User talk:Avril.rennie

00:30, 3 March 2007 (UTC)Avril.rennieWelcome!

Hello,, 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: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place  on your talk page and ask your question there. Again, welcome! Doldrums 06:40, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
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West Kilbride
Hi Avril,

Many thanks for your work on the West Kilbride page, and especially your recent addition of the Hunterston Brooch info.

Probably the biggest weakness of the page (according to Wikipedia standards) as it now stands is its lack of citations of sources.

Would you be able to add citation(s) of the source(s) you used for the Hunterston Brooch info? That would be a great help.

Regards, --NSH001 17:59, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Good evening!

I wonder if you are the Neil who was at Primary School with me? All those years ago! I'll bet you are. There's no better start in life than a Scottish primary school education! What a pity WK's fine Victorian School (the one we knew) was burned to the ground by vandals. Come to think of it, an entry about the current WK Primary School would be good for the article too.

Another amenity needing an entry is the West Kibride Museum.

I'm learning the editorial tools for Wikipedia, very gradually. Still don't know how to do citations of sources. The material about the Hunterston Brooch I gleaned from National Museum of Scotland publications. Have you been to the Museum in Chambers Street, Edinburgh, where the brooch is housed? You'll find that it is one of the great "icons" of early Scotland. So we should fly the flag and say "West Kilbride made this!"

Regarding citations, I need to find out more about the time Helen Keller stayed in West Kilbride.

We also need to be careful with the hyperlink for Robert Barr, though, because there have been several prominent people with that name.

The architect of West Kilbride Railway Station was James Miller who designed a lot of Scottish Stations, including Wemyss Bay. The RIAS (Royal Incorporation of Architects of Scotland) is building a database of Scottish architects and has screeds about the buildings of James Miller. As you might imagine, there is more than one James Miller, architect. However, the one we are referring to here is THE James Miller who designed, as well as stations, several illustrious buildings in the centre of Glasgow and who is very much a name to conjure with.

What I should like to see is a "history" of West Kilbride, starting with its geology and landscape, and describing the development of the village from early times onwards. For example, the house named "The Fort" in Seamill was named after the archaeological remains of a Roman fortification which were unearthed when the foundations of The Fort were being dug. Similarly, across the road, at a house called "Tarbet", Roman funerary urns were found.

Seamill, as we know it, was preceded by a village called Sandylands. The house in Ardrossan Road named "Sandylands" commemorates this.

Sadly, quite a bit of local history is in danger of being forgotten, simply because people are not recording it properly and passing it on to others. Even in my own time, I have seen local history being lost through ignorance and lack of protection. Some years ago, contractors uplifted lines of rocks from the beach at Seamill and used them to shore up the land against erosion by the sea. Sensible? No! We later found out that these lines of rocks were many hundreds of years old and they were, in fact, ancient fish-traps. An ancient monument that should have been "listed".

So, I hope the work on Wikipedia will help to raise awareness of West Kilbride, Seamill and Portencross, and alert people to their interesting history.

Keep up the good work! Kind regards from Avril.


 * Hi Avril, thanks for the kind words. Yes, I think I probably am that Neil. Sorry to say I have been struggling to remember you or recall anything about you. Sorry! But it was 45+ yrs ago, and in a class size of nearly 40 it's not possible to remember everybody. I can remember Jean Jardine, Inez Andrews, Keith Beard, Raymond Black, Duncan McLardy (sp?)), Ailsa Mackinnon, Andrea Currie, Kathleen Small, David Simmons, Alasdair Morrison. Also someone called Alan or Allen, whose 2nd name I can't remember. That's off the top of my head, could probably think of some more with a bit more time.


 * I'm a bit out of touch with West Kilbride/Seamill now, not having been back since we sold my father's house after his death in 1995. I have mixed feelings about WK, as I was always made to feel an "outsider" (and was bullied at the primary school, so it was a great relief to get to Ardrossan Academy). Partly why I left Scotland after getting 7 Highers in 5th year. But it's still a beautiful place, and there were also some lovely people there. I really would like to bring the article up to Wikipedia good article standard.


 * Re citations, there are lots of different ways of doing this on Wikipedia, and there is no "right" or "wrong" way. The best way of learning is just to look at examples in other articles. If you follow the help from the Wikipedia front page, you will find several articles on how to do citations, but they can be daunting at first.


