Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive 44

Archive 40

←

Archive 42

Archive 43

Archive 44

Archive 45

Archive 46

→

Archive 50

Need help understanding COI

Hi, I'm currently in the process of editing and fine-tuning an article that I submitted for review a few days ago (since it's still in the 800s as far as the pending articles lists go, I figure I may as well make it perfect). It's on Ars Nova, an Off Broadway theater. (visible here: [1])

Regarding notability, researching the theater turns up plenty of independent sources (the article cites 14 sources, 12 of which are secondary, external sources, but I can easily find more if need be), it's of a similar status and visibility of other theaters in the Off Broadway category, and it's already mentioned in up to 500 other Wikipedia articles, most often as an assertion of an artist's notability (since performing at Ars Nova provides just as much cred as performing at any other Off Broadway theater).

The thing is, technically speaking, I have a possible COI, as I work for the company. However, as a theater artist and a Wikipedia user, I'd want there to be an article on the subject even if I didn't work there, mainly because it's too significant of an institution to leave out of a discussion on New York theaters that produce new work. I've only been working at Ars Nova for a few weeks; my affiliation isn't my motivation for writing the article--it just makes it easier for me to check and make sure that the information on the page is accurate. I'm an unpaid intern, doing this with my superiors' knowledge and approval but not as an assigned task, meaning that I have no real financial need for this to work-- just a personal interest in making sure that researchers who look for info on Wikipedia about Ars Nova and New York theater in general don't have to go through every page of Google search results to learn more about what is clearly an objectively notable institution. From what I can tell from surfing Wikipedia, the institution's absence from the encyclopedia is less a result of lack of notability than it is a result of people not having bothered to make one before.

I've put every effort into making my article as informative and neutral as possible, but I want to make sure that if it gets rejected due to my affiliation, it's because the article itself breaks Wikipedia's rules or guidelines, rather than just being rejected because I admitted to a COI. Would it be possible for someone to either informally take a look at it before it's officially reviewed or just help clarify how to get an article approved even with a stated COI?

PS: I've read as many articles and talk pages on the subject as I've found, and I've also taken a look at submissions rejected due to advertising and/or lack of notability, for the purpose of seeing if my own article made any similar mistakes, and I've been correcting them as I go. Again, I want to work with Wikipedia to make this article worth publishing for the good of Wikipedia members and people trying to learn about New York theater, not secretly try to advertise my company for my own gain. Any help is appreciated. RunnerOnIce (talk) 16:30, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

• Hello RunnerOnIce. Thanks for stopping by the Teahouse. Here's the dilly with Wikipedia's conflict of interest rules. There are not an rules outright banning editing under a conflict of interest. Wikipedia is a results-driven enterprise, and insofar as it is feasible to have a conflict of interest and still write a quality article, Wikipedia doesn't completely ban the practice. That being said, having a conflict of interest is a gigantic bright red flag that something will likely be amiss, because having such a conflict makes writing articles with the proper point-of-view very difficult. Wikipedia requires articles to be written with a neutral point of view, and for people with a conflict of interest it is difficult to write objectively about the subject they are intimiately connected to. Such writing tends to be unbalanced in favor of presenting the subject in a positive light, tends to downplay the negative light, tends to have a tone-of-writing more reminicent of advertising copy instead of an encyclopedia article, tend to use flowery or overly prasieful language and that sort of thing. That's why we ask users, especially newer users who are unfamiliar with Wikipedias rules and house style to avoid editing while under a conflict of interest. It's not that you're banned from doing so, it's that experience tells us that, in the overwhelming majority of cases, such situations almost always result in a bad article. So we advise people to avoid it. Does that make sense? All that being said, I think that the specific article you have submitted doesn't look all that bad. Had I not known you had a conflict of interest, I wouldn't have known from the writing that you do, and 999 times out of 1000 it is blindingly obvious. So it appears to me that you've beaten the odds and produced what looks like a passable article, even with a conflict of interest. I'm not used to working at WP:AFC, so I'm not comfortable passing the article, but I would be shocked if it failed based on what I see written there. --Jayron32 16:54, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

• Thank you so much! Again, I'm new to being a registered editor, but I've spent a lot of time reading Wikipedia, researching guidelines, etc, which is why I'm so paranoid about getting it right. It's a major relief to hear you say that the article seems like it'll work--thank you so much for saying so. RunnerOnIce (talk) 17:13, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

CANNOT upload any image! It's hard and complicated! I don't get the whole image and caption thing!!

Is there an easier way! Please explain with examples! RingerHere! (talk) 16:53, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

You're right; uploading pictures is more complex than most things in Wikipedia, but it can be done and it's not nearly as bad as years ago when most of the help files were written. Nowadays the two main complications are for exceptional cases. You can avoid them.

1. Did you make this picture? If someone else made it, it becomes complex. Does it contain someone else's work of art, such as a statue? If so, then again it becomes complex. If it's all something you made, this complication is avoided.
2. Name the image file. For example, I recently uploaded File:Manhasset Valley Park jeh.jpg. This filename describes where I snapped the picture, with my initials at the end of the name. Probably it won't be the same filename as someone else's picture. If you keep the filename the camera gave it, it becomes complex.
3. Go to Wikimedia Commons, which is our picture wiki. (Commons does some other complicated things, but most of us can ignore those.) You can get there by clicking on "Main Page" and looking near the bottom for "Commons".
4. Click "Upload file". Follow the instructions.
5. Once you have succeeded in uploading, the screen shows a box showing the material that you can paste into any of our Wikis. For you, that means a Wikipedia article. Where it says "caption goes here", that's where you write your caption.

Jim.henderson (talk) 20:46, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I uploaded a file but there's this thing that keeps coming and when I go to the edit option it is not there!

|frameless|alt=]]----> what is this thing and how can I remove it? RingerHere! (talk) 07:48, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi again RingerHere! The alt= function is for providing a description of the image to help visually impaired readers or those otherwise without access to images on screen. You can read more here. I am not sure what you mean about the edit option not being there.--Charles (talk) 10:17, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

It was fixed in [2]. Many infoboxes add their own image formatting code and only want the file name in the image parameter. This infobox is documented at Template:Infobox person. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:15, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Locked Pages

I have been on Wikipedia for a short time but I have noticed that there are commonly "Fully Locked" and "Semi Locked" pages. On Semi-Locked pages, how do you decide who will be able to access the page's editing system. At random? Or is there a system? Please reply.

