User talk:Alanmac1969

Guide to referencing
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I thought you might find it useful to have some information about references (refs) on wikipedia. These are important to validate your writing and inform the reader. Any editor can removed unreferenced material; and unsubstantiated articles may end up getting deleted, so when you add something to an article, it's highly advisable to also include a reference to say where it came from. Referencing may look daunting, but it's easy enough to do. Here's a guide to getting started.

Good references
A reference must be accurate, i.e. it must prove the statement in the text. To validate "Mike Brown climbed Everest", it's no good linking to a page about Everest, if Mike Brown isn't mentioned, nor to one on Mike Brown, if it doesn't say that he climbed Everest. You have to link to a source that proves his achievement is true. You must use Reliable sources, such as published books, mainstream press, authorised web sites, and official documents. Blogs, Myspace, Youtube, fan sites and extreme minority texts are not usually acceptable, nor is Original research, e.g. your own unpublished, or self-published, essay or research.

Simple referencing
The first thing you have to do is to create a "Notes and references" section. This goes towards the bottom of the page, below the "See also" section and above the "External links" section. Enter this code:


 * ==Notes and references==

The next step is to put a reference in the text. Here is the code to do that. It goes at the end of the relevant term, phrase, sentence, or paragraph to which the note refers, and after punctuation such as a full stop, without a space (to prevent separation through line wrap):



Whatever text you put in between these two tags will become visible in the "Notes and references" section as your reference.

Test it out
Copy the following text, open the edit box for this page, paste it at the bottom (inserting your own text) and save the page:


 * ==Reference test==


 * This is the text which you are going to reference.


 * ==Notes and references==



(End of text to copy and paste.)

Information to include
You need to include the information to enable the reader to find your source. For a book it might look like this:



An online newspaper source would be:



Note the square brackets around the URL. The format is [URL Title] with a space between the URL and the Title. If you do this the URL is hidden and the Title shows as the link. Use double apostrophes for the article title, and two single quote marks either side of the name of the paper (to generate italics).

The date after The Guardian is the date of the newspaper, and the date after "Retrieved on" is the date you accessed the site – useful for searching the web archive in case the link goes dead. Wikilinks (double square brackets which create an internal link to a wikipedia article) function inside the ref tags. Dates are wikilinked so that they work with user preference settings.

Citation templates
You may prefer to use a citation template to compile details of the source. The template goes between the ref tags and you fill out the fields you wish to. Basic templates can be found here: Template messages/Sources of articles/Citation quick reference

Same ref used twice or more
The first time a reference appears in the article, you can give it a simple name in the

The second time you use the same reference in the article, you need only to create a short cut instead of typing it all out again:



You can then use the short cut as many times as you want. Don't forget the /, or it will blank the rest of the article! A short cut will only pick up from higher up the page, so make sure the first ref is the full one. Some symbols don't work in the ref name, but you'll find out if you use them.

Example
You can see refs in action in the article William Bowyer (artist). There are 3 sources and they are each referenced 3 times. Each statement in the article has a footnote to show what its source is.

Next step
When you become familiar with the process, the next step is to have one section, "Footnotes", with links embedded in the text, and another, "References", which lists all of your references alphabetically with full details, e.g. for a book:


 * Lincoln, Abraham; Grant, U. S.; & Davis, Jefferson (1861). Resolving Family Differences Peacefully (3rd ed.). Gettysburg: Printing Press. ISBN 0-12-345678-9.

If you're ready to go into it further, these pages have detailed information:
 * Citing sources
 * Citing sources/example style
 * Citation templates
 * Footnotes

I hope this helps. If you need any assistance, let me know.

Tyrenius 22:33, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
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License tagging for Image:Samford Royal Estate (1) 270604.JPG
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St Paul's School, Bald Hills
Re. sexual abuse incident, please see Brisbane Grammar School and its talk page, where this has been extensively debated. Tyrenius 22:34, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Baden Powell Park
Greetings and welcome to Wikipedia. I like your article on this camp site and I have made a few small corrections to it. However, I fear that when it becomes more widely known, it will be considered to be not notable in the same way that we do not consider individual Scout Districts and Groups to be notable. It will probably be suggested that the article be trimmed down and merged into Scouting in Queensland. Do you know about WikiProject Scouting? --Bduke 22:27, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I've nominated for speedy deletion because of clear copyright violation from http://www.scoutsqld.com.au/index.cfm?MenuID=122 :: maelgwn :: talk 13:31, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Scouting
Are you interested in Scouting? evrik (talk) 22:46, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

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Disputed fair use rationale for Image:20070915 Screenshot MRD Samford Bypass.JPG
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Thanks, I've updated the rationale. Alanmac1969 19:55, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Replaceable fair use Image:20070915 Screenshot MRD Samford Bypass.JPG
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Replaceable fair use Image:20070421 PRSC website screenshot CSIRO land masterplan.jpg
Thanks for uploading Image:20070421 PRSC website screenshot CSIRO land masterplan.jpg. I noticed the description page specifies that the media is being used under a claim of fair use, but its use in Wikipedia articles fails our first non-free content criterion in that it illustrates a subject for which a freely licensed media could reasonably be found or created that provides substantially the same information. If you believe this media is not replaceable, please:


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If you have uploaded other non-free media, consider checking that you have specified how these images fully satisfy our non-free content criteria. You can find a list of description pages you have edited by clicking on [ this link]. Note that even if you follow steps 1 and 2 above, non-free media which could be replaced by freely licensed alternatives will be deleted 2 days after this notification (7 days if uploaded before 13 July 2006), per our non-free content policy. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Mosmof (talk) 04:22, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Image:CRSIRO_Land_Samford_270604.jpg listed for deletion
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