Talk:Ron J. MacLaren

Wiki Education assignment: Asian American History
— Assignment last updated by Ayahos (talk) 02:50, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Need to replace LinkedIn as source
While LinkedIn can be helpful for cross-referencing purposes when writing biographies of living persons, we should try to avoid citing it directly as a source. Please look for independent secondary sources to replace LinkedIn for each of the claims made in this article. Cielquiparle (talk) 03:25, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
 * , Thank you for finding and flagging this. I just removed all citations to LinkedIn; this leaves a lot of unsourced content, and I've tagged those for now, except for cases where another citation is present for the same content. In the future, no need to signal the presence of a LinkedIn citation on the Talk page; you can just remove it yourself as an unreliable, WP:SPS. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 08:33, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for doing that, @Mathglot. In the case of the #WikiEd courses, seems like a good practice to flag what the issues are, so that the course instructors can improve and prevent the same mistakes from happening in the future. Cc: @Ian (Wiki Ed) Cielquiparle (talk) 09:09, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
 * , I do that regularly, but missed the Wiki Ed connection this time. There's no reason to treat an edit by a Wiki Ed student differently than you would a non-student of equal seniority (and we shouldn't) but flagging the issue to a Wiki Ed course expert is definitely a good idea, so thanks for that. Mathglot (talk) 16:58, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Mathglot I was just re-reading policy and saw that per WP:ABOUTSELF, citing LinkedIn probably isn't as bad as third-party self-published sources per WP:SPS. That was my understanding, and that is another reason why I didn't rush to remove. (I'm generally a very hands-on fixer so in this case I honestly was just trying to prioritize.) Cielquiparle (talk) 18:04, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
 * , that depends. If it's their hair color, weight, or names of their (unremarkable) spouse or children, then I agree. If it's anything about their education, career, qualifications, publications, awards, then no. See numbered point #1 at ABOUTSELF. That sort of information should come from an WP:INDEPENDENT, WP:SECONDARY source. If it's accurate, then there should be one, and no problem; if there isn't one, then both point #1 and point #4 become relevant. Mathglot (talk) 18:50, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Mathglot Makes sense, thanks. Cielquiparle (talk) 07:34, 11 January 2024 (UTC)