Buukwurm

Welcome to Wikipedia

Hello, Buukwurm! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions to this free encyclopedia. If you decide that you need help, check out Getting Help below, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by using four tildes (~~~~) or by clicking if shown; this will automatically produce your username and the date. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. Happy editing! Jayron32 21:40, 7 December 2010 (UTC) Getting started A tutorial • Our five pillars • Getting mentored How to: Edit a page • Upload and use images • Create your first article Intuitive guide to Wikipedia • Article Creation Wizard Getting help Frequently asked questions • Tips Where to ask questions or make comments Request administrator attention Help desk: A Wiki Styled page to ask questions on Help directory: A comprehensive list-style help contents page Policies and guidelines Neutral point of view • No original research Verifiability • Reliable sources • Citing sources What Wikipedia is not • Biographies of living persons List of policies • Three-revert rule • Sock puppetry Copyrights • Policy for non-free content • Image use policy External links • Spam • Vandalism • List of guidelines Deletion policy • Conflict of interest • Notability The community Build consensus • Resolve disputes Assume good faith • Civility • Etiquette No personal attacks • No legal threats Community portal • Village pump Signpost • IRC channels • Mailing lists Writing articles Be bold in editing • Develop an article The perfect article • Simplified manual of style Stubs • Categories • Disambiguation Peer review • Featured content Miscellaneous User pages • Talk pages Awards a registered contributor can achieve and award Clean up: General • Spam • Vandalism Join a WikiProject • Translation Useful templates • Tools • User scripts

Response to your helpdesk question

Hey, I just read your question at the Help Desk. First of all, let me welcome you to Wikipedia. I left a template above which contains LOTS of links to help you navigate through Wikipedia's many policies and procedures. Don't worry about reading all of these right now; use it as a reference tool when problems come up. Some things you should know about regarding your question:

• You'll need to provide reliable sources whereby everything written in your article can be verified in those sources. What is needed it things like books, magazine articles, newspaper articles, that sort of thing, where someone else could check up on any facts in the article you have written.
• If you need help with incoporating these sources into the article, don't worry. I can help if you can provide the sources. I am always glad to help new users learn the ropes. Just paste any links or information, and I can help fix up your draft article so it is properly formatted. Hopefully, if you see what I do, you can learn how to do it right.
• Don't try to learn how to do everything at once. Wikipedia has a steep learning curve, so start small, and work your way into it. If there is anything I can help you with, you can leave a note at my user talk page, located at User talk:Jayron32. Hope to see you around! --Jayron32 21:40, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

One further point: you several times used the word "we" in your question. Several of you are welcome to collaborate on an article, but it is against Wikipedia's rules for several people to share an account, because of the requirement in the licensing for attribution.

You do not have to have an account to edit (though there are several advantages to doing so) but if some of you choose not to you should not use somebody else's account: best would be for each of you to have an account. --ColinFine (talk) 00:17, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Regarding your latest question on my user talk page: One important thing you are missing is proof of notability. A Wikipedia article must demonstrate that the subject is notable, as defined by Wikipedia's minimum notability standards. Wikipedia:Notability and Wikipedia:Notability (people) contains such minimum standards. If these pages seem long, let me break it down as simple as possible. What the article needs is clear, obvious evidence that people have written extensively about Curtis J Hopfenbeck. In other words, Wikipedia articles need independent sources to prove notability, and need significant or extensive sources to prove notability. What we need to see is that people have written a lot of stuff about him, for example: Has anyone written and published any book-length biographies of his life? Have his books been reviewed, in detail, by reliable book-review sources like the The New York Times Book Review or an equivalently well-respected book reviewer? Has he been the subject of multiple interviews and/or articles by newspapers and magazines? The deal is, anybody can create a website for themselves, it doesn't prove that other people find him notable. Anybody can write and make them availible for others to buy, it doesn't prove that they are notable enough for a Wikipedia article, since writing and selling books only proves he's an author, and merely having a job doesn't mean a whole lot. The goal is to have reliable encyclopedia articles, and if all the information we have about this person provided by his own website, how can we trust its reliability? We depend on reliable sources of information to vett and check out information, which is why articles need reliable sources and independent sources for its information. --Jayron32 23:49, 12 December 2010 (UTC)