User talk:Markypooh/sandbox

Contested deletion
This page is not unambiguously promotional, because...

First, it is just started and in a sandbox, I have not even submitted it for review yet. Second, it is in the same format/style and contains similar content, though less developed at this point, as the Professional Association of Diving Instructors page.

I have no affiliation with this company, I spoke with an instructor from this company and tried to look them up here. Since they were not here and I have never had a topic on which to create a page, I thought I would give it a go.

Markypooh (talk) 09:50, 5 March 2017 (UTC)Markypooh


 * Try to find a reference or two that is independent from RAID to establish notability and get some neutral material. Cheers, &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 18:30, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I declined to delete it, because it's not spammy to the level we'd delete a draft. That being said, we do require all articles to be primarily supported by references that are reliable, and are written by organizations independent of the article subject. If this organization hasn't been extensively covered by such reliable and independent sources, it's not an appropriate subject for an article. If it has, use those references, not material produced by the organization itself, to support the bulk of the article content. Requiring such source material is a crucial part of the way we maintain neutrality, so it is not optional. Seraphimblade Talk to me 20:12, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Possible improvements
Hi Markypooh, As discussed on your talk page, I will give some suggestions for improving the draft.
 * 1) Try to get a few more references that are independent of the RAID official website, blogs or personal opinions of random divers, to establish general notability. Articles about RAID by people who are not members of RAID are what is needed. Examples could be editorials from well known diving magazines, newspaper articles, etc. Membership of RSTC is a start, but would be more impressive if they were full members. The Dive Pirates link is also useful. I do not know if these two alone would satisfy the general notability requirements which basically determine whether the article may exist on Wikipedia, so the more you can find, the better the chances are. Also more independent references help other editors to improve the article at a later date, as they are a place to start looking.
 * 2) Whenever possible try to future-proof your references. If they are website references and the url changes, it may not be possible to track down the original and the reference becomes dead and unvalidatable. This means it is effectively no longer a reference, and will be removed, and the content supported by the reference is then also vulnerable to removal by anyone who wants to do so, whether it was initially valid or not. This means in practice that you should provide as much information as reasonably possible that may help a later researcher confirm or update your work. This can be tricky with websites. It is also very important to provide an access date for web references, in case the content of a page is changes, so the change can be tracked. I will try do do an example based on one of your references from the RAID website (on closer inspection it looks like you have done a fairly good job on the ones I checked, but the RAID web pages are dated 2014, which is useful to add. This is listed right at the bottom of the page with the copyright notice. You can also specify the author as "Staff" which saves others from trying to look up the author later.)
 * 3) Desribe the certifications you list sufficiently for a reasonably informed reader to know what they mean. It is not acceptable to expect them to go to an external website to find out what (for example) a rebreather course listed as "Level 1" might mean. Where there is an equivalent certification described in a Wikipedia article, like Open Water Diver, Advanced Open Water Diver or Divemaster, link to it. Otherwise give a short description so the article is not seen as a linkfarm for RAID. Cheers, &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 07:11, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
 * 4) The reference provides two more potentially useful claims which may be helpful to establish notability: RAID is accepted by The UK Health and Safety Executive as an approved provider. and RAID offer Nationally Accredited training in Australia. Try to find good direct references for these two statements, but use the divingmatrix reference as well, although it is not a neutral site as it is a RAID school. &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 08:08, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
 * 5) http://www.scubaverse.com/raid-uk-malta-introduce-new-suite-first-aid-courses/ may be useful. &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 08:43, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
 * 6) Explain the term adaptive diving (used in the history section), as it is not common knowledge among readers, not even divers. The Dive Pirates website gives an explanation, but it is not an independent and reliable source for the term being used elsewhere. The easy way out is not to use the term at all, and just explain the meaning, or add the term in parentheses after the explanation. Cheers, &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 07:25, 11 August 2017 (UTC)