Encyclopedist1

Welcome!

Hello, Encyclopedist1, 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
• Tutorial
• How to edit a page
• How to write a great article
• Manual of Style

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 {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome!   Will Beback  talk  19:51, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Help request

{{helpme}}Thanks for your welcome message. I do find some of the technical coding confusing and some of the Help pages a little unintelligible, but I'm not much of a techie.

Two questions:

How do I start a "disambiguation" page from scratch? I'd like to straighten out the three "William Malones", which are now only distinguished by a note at the top of the first page that pops up.

Also, is there any problem with my citing myself (in the 3rd person) in bibliographic footnoes? I am a published professional historian and I only write about subjects on which I have some expertise - in most cases, I know or have known the biographic subjects personally.

Especially when I write a new page from scratch, or do research that's beyond the usual book/journal quotes, or add information based on interviews that I can't cite directly, I'd like to insert my real name in the notes, mostly to give the research some credibility.

If you'd please look at the pages on William M. Malone and Thomas Braden (an old friend, recently deceased) you'll see that I've tried to do this in different ways. Does this meet Wikipedia criteria?

Thanks again.

A brief answer for now: please talk to us live, with this or this.

If I see you online there, I think I can help you better. If I don't see you there, then I will answer here in full, later.  Chzz  ►  21:56, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Answer re. disambiguation

A 'disambiguation' page is, really, no different to any other article. Hence, you could create William Malone (disambiguation) and put something like this:

'''William Malone''' may refer to:
*[[William Malone]], a New Zealand World War I Lieutenant Colonel
*[[William Malone (director)]], an American filmmaker
==See also==
*[[William Malone Baskervill]], a English language writer and professor
{{hndis|Maline, William}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maline, William}}

The 'hndis' thing puts the icon at the top to show that it is a disambiguation page, and the 'defaultsort' is just to make names sort correctly.

You should then add the correct hatnote to all the articles: {{otherpersons|William Malone}}

More to follow  Chzz  ►  22:10, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

{edit conflict)

Last things first: You can automatically sign your talk page posts with four tildes (~~~~). William Malone now goes straight to an army officer. In some cases, if one person is overwhelmingly the most notable with a certain name, their article would be there and the disambiguation page would be at William Malone (disambiguation). However there are at least three notable Malones, and the officer doesn't appear to be the main entry. In fact, I see that many of th articles that link to that page are intended for the film director of that name. So in this case it'd make sense to move the officers article to William Malone (officer) and free up the main artilce to become a disambiguation page. This stuff can be complicated and contentious, so it'd be better to get help until you are more familiar with the project. I'll try to handle the Malones for you.

Published experts are welcome. There is specific text covering the matter of citing yourself at WP:COS. That's a section of Wikipedia:No original research (NOR). The three core content policies are NOR, verifiability, and neutral point of view. They're reasonably short and I suggest you read each of them. Since all material must be verifiable, your personal knowledge (such as an unpublished interview) is not an acceptable source. Artiles or books that you've published are fine to use.

I'll check the two articles you mention and may make some changes. I also suggest looking at other biographies to see how they are generally composed, formatted, and cited. The footnoting function is fairly simple to use (though there are some more complicated and elaborate systems available too).   Will Beback  talk  22:25, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

{{helpme}} OK, thanks a lot for taking care of the Malone problem. I do have the most basic question, to which I can't seem to find an answer in the Help sections I've read:

What is the easiest way to start a new page like "William Malone (Disambiguation)"? Do you just enter the entire phrase in Search and then use the system's suggestion of starting a new page?

As for the Original Research issue, I've read the Help page and all of the posted discussion subjects, and I find this confusing and somewhat ambiguous. To my mind, "original research" is very different from "original thought". It indicates research that hasn't yet been formally published. That doesn't mean it isn't verifiable, just that it hasn't appeared in a book or article. Most contemporary histories are how based on "original research" (such as interviews or oral histories); in fact, if it's not "original", it usually doesn't pass muster academically. I've seen very little in the way of such "non-published" sources in Wikipedia articles. Is that because they're just not acceptable?

For example, for the Arthur Samish page, I found unpublished information about his early life by locating his draft registration card at ancestry.com. I would call this "original research", but maybe that isn't what Wikipedia has in mind?

What if I interviewed someone reputable and cited the name of the person interviewed and the date, as well as my own in name in third person as the interviewer? Would that be inadmissible because it isn't formally published and thus not "verifiable"?

This seems to me much more complex than the Wikipedia standards would indicate.

New article - yes, to create it, type the name in as you suggest. Or click the WP:REDLINK that I gave previously, William Malone (disambiguation). I added that there by typing [[William Malone (disambiguation)]], which is the other way you could do it, ie edit a page somewhere, add that, and then click the redlink. Same effect.

Now, the more tricky q - Wikipedia is only concerned with the verifiability of information. We state things that can be verified, things that the reader could check by looking at the references to reliable sources.

What we mean by original research is, 'working stuff out for yourself'. For example, if you added up the number of people in several towns, and got sales figures for McDonalds for those areas, and extrapolated the data to work out the average weight...that is OR. It's also, in that case, an example of synthesis - ie adding 1 and 1 and getting 3.

Digging around in libraries for obscure docs is just fine - that's research, not original research.

Your final conclusion is correct; we only state facts that have already been published. Hence, if you interview someone, no, you cannot use that as a ref - because it wouldn't be verifiable. Unless it was e.g. published in the Times Newspaper or something, in which case you would cite the Times, and that would be fine.

Hope this is beginning to make sense, for more help, you can either;

• Leave a message on my own talk page; OR
• Use a {{helpme}} - please create a new section at the end of your own talk page, put {{helpme}}, and ask your question - remember to 'sign' your name by putting ~~~~ at the end; OR
• Talk to us live, with this or this.

