User talk:LifetimeFool

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Hello, LifetimeFool, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like this place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:
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Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically produce your username 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! Qrsdogg (talk) 22:52, 22 January 2011 (UTC) Qrsdogg (talk) 22:52, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Citing sources
Everyone is welcome to contribute to the encyclopedia, but when you add or change content please cite a reliable source for the content of your edit. This helps maintain our policy of verifiability. Take a look at Citing sources for information about how to cite sources and the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. Qrsdogg (talk) 22:54, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Reply
OK, I've got no idea whether you will read this, this seems like a very strange way of communicating, but here goes anyway...

I understand that Wikipedia needs to hold itself up as a bastion of verifiable information, especially when it receives so much bad publicity about whether or not it can be used as a source of information for students etc. I have been using Wikipedia, like most people, for a few years now, and I've never had anything worth saying or sharing with people until now. When I recently decided to visit the camel wrestling festival I thought I would check up and see what the Wikipedia article said about it. I found it very factual, but only covering a small part of what the festival is about. I searched online for interesting articles which described more about the events surrounding the competition, but couldn't find anything. So I decided to join Wikipedia simply to try to add a small amount of information, contribute something back.

The thing is, that what happens when no-one has written about this before? I can not find any references to camel wrestling that discuss anything about the really interesting events/atmosphere which goes along with it. In this situation, what should I do? I wrote what I thought was an interesting article describing the colour and excitement of the event. I shared the Wiki page with my friends who had joined me and they all agreed that I had done a great job of describing the festival. It seems though that I would need to go off, write a blog about the event, and then link to that blog to reference it on Wikipedia, as this information cannot be found anywhere!

Quite frankly, if this information is not reinstated I will become fairly cynical about the Wikipedia experiment, as it seems to me that this is working against what it's original objective was, to collate human knowledge. My knowledge is just as valid as the knowledge someone has written in an article or blog, but it can not be used? I understand when we are talking about science or history for example that we need to have solid referenced works, but when we are talking about a small festival in the middle of nowhere that no-one writes about, how can the lack of a reference in any way be damaging? If someone else comes along and disagrees with what I've written I would understand the situation, maybe we could discuss and come to an understanding, but meanwhile it seems like an example of cutting of your nose to spite your face.

Please reply.

LifetimeFool (talk) 18:52, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi again,
 * Glad to hear back from you. You have hit on one of the tricky parts of Wikipedia here. There are definitely times when you can figure out relevant things that should be added to articles that haven't appeared in published sources. It can be irritating, but Wikipedia policy is pretty clear about it. What you wrote was certainly very interesting though. Perhaps you might try adding it to the Wikitravel website? I think they allow first hand accounts there.


 * There actually have been a few decent articles on the subject published, so information from these article could be added to the page.


 * Sorry if this doesn't make sense, if you'd like a second opinion you can bring up the matter at this noticeboard. Qrsdogg (talk) 19:43, 26 January 2011 (UTC)