User talk:Henrylewismann

Nice work!

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Posted automatically via sandbox guided tour. Henrylewismann (talk) 20:52, 8 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note about articles

Hey, I saw you were teaching a course and I thought I'd give you a head's up on some stuff. This is going to be a bit long, but there's a lot to cover.

First off, I'd like to ask that you set up a course through the education program. This would allow you to create a classroom page similar to this one that was set up by HullIntegrity. Setting up a course through this can be invaluable since it will give your students a specific place to congregate on as far as Wikipedia goes. It also lets Wikipedia know that you're using it for a course and as such, will make it more likely that you'll have people coming in to help. Going through the education program also gives a bit of a guideline for articles. This leads to my second point:

I noticed at Draft talk:Mardi Gras: Spring Break that you asked the article's editor to add information about their personal interpretations of the film. Please do not do this, as this is considered to be original research (WP:OR), which is not permitted on Wikipedia. This is one of the most common errors that people do when coming to Wikipedia, partially because up to this point many educators and students are used to writing academic papers or essays and not encyclopedia articles, and there is a huge difference between the two. In a personal paper or essay it's fine and even encouraged for people to make up their own opinions and interpretations based on various different sources, many of which may not explicitly make any given point. However an encyclopedia article differs on this point since you cannot make up a new interpretation on something unless it has explicitly been said about the specific topic in the article. For example, unless the director or some other form of a reliable source explicitly states that he was confirming or contradicting the stereotypical perceptions of Mardi Gras, you can't put this in the article. It has to be said in a reliable source.

This leads to another point: Wikipedia is pretty strict about what it considers to be a reliable source per WP:RS. Places like IMDb are not considered to be a reliable source because it allows its users to edit and make changes. It does undergo some oversight but not nearly enough. A case in point is that a few years ago someone created an IMDb profile that claimed that Gretel Ashzinger was going to play She-Hulk in Captain America 2. This was quickly proven to be obviously false, but IMDb still kept the page up until someone reported it. At best they're considered to be a routine database listing and they're not considered to be a reliable source that would show notability. This leads into another point about sources: what can be used in a Wikipedia article differs somewhat than what can be used in a paper.

A paper can use whatever source they want, although obviously some sources are better than others. The source does not have to explicitly talk about the topic at hand and writers are permitted to take a more general source to make a specific point, even if the source does not explicitly state this. The writer also does not have to worry about trying to establish notability for their work. This is different on Wikipedia since the sources need to be about the topic at hand and they also need to be able to establish notability. There are some exceptions to this, but by large the sources need to be about the topic in specific and they need to be in places that Wikipedia considers to be reliable. For example, a review in a media outlet recognized by Rotten Tomatoes would show notability for the film Mardi Gras: Spring Break, as would a newspaper article about the movie's filming process. An article about spring break in general would not show notability for the film regardless of where it was posted or who wrote it. The other difficulty factor with sources is that Wikipedia usually requires quite a few of them to show how something passes a specific notability guideline like WP:NFILM.

This brings me to the topic of notability. Notability can only be established by coverage in independent and reliable sources per WP:RS. Notability cannot be inherited (WP:NOTINHERITED), so a film cannot inherit notability even if notable actors performed in it or regardless of what topics it may cover. An association can make it more likely that the topic will gain coverage, but this is never a guarantee.

Finally, I also need to talk about putting semi off-topic material in an article. The article for Mardi Gras: Spring Break contained a lot of information about spring break and Mardi Gras in general, as well as general information about its actors. This is another way that Wikipedia differs from a paper, as papers are usually self-contained by nature. People can read them online but the basic assumption is that the reader will not have access to outside materials or other resources while reading and as such, you'll need to summarize some things that do not immediately pertain to the specific topic. This isn't the case on Wikipedia, as you can link to the existing articles for the actors and concepts, which makes these summaries redundant and unnecessary. The other problem with doing this is that this can put WP:UNDUE weight on the actors or concepts and as such, the article will feel unbalanced.

I hope that none of this comes across as harsh since that's not the intention. It's just that I want to make sure that you're aware of this, since these are all very common mistakes when it comes to education assignments since everyone is used to writing in different format and there's really a huge difference between the two, to the point where it's not apples and oranges as much as it's apples and avocados. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 07:28, 4 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

In any case, I'm editing the page and trying to make it look more like the standard article on Wikipedia. So far I'm not finding a huge amount of sources, but I do think that having a standard looking article would help as a guideline. I also want to again ask put an emphasis on creating a course page at the education project. I've tagged Hullintegrity since he's held a course online and should be able to help you if needed. I'll try to find some other editors to help you out as well. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 07:32, 4 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You may actually want to create your own student wiki on places like PBworks or Wikia. I've also noted that the Mardi Gras film already existed in the mainspace, so any AfC draft will be automatically declined on that basis alone. I also noted that there were similar issues at User:Gabbywhat/sandbox with the article (OR, sourcing, mainspace already exists), but it also had issues with tone. Be very, very careful about this since encyclopedia articles are supposed to be neutrally written and while the tone might not ordinarily seem like an issue, if an article is too casual in tone this can lead to problems if people read it and think that there's a bias. (This is another way that a paper differs from an encyclopedia article, since you don't have to be as careful about tone with papers.) Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 07:59, 4 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

All good points Tokyogirl79! I would like to mention (and maybe Tokyogirl179 did so already and I missed it as I have been offline for a bit) that Talk pages are, I believe, fair game for opinions and suggestions for improvement to an article. Students do not have to work on the main pages from the get-go. Cheers. HullIntegrity^\ talk / 16:52, 1 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]