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Hello, Alsation23, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Unfortunately, one or more of the pages you created, such as Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat, may not conform to some of Wikipedia's guidelines, and may soon be deleted.

There's a page about creating articles you may want to read called Your first article. If you are stuck, and looking for help, please come to the New contributors' help page, where experienced Wikipedians can answer any queries you have! Or, you can just type {{helpme}} on this page, and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Here are a few other good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Wikipedia:Questions or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! noq (talk) 11:36, 2 May 2011 (UTC)Reply

Proposed deletion of Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat

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The article Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

no indication of meeting WP:NB. No independent sources

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. noq (talk) 11:36, 2 May 2011 (UTC)Reply

PLEASE DO NOT DELETE.Alsation23 (talk) 07:41, 11 May 2011 (UTC)Reply

I added quite a few independent resources in response to the above, so I hope this is satisfactory. Alsation23 (talk) 07:40, 11 May 2011 (UTC)Reply

Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat

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Is it your endeavour to mention aspects of Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat in as many articles as possible? --88.104.46.22 (talk) 06:58, 27 August 2011 (UTC)Reply

Oh sorry--aren't we supposed to do that? Thank you for letting me know. I thought links between categories was a plus! I'm a freshman here and I'm using this novel as my baptism contribution, I also want to do other Australian science fiction related novels after this but I need to understand the perimeters and I don't want to step on toes or do the wrong thing so advice is great. Thank you again.Alsation23 (talk) 22:14, 27 August 2011 (UTC)Reply

I don't want to give you the impression that mentioning the novel in another article is entirely forbidden. It would, however, be useful for you to start thinking in terms of whether all the information you're adding to an article can be attributed to a reliable source (per Wikipedia's policy on verifiability), otherwise it could be viewed as adding your own insights to an article (frowned upon per the policy on original research); even when fully verified, it's possible that info added to an article could be deemed trivia (as happened here), so it's useful to ask yourself the question, "How relevant is the info I want to add to the topic at hand?"
A further note on disambiguation pages: disambiguation pages are navigational aids, not list articles – they're for ensuring that a reader who searches for a topic using a particular term can get to the article which features that topic (eg. someone searching for "Mercury" could be thinking either of the Roman god or the chemical element etc). In the case of your edit to Harry Jones, it seems unlikely that a reader will type "Harry Jones" into a search box in order to seek info on a minor character in a novel that was published only this year; they're more likely to simply search for the title of the book. Moreover, the article Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat makes no mention of any such character, which renders the disambiguation page-entry useless (see here for a general guide on what not to include). The key point is that disambiguation pages aren't intended to be complete listings of everything that could ever possibly go by the ambiguous term, just the ones that are useful for getting a reader from A to B.
Ok, I'm done now. Hope this has been of help. Cheers, 88.104.46.22 (talk) 10:49, 28 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
Oh wow--this is fantastic and exactly the kind of clear information I need to know as some of the advice sections in Wikipedia leave me scratching my head. Now I totally get what the disambiguation pages are all about, and I realize how off tangent I was being! And just a simple reminder like "How relevant is the info I want to add to the topic at hand?" makes so much sense in this context. I really can't thank you enough for this help and time and I will try to keep "on track and relevant" with future submissions. Cheers! Alsation23 (talk) 12:47, 28 August 2011 (UTC)Reply

Nomination of Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat for deletion

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A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. DreamGuy (talk) 18:26, 11 December 2011 (UTC)Reply


    • PLEASE DO NOT DELETE. I have put a lot of work into this entry, along with input into other Australian authors, and I believe it is not appropriate to do so for the reasons cited by DreamGuy.

When this entry was previously suggestion for deletion, I was asked to provide sources to support the article, so these I have threaded into it - from reviews and interviews with the author. If these were incorrectly done, I apologize and would appreciate clear advice on how the "clean up" the article to make it perfect for Wikipedia standards. I can't seem to get a clear understanding from Wikipedia instructions as to how I've missed the point.

