User talk:Fomfeider
Welcome![edit]
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The administrators noticeboard is for issues involving administrators in particular, not to request an administrator look at a question on an article talk page. Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics might be closer to what you're looking for. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:08, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
In one of your misplaced posts you wrote "if you think I did well on my user sandbox, please leave a message on my talk page about how well I wrote them in my user sandbox". You should not be here just for praise, but should accept praise and criticism equally, so should also have room for people who do not think you did well on your user sandbox and tell you how badly you wrote them. You will not last long here if you do not take note of criticism. As one piece of criticism I would note that "non-profit organization websites ending in .org" are often not reliable sources. Just being non-profit does not in itself make any organization any more or less reliable than a for-profit organization. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:12, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
Your questions at the Administrator's noticeboard[edit]
Hello Fomfeider, welcome to wikipedia!
The Administrator's noticeboards are supposed to be used for issues that directly require administrator assistance, things like blocking and unblocking users, deleting and restoring pages, user conduct issues etc. For general questions about getting started check out the Teahouse!
I've had a look at your sandbox, and while you seem to have gotten the general principle behind what can and can't be used as sources you're being far too broad in how you categorise things - It's very rare for it to be possible to say "All X are reliable" a copy of your list with some thoughts annotated are below, I hope you find this useful and not too critical!
What can be used as a source (reliable sources)[edit]
- Google Books - Google Books is a search engine, it contains basically every book ever written. There are useful sources in it but also a lot of rubbish. You need to evaluate each book individually on it's own merits, think of things like "who wrote this, are they a known expert in this field", "is it self published or has it gone through a publishing house with editorial control", "how old is this" - old history books and the like can be especially problematic, "What has the reception to this book been, has it been criticised or praised by others working in the field" etc. etc. etc.
- Google Scholar - Again - Google scholar is a search engine. A google scholar search will turn up the best of available academia along with utter rubbish published for a fee by Predatory publishers. You need to look at things like the author, citation count, reception in other papers, age of the paper, journal etc and decide on an individual basis.
- Websites ending in .gov and .edu - Again - these are of mixed usefulness. Recent materials published by a respected university are useable as sources, a professor's personal website hosted by a university needs careful consideration. Government websites need to be considered carefully for bias, would you consider the British government to be a reliable unbiased source about Brexit, or the Azerbaijani government to be unbiased about Nagorno-Karabakh?
- Information in books and newspapers - I've mentioned books above but again with newspapers you need to consider each one individually and even each story within. Some newspapers like the times are considered to be among the highest quality sources available, the daily mail meanwhile is depreciated and should not be used for anything.
- Peer reviewed websites - Generally peer review is a good indication that a source is reliable, but it's not 100% and again you have to look at multiple factors, e.g. who is doing the reviewing and what standards/processes were involved.
- Non-profit organization websites ending in .org - Again mixed. For the most part charities should be considered biased sources - the main purpose of their website is to get people engaged with their cause and donating money. Do you think PETA would give a 100% unbiased Factual view of the meat industry?
What cannot be used as a source (non-reliable sources)[edit]
- Personal blogs - Depends on who's writing it. If they're a known expert then it could be a 100% acceptable source, e.g. the personal blog of a Disney animator writing about the influences behind a movie could be an acceptable source, and a physics professor's physics blog could be used in articles about physics.
- Personal tweets - These can be used for simple information about the subject, see WP:ABOUTSELF. If someone tweets "I was born January 1965" then that tweet would be an acceptable source for their birthday.
- Personal websites - Depends on who's written it, see the comments on "Personal blogs"
- Online forums - Can be used for simple information in an WP:ABOUTSELF manner if the poster is known (e.g. "writing on their forums, game developed claimed their game was delayed because ..."), but generally speaking yes, forums are not reliable
- Websites with biased information - Biased sources generally should not be used for facts, but you might be able to use them for attributed opinion
- Editorials - You can use these for sources of attributed opinion, but generally they are not considered reliable sources for facts.
- Other Wikipedia articles - Correct, note that this applies generally to all user generated content, not specifically to Wikipedia
Hope this helps, 192.76.8.74 (talk) 22:04, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
That's cool, I will go ahead and edit my user sandbox. Fomfeider (talk) 13:04, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
- Hello Fomfeider. You (and 192.76.8.74) might also be interested in WP:RSPS, which is a handy list of commonly-discussed sources with notes about their reliability. Each entry links to past discussions about the publication, with a description of its reliability and reasons why it can or can't be used for coverage of particular topics, or reasons why some sources shouldn't be used at all. If you're not sure about a source and it's not listed, you can ask about it at the reliable sources noticeboard. Cheers. Ivanvector's squirrel (trees/nuts) 14:13, 27 September 2021 (UTC)