Welcome! edit

Hello, MarthaBergman, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:

You may also want to complete the Wikipedia Adventure, an interactive tour that will help you learn the basics of editing Wikipedia. You can visit the Teahouse to ask questions or seek help.

Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing 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 for help on your talk page, and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome! Mathglot (talk) 20:48, 29 October 2019 (UTC)Reply

References, citations, and external links edit

I noticed your question about referencing a foreign source at the Teahouse, and wanted to respond. Some of the words you used in your question ("external link Reference") can be interpreted in several ways at Wikipedia, so let me start with what I think you were asking, and then describe how Wikipedia uses some of these words. (The tl;dr for this is: foreign-language citations are just fine, when English ones are not available.)

What I think you were asking, was: "Can a reliable source in French like a newspaper or website be used in a citation to verify content in a Wikipedia article?" If that is your question, then the answer is "Yes". English language citations are preferred when available, but when not available then a citation to a foreign language source is allowed and should be used. That seems to be how User:GreenMeansGo interpreted your question as well. There is also something something called an external link at Wikipedia, and I don't think you were asking about that, but just in case, and since you're new to Wikipedia, let's go over some Wikipedia basics:

One of Wikipedia's core policies is the principle of Verifiability. When we write for Wikipedia, we don't write our own opinions, but rather a gist or summary of what we find when consulting independent, reliable, printed or online sources. The Verifiability policy is there to ensure that any reader of Wikipedia can verify the content of an article by going straight to the source, and see for themselves that the content in the article is backed up by solid, outside sources. The way we do this in a Wikipedia article, is by the use of citations to the sources that we used when writing the article content.

When discussing the Verifiability policy, certain terms come up a lot, like source, citation, reference and footnote. You also asked about external links. Here are some basics:

  • A source is where we go, outside of Wikipedia, to do research on topics and to back up the content we add to an article. In different contexts, a source can mean the article or book itself, the author, or the publisher. See WP:SOURCE.
  • A citation uniquely identifies a source of information; for example, the title of a book, along with its author, publisher, pub date, edition, and page number. See WP:CITATION. Citations are used in different ways, and can appear in various parts of a Wikipedia page.
  • A footnote is a citation that is contained within <ref> tags inline, that is, right in the running text of the article. It also refers to its appearance when rendered at the bottom of the page by the Wikimedia software.
  • The term reference has several meanings at Wikipedia depending on context. It is sometimes used as a synonym for source (e.g., "go find a good reference for that"), and sometimes as a synonym for citation ("you need to add a reference for that assertion"). In the plural, References may refer to the dedicated section found at the bottom of almost every Wikipedia article, where all the footnotes are rendered in one place.

Besides the References section, there are some optional sections that may appear in the bottom matter of Wikipedia articles, like the See also section, which is a bullet list of links to related Wikipedia articles, Further reading, which is a bullet list of citations to outside sources that might be of interest to readers. If you were not talking about an inline citation in your Teahouse question, then you might want to consider adding your link to the External links section, which is another optional section in the bottom matter.

Sorry if this ended up as long as it did—you don't need to retain all this; the main take-away, is that Verifiability is a core principle of Wikipedia, and the use of citations to reliable sources is how you implement that. When you don't have English sources, a citation to a foreign-language source is just fine. Hope this helps! Mathglot (talk) 23:14, 29 October 2019 (UTC)Reply

Oh, I forgot to mention: I'm fluent in French, so if you need any assistance with the article, I can help. Mathglot (talk) 02:39, 30 October 2019 (UTC)Reply

Hello Mathglot @Mathglot:, thank you again so much for your help and wiki education. I have finally (!) finished my draft of the entire article. I decided not to include the translations of the individual sections of the articles as it looked bit messy and the google translate version is good. I wanted to move it to the Main Wikipedia space, but when I went to Publish it only gave me the option to submit it for a review, which I know can take forever? It also doesn't give me the option to move it to Draft. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:MarthaBergman/sandbox/Raed_H._Charafeddine MarthaBergman (talk) 19:36, 10 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

Your thread has been archived edit

 

Hi MarthaBergman! You created a thread called Referencing newspaper article in French at Wikipedia:Teahouse, but it has been archived because there was no discussion for a few days. You can still find the archived discussion here. If you have any additional questions that weren't answered then, please create a new thread.

Archival by Lowercase sigmabot III, notification delivery by Muninnbot, both automated accounts. You can opt out of future notifications by placing {{bots|deny=Muninnbot}} (ban this bot) or {{nobots}} (ban all bots) on your user talk page. Muninnbot (talk) 19:01, 2 November 2019 (UTC)Reply


Teahouse talkback: you've got messages! edit

 
Hello, MarthaBergman. Your question has been answered at the Teahouse Q&A board. Feel free to reply there!
Please note that all old questions are archived after 2-3 days of inactivity. Message added by DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 18:25, 11 November 2019 (UTC). (You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{teahouse talkback}} template).Reply

Your submission at Articles for creation: Raed H. Charafeddine (November 12) edit

 
Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reasons left by DGG were: Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit when they have been resolved.
DGG ( talk ) 08:49, 12 November 2019 (UTC)Reply
 
Hello, MarthaBergman! Having an article declined at Articles for Creation can be disappointing. If you are wondering why your article submission was declined, please post a question at the Articles for creation help desk. If you have any other questions about your editing experience, we'd love to help you at the Teahouse, a friendly space on Wikipedia where experienced editors lend a hand to help new editors like yourself! See you there! DGG ( talk ) 08:49, 12 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

Your thread has been archived edit

 

Hi MarthaBergman! You created a thread called New article removed from main space to back to draft as not to disrupt official AfC process at Wikipedia:Teahouse, but it has been archived because there was no discussion for a few days. You can still find the archived discussion here. If you have any additional questions that weren't answered then, please create a new thread.

Archival by Lowercase sigmabot III, notification delivery by Muninnbot, both automated accounts. You can opt out of future notifications by placing {{bots|deny=Muninnbot}} (ban this bot) or {{nobots}} (ban all bots) on your user talk page. Muninnbot (talk) 19:02, 6 March 2020 (UTC)Reply


Your submission at Articles for creation: Raed H. Charafeddine (April 22) edit

 
Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by Curb Safe Charmer was:  The comment the reviewer left was: Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit when they have been resolved.
Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 10:59, 22 April 2020 (UTC)Reply

Your draft article, Draft:Raed H. Charafeddine edit

 

Hello, MarthaBergman. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "Raed H. Charafeddine".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been nominated for deletion. If you plan on working on it further, or editing it to address the issues raised if it was declined, simply edit the submission and remove the {{db-afc}}, {{db-draft}}, or {{db-g13}} code.

If your submission has already been deleted by the time you get there, and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion by following the instructions at this link. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia! UnitedStatesian (talk) 22:16, 19 November 2020 (UTC)Reply