 * For the WK article, I'd suggest following what I've been doing, which is to put the citation between a pair of tags. This results in a little superscripted number appearing where you put the tags, and the citation itself magically appears after the  ''' to the page and state your intention on the article's talk page. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you have any questions about this. SatyrTN (talk | contribs)  15:40, 10 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi, Avril! To request that an article be written, visit Requested Articles.  You can add Christopher to the list, and if anyone has the time and inclination, they'll be able to write up an article.  As a general rule, Wikipedia will delete any pages that are basically empty - it's to keep clutter down.  Thanks for writing! -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs)  16:25, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

West Kilbride - (3)
Sorry about taking so long to reply - busy on several fronts.

I should let you know that I have (at last, and reluctantly) bowed to the inevitable and deleted the "Accommodation" section from the WK main page (tho' I did copy it to the WK talk page). Sorry! Reasons are on the WK talk page.

I have dealt with quite a few of the points you mentioned:


 * 1) WK is now categorised as a town. This involved quite a bit of work, as WK is smaller in population than any other town in mainland N Ayrshire. Also I was reluctant to change the category when the lead section (correctly, I think) refers to WK as a village. While I was looking up the populations of the other towns, I took the opportunity to correct (or add) their population figures. Am quite pleased with the new phrasing of the lead section, that WK/Seamill together are regarded as a small town, which makes sense under the new category. The fact that a few "towns" in South Ayrshire are smaller (plus Millport) makes me more comfortable with this.


 * 1) The new stub article for James Miller (architect) was surpringly easy to create (if you click its history tab, you'll see I only needed one edit). Just google for him, and then re-jig the info, only a few hours work. But I did have to spend a lot of time cleaning up the disambiguation page, which was a total mess: improve descriptions, sort into alphabetical order, even set up a redirect in one case.


 * 1) I wish I could say the same for Robert Barr. I did spend some time improving the disambiguation page, but obviously none of the people there is our man. Wasted a huge amount of time in futile google searches for him - there is a little info, but nowhere near enough for an article.


 * 1) I've finally got rid of the "peacock" phrase about the bowling club. Much better, I think, to put in some solid (and positive) info.

I finally got hold of the little book published by WKAS. You may have guessed that's where I've been getting some of the more recent info that I've been adding. But it's very, very, frustrating trying to use it! Having read it through, I know some piece of info is there, but it's so hard to find it when you need it -- there's no organisation or order to the book, nor any index. Incredible that the section on Boyd Orr doesn't mention he won the Nobel Prize. A sizeable section on Robert Barr, but lacking crucial pieces of info that would enable somebody to set up a WP article about him - no dates of birth or death, no mention of the companies/shipping lines/distilleries from which he made his fortune. This is the sort of thing that drives me nuts! There's an extensive bibliography at the end. Great, I thought, I can add a bibliography to the WK article, but no, it's unusable as they don't (apart from an isolated few cases) state the publisher or the date of publication. More climbing up the wall in frusration! It isn't even in order by date or by author; that doesn't matter so much, as I can always sort it on the computer, but it just seems so unbelievably sloppy and careless. (Sorry about this little rant!)

The one thing that is very good about the book is its photographs. Some of them are superb, most are better than the geograph photos that I've put on the WK page, and the cover photo would be perfect as a panoramic photo at the top of the WK article. I will e-mail the address given in the book asking if they will send me some photos (and give copyright permission) to put on the WK page, but I will wait until the article is in a form that I'm more comfortable with before I do.

Have to go now (still a few more things to say, will be back later...) Hope you're well and enjoying life.

Kind regards, --NSH001 14:37, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Alasdair Taylor
Re this recent edit: I'm sure you're right, but be careful about Wikipedia's original research policy. "Advised by Jean Camplisson, Alasdair Taylor's daughter" is not an acceptable basis for an edit. Wikipedia requires a basis in published sources, not personal knowledge. In fact the whole Alasdair Taylor article requires sourcing in reliable published third-party sources per Verifiability. I've passed it on to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Visual arts for assessment. Gordonofcartoon 02:45, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Update: while reading the Alasdair Gray weblog, I notice that you are a friend of Alasdair Taylor. This creates a difficulty with Wikipedia's conflict of interest guideline, which advises strongly against directly editing articles where you have a close personal or business involvement. The general advice is to collaborate with independent editors via the article's Talk page. Gordonofcartoon 11:53, 5 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Dear Gordon (of Khartoum, surely?)
 * Thank you for what I'm sure you intend to be valuable advice. There is all too little published material on the subject of Alasdair Taylor.  I did, indeed, know him personally.  But that makes me well-placed to write about him.  We were not so close as to cloud my judgment, I assure you.  And we had no business involvement.  For example, I do not own any of his paintings or other works.  Alasdair Taylor lived a very hermit-like existence in the remote village of Portencross, North Ayrshire.  If it were not for the efforts of a dedicated body of supporters - especially the Streetlevel Gallery, Glasgow - Alasdair Taylor's artistic work might now be very much at risk, following his death.  Alasdair Gray and James Kelman have both written knowledgeably about Alasdair Taylor, I believe, and I am trying to obtain online copies of this to link to.


