User talk:Kjhughes

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Youtube, fan sites and extreme minority texts are not usually acceptable, nor is Original research, e.g. your own unpublished, or self-published, essay or research.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 01:57, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
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Richard I
Hi can you provide sources and/or explanation for these changes? Thanks Gustav von Humpelschmumpel 01:09, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Citations would be excellent. Specifically, Kjhughes, you mentioned Henry the Young King succeeding his father as Henry III in 1174. I'm presuming you mean Henry III of England, however the link Henry III takes you to a disambiguation page with a number of Henry IIIs.  In any case, although I understand Young Henry was crowned as his father's successor, he died before his father and so never reigned as Henry III, therefore that statement should certainly change. Thanks/cheers, Ian Rose 04:04, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi sorry you need to provide sources for your changes otherwise we can have people changing all sorts of things for a joke. Hope you understand. Regards Gustav von Humpelschmumpel 19:49, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Bishop of Agde
I have actually just created the article bishop of Agde. But please leave red links where they are appropriate. In the long run Wikipedia benefits from having the articles created that are needed. (I'm in the middle of a big project on French bishops right now, and making the links takes longer than the articles, in some cases.) Charles Matthews 20:09, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Peter Doroshenko
Under WP:BLP, I have removed the external links you placed. They are selected for negative content, and there is nothing in the main text about such events. Please do not replace them. It is likely to result in your being blocked. Tyrenius 23:09, 12 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Kjhughes replies: this is high-handed and unwarranted - the links are all to verifiable UK newspaper articles that might be of interest to users. The links will be restored, although unlike Tyrenius I have a life so may not get round to it for a bit —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kjhughes (talk • contribs).

You posted this in my talk archive:
 * I agree, this Tyrenius person does seem a little pompous and up himself - he deleted some links I added to a piece about curator Peter Doroshenko which were all to verifiable UK national newspaper articles. And he clearly doesn't have much detailed knowledge about the visual arts.  Comment added by Kjhughes talk

Please don't post in archives. Post on the current user talk page. Also put 4 tildes ~ after talk posts to sign them.

You are posting only external links that have negative content. Wikipedia articles are not to be used as attack pages. If you want to include this information, which seems to be viable, it should be done in the article in a balanced way without undue weight per WP:NPOV. If you merely reinsert such negative links in the way you have to date it will be a contravention of WP:BLP and you will be blocked from editing.

Please also refrain from personal comments per WP:NPA. Comment on edits, not editors.

Tyrenius 00:07, 15 July 2007 (UTC) Please also refrain from


 * If you look at Google news you will see that the recent UK press reports on this item are all there. Do you think Google news is "negative"?  Kjhughes 00:20, 15 July 2007 (UTC)Kjhughes

News is very often negative and sensationalised, and wikipedia is not a newspaper. I advise you to read WP:BLP. There is strong concern on wikipedia that articles, particularly of living people, must be balanced and give an overview, not give undue weight, especially to negative aspects of a person's life at the expense of the whole. The material may well be valid if it is incorporated in proper proportion in the article text and referenced. External links should not be relied on for material that should be in the main text. Tyrenius 00:38, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

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