User talk:BBrad31

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The Wikipedia Tutorial is a good place to start learning about Wikipedia. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. By the way, you can sign your name on Talk and discussion pages using four tildes, like this: &#126;&#126;&#126;&#126; (the software will replace them with your signature and the date). Again, welcome! Dave ♠♣♥♦1185♪♫™ 00:57, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Recent edits
Hey, I noticed that you were making a lot of edits that link to American Heritage magazine. Out of curiosity do you work for the organization? If so I think I could help you work here in the community. Just contact me on my talk page, Sadads (talk) 18:22, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I noticed that all of your edits are related to American Heritage's webpage. Alot of organizations try to WP:SPAM Wikipedia by using references or links, without regards to community policy. If you work for American Heritage, we need to declare you conflict of interest and get you up to speed on a few policies. If you don't then no big deal and I can help you with other Wikipedia issues. Lets keep the conversation here on your talk page, Sadads (talk) 18:54, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, I reread you comment and understand it better. Here is the deal: Wikipedia is not a place where you can just flaunt your organization's website. I want you to read WP:COI and WP:SPAM. When you have done that we will make you a conflict of interest statement like the ones here and  here. And please respond here on your talkpage from now on, it will let other users know I am working with you. Thanks, Sadads (talk) 19:09, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I apologize that I didn't read over Wikipedia's Conflict of Interest policy. I do, however, believe that our magazine is a very informative and solid source on American history, and can help Wikipedia readers better acquaint themselves with certain content they search for. Several renowned historians have written for us throughout the years, including Daniel Yergin, Gordon Wood, Annette Gordon-Reed and Harold Holzer. Referencing articles such as theirs should help members of the Wikipedia community find content. Is there a way to do this legitimately? How should we proceed with creating a Declaration of Conflict of Interest? My coworker, user name: larast, is doing the same thing as me. Could you get her up to speed, too?
 * Also, please take a look at some of the Advice at WP:GLAM. Since you are a history creating organization with open resources on your website, some of this does apply to you. Sadads (talk) 12:55, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Cool, now the last bit of advice I have: cooperate, cooperate, cooperate. The biggest problem users have when they work for organizations, is that they feel offended if their edit is reverted, someone raises a comment etc. DON'T. Please contact me if you have any questions, but I will be gone next week so User:Dtgriffith or the people at WP:GLAM might be able to help. Sadads (talk) 14:10, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, if someone challenges your disclosure, be ready to change your plan of action. Sadads (talk) 14:13, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Watchlist
At the top right of the page their is a button called "My watchlist" click on it and it will show you what pages are changing that you are "watching". On the tabs at the top of the page itself you should see a star, click on that and you will start watching that page, you can do that with any page you want. Sadads (talk) 19:57, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * To edit in the thread just click on the edit button at the top of your talk page, and add the text at the bottom of the thread using ~ to sign. Sadads (talk) 19:59, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Inappropriate references
I have reverted a number of your reference insertions after checking them (see e.g. the edit history of American Revolution and American Revolutionary War). The statements you have attached references are often not supported in the articles you cite. Please stop doing this -- it makes a great deal of tedious work for other editors. If you are going to add citations, please verify that the statement you cite is actually supported by the source. Otherwise, I am going to start assuming that all of your citations are faulty, and will revert them when I see them, since they (as Sadads notes above) bear a strong resemblance to spam, and checking each one individually is a significant amount of time best spent elsewhere.  Magic ♪piano 16:50, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * No problem. I will more thoroughly review both the content I link to and the Wikipedia pages that I add these links to. For starters, I am planning to re-reference the Douglas Brinkley article on the "American Revolution" page. In Brinkley's article, it says, "On September 5 representatives from every colony except Georgia met in Philadelphia at what came to be known as the first Continental Congress." This aligns with, "In the course of two years, the Provincial Congresses or their equivalents rejected the Parliament and effectively replaced the British ruling apparatus in the former colonies, culminating in 1774 with the coordinating First Continental Congress." Specifically, the information in the American Heritage excerpt aligns with "culminating in 1774 with the coordinating First Continental Congress." The year "1774" is stated in the paragraph preceding the excerpt. Is this an acceptable reference to put after the aforementioned Wikipedia content?Should I link to a reference only if a whole sentence on a Wikipedia page can be supported by an article? Or, does the content within a reference only have to align with a mere portion of a sentence? I appreciate your help.
 * The problem with placing a citation that only supports half a sentence is that it suggests that you also are citing the other half, and possibly the preceding sentences in the paragraph. There are several options (my preferred order of application, depending on context):
 * Provide citations for everything else in the sentence and preceding sentences of the paragraph. This might mean doing research outside your publication.
 * Place a fact tag at the last point before the text supported by your citation. If you do this, you ought to plan to do the above.
 * Don't place the citation to begin with.
 * Place a comment in the page source indicating what the citation supports.
 * Citing half a paragraph (especially for non-controversial statements, like whether or not Benedict Arnold is a turncoat) is also of marginal benefit, since someone citing the rest of the sentence is probably going to end up with a source for the part you cite.
 * I will also note that I don't consider American Heritage to be a particularly reliable source. When possible, I use scholarly works that include bibliographies showing the author sources -- I did not see that in any of your articles.  In the area I work (18th century American colonial history, mostly), these sorts of sources are fairly easy to come by, especially for the sorts of statements you're supporting.
 * I also want to point out that articles that are listed as Good Articles or Featured Articles are fully cited. You do not have to add citations (as you did to Battle of Carillon, a GA) to them unless you are also adding content.  (There is evidence of these statuses on the article discussion page.)
 * BTW, I saw a real howler in Willard Sterne Randall's article on Benedict Arnold's Quebec expedition -- he (Randall, author of an Arnold biography) should know better that John André had nothing to do with the maps Arnold used in that effort.  Magic ♪piano 21:44, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I just updated the "Siege of Yorktown" page. What do you think about the reference?
 * Never mind. I just noticed that the Siege of Yorktown is a "good article." I deleted my reference and just posted the article link to the "external links" section on "Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis."
 * You also don't generally need to put citations in the lead of an article, except to confirm controversial or contentious points. Statements made in the lead are supposed to be elaborated (and cited) in the article body.  Magic ♪piano 15:55, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

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