Sheldonc1981 (talk) 00:09, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Sheldon. semi-protected pages can be edited by to anyone who is autoconfirmed – an editing threshold that is passed when an account is at least four days old (not calendar days but 96 hours) and has made at least ten edits. Your account will be autoconfirmed at 19:08 UTC on September 27, 2012. However, if you have some specific edit in mind and tell me what you intend, I can grant you autoconfirmed status early. Please advise. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:55, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Sir, I have written an Article about an Diamond Organization of England but was deleted, What should I do?

Sir, I have written an Article about an Diamond Jeweller in UK called Samara James and it was deleted. I didn't understand why the Article was deleted. The link to the page was Samara_James. Now it available in my Sandbox. Please anyone kindly take a look at the Article and tell me what is the reason behind its deletion. The link to the Article is: User:Sourov0000/sandbox. Please anyone kindly tell me the reason behind deletion and what should I do to make it go live. Thank you. Sourov0000 (talk) 21:06, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Your article was deleted under Wikipedia:CSD#A7, "No indication of importance (individuals, animals, organizations, web content)." This means you don't have enough evidence to prove that people other than the subject have taken the time to write about the subject. I suggest you read the A7 description and accompanying info at Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies). I also suggest you temporarily withdraw your AFC request until the issue is fixed, so as to save time on volunteer reviewers.

Your article also has some "advert" issues, in that it comes across as promotional advertising for the company in question. Read up on Wikipedia:Advertising, but a good rule of thumb is that every fact about the company should be cited to non-company, reputable media/academic sources, other than very basic info (date of founding, name of owner, location of establishment), and a few things explicitly in the words of the subject: "Mr Smith states that his greatest achievement was scaling Mount Hood." So your thing about "they have a YouTube channel to teach about diamonds" should only be mentioned if, say, BBC noted in an article "their website is the most popular online diamond-buying guide on YouTube" or something like that.

Does that clear up the issue? MatthewVanitas (talk) 21:55, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Citation question

Hi all. I was just wondering about using another Wikipedia article as a source for a line citation. Basically, if there's an artist (say, Andrew Lippa) who is listed on Wikipedia as being an Ars Nova artist, and I wanted to add him to the Ars Nova Wikipedia page's list of artists, could I go ahead and cite his Wikipedia entry, or would I need to go into the references to find out what they used to come up with that info and then use that citation instead? RunnerOnIce (talk) 19:24, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Hey, RunnerOnIce, welcome back to the Teahouse! You should go find the reference that the Wikipedia article uses; Wikipedia doesn't consider itself a reliable source. (Think of the navel-gazing, self-referential problems that could cause!) Fortunately, it shouldn't be too hard, assuming that the Andrew Lippa article is well-referenced. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 19:27, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

What? We're not a reliable source? Sheesh, what is, then? :-p Thanks! RunnerOnIce (talk) 19:33, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

It's not necessarily that WP is "unreliable" so much as "Unreliable" in the technical sense. ;) The same way "notability" and WP:Notability are two different things. Even setting aside WP being an ever-evolving user-generated structure, we're also a WP:Tertiary sources, as all encyclopedias are. We're a digest of information, rather than a discoverer of one. Same way that you shouldn't (past grammar school) try to cite any encyclopedia in a school paper. Hope this helps! MatthewVanitas (talk) 20:39, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Oh, no it makes total sense. Was mostly joking. :-p But thank you. RunnerOnIce (talk) 21:02, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Sandbox disambiguation page?

I was so emboldened by my first article (Elizabeth Ferard) being corrected and posted after chatting with several teahouse editors at wikimania2012 that I've created a few new pages. Unfortunately, as a newbie, I'm not good at some of the technical details, and over the weekend noticed that my sandbox now seems to have a disambiguation page or redirects somehow. I appreciate the individual sandbox concept, which enables me to see (and correct) bad links and other oopses when I'v created an article via cut-and-pastes from existing articles (as well as necessary research of course). I've posted a couple new articles (Harriet Monsell and Patrick Henry Building (Richmond)) -- I hope fairly correctly after consulting the teahouse last month. But now I'm working on an article that can't be posted without some more research or cooperation from researchers in another city. Meanwhile, I also waant to create a couple of other historical pages to solve link problems with other wikipedia pages (many discovered through wikipedia loves monuments--love the app!). Thus, (1) I don't know how to clear my sandbox, relative to the couple of articles I've created that are now posted, (2) I don't want to clear the article needing others' input (Richmond Hill(Virginia)), (3) I have no idea who or how the redirect or disambiguation page for my sandbox got created, and (4) I want to create a couple of new articles without messing up the existing ones, if my sandbox is a queue like I originally thought but doesn't now seem the case. Any help or clarification you could provide would be appreciated.Jweaver28 (talk) 18:49, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Hey, Jweaver, welcome back! In no particular order: to clear your personal sandbox, you can either just blank the page or put {{db-u1}} at the top of it, which is a request for an admin to come and delete the page, which you can then start over.

The disambiguation page doesn't actually exist; you'll notice that the link is still a redlink. That link is automatically generated by the {{for|Richmond Hill, the mansion in Church Hill North Historic District, Richmond Virginia}} template you have at the top of your page; the location of this link will change to the correct page when you move the page to mainspace. So, don't worry about it.

As far as not wanting to clear your sandbox, you can just leave it like it is and start a new user space subpage. The deal is that you don't have to restrict your userspace drafts to just your sandbox page; for example, if you wanted to write a draft article about hot dogs, you could go to User:Jweaver28/Hot dog, create that page, and use it as a userspace draft. Basically, any page name that starts with "User:Jweaver28/" will count as a userspace draft/sandbox type thing. So, if you have something in your sandbox you want to keep, but you want to start a new draft, you can just make a new user subpage and do it!