 * I entirely support Wikipedia's drive for academic excellence and accuracy. However, I don't think it is necessary for me to get a copy of Annelise Taylor's birth certificate and death certificate to establish the correct spelling of her name.  If her daughter Jean has asked me to spell it "Annelise", that should be more reliable than any other source.  There can be spelling errors in published sources, as we know.
 * With kind regards,Avril.rennie 18:22, 5 August 2007 (UTC)


 * As I said, I don't doubt what you say over that detail - the spelling of someone's name is a trivial example - but it's still an example of original research (which is forbidden by one of Wikipedia's core policies, No original research). Everything must come from reliable third-party published sources: another core policy is Verifiability. Paradoxically, perhaps, this trumps personally-sourced insider information: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth".
 * A lot of how Wikipedia works is non-intuitive, and it's very easy when you first start to get a sort of "are you calling me a liar?" feeling. The problem is that Wikipedia's open editorship system has no fact-checking ability. It's the Internet: you can't trust anyone's word or identity. The only way to ensure, as far as possible, that facts are true is to show that they come from a solid published reference. If you can help find such references, that would be very useful. But if there's anything in the Alasdair Taylor that is unpublished and comes entirely from your personal acquaintance, then it should go. Gordonofcartoon 19:39, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Dear Gordon, I am confident that there is no "original research", as such, in the piece about Alasdair Taylor. What I have written, to date, is a serious-minded article about a Scottish artist of note who is only now emerging from obscurity, following his death. The verifiable documentation you are seeking should become available online, when Streetlevel Gallery have completed their work. There may be an element of chicken and egg here, but the passage of time will surely change that.

Regarding published material in general, we all know that the quality of books, pamphlets, newspapers, etc - has always been variable, since the printing-press was invented (and probably a lot earlier). Just because something is published in a smart-looking volume - even an Encyclopaedia - does not mean it is all factually correct and up to date. The beauty of Wikipedia is that it is not cast in stone (or even hot metal). If a contributor makes a factual error, it is readily amended by someone with more accurate, or more up-to-date, knowledge. I welcome this.

Finally, the piece about Alasdair Taylor is very much in its infancy. What I have done is to get the ball rolling. I, for one, will be putting more work into it to make the quality as high as possible. And I am sure that other contributors will do so too.

Wikipedia encourages would-be contributors to "take the plunge". I have done so. With kind regards,22:45, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I am confident that there is no "original research", as such, in the piece about Alasdair Taylor
 * Then you should be able to tell me what publication every fact in there comes from.
 * Just because something is published in a smart-looking volume - even an Encyclopaedia - does not mean it is all factually correct and up to date.
 * True, but irrelevant. Read Verifiability.
 * Wikipedia encourages would-be contributors to "take the plunge". I have done so.
 * It also advises, right on the first screen you see when creating an article, "Do not write articles about yourself, your company, or your best friend".
 * I'm well aware that there's a behavioural guideline here Please do not bite the newcomers. But it's not helpful if you persist in arguing for the inclusion of material contrary to the basic policies here. I see that others have already advised you about the need for citation. This needs an outside view. I've passed it on to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Visual arts for an assessment of Taylor's notability, and to WP:COI/N. Gordonofcartoon 23:37, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Dear Gordon, As I have said, this article is far from complete. It may be some weeks before I feel I have done my side of it. Then, I hope others will take over. I repeat that I have not done "original research" as such for this - although I suggest that Alasdair Taylor would be a worthy subject for a PhD student's thesis in the future.

To put you straight, I have NOT written any Wikipedia articles about myself, my company or my best friend. And I have no intention of doing so.