    • I want to learn in order to be able to work with other entries on Wikipedia, especially (as I mentioned) an approach to all Australian authors as these are worthy of some appreciation/love in the "clean up" stakes - but if people like DreamGuy barge in and declare everything is wrong and bears "a long list of bad sources" without precisely explaining why... well, it depresses me and doesn't inspire me to wish to do anything else on Wikipedia.
    • Regarding the "long list of bad sources" which DreamGuy says are "mere personal blogs, the author's/publisher's website, etc." this is NOT correct. Some of the review sources are taken from hard-copy media publications (eg. Farrago, Lip Magazine, Beat magazine), while others come from established and/or respected book review blogs in the genre like SF Book Reviews, The Future Fire, and Verbicide.
    • Only one reference leads to the author's/publisher's website - that "The novel has also received praise from The Age newspaper and ABC Radio National in Australia". This information is also printed on the back of the novel's cover, so I suggest it is appropriate to be cited.
    • With these points in mind I think it's a bit much for DreamGuy to suggest that "only fools people who glance at the list into thinking it is notable instead of displaying any true notability."
    • Where DreamGuy says "The write up is essentially a vanity piece quoting the author's own thoughts on his work for long paragraphs, citing reviews he gave to nonnotable blogs", I would also challenge this.
    • Some of the quotes were from Lip Magazine - an Australian print magazine that also has a blog - while the quotes from Upstart magazine are worthy enough as Upstart is a respected online repository for upcoming journalists in Australia. I believed these kind of interview quotes were informative and enlightening to people interested in the novel itself, as they give background information - most journalistic interviews do a similar thing. But I suppose Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a magazine, so we could remove the author interview quotes if these are deemed unnecessary.
    • DreamGuy's further complaint that "A couple of sources are blue links to Wikipedia articles, but these are inevitably to publications that themselves fail Wikipedia notability requirements, such as The Future Fire (no reliable sources)" is not particularly fair, since the "Proposing article for deletion per WP:PROD" tag was thrown onto three of these sources (The Future Fire, Verbicide and Lip Magazine) by DreamGuy him/herself the same day - 11 December 2011 - that Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat ‎was nominated for deletion.
    • I was unaware of the "Wikipedia:NBOOK#Threshold_standards, in which at a bare minimum any book that wants a Wikipedia article must be present in a dozen or more libraries", and appreciate that DreamGuy referred me to it. But I would suggest that strict adhesion to such formalities rules out smaller, independent publishers that may not have the long reach of major publishers - but does that render their work any less satisfactory or "worthy", especially with the way in which the technology world is currently changing, and libraries are not quite as pertinent as they once were?
    • Philosophical diatribes aside (I'm sorry about that!), I do contend that this book has proved more than worthy enough on several levels. Perhaps a rewrite may be in order, as well as (if vital) the removal of author interview quotes, but worthiness? I believe so. But I'm biased - as is, I believe, DreamGuy against it.Alsation23 (talk) 22:38, 11 December 2011 (UTC)Reply

The article has been deleted. However, if you leave a note on my talkpage, I will place the contents of the Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat on a subpage of your account - User:Alsation23/Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat. This is known as Wikipedia:Userfication. SilkTork ✔Tea time 12:42, 28 December 2011 (UTC)Reply

Hi SilkTork. Really sad to see the deletion of the Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat article, but I guess I saw the writing on the wall. Yep, could you place the contents of the Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat on a subpage of my account - User:Alsation23/Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat? I doubt I'll be frequenting Wikipedia much after this, but it would be nice to have all that effort stored somewhere.

Cheers. Alsation23 (talk) 11:14, 29 December 2011 (UTC)Reply

Done. See User:Alsation23/Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat. The userfication is done to enable you to work on it, not as an indefinite storage - see WP:STALEDRAFT. If you just wish to have a copy, you'd need to cut and paste the material into something like a Word document on your home PC, or a personal space on a private webpage. How long are you allowed to keep the material on your userpage on Wikipedia? There is no explicit time limit. Though if you don't work on it, and vanish from Wikipedia for more than six months you can reasonably expect the material will be deleted. As long as you are working on it, then it should be OK. It's worth letting you know, though, that if the material does get deleted, and in the future you found some good sources and wished to work on the article again, it can be undeleted again. I can do it, or anyone listed at CAT:RESTORE. We keep most stuff on Wikipedia - a "deletion" simply means the material is moved from public view. I understand that you would be feeling quite low at the moment; however, you may find that you get fun out of contributing to existing articles on Wikipedia. It's worth sticking around to see if you like it. If not, then at least you gave it a good go, and hopefully learned a little bit about how Wikipedia works. SilkTork ✔Tea time 11:37, 29 December 2011 (UTC)Reply

Thanks SilkTork. Sorry I was slow in the gratitude & getting back to you but you're right, I was feeling quite low and disappointed with the decision to delete this article after all the work I put into it, and with all the resources I thought that supported it. Ah well. Yesterday's news. Thanks for arranging the "save" of everything, and I'll see how I feel about getting back on board with Wikipedia in future months. Just disillusioned with it all now. But thank you.Alsation23 (talk) 09:29, 7 January 2012 (UTC)Reply