I think that's all of your questions (2 and 4 are kinda the same). Hope this helps! Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 19:23, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

New Article Libyan American

Yes, I created a new article called Libyan American and I was hoping some other users can please help me in constructing the article. Thank you. Can you please help me ? (Libyan10 (talk) 23:37, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

No problem; I dropped by and did a few minor tweaks to formatting, and cleared up some phrasings for readers less-familiar with Libyan history. Right now the main issue you'll want to address is WP:Sourcing. You have two footnotes, but they're put at the very end of the article, and it's not clear exactly which individual facts those footnotes prove. Your article has claims like "Libyan Americans are the smallest group of Arab Americans", but it's not evident what source (if any) you've provided to verify that.

The article is a good start about a very valid topic, so the main things you'll want to do is read up on the Sourcing issue (also check out WP:Footnotes to get some ideas). Consider using GoogleBooks to look up some more information on Libyan Americans (and note that http://reftag.appspot.com can automatically turn gBooks URLs into Wikipedia footnotes for you).

If you want to see what changes I made, you can use the "History" tab on your article, and compare any version against another from the entire history of the article. Another good way to get some ideas would be to look at a similar article, such as Arab American, or the very large and well-developed Irish American, and see what kind of format they used and information they included.

Great start, good addition to Wikipedia, and glad to see you're eager to make it better and better. Welcome aboard! MatthewVanitas (talk) 15:12, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Two many John J. Ensmingers?

There are two authors named John J. Ensminger and searches for the John Ensminger I am writting about often lead to the wrong Ensminger. The John J. Ensminger I am writting about is quoted in many scientific journals while the other author is not but these Journals are very hard to list in Wiki. So while I work through these difficulties will I have time before you delete the Wiki page? When you do a search for John J. Ensminger you are not going to find information burried in such places as "Journal of Forensic Sciences" you find places like Amazon.com. So can I get some help?King.parker3 (talk) 20:26, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi again, as the notice placed on the John J. Ensminger article says there is a grace period until Monday 1 October for additional sources to be added to the article before it is deleted. If you are needing to see specific articles from journals like the Journal of Forensic Science you could ask at Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request to see if anyone has access to the journal. Before asking you should try and identify the specific issue you require access to rather than ask someone to do the search for you. NtheP (talk) 20:45, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Hello, I'm the guy who did some cleanup, and also had to "prod" the article for BLP sourcing issues. I just wanted to note that if you're hitting the end of the grace period, you may want to copy down all of your Wikicode so you can have it on-hand for any later point where you do come across the sourcing you need. If the article is deleted and you didn't get the wikicode, you can ask an administrator to pull it out of the deleted version for you, just so you don't lose your work while looking for more sourcing if you run past your 10 days. Again, no hard feelings, the sourcing requirement is as much to protect Ensminger as anything else. MatthewVanitas (talk) 15:17, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Exemplar for Album/Single pages

Hi all, I'm adding in a lot of information about New Zealand music (a lot of truly notable music that are considered our national anthems have no information!) but am struggling to find good exemplars for the pages. I'm having to start a lot of them new and am trying to check I have the right info (e.g. singles for albums, chronology for singles). What pages are considered exemplars?

Vickytnz (talk) 11:57, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Vickytnz. You can do no better than looking at featured articles (and featured lists if applicable) for examples to work from. Check out the subsection at Wikipedia:Featured articles#Music. For lists, see Wikipedia:Featured lists#Music.

There are also groups of Wikipedians who have formed projects for specific types of topics. Please see Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums, Wikipedia:WikiProject Discographies and Wikipedia:WikiProject Songs. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:08, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Hello Vickytnz, I suggest that you mention your work at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_New_Zealand, because there are a wohle lot of us already working on New Zealand content and can give you specific feedback. Stuartyeates (talk) 23:11, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

How to link to a Chinese page from English page?

Hi, I'm new here. I just created one English page about a Chinese singer: Samuel Tai: Samuel_Tai . He had many music album that are written in Chinese wiki pages. But they don't have English pages. Now I'd like to link the albums from my English page to these Chinese album pages. I tried to simply add [[]]around the album. But it doesn't work. Would you please help me out? Is it possible to refer to Chinese pages from English pages? How to do it if possible? Thank you very much for your help. BR, Qiao河中桥 (talk) 09:16, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

• Hi Qiao. Welcome to the Teahouse. There's two things you can do to refer people to the Chinese page:

I don't recommend this in your case, but it can be helpful in other situations to refer to Chinese Wikipedia articles within the body of the article when one in English doesn't exist yet. The syntax you use for that is this:

[[:zh:ARTICLE NAME GOES HERE]]. I assume the name of the person is written in Chinese. So, it might like look this in text: zh:邰正宵

I think a more reasonable approach here for you is to simply add syntax which will add a link to the sidebar on that page for "other languages." You can add this anywhere on the page, but it usually goes at the bottom:

[[zh:ARTICLE NAME GOES HERE]]. So for this, you would want to add this to the bottom of the page: [[zh:邰正宵]].

Anyway, I hope that helps! Thanks for coming here to ask. I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 10:00, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Jethrobot, Thank you for your answer. Actually I have added zh:邰正宵 at the bottom of my page. But the problem is that I have a list of his albums in my page. Each of these album has one corresponding Chinese description page. I simply like to build a link from the items in my page to the Chinese album page. But if there is no choice, I'll leave as it is. Please take a look at my page (my first wiki page) and give me some advices. I got comments that I had too less or no solid references. I'd like to improve it. my page link is: Samuel_Tai Thank you very much.

Best Regards, Qiao — Preceding unsigned comment added by 河中桥 (talk • contribs) 11:18, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Then, for the albums, you can just go with the first option. Just use [[:zh:ALBUM NAME HERE]] I think I misunderstood your original comment. I can check out your article later this evening (for me). I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 17:06, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Jethrobot, Thank you! I have used your proposal and inserted zh:ALBUM NAME HEREin my page. I'll continue improve the page. Thank you again. Please take a look at my page when you have time. And please give your comments. I'm looking forward to hear from you. Best Regards, Qiao

Hi Qiao. You can format your links to Chinese Wikipedia this way: [[:zh:起初 | 起初]]. That way the links will display like this: 起初, instead of like this: zh:起初. Only the part after the | symbol will actually been seen.

