User talk:Varunpramanik

iPad reception talks about opinion, list are facts. it is not a list of rumors that didnt happen, for instance it didn't list finger print reader

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Hello, Varunpramanik, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using 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 your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! Herostratus (talk) 03:15, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Re Gail Dines

Hi Varunpramanik, welcome aboard, and happy Wiki'ing! Re the Gail Dines article, I would suggest you read WP:BLP and WP:V before making those kinds of major changes. There is a discussion on the talk page, and if you can use those to prove that your material meets WP:BLP and WP:V that that'd be different. But until then don't re-add the material, thanks. Cheers, Herostratus (talk) 03:15, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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OK, to reply to what you said. I could create a blog and write "Barack Obama eats live kittens". However, if someone were to use this as a ref in the Barack Obama article to source the statement "Some commentators have claimed that Obama eats live kittens", this would not be allowed. Do you see why this would be?

True, I'm just a nobody. However, even if a famous person such as Justin Timberlake were to create a blog and write "Barack Obama eats live kittens", this would still not be allowed.

But what if a professor at Columbia who is generally acknowledged as a leading expert on kitten-eating in world cultural history were to create a blog and write "Barack Obama eats live kittens"? This would be a better source, but it would still not be allowed in biography because biographies are especially sensitive. It's more likely to be accurate than my blog, because the professor is more likely to know, and has a reputation to protect. But we still wouldn't have sufficient confidence that professor had made sure that of his facts.

However, if the professor's blog was part of the New York Times website, and was under the editorial control of the New York Times, it would probably be OK. Because the New York Times has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy (not to say they never make mistakes). We can assume that the Times won't publish material until an editor has read it and presumably said "Professor, we're not going to publish a statement like this without proof, what proof do you have?".

So this is the kind of source we are looking for when writing contentions material about living persons.

As to substance of the allegation that Dines is doing this for the money. First of all, of course she gets paid for her work, everyone does. You could criticize Ralph Nader or Martin Luther King or Jesus Christ on the grounds that they got paid for their work. What we would be looking for is some indication that there is something notably unusual about Dines's situation. For instance:

If Dines has been fined by the IRS for receiving income from (say) the Family Council for God and Decency and not reporting it (and you had a reliable source proving this), this could go in the article.
If Dines has been fired from a University post for accepting money from a porn publisher to deprecate a rival publisher's work (and you had a reliable source proving this), this could go in the article.
If Dines had been quoted in a reliable source as saying "Other professors drive Hondas but I want to drive a Cadillac, and that's why I went into this", that could go in the article.

But just somebody saying that she is in it for the money does not offer sufficient proof that it's true. OK? Now, some suggestions.

First, spend some time getting a feel for how biographies work here at the Wikipedia before diving into contentious material. There are plenty of biographies that need work here. Take a look at the WP:BLP noticeboard to get a feel for the kinds of biographical material that is contentious here.

Second, I have reverted your edits to Dines's article. Do not just revert me again, this will be considered Wikipedia:Edit warring and you will likely end up in trouble if you keep doing it. Instead, what you want to do is build a case for your edits. A good place to start might be the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard, where you would post a notice to the effect "I have what I consider to be reliable source, but another editor is disputing them" and see what they say. In my opinion they will likely tell you that your sources are not reliable, as I have, but it's your right to try. Wikipedia:Dispute Resolution also offers advice on dispute resolution. Cheers, Herostratus (talk) 14:49, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]