was founded in 2007. The league's website also indicates there are several teams in the league. The league's website also indicates that they have an all star type team that competes in interstate bouts. Do you have another source that says different or can you suggest other pages that could be cited instead? Are you suggesting that in this case, the league's is not a reliable source of information about the league? As for the wording being terrible, you should be able to fix that as the page has been unlocked. (The other information was already on the article I just re-earranged the order.) I'm trying to add "correct information." The information I added had sources, with all the new information I added coming from the league's own website. I'm really trying hard to work with you here. I'm just not certain what else to do so we can work better together to write a quality article in compliance with Wikipedia's guidelines. If you haven't, you may want to read about conflict of interest and owning of articles. --LauraHale (talk) 02:41, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Let them have a go at getting the article into shape. If it can be expanded sufficiently, and the references are okay, it can still be nominated to appear on the front page! (Like Melbourne, Adelaide and Canberra have already been.) It is great to such interest in the sport! So far the Queensland leagues have been very successful. Perhaps the article can shed some light. If you have any images, that could improve the look of the article. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help you. Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:07, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

No Laura, that's not what I'm saying at all. The League (Sun State Roller Girls) is an incorporated association. It's an entity. It's not a "they". Sentences should be of the form "Sun State Roller Girls IS..." not "Sun State Roller Girls ARE....". Also, the league has 3 teams which play an INTRALEAGUE competition. (You deleted all the intraleague information yesterday - without good reason). The league also has a "representative" team that plays other leagues in INTERLEAGUE competition. You can make all the perfect references you want - but when the information you put up is wrong and badly worded... well, references don't add much at all. I'll make you a deal: I'll read the things you're suggesting, if you learn about the sport and the league and get the grammar issues sorted before you make any further edits to the page. Yes, please let us "have a go". We might surprise you. Notjackbrown (talk) 04:31, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Unprotected

Happened to be passing. As it seems that the discussion has reached a good point, I have unblocked the article now. You all go good now. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:00, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

A suggestion

as an observer, who is also interested in seeing derby articles get improved, I would like to suggest that we let the locals spend a couple of days fleshing things out, and then if things are not up to snuff, then go in and make them "wiki-right"? I think that Laura is the only experienced editor getting involved here, and while I trust her judgement, I would like to see the locals get their chance at doing things properly. If I have the time, I'm more than happy to help out. Echoedmyron (talk) 07:01, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Echoedmyron, That's great, thanks :-) Time, advice and assistance in getting this page right will be really appreciated. (Assuming the assistance isn;t bulk deleting of content just because references haven't been done correctly - I reckon we've all experienced enough of that over the last couple of days :-S ). If we can learn something about wikipedia, and the wikipedia experts can learn something about Roller Derby... everyone wins! Notjackbrown (talk) 22:51, 26 October 2011 (UTC)