You can probably use the references from the Chinese Wikipedia article. You can put them in <ref></ref> tags the way the way they're done in the the Chinese Wikipedia article, or you can use citation templates. Either way you'll need a <references /> tag at the bottom where the footnotes will go.

I'd really recommend using the templates because you can just copy the template into the article where footnote number would go, fill in the blanks after the = signs, and it will automatically format everything for you. This page explains the different kinds of templates and gives examples showing how they'll look when they're filled in. There are different templates for websites, newspapers, books, magazines, etc. The main problem is making sure you're using the right one.

This page has more on footnotes, and explains different ways to do them. Feel free to ask more questions. I remember it took me forever to figure out how to get citations to come out right when I started. Naŋar (talk) 17:05, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Naŋar, Thank you very much for your advices and tips. I'll update my page with your proposal 起初 first. Indeed I find zh in my page a bit annoying. I'll update my page further with your other advices. I'll bother you again if I encounter problems or need your further help. Thank you again!!! Best Regards, Qiao

• I think you'll find that you can simplify [[:zh:起初 | 起初]] to [[:zh:起初 |]]. You also might find the Manual of Style for China-related articles useful. LittleBen (talk) 03:02, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

How long will it take for my article to be approved?

Hi everyone. I'm very new to Wikipedia. Today I've created an article through "Articles for creation", but I've been told it's waiting to be reviewed and there are currently 729 submissions in the backlog.

How long will it take for my article to go public? Will I be waiting for days, weeks, or even months? Is there anything I can do to speed up the process?

Uisce81 (talk) 20:02, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Hello Uisce81. Welcome to the Teahouse. It can take some weeks for it to happen, but it is still worthwhile because you will get feedback and help in improving the article if it isn't accepted. AFC is an optional process, you can just go ahead and create the article as a finished product, however, that also means that if it isn't up to minimum standards it will just get deleted without much explanation or help in fixing the problems it may have. That wouldn't help new users at all, which is why we steer new users to the Articles for Creation process. Ideally, it should provide you with the kind of feedback you need to improve and start to understand the ins and outs of Wikipedia's (admitedly rather complex) standards and practices. But that feedback takes time for volunteers to give, so unfortunately there will be some patience required. Would it be better if more people helped out? Probably, but it is what it is. Best of luck, and I hope it does get done in a timely fashion. Did I help answer your question? --Jayron32 20:11, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

If you post the link to your article here ("Wikipedia_talk:" and everything onward with two brackets on each side) maybe some kind soul will make an exception and hop right on yours... MatthewVanitas (talk) 20:18, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

It's apparently Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Michael Casswell; I'm declining for the moment due to primary sourcing, but left some suggestions and tags as to ways to get it into shape to submit again. Don't take it personal, biographies take some practice to get right the first time, so just read the guidelines that address your situation (linked at the top) and give it a fine tune. MatthewVanitas (talk) 20:30, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm so noob that I'm having a difficulty thanking for all your help! I'll keep working on the article, thanks guys.Uisce81 (talk) 20:34, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

how to resolve a conflict?

King, can you try not to double-up the same question on the same page; it was answered at #how_do_I_resolve_a_conflict_between_my_page_and_another_persons_page.3F already, and then you asked it again here. This gets a bit redundant trying to bounce between the two very similar questions. MatthewVanitas (talk) 21:02, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

It is the Wiki editorial staff which wants to delete my post about John J. Ensminger. The conflict is that Wexler has an existing Wikipedia page which references John J. Ensminger's earlier article about Therapeutic Jurisprudence but Wexler is credited with the idea of Therapeutic Jurisprudence and given a Wiki page while Ensminger's page is being threatened with deletion. So what do I do?King.parker3 (talk) 19:51, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Hello again King.parker3. There is no Wikipedia editorial staff. No, scratch that. There is. You are the Wikipedia editorial staff. I am too. We all are. If there is a disagreement over something said in an article, the best thing to do is to present reliable sources which back up what you wish to say. Deletion is a different matter entirely. Articles are deleted because of the amount of source material availible about the subject. Basically, it doesn't matter what a subject is, what matters is what is written (outside of Wikipedia, out in the rest of the world) about the subject. For a person, that means that reliable sources, like books, magazines, newspapers, etc. have written about a person's life. Not merely mentioned a person's name, but covered enough of their lives to be able to have enough useful information to build a Wikipedia article from. Without regard to your specific situation, it sounds like you are conflating two entirely unrelated issues. The first is regards to who invented or created a concept: that should be dealt with by reference to reliable sources, and by reference to all availible reliable sources, and should be handled by discussing the matter and if necessary asking for help via Wikipedia's dispute resolution process. Secondly, the existance of an article about a specific person (or thing or business or entity or a specific concept or anything else) depends upon having source texts (the raw materials) outside of Wikipedia that we can read and process into new text for the Wikipedia article. Does that all make sense? --Jayron32 19:59, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

King, there's a little confusion because on WP "conflict" implies individual people clashing. Looking at John J. Ensminger and David Wexler I don't see any WP:Edit warring (Wexler's article hasn't been touched since March). Are the following points your concern?

• Two editors (not "staff", just volunteers the same as you) placed "proposed deletion" on your article in the last few weeks. WikiDan61 removed his voluntarily, and I stepped back after My76Strat removed my prod. You're displeased that you feel on the defensive maintaining Ensminger's article, when you feel he meets WP:Notability. Note that at the moment there's no prod on the article.
• Author David Wexler has an article with one (and also WP:Primary) cite, and that cite is an article which you believe is being improperly attributed to him, when it should be credited to Ensminger. It is honestly unclear whether the editor is saying Wexler wrote The Development of Therapeutic Jurisprudence: , or whether it's meant to say "the article The Development of Therapeutic Jurisprudence: (by Ensminger?) notes that Wexler invented the term, and the author of the article later used it and credit Wexler with originating it." I agree it's vague how it's portrayed.

