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Welcome Rtmccutch!

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Hello, Rtmccutch. Welcome to Wikipedia and thank you for your contributions!

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Sincerely, Stormy clouds (talk) 20:42, 22 February 2018 (UTC)   (Leave me a message)Reply

Edits to Jonathan Z. Smith

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  • Hi. I noticed that you made a number of large edits to the article Jonathan Z. Smith. Congratulations on your first edits, and welcome. However, when editing articles on Wikipedia, and particularly when adding information, it is important that this information be sourced with citations from reliable sources. In this edit, for instance, you did not include any references. As such, the information cannot be verified, and may have to be removed. In the future, please ensure that edits which you make to articles are supported by citations. Thank you, and welcome, Stormy clouds (talk) 20:42, 22 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

Welcome

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Hi! I was pointed in your direction by Marchjuly - thanks Marchjuly!

I wanted to ask if you would be interested in using Wiki Education resources for your class. Our resources are completely free and encompass things such as a dashboard you can use to track your students' contributions, a Content Expert who your students can turn to for assistance, as well as training modules and brochures that have been created specifically for educators and their students. I'm going to tag my co-worker Samantha (Wiki Ed) so that she can jump in as needed. It's definitely something that could help make editing on Wikipedia easier as far as classroom editing is concerned, as it takes a lot of stress off of you as an instructor.

Concerning the conversation at the Teahouse, here's my general advice:

Self-citing is something to do with caution. When using your own source you have to be careful about how you insert it into the article and that it's published in a place that would make it a reliable source.

The American Academy of Religion fact checks their work regardless of whether it's published in the web magazine or journal and doesn't accept random submissions "as is", so the memorial should be seen as a reliable source.
This means that the main thing to look at here is how it's added to the article, as it should not put undue emphasis on your work. The way that you added the link didn't really fit Wikipedia's guidelines, as it did put an emphasis on your work. This is an easy mistake to make, though. A good way to use the memorial piece would be to use it to source content in the article that needs verification. For example, you could use it to source or expand information about his work as a teacher and administrator.
Since this would be seen as a conflict of interest (as you wrote the memorial), it would be a good idea to post to the article's talk page and leave a message stating that it's a source you wrote and clarify how it will be used in the article. Because there are people watching the article at this very moment, you may choose to just outline what you would like it to be used for (ie, something like "I would like someone to use this to expand information on Smith's awards and whatever else would be helpful") and let one of the other editors add it for you.

I hope that this helps explain the conflict of interest and self-cite guideline a bit more! Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:55, 23 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

Your help desk question

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You have a response.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 16:32, 3 March 2018 (UTC)Reply