Talk:Drew Chicone

Please bear with me as I attempt to improve this article.
I understand the points brought up in the pending deletion notice/discussion and have decided to attempt to improve this page including the layout.

However, as I have repeatedly mentioned, I am not very experienced on Wiki. although my account was created quite some time ago, I have primarily been a reader and only made small contributions and consider myself still a newbie in terms of understanding policies, guidelines, and especially the editing interface/markup and doubly so when using my phone, which I often do.

I admit I do not understand all the rules, so I respectfully ask that if I break one or include inappropriate sources that I be contacted on my talk page with guidance to help me improve instead of heavy handed reverts or other actions that won't help me learn and improve. Mlepisto (talk) 12:52, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

My Motivation for this
I believe Drew is a pioneer in saltwater fly tying and fishing (especially fly fishing from a paddle board, which is even more unique) and has numerous credible attributions within the fishing industry media. Fly fishing and paddle board fishing are smaller subsets of fishing, fly tying an even smaller subset of fly fishing, but Drew combines these with being an Author who is known in these small circles as a passionate educator who provides new, very analytical techniques and lots of free content via his newsletter on how to improve on your own fly tying, step by step instructions for fly patterns that are challenging (especially for beginners) to understand and execute. I am very new to fly fishing (although I have experience with offshore and inshore fishing using spinning rods and electric reels, etc) and find the topic of fly fishing and fly tying much more technical and challenging. It due to educators like Drew that I am able to learn about these. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mlepisto (talk • contribs) 11:24, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

What are appropriate ways to cite the sponsorships?
Some sources are press releases or pages on the sites of those sponsoring him. One source for the Patagonia one calls him a "contributing writer" but the Patagonia page calls him an ambassador. Ambassadors for companies like this are often compensated in some way and therefore they may promote or be required to exclusively use their product so I chose "sponsored" as it seems a more accurate term to describe the relationship. Please edit as you see fit if there is more appropriate wording. This source for some of the other companies calls him a member of the pro team, which is basically the same. "He is a contributing writer for Patagonia, is a member of the Outdoor Writers Association of America, and is on numerous pro teams including Dyna-King, Nautilus, Hardy, Whiting Farms, Daiichi, Mustad, and Loon"
 * https://www.flytyer.com/fly-tyings-newest-young-gun/

Mlepisto (talk) 11:25, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
 * The sourcing is still a bit weak, but I added what I could. Speaker bios are not reliable, since they are just repurposed by the event or speaking company and are not always vetted.  I used a Fly Fisher announcement from their site, which while being a primary source, is at least on a media publication site so theoretically more reliable. I marked other info needing citations. I never use press releases - they are poor sources. Blogs are also usually poor, but can squeak by depending on how controversial the info being sourced is, or what the context is. Notable blogs can be used more freely, such as if the info being sourced is that it appeared in the blog, imparting at least some notability that way. I unfortunately couldn't find anything confirming the sponsorships. TimTempleton (talk)  (cont)  19:29, 13 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the explanation. I will keep digging and see what I can find. Mlepisto (talk) 19:37, 13 May 2020 (UTC)


 * I haven't been able to find much about the sponsorships for citation needed besides press releases and magazine mentions that seem to be very similar. His personal site claims pro staff for some of these. Would that be an appropriate citation? I don't believe it is an exceptional claim, and wonder if it fits with WP:ABOUTSELF guidelines? Seems like it might be better to move the sponsorship part into the pro team area? Many of the claimed pro team memberships are verifiable by pages on those companies sites, but they are commercial sites. Here is what he says about them himself.
 * https://www.saltyflytying.com/pages/about-drew

Mlepisto (talk) 15:03, 15 May 2020 (UTC)