Does that sum up your current concerns? MatthewVanitas (talk) 20:07, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

The article David Wexler was undersourced, and I wanted to ensure we're being fair and not letting Wexler slide through WP:N. I checked GoogleBooks, and there's a lot of second-party academic commentary on Wexler's work... including several cites explicitly stating that he and Bruce Winnick introduced therapeutic jurisprudence. Look at the footnotes, I quote some snippets directly. I'm not saying that it's positively not Ensminger who started TJ, but to support an argument that Ensminger founded the concept, we'd need refs just as good in those at Wexler's article. MatthewVanitas (talk) 20:55, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

King, your subject worked with Thomas Liguouri, yes? Does this page refer to your guy? If so, try searching more for therapy books using just his last name and see if you can find some clearer cites. We need to be absolutely positive it's the right John Ensminger though; heed the warnings of Wikipedia:Don't build the Frankenstein... MatthewVanitas (talk)

can I contact or locate an author?

Hi, I'm looking for experts on a somewhat obscure architect. Is there a way to contact the author of a wikipedia article?

This is the article: Edwin Lewis Snyder 72.52.96.29 (talk) 18:46, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

You'd want [[3]. But there would be little point because the account appears to be abandoned. However, they wrote most of the content. 109.153.79.43 (talk) 18:51, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Hello 72.52.96.29! Welcome to the Teahouse. Regarding your question: Wikipedia articles rarely have one author. Sometimes dozens, or hundreds, of people have contributed to the current state that an article is in, and may have done so gradually over many years. If you want to know who has contributed text to an article, there is a tab at the top of every article that says "view history". If you click that, it will list every single change made to that article, along with who made it. Each person will be identified by either a username (for registerred users) or an IP address (for unregisterred users). Next to a person's username or IP address in the history window is a link that says (talk). If you click that link, it will take you to that person's user talk page: you can leave them a message just as you have done here. I haven't looked over the specific article you have questions about, but contacting every person who has edited that page could mean contacting hundreds of people. Instead, you can also contact all people who have edited the page by leaving a note on the article talk page. At the top of every article is a tab that says "Talk". Click that to go to an articles "Talk page" You can leave a general question or note there as well. Does that help answer your question? --Jayron32 18:55, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

how do I resolve a conflict between my page and another persons page?

According to Wiki David Wexler is the originator of the concept of Therapeutic Jurisprudence which I do not believe to be the case. John J. Ensminger and Liguori are the first quoted originators of this concept in 1978 with an article of that title in Journal of Psychiatry and the Law which Wexler actually quotes and which I have refferenced but Wexler gets the credit and you want to delete my post about John J. Ensminger. I do not understand your reasoning so what should I do?King.parker3 (talk) 18:06, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi King.parker, welcome to editing Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions (section)! Disputes like this can be more than a bit stressful, but there are recognised processes for dealing with it all, so the important thing is to stay calm. Do you mean that the other two editors want to delete an article that you've submitted, or do you mean that they want to delete some material that you have added to the existing article? If it's the former, then you should make your arguments at the deletion discussion for the article; if it's the latter, then you should discuss it on the talk/discussion page of the existing article. Either way, weight of sources will have more strength than merely a belief that you are right and the other editors are wrong. If there are still problems after that (or if I've misunderstood the problem), do ask here again, as there are ways to take the discussion forward beyond that. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:33, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

King.parker. There are two issues here and they shouldn't be confused.

1. Possible deletion of John J. Ensminger - there is no immediate threat of deletion of this article. The proposed deletion was opposed and it has not been listed for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. It is tagged as possibly not meeting the notability criteria for biographies but so are several thousand other articles, that's a tag suggesting that more and/or better sources to establish the notability of the subject are needed.
2. Who originated the concept of Therapeutic jurisprudence? The articles on Therapeutic jurisprudence and David Wexler and Bruce Winick all say it was Wexler and Winick. You're saying it's Ensminger. This is a content dispute and the place to discuss it is on one of the relevant article talk pages. Don't raise the same issue on all the talk pages as it just becomes confusing to follow, pick one, state your case and leave a note at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Law briefly stating what the issue is and where the discussion can be found. NtheP (talk) 19:53, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

What to do when the references are pay for view scholarly journals?

Most of my secondary references are from pay for view scholarly journals which only allow (at best) a view of the abstract of the article. The original article from 1978 is archived in a the Journal of Psychiatry and Law which only allows abstracts back to 1999. The original article from 1978 is referenced many times as it was the beginning of the idea of Therapeutic Jurisprudence. The references to that article are themselves published in pay for view Journals. I have listed two which are not pay for view and I am not sure if you have looked at them or not. One of the main objectives of the article is to eventually give some credibility to the problems associated with service dogs of all kinds but I am not there yet as it seems I am having trouble getting credibility for John Ensminger who does all this service dog related legal work pro bono. Any advice?King.parker3 (talk) 16:53, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Hello King.parker3. Welcome to the Teahouse. To answer your question: you're fine. Wikipedia has no requirement that references are availible for free, or are availible online. Online and free are nice, when availible, but absolutely not required. If any editor has questions about a source, and does not want to pay to see it, they can go to a library that carries the journal and read it there for free, or even more simply, they can submit a request at Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request which is specifically designed to help users view material behind paywalls. But ultimately, the only requirements are that the sources are published and reasonably availible. Anything published in a respected, peer-reviewed journal meets that in spades, even if one would have to pay to receive the journal or if one would have to go to the library to see it for free. We require everything to be findable, but not necessarily instantly so. Does that answer your question? --Jayron32 17:19, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Aren't they secondary sources?

My article Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Overseas Research Scholarship has recently been rejected and the comment the reviewer gave me is:

"...all of the sources used are unreliable - they are primary sources... you need to have primarily reliable secondary sources..."

I have 4 sources there and 3 of them are independent institutions/entities (University of Warwick, University College of London and The Knowledge Partnership, which is a consultancy). So how are these primary sources?