Best wishes,  Chzz  ►  01:53, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

P.S. I intended to reply about the other question, re. the autobiography - I think that this has now been covered, but, if you have not already, I recommend you read WP:AUTO.  Chzz  ►  01:55, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Hey Encyclopedist1, I wanted to give you a bit of a note on your question about references on the two articles you mentioned earlier. I'm going to look a little more into the references in Thomas Braden but for now they looked OK you want to try and link specific data to specific points for example a link of where on [ancestry.com] you found the vital info instead of more general notes. You want to try and avoid putting any type of opinion or commentary into the article (such as the bibliographic note you wrote on William M. Malone) I moved it to the talk page for now where you can put discussion about what type of content you are looking for/finding hard to find etc. Referencing yourself is fine if your referencing a source you've written/published. Let us know if you have more questions, I know you had some data in the bibliographic note that could definitely be turned into normal references and I'll be happy to go through it and do so but I may not get to it until tomorrow. If you see that it hasn't been done please feel free. After reference tags are added (such as you did in Thomas Braden) you want to put in a a reference list command like this </reflist> That will automatically grab the sources and make the footnotes. You often want to put the list under its own heading like == References == Jamesofur (talk) 04:41, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Help : Bill Lockyer

{{helpme}}

Hello again. I have a particular problem on which I'd appreciate expert advice.

On the page about BILL LOCKYER, the current Treasurer of the State of California, which I wrote in part, some potentially libellous remarks have been added about Lockyer's wife:

"...Nadia Lockyer's appointment as head of the ACFJC was engineered by Nancy O'Malley, then Chief Assistant DA of Alameda County. Because state and federal laws forbade Bill Lockyer from using his position as Attorney General to benefit his wife, the selection of Nadia had to appear objective, but was actually rigged by Nancy O'Malley's stacking the selection committee with employees subordinate to herself, and, under the California Constitution, to Bill Lockyer himself. [4] "According to press reports, Nadia Lockyer may be a candidate for the District 2 seat on the Alameda County Board of Supervisors in the June 2010 election. Lockyer has made her candidacy official and was quoted as saying she would "work her tail off", leading some wags to point out she may have worked her tail to get the job she currently holds.[5]"

I understand that one source has continually re-inserted similar statements over a period of years, each time they were removed.

Is there a way of preventing these attacks permamently without continuinally removing the libellous information?

Based on a quick look at the page history, I would say that the problematic edits are few and far between, so page protection would be an over the top response at this time. Furthermore, the addition appears to be sourced (I have not however checked the validity of the source at this point). I would say the wording is not neutral so at the very least that needs to be fixed - but if the source is inadequate then potentially defamatory additions should be removed immediately per WP:BLP. If appropriate, you could warn the user about unsuitable edits using one of the template messages. Regards, DoktorMandrake 20:07, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

On closer review, the sources do not seem to support the POV edits at all, and they should be reverted. DoktorMandrake 20:15, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

{{helpme}}

Thanks for your quick response.

While I've contributed quite a number of articles, I'm still a complete novice at the technical process. Could you please advise:

1. How can the text most easily be reverted to the original?

2. And how can the page then be given Page Protection?

The contributor of the POV edits has a long history, going back several years, of continually re-inserting this material.

1. The last edit can be undone on the article history page. You can also go to an older version of the page, click on 'diff' to show the difference between that version and the next, and then - at the top of the left-hand version you can 'Restore this version'. Sometimes though it's easier just to edit and remove stuff manually.

2. You can request protection for pages in WP:RPP  Chzz  ►  20:41, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

{{helpme}} I'm requesting editorial consideration of the biographic article on BILL LOCKYER. Reasonable editorial changes were made several days ago, but then the article was also tagged for an NPOV dispute. However, there is no discussion of the grounds for this on the Talk page. The existing comments on the Talk page were written over three years ago.

The maintenance template was added by 69.105.28.158 with this edit. While you are free to remove the tag if you don't think the issue exists (as long as you explain so in the edit summary or on the article's talk page) it is suggested that you try to resolve this NPOV dispute. You can ask the user why the tag was placed on the user's talk page at User talk:69.105.28.158, bring up the issue on the article's talk page at Talk:Bill Lockyer, or ask for more opinions on whether the article is neural or not at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard. I suggest all three. Please let me know if there are any more questions. Thanks! --Mysdaao ^talk 15:54, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Rosalind Wiener Wyman

Hello. I've been working my way through all of the articles dealing with Los Angeles City Council members, starting in 1925, adding what information I have been uncovering, complete with sources, and will probably get to the above article within the next month or two. I would like to preserve your welcome additions, but, according to Wikipedia policy, we should have inline references for the information you added. Otherwise some of it might be deleted. I wonder if you could add same. Thanks so much. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 13:14, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Help : Bill Lockyer redux, 2012

Again requesting editorial consideration of the page on current California State Treasurer Bill Lockyer.

It's been several years since I originally revised that page. In the interim, it was edited by a variety of contributors, some objectively, some with apparent political axes to grind (not surprising for a politician who's held elective office continuously for 40 years and is still a prominent public figure).

There were two headers on the page when I began my current re-write - one complaining of "peacock" prose, the other of subjectivity. I went through the piece carefully to remove "peacock" language, and also to meet all the requests of some earlier editor for sourcing.

Though I may add a little content in future, based on new public sources, I think the page is now a reasonable summation of Lockyer's accomplishments and failures and am asking for an editorial review so that the NPOV header can be removed.RHS (talk) 14:49, 9 August 2012 RHS (talk) 22:16, 15 August 2012 (UTC)encyclopedist1

Be WP:BOLD and do it! Mdann52 (talk) 06:11, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:04, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:11, 24 November 2015 (UTC)