80.192.1.168

Sourcing and related matters

Hello, 80.192.1.168. Sourcing is simple, though it may take some getting used to at first. I see that you sourced what I and another editor felt needed to be sourced in the Teenage pregnancy article. You copy and pasted the sources from her article, correct? Well, that is all to duplicating sources from one article to another. For more on citing sources and ways of formatting them, see WP:Citing sources and look at how sources are formatted in different articles. You will eventually get the hang of it.

It is always important to cite likely to be contested information about living people, per WP:BLP. In fact it is important to source any likely to be contested piece on Wikipedia. That is, of course, why that entry you wanted to remain kept getting removed. I appreciate that you finally sourced it, but I thought it was only one source you were speaking of for that matter. Hopefully, all three of those sources confirm that entry.

I give you this list in order to help your editing here at Wikipedia:

1. Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, which summarizes what belongs in Wikipedia and what does not;
2. Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, which describes Wikipedia's mandatory core approach to neutral, unbiased article-writing;
3. Wikipedia:No original research, which prohibits the use of Wikipedia to publish personal views and original research of editors and defines Wikipedia's role as an encyclopedia of existing recognized knowledge;
4. Wikipedia:Verifiability, which explains that it must be possible for readers to verify all content against credible external sources (following the guidance in the Wikipedia:Risk disclaimer that is linked-to at the bottom of every article);
5. Wikipedia:Reliable sources, which explains what factors determine whether a source is acceptable;
6. Wikipedia:Citing sources, which describes the manner of citing sources so that readers can verify content for themselves; and
7. Wikipedia:Manual of Style, which offers a style guide—in general editors tend to acquire knowledge of appropriate writing styles and detailed formatting over time.

These are often abbreviated to WP:NOT, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, WP:V, WP:RS, WP:CITE, and WP:MOS respectively.

Also, you need to always sign your comments when "talking" on Wikipedia talk pages. To sign your comments, all you have to do is type four tildes (~~~~) beside them.

Take care. Flyer22 (talk) 23:57, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks flyer. I'm sort of getting the hang of it. It does strike me as particularly lazy on the part of some editors to remove stuff from BLPs without bothering to even attempt to find a source. Galling, too, is this particular example with 3x refs on the subjects own wiki. From what I can see, a number of editors need to take a step back before obliterating stuff they could source in 10 seconds flat..!

Your guidance, of course, is appreciated. --80.192.1.168 (talk) 00:13, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

No problem. And about the lazy issue, I basically stated the same thing at Talk:Titanic (1997 film)#Plot bloat and cleanup. Flyer22 (talk) 00:49, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

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