DaYZman (talk) 16:34, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

By WP:Primary sources, they mean "directly affiliated with the subject". Since (as I understand it, correct me if wrong) the sources are saying "hey, here's some information about a program we're involved with", they aren't detached, neutral parties. A good WP:Secondary source would be, as a fictional example, Students Monthly publishes an article "How to Study Overseas and Succeed" on 14 August 2011, and spends a paragraph explaining ORS and how it works. You want someone unaffiliated who has a neutral opinion, and who isn't bogged down in the minutiae that only an applicant needs to know, but addresses a broad audience. There are limited scenarios where Primaries are okay, for example saying "the ORS foundation states that it's institutional goal is..." or "ORS states it has sent 284 students an average of 3,485 kilometeres from home each summer since 1998". Only really useful when you're deliberately letting the subject describe itself briefly, and clearly caveated as coming from the source, unfiltered by another party. Does that clear up the Primary/Secondary issue? MatthewVanitas (talk) 19:11, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Possible multiple contributors at same ISP

Hi everyone. My article on Ars Nova Theater was approved (thank you to everyone who helped make that happen, by the way)! Some of the people in my office were asking about editing it for factual information, but I'm not sure if they'd show up as being the same ISP as me. Is there a way to put a notice up that should different usernames show up under my ISP, they aren't necessarily me, and that I promise I will always update exclusively from this account? RunnerOnIce (talk) 15:07, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

RunnerOnIce, I wouldn't worry about it - as you have a registered account, only a very, very limited number of users (CheckUsers) can tell what your ISP is and there is only going to be interest in the IP addresses of unregistered users if the editing pattern suggests disruptive behaviour. We have probably all edited as unregistered users at some time due to either forgetting to log in, being in a hurry etc. It's also very likely that the IP addresses used by your ISP are dynamically assigned so the same addresses won't show up often anyway. NtheP (talk) 15:48, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Awesome, thank you. :-) RunnerOnIce (talk) 18:00, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Creating my own page

how to create my own page(i m in wiki) /// i want my username to get to my page I m in wiki (talk) 05:28, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Simply click on the red link above that shows your user name and begin editing. That is your user page. Cheers - 76Strat ^String da _Broke da (talk) 06:39, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Making a sortable table

Hi. Been trying to make a table sortable -- I copied the coding from an existing article, and it shows as sortable in "Preview Mode", but after I save/submit it, it's not.

Not sure what's going wrong.

Locations of College GameDay (football)#Host Campuses

Thanks for any help!

--Belmontian37 (talk) 01:12, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Belmontian37 (talk • contribs) 01:09, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for stopping in at the Teahouse. Your table looks sortable on my end—have you tried clearing / bypassing your browser's cache? It could be loading a cached copy of the table, which would cause that kind of thing to happen.  dalahäst ^{(let's talk!)} 07:10, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Belomotian, I don't think it was anything you did. It appears there was a problem with sortable tables all across Wikipedia last night (by my UK times). there is a thread at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#"wikitable sortable" tables are no longer sortable about it if you want to read more information. The issue has been resolved now. NtheP (talk) 07:39, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

remove the threat of delete?

I have added new references but I see no way to remove the threat of deletion on the John J. Ensminger page. How do I do get that message to go away? King.parker3 (talk) 04:28, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Based on the existing references in the article I did remove the template that was in place. It is possible that another editor might believe the article should be deleted but it will require a deletion discussion before that happens. Cheers - 76Strat ^String da _Broke da (talk) 05:23, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm the one who prod'ed it, and I'm really still not convinced it meets WP:N, especially for a BLP. The sourcing is very weak, as attested by the article itself having to go through convolutions like "Today all that is left of that first article are the many references to it found easily with a google or bing of: ensminger therapeutic jurisprudence." There's just not a body of sources on this guy other than a few intereviews, he published a couple of articles, and he has some books at print-on-demand vanity presses. MatthewVanitas (talk) 16:20, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Changing the user talk name

Hi I am new in Wikipedia and I would appreciate it someone can teach me how to change the Usertalk title, the one above the article that I have written which I think where the title or the topic of your talk should be. Thank you very much for your help. Lar302 (talk) 01:57, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Are you referring to User talk:Lar302? If so, no, that doesn't change, that's your WP:Talk page. That is, it's the page where people can leave you messages, and where automated messages from 'bots will be posted. There's no reason to want it to change, because it's a standardised page. It'd only change if you change the entire name of your account.

If that's not the page you're wanting to change, can you clarify for us what page you're wanting to change? Post us a link so we can see what you're referring to. MatthewVanitas (talk) 04:31, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

If you would like to change your username for some legitimate reason, see WP:RENAME. • Jesse V.^(talk) 05:25, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

New Article: Peopleperhour

Hi there, I've been working for a while on creating an entry for PeoplePerHour. I've now got a new reference from Wired magazine which I've added to the entry - I think this really strengthens it. Do you think that this is now suitable to submit to Articles for Creation? Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Peopleperhour G2003 (talk) 09:30, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi G2003, it's still a very short article and even with the Wired reference I think it's still a very close call as to whether the company is notable enough to merit it's own article. I'd resubmit it and if it is declined, ask the person who declines it for more feedback. NtheP (talk) 10:53, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

ThanksG2003 (talk) 21:37, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Username not complicit

Hi all

I have recently created a page for the NGO Canon Collins Trust Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Canon Collins Trust#Canon Collins Trust. I received notification that the username is not complicit, I'm guessing because it is too similar to the page name? Is it best to create a new account or request a username change to get the page accepted?

Also I received the following notification "The proposed article does not have sufficient content to require an article of its own". The organisation was formerly called Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa. Surely Canon Collins Trust is eligible for a page of its own?

Many thanks! Canoncollinstrust (talk) 09:18, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi, welcome to the Teahouse. To deal with the name issue first, you should request a username change. This won't mean that the article is automatically accepted. The process for requesting a new username can be found at Wikipedia:Changing username/Simple.

About the articles, I'm a little confused, the article on John Collins implies that the Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa became the Canon Collins Trust. Is this correct? If so then the advice given to refer to the entire history of the organisation in one article is good and I would suggest that you expand the existing article on the Defence and Aid Fund to cover the name change and what the organisation now does. Canon Collins Trust could be created as a redirect to point to the other article. If they are different organisations then Notability is not inherited, just because one organisation founded by Collins is notable does not automatically grant the same status to any other organisation he founded and you would need to establish the notability of the Trust separately. The draft you have at the moment doesn't do this as it lacks independent reliable sources. NtheP (talk) 11:20, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

I have requested a username change. Many thanks for your advice on the other issues. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Canoncollinstrust (talk • contribs) 09:59, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Help improving my article

Hi - further to the post below "Article cited as advertisement" - I'm having the same issue with this article - Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/GigaSpaces. The moderator who declined my submission suggested I get help here.