It is true that I knew Alasdair Taylor personally. But Alasdair knew a lot of people - for example, through his broadcasts on BBC Radio Scotland - and, although he lived in a secluded cottage, without mod-cons, along a bumpy, pot-holed farm-track, a wide range of people used to make the effort to visit him and his family there. I CAN'T claim to have been Alasdair's best friend. I'm sure a lot of people knew him a great deal better than I did. For example, Asger Jorn and other members of the COBRA group.

Your allegation that I have a "conflict of interest" here - i.e. that I stand to gain in some way - is deeply offensive. I must ask you to retract this allegation, forthwith. I have absolutely NO personal or financial stake in this Wikipedia article, or any other. What personal gain do you think might be involved here? Pray tell. Do you think I own a shedload of Alasdair Taylor's paintings? The reverse is the case. I do not own any.

My sole motive here is to start to do justice to a noteworthy Scottish artist who - according to respected critics, such as Gray and Kelman - has been overlooked for too long. This is not promotion, in some vulgar, commercial sense. It is more a matter of "setting the record straight" - i.e. of recording a subject that deserves to be recorded. I can only go part of the way here, because I am not an art critic. My intention is that others will take over the article and make a first-rate job of it. No doubt, they will change it out of all recognition. I shall be glad to see that, because it will mean that I have succeeded in getting the ball rolling.

Finally, your allegation that my work is "contrary to the basic policies" is also deeply offensive - and entirely wide of the mark. I work carefully and honourably in all aspects of my life - including Wikipedia. How dare you suggest otherwise? I am new to Wikipedia, and I look forward to contributing worthwhile articles to it.

I am always pleased to receive wise advice, helpful tips, and so on. But I will not tolerate false allegations. That is utterly unacceptable. No-one should have to put up with that. Yours sincerely,Avril.rennie 01:45, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Administrator steps in
Avril, Gordon's comments are right on target. It's unfortunate that you interpret them as a slur on your integrity because I'm sure they aren't. It's just a matter of site standards. Wikipedia is a tertiary reference, so if you have new and unpublished information regarding Alasdair Taylor's significance as an artist then by all means publish them in a newspaper or an arts magazine. If the venue satisfies this site's reliable sources guideline then the material will qualify for inclusion here. Unfortunately Wikipedia's editors can't rely upon interviews with surviving family members. No one accuses you of doing this for other than the best of motives. It's just that in a large website we often deal with spoofing claims and other things like that, so consistency demands that we treat all instances equally. Your assertions have the ring of truth, but this site's standards are verifiability, not truth. I hope you understand. Durova Charge! 02:01, 6 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Avril, I'm genuinely sorry if I've given offence. As Durova says, my comments were certainly not meant as a slur. But this is a common issue for newcomers to Wikipedia (I went through it myself).
 * In the outside world, we - rightly - generally judge accuracy of information by a network of personal contacts: who we rate as trustworthy by reputation. On Wikipedia, this isn't possible; even assuming good faith, we have no way to know the accuracy of information from who posted it. I'm sure your information about Alasdair Taylor is accurate; but I could easily add to the article that he had a wooden leg, dyed his beard green and lived mostly on whelks! There would be no way for a reader to tell which was the truth.
 * For that reason, Wikipedia has a system of policies designed so that integrity of information is judged not by the usual criteria of identity and reputation of a person and who they know, but by the reputation of the source where it was published. The basic policies of WP:V and WP:NOR define how to go about this. Gordonofcartoon 02:56, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Dear Durova, Thank you for stepping in. I found Gordon of Cartoon's comments disgracefully offensive because he went so far as to imply that I had a vested interest in the article. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have nothing whatsoever to gain from it. Alasdair Taylor is a neglected Scottish artist who, I and others believe, deserves to be more widely recognised - and I believe that will start to come to him, following his death and the current retrospective exhibition at Irvine Harbour Arts Centre.

You suggest that I could write for some art magazines. That is a lovely idea. However, I am not an art critic and I don't think I would carry the same weight as Alasdair Gray, James Kelman or Andrew Brown. My qualifications are in other areas - I have a BArch Hons and an MBA - but I am not formally qualified to write about art. That is precisely why I have used the critiques from Andrew Brown and Alasdair Gray. Brown and Gray are established authorities on the arts - I am not.

A few newspaper articles about Alasdair Taylor have indeed been published. But they are, sadly, not currently available online. One article, by James Kelman, could be extremely useful for your purposes and would serve to verify where necessary. I shall try to get that made available online, with James Kelman's permission, and any other permissions that may be necessary.

