User talk:Eraloft

Hello, I'm Materialscientist. I noticed that you made an edit to a biography of a living person, but that you didn’t support your changes with a citation to a reliable source. Wikipedia has a strict policy concerning how we write about living people, so please help us keep such articles accurate. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you. Materialscientist (talk) 22:24, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

February 2013
Please do not add or significantly change content without citing verifiable and reliable sources. Before making any potentially controversial edits, it is recommended that you discuss them first on the article's talk page. Please review the guidelines at Citing sources and take this opportunity to add references to the article.  Eye snore  (pending changes) 22:42, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of The Tale of The Tape (book)


The article The Tale of The Tape (book) has been proposed for deletion&#32; because of the following concern:
 * Unremarkable book.

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. — Theopolisme   ( talk )  23:16, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Neutrality
Hi! I noticed that you added quite a bit to the article for Edward Abramoski. It definitely needed fleshing out, but I noticed that your edits weren't very neutral. By this I mean that you wrote it from the perspective of a fan or family member rather than as a neutral and encyclopedic entry. You also switched from his last name, to his first name, and then to a nickname. When writing about people it's customary to use their last name and stick to that. Using nicknames or first names is too informal and the general rule of thumb is to use last names even when someone is best known under a nickname or moniker. A good example of this would be someone such as Snooki (ugh, sorry for using this as an example). Almost everyone knows her as Snooki and most papers will refer to her as such, but the article uses her last name rather than her nickname.

I removed parts of the article that weren't really referenced by the sources given and some parts that were just unnecessary for the article. It's worth mentioning that Abramoski is married and has several grandchildren, but it's largely unnecessary to list each and every one of his family members, or where the children live. It's not really pertinent to the article. Some of the article was original research (WP:OR) or personal theory. One example of this would be the phrase "Eddie may have been a trainer to the players of the Buffalo Bills, he was also a friend and advisor." This is not only non-neutral, but calling him a "friend and adviser" is OR. While he would certainly have cultivated some personal relationships with the team members and crew, we can't guarantee that everyone saw him as such. These are the sort of things that are just intangible enough to where it's better to omit such details rather than include them. Some people (including the players themselves) might have worked with him and saw his relationship with the players as more professional and casual than this sentence would infer. Even if you have a few people on record saying as such, you would still have to be very careful about how you phrased this and you would have to ensure that the sources are reliable. It's just better to leave things of that nature out, as it's one of those things that are just extraneous to the article and does more to harm it than help.

As far as sources go, you need to be cautious about that as well. I noticed that you tried to add an article for his book Tale of the Tape and used Amazon as a source. This is considered a merchant source, which is never usable as a reliable source. (WP:RS) In very rare circumstances such things could be used, such as when someone like Stephen King writes a review exclusively for Amazon, but in general we can't use merchant sites because they're considered unreliable. This is because the sites benefit from sales of the book, so it's always in their best benefit to positively promote the book. The Amazon link shows that the book exists, but existing is not notability. (WP:ITEXISTS) Reliable sources that would show notability would be something along the lines of a news article about the book, a television spot about the book on a news show, or such. Brief mentions aren't usable as far as showing notability goes, not unless the brief mention is saying something along the lines of "today Tale of the Tape won the Pulitzer Prize". I've redirected the article to Abramoski's entry because although he's clearly notable, the book doesn't inherit notability by its association with him or the team. (WP:NOTINHERITED) If any of this sounds confusing or frustrating, then don't feel bad. I've been editing for years and I'm still learning what is or isn't usable as a RS. The rules for this are rather strict and they're continuously evolving. What is usable as a source today will almost certainly be questioned eventually, possibly even becoming unusable. Although the good thing about this is that Abramoski's notability is not even remotely in question as far as I'm concerned, so no worries about the article. This means that at this point we need to be more selective about the sources we use. If you want to continue editing the article feel free, but since you're a new user learning the ropes I highly recommend the Reliable sources/Noticeboard.

The only other thing I think I'd mention is that I had to remove one of the images because there just wasn't any room for it, the picture of the pigeon coop. Pictures are encouraged, but they shouldn't overwhelm the page and squish the text. I kept the family picture since that was the more important of the two. I see that you've uploaded the images to the Commons, which is good- that'll ensure that they stick around and the coop picture able to be re-added if we have enough space for it on the page. By the by, are you related to Abramoski in any way? The images say that they're your own work and if so, you might be called upon to prove this. If not, then I would recommend looking into finding a way to get permission to use the photographs, as Wikipedia is incredibly antsy about this sort of thing. I've uploaded pictures before with the permission of the subject, only for them to be removed for one reason or another. I'm not familiar with the process of getting and showing permission, so I recommend going through WP:OTRS and seeking help there. The other reason I'm asking if you're Abramoski or someone related to him is that if you are, you should absolutely positively go to WikiProject Football and disclose this. Having a conflict of interest can raise some eyebrows, but I know that the football WP would absolutely love to have you help. Even if you're not him, I still recommend joining up with the project- every group can always use more members!

Hope this helps- I know that sometimes it can be a little confusing and frustrating when you first start editing, especially when nobody really takes the time to stop and sort of explain some of the guidelines. I had a pretty sharp learning curve myself, so don't get discouraged if you get a lot of seemingly harsh remarks on your page.Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)   09:16, 22 February 2013 (UTC)