I cited numerous external articles to support the content, and I attempted to write the content in as neutral a voice as possible, stating only pure facts. Can someone please give me pointers on how to improve this article, so that I can have it approved? I believe the content is notable, especially considering the numerous times that GigaSpaces is referenced within Wikipedia alone. Thanks. Shar1R (talk) 13:40, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Shar1R, IMO there is far too much technical detail about the products or the background technology e.g. you could drop the entire section Core Concepts in Space-based Architecture and the succeeding sections could be reduced as well - it doesn't need an in-depth explanation of the products - just what the products are and how they are regarded. For example more citation of press/technical reviews about the products saying whether they are good, bad or indifferent they are. NtheP (talk) 17:43, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Nthep -- thank you very much for the reply. I can do that - but then it will seem even more like advertising, no? The reason for the declination was the advertising bit - I thought the technical information provided the more factual elements. If I remove this, do you believe it will be approved? Thanks again! Shar1R (talk) 09:58, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Portal Editing/Creation

Ok. So, I was kinda being stupid. :/ I noticed there was no portal for Miley Cyrus. So I thought why don't I create it? How hard can it be? I thought wrong. So I tried consulting the Portal creation instructions & I tried doing what it said. But some things didn't work. I know I was doing it wrong. So I tried fixing it. & it didn't really work. I tried following the portal creation instructions but it was complicated & confusing. Now i'm stuck. So can someone show me how to do it? I appreciate you doing it for me. But after you fix it, plz show me how to do it, as I would like to learn the craft of "Wikipedianing." ;) Thank you so much! Lopezjaylo98 (talk) 20:40, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Lopezjaylo, welcome to the Teahouse. I see you'd also asked this question at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) where the following answer was given:

Portals are for large subjects often with hundreds of subpages: I think it might be better to avoid creating a Portal by yourself, because they often involve creating hundreds of subpages to support all aspects. See: "Portal:Computer Science" as an example. Currently, the navbox Template:Miley_Cyrus is probably sufficient to cover most reader interest about actress/singer Miley Cyrus. Wikipedia tends to avoid treatment of people which might resemble a wp:FANSITE, and portals are an area typically reserved for large subjects involving numerous people or objects, where dozens of editors would help create the numerous Portal subpages. -Wikid77 (talk) 05:44, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I tend to agree with what Wikid77 has said, Miley Cyrus isn't currently a suitable candidate for a Portal page. If you are interested in improving the existing articles about her have a look at the articles in Category:Miley Cyrus and it's subcategories and see if you can help expand any of those. NtheP (talk) 06:28, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Re-submitting

Hi, my article (Pillpriory) was declined twice due to referencing etc. I have now revised the article and want to re-submit it but I am unable to do it. Any help grately appreciated. (Pillpriory (talk) 13:31, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Pillpriory, and thanks for visiting the Teahouse. I have reopened the submission at Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Pill Priory and will review it myself shortly - at first glance, it looks like a pass to me! Yunshui 雲‍水 13:39, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

What about a reference that is magazine article where the magazine charges for the full content?

I am a new editor trying to get my article about Wealth Lab up. My first submission attempt came back saying that their wasn´t not sufficient references to support the subject. So I found two additional references that support the subject and confirm what I say about the subject, however, one of the references has part of it´s content in a paid access service as many magazine publishers do. Do the Editor that review my article for submission go the extra mile to see the that my third party reference does indeed support and confirm what I say about the subject? Or do I have to help them somehow, e.g. by buying the paid content and providing them access?

Heatman1 (talk) 12:31, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Heatman1, and thanks for visiting the Teahouse. Whilst not ideal, material that's behind a paywall is considered usable as a source on Wikipedia (we even have a section of the Verifiability policy about it). How were you able to access the information yourself? If it's in a print version of the magazine, you can cite the printed version instead of the online article.

It's also possible that the article may be available in a news archive service, such as Highbeam or JSTOR, that many Wikipedia editors can access. I'd suggest putting the citation in the article, with a note explaining that it's behind a paywall. It's still an acceptable source. Yunshui 雲‍水 12:40, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi. You can use {{subscription required}} (with the via= parameter) after the citation details but within the ref tags, if you like. -- Trevj (talk) 12:52, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request which is designed to help people get content from behind paywalls and other hard-to-get sources. There is no prohibition or any rules against using such sources at all. Sources need to be availible, not instantly availible. People should be able to get the sources, but there is no rule they need them the very second the desire to get them strikes them. Most paywall journals exist in print editions which you can read for free in many libraries, just as one example. Many libraries also allow their patrons access to journals behind paywalls for free. --Jayron32 17:34, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

New Article: PeoplePerHour

Hi there, I've added some further detail to this new article. Do you think it is now strong enough to submit for publication? Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Peopleperhour G2003 (talk) 07:49, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi. Having had a very quick look at it, I think it needs to contain more information about the history of the company. Why did Thrasyvoulou and Kitiris found it? How did they grow their list of clients? How did the company expand? All of this needs to be backed up with information cited in reliable sources. Some relevant wikilinks would also be useful (but be careful not to overlink). I'd also suggest the inclusion of {{infobox company}}. Before doing any of this, you should satisfy yourself that the company is likely to meet the WP:NCORP requirements, rather than spend a lot of time which may ultimately be wasted if not. Please note that I've not assessed the content of the refs. Keep at it! -- Trevj (talk) 10:02, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi G2003, I remember looking at your article several weeks ago and you deserve credit for improving it. It is short and sweet and has a number of reliable news sources. My one quibble would be whether the mentions in some of the sources are substantial enough to be 'significant' coverage (which is required to prove what we call 'notability'). If it was me, I would be tempted to accept the article. But maybe you could expand on what the Financial Times says (it is a very respectable source) - the title of the article suggests it talks about lots of companies, rather than just Peopleperhour. Some of the suggestions (above) by Trevj are good, but they are not essential before your article is moved to mainspace. all the best! Sionk (talk) 11:06, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

True, my suggestions aren't essential - just advice. -- Trevj (talk) 12:49, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Writing an article

Hi, The article I created was deleted because it contained material that was borrowed from another website. I mentioned the article as reference though.

