Guy of Auvergne

Welcome

Hello Guy (if I may call you that), and welcome to Wikipedia. I've reverted your edit to the Neil Young article for a couple of reasons - first, you didn't cite any sources. Our verifiability policy requires that all information in Wikipedia articles be verifiable in reliable sources, and citations are required to that end. Second of all, your insertions appeared to be your own interpretation of Neil Young's music, which would be original research, prohibited by Wikipedia's policies. Please let me know if you have any questions about this or any other aspect of Wikipedia, and, again, welcome! Sarcasticidealist (talk) 06:11, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if this is the proper way to respond and yes, I'm new to Wikipedia. Thanks for the feedback. I did cite sources in the text of my edit, though I had trouble figuring out how to post them in the "Notes" section. For some reason, that area seems closed to edits, although maybe I just don't know how to access them properly. Perhaps you can enlighten me? Second, I'm not sure how much the citing of a particular song constitutes "original research", when used in conjunction with factual statements by the author. I don't consider the information research, so much as it would be establishing a basis for Neil Young spirituality, as expressed in his art. If you have suggestions on ways to make this edit more acceptable, please let me know. I'm having fun with editing and would like to do more.Guy of Auvergne (talk) 14:43, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi Guy - thanks for your response. In general, the best way to get hold of another editor is to post a note on their talk page. However, since I have your talk page watchlisted (have you discovered watchlists yet?), so I saw that you'd posted here so I was able to respond. With regards to making references appear in the appropriate section, all you need to do is surround the reference in <ref></ref> tags, like so: "Horatio Algorithm was born in 1888.<ref>Algorithm, Horatio (1988).My first century</ref>". As for the edits yourself, I think I probably owe you a bit of an apology - reviewing your edit again, it looks to me like it was actually mostly okay. Some of the information needs to be cited still (like the bit about wearing the fringe jacket, which I know is true), and I'm a little iffy on the part ascribing certain meanings to his songs (is it self-evident to any listener that "Soldier" expresses doubts about conventional religion, for example? If not, you probably need a source saying that that's what the song's about). I hope this was helpful. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 15:25, 6 August 2008 (UTC)