Gordon of Cartoon further offended me by implying that Alasdair Taylor was my "best friend" or that we had some sort of close involvement. What was Gordon trying to suggest? Alasdair Taylor was a married man who was devoted to his wife. I was one of many, many friends and acquaintances whom the Taylors knew. (Alasdair was a marvellous raconteur and that used to draw people to him.) I only used to see the Taylors about once a year because I was living and working in Edinburgh. No close involvement there. Entirely innocent and harmless, actually! Absolutely no conflict of interest.

I fully understand what you say about quality control. If people want to write about themselves, their families or their chums, then "MySpace" and "Facebook" are there for that. However, I have set in train what I consider to be a serious-minded article about an innovative Scottish artist whose reputation is, at last, starting to develop. It does seem a pity if factual biographical details - such as Alasdair Taylor's full dates of birth and death - cannot be verified by his own daughter. I am willing to go to West Kilbride Cemetery to take a photo of his gravestone. But that seems to be giving me unnecessary bother when I am already a very busy person.

I shall see the Alasdair Taylor article through a point where I feel "the baton has been passed" to other people. At that point, I shall consider my job done.

So sum up. I entirely support Wikipedia's striving for academic excellence, neutrality and accuracy. However, I will not tolerate false allegations by other Wikipedians. I repeat - Alasdair Taylor was NOT my best friend and I have absolutely NOTHING to gain from the Wikipedia article about him. I trust the article will develop well and that it will soon satisfy Wikipedia's standards in all respects. Thank you, again,Avril.rennie 04:35, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Dear Gordon, Thank you for your updated comments. I found your tone much more acceptable this time. I fully understand Wikipedia is striving for academic rigour and I am glad it is doing so. Otherwise, I wouldn't want to be associated with it. (You will note, I am not using a pseudonym at present. It might be wiser if I did so.)

How did you know about Alasdair's whelk-eating habit, by the way? (Only kidding!)

I appreciate that Wikipedia wants to screen out the rubbish. However, it seems to me that, in some cases, valuable information may be lost forever if close relatives are not allowed to contribute to articles. Sometimes, you can screen out too much - like a famous virus-checker I can think of.

Anyway, I am not in a position to influence Wikipedia's powers-that-be. I can only focus on getting my own work through the hoops. With kind regards,Avril.rennie 05:17, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Something as simple as a birth date should be confirmable through public records and would not normally be the subject of controversy. The shortcoming of policy as we have to operate it is that sometimes we do lose out on valuable information.  I suggest you try our formal mentorship policy for guidance.  Best wishes,  Durova Charge! 05:52, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Please note that conflicts of interest on wikipedia per WP:COI have a specific definition, and include family friends. It does not imply any intent for personal gain. Also per requirements for verification in WP:V, third party sources are required and WP:NOR specifically forbids personal knowledge as a valid source, however reliable or accurate this is. Every body has its protocols and these are wiki ones. Please therefore do not take offence at Gordonofcartoon, who was simply acting in the way required of a conscientious editor. You may not realise it, but he has been very considerate of this article, which is questionable by wikipedia notability standards - see WP:BIO. As you say, "Alasdair Taylor is a neglected Scottish artist who, I and others believe, deserves to be more widely recognised." Wikipedia is not the means to give wider recognition to deserving but neglected causes. It only covers those people whose recognition is already established. At the moment, it looks as though we will be able to establish that there is sufficient recognition, but that does mean taking notice of the advice of experienced editors like Gordonofcartoon, whose intent is proper, even though it may not have seemed like that. You may not realise that around 1,500 articles are deleted from wikipedia every day. Tyrenius 15:24, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

An offer
Hi Avril, Do you have the references for the newspaper articles you mention? Who wrote them, where and when they were published? If so I may be able to get them for you using the electronic newspaper archives that I have access to. Might save some work if it works, though can't promise of course! --Slp1 13:11, 6 August 2007 (UTC)


 * There is no need for references to be online. If there are newspapers articles, these can be cited by giving the newspaper name and other details, preferably title of article and author and page number. The information in the article can then be legitimately used. I am posting a guide to using references below. Tyrenius 15:13, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, indeed, I should have mentioned that plain old book and newspapers references are very perfectly valid. For some reason I was thinking you might not have all of them in your possession, but perhaps you do already. --Slp1 15:49, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd meant to say the same thing. A number of articles I have edited have citations to newspaper articles, magazine articles, etc. which are not online. As the Hero of Cartoon was trying to say, we need citations for facts; but they are not required to be citations which can be verified by a quick google! -- Orange Mike 20:03, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Many British artist biographies (unfortunately not this one) here are verified via the ODNB, NewsBank or Times Digital Archive, none of which are freely accessible online. Gordonofcartoon 20:11, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Critique
The material in this section needs to be mostly incorporated into the main text. Then these articles can be used as references to verify the information. Please continue the discussion, if necessary, on the article talk page.