I am now wanting to recreate the page and there is no proof to support the article other than an existing website and a book. But the book is from a press in India and doesn't have an ISBN.

So I was wanting to know if I can give that book as reference or not?

Please guide me as to how I can go ahead with the page creation in this scenario.

Thanks, ShyamWithloveshyam (talk) 04:50, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Hey, Shyam, welcome to the Teahouse! The answer to your question actually depends on your subject and the nature of your sources. You see, Wikipedia doesn't accept articles about everything in the world no matter what; it only accepts articles about subjects that are considered notable. Notability at Wikipedia means many things in different contexts, but at an absolute bare minimum: a subject must have significant coverage in multiple reliable sources that are independent of each other and the subject itself to be considered notable enough for Wikipedia article. I can't really say whether the subject of your article is considered notable, as I can't tell what your sources are like, but if there's only one book and one website to support the article, it might very well not be. If the website you're talking about is this one: http://arulsattam.com/index.html, then I'm afraid it does not count as a reliable source. I can tell you that the book won't be automatically considered unreliable just because it doesn't have an ISBN, but I can't tell you whether it's usable as a reference without more information about it. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 13:50, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Shyam, what exactly was your topic? Have you tried searching GoogleBooks for information and evidence of WP:Notability? Let us know specifically what your topic is, and if you've checked GoogleBooks for information (or if you have other online sources). If you post a long URL, make sure to put [ and ] around it to condense it like so [4] so it doesn't display as a big link like http://www.google.com . I do a lot of India topics, so I might be able to help or at least steer you the right direction. Can you also add your title term to the sub-title for your question so that people can immediately see what topic you're asking about? MatthewVanitas (talk) 16:54, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Historical documentation of an extinct village in Kentucky.

My sister and I wish to document the existence, and the passing into oblivion, of a village in Kentucky, before the last of the old residents die. I found many listings for "Villages in Kentucky" but I have never contributed here. What is a likely course of action for us? Use the Article Wizard, accumulate some facts and references, cause a person at Wikipedia become aware of it, then expect it to be made public? This place is a bit overwhelming. Please forgive a total noobie.Thelarsons78 (talk) 04:28, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Hello Thelarsons78, and welcome to both Wikipedia and The Teahouse. Since it used to be a real place, have you tried looking for information in any old Gazeteers? If you search at Google books, you can find lots of good sources: See right here where there are books dating back to the 1800s. Some of these may contain information about the town you could use as sources to help you write the Wikipedia article. You could also try asking at a local historical society or local library in the county or a nearby town or village. They may have access to published books or other works about the town. Does this help? --Jayron32 04:33, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Excellent suggestions! but I was wondering if I have kind of figured out the process to get an article published at Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thelarsons78 (talk • contribs) 04:57, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Have you read through the guideline titled Wikipedia:Your first article? --Jayron32 05:01, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

I have read parts of MANY pages and all of some pages. Is this question so difficult that the best answer is, "read the site"? Is the process of getting started that much more than 4 steps? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thelarsons78 (talk • contribs) 05:13, 26 September 2012 (UTC) I'm trying to save some time by asking this question. It isn't working. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thelarsons78 (talk • contribs) 05:18, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

It is a VERY overwhelming website. No one here will disagree with you. Here is my best suggestion: Go to WP:AFC and just get started! When you have questions, come back here. We will all be glad to help you any way we can. I might suggest that you take a look at some other articles about towns that are no longer, such as Calico, San Bernardino County, California. Give it a try, please? I look forward to reading your article. Gtwfan52 (talk) 05:21, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

If you want the short short version of how to create the article: type the name of the town in the search box above. So if it is named "BFE, Kentucky" you would type "BFE, Kentucky" in the search box. You'll be told that the page doesn't exist. There will be a red link that if you click it, will allow you to create the article titled BFE, Kentucky (it will look like that). You type your information there, click save page, and the article will then exist. HOWEVER, other processes, like the Wikipedia:Article wizard and Wikipedia:Articles for creation processes exist because there are many pitfalls in creating articles. These are optional processes which provide guidance and hand-holding for new users. As Gtwfan52 has indicated, go for it. Let us all know what the name of the article is when you create it, via whatever method you choose, and we'll look it over and try to coach you along the way. See also Wikipedia:Be bold which is a core value of Wikipedia, and one of the five pillars on which Wikipedia is built. Don't be overwhelmed, we're here to help you along the way, but go for it! You can't break Wikipedia. --Jayron32 05:29, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

OK! That's a good start! I have a path to follow. Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thelarsons78 (talk • contribs) 05:33, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Very important point: do I understand by your saying "before the last of the old residents die" that you're thinking to conduct interviews or archival research in the community? While that sounds like an awesome project, do note that's not what Wikipedia does. Wikipedia is a WP:Tertiary source, that is we take existing published research done by others and digest it. We don't do the "first ever publishing of new findings" here, so reading WP:OR would be a really important priority.

That said, even if you are doing field interviews (or if I've just misunderstood you), there's a lot you can do to help assemble data about that town. There may be mention in old books online, or at a university or government library in the area, and that information can be summarised and Footnoted in the article. If you're going to do field interviews or comb archives, it wouldn't hurt to have a baseline of "what's already been discovered and published about Town."

If you are conducting field interviews though, or combing through archives, that kind of info would only be admissible once it's been published in a WP:Secondary source. Like if you call up Local State U, get in touch with the anthropology department, and they say "sure, here's our guidance on conducting official field interviews. Go out and talk to folks, bring it back, and you can help our anthropology PhD candidate assemble enough data to publish." When History of Town X publishes, then Wikipedians can take that info and cite it here.

Does that help cover your question, or am I reading you wrong here? MatthewVanitas (talk) 18:53, 26 September 2012 (UTC)