Note: individual years are not wikilinked, only when the are with day and month. Day and month are wikilinked, even without the year. This is a bug: it is to enable user date settings to work in their preference settings. Also only wikilink words where the reader is likely to want to follow up that information: i.e. obvious words do not need to be wikilinked.

Tyrenius 16:04, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Guide to referencing
Click on "show" to open contents.

Dear Tyrenius, Thank you for your helpfulness, which I do appreciate. I am relieved that the article about Alasdair Taylor has survived.

I note that the article has been overhauled, and I must say that I like the new pithiness. (Writing pithily was never my strong suit, I admit.)

It seems to me that Wikipedia has taken on a heroic task of quality control, with such huge numbers of individuals making contributions of many sorts. Being easily accessed and "quick", at the same time as being a reputable encyclopedia, is a challenge indeed!

Many years ago, when I was a student, I was invited to write a PhD. However, I didn't take the offer up and, so, it may be that my academic skills have never been developed to the level that Wikipedia is seeking. Sorry about that!

When I was corresponding with Gordon of Cartoon a wee while ago, it occurred to me that Gordon's definition of "original research" was different from mine. Collating publicly known facts and setting them out in article form is not my idea of "original research". That would involve a great deal more delving, exploring and moving into uncharted territory.

So, now I am confused. I shall re-read the Wikipedia "Pillars" and see how I get on. I shall try to get the hang of citations, referencing, and so on, as soon as possible.

I want to put some illustrative material into the article about Alasdair Taylor and that should add to its overall professionalism.

Thank you, again! With kind regards,Avril.rennie 02:23, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I was going to keep out of this, but on reflection, as we're all realising it comes down to a misunderstanding, perhaps I can help. One important policy to read is No original research.
 * Here "original research" is defined as material that has not been obtained from published sources: for instance, biographical material obtained by asking a relative or colleague, or based on reportage of what you've experienced when visiting the subject.
 * It doesn't matter if it's publicly available for all to see. The test is whether it has been third-party published (in a place up to the standards of Verifiability).
 * Bear those two policies in mind when you add illustrative material. The Life section of the Alasdair Taylor article is still in limbo, and there isn't an open ticket to leave unsourced material in articles permanently (again, see WP:V). I've been persuaded that it has the ring of truth and verification is forthcoming, but now the workings of WP:NOR and WP:V have been explained, the promise of future verification isn't carte blanche to add new material with the same problems. Gordonofcartoon 12:16, 8 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm thinking that Avril's "illustrative material" may mean images of Mr. Taylor's paintings rather than text.--Slp1 12:30, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
 * They'd have to be attributed somehow (perhaps Street Level Photoworks, who are digitising the works, could donate). I'm pretty sure verifiability applies to images too. Gordonofcartoon 12:48, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I meant images. An article about a painter/sculptor needs illustrations of his work, surely. Also a photo of Alasdair Taylor himself should be there and, preferably, a photo of the desolate cottage near Portencross where he worked (in splendid isolation?) for so many years. Malcolm Dickson of Street Level has generously offered to contribute good visuals to this article. However, he is on holiday just now. As he will be working under the auspices of the Scottish Arts Council, I trust the quality will be more than satisfactory. I'll get back to you asap about the newspaper articles I referred to earlier. With kind regards,Avril.rennie 19:28, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLPs
Hello Avril.rennie! Thank you for your contributions. I am a bot alerting you that 1 of the articles that you created  is tagged as an Unreferenced Biography of a Living Person. The biographies of living persons policy requires that all personal or potentially controversial information be sourced. In addition, to insure verifiability, all biographies should be based on reliable sources. if you were to bring this article up to standards, it would greatly help us with the current Category:All_unreferenced_BLPs article backlog. Once the article is adequately referenced, please remove the unreferencedBLP tag. Here is the article:

Thanks!--DASHBot (talk) 19:07, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
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