User talk:Catiekirk

Welcome!

Hello, Catiekirk, and welcome to Wikipedia! My name is Shalor and I work with the Wiki Education Foundation; I help support students who are editing as part of a class assignment.

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If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me on my talk page. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:02, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Notes

Hi! I have some notes for you:

• This needs editing for tone. Avoid phrases like "popular" since this is often subjective to the reader. If you're using it to describe frequency of use, it's better to use things like "most commonly" and "often". The main issue is that some of the content comes across as favorable towards Gatwood, which keeps it from being really neutral.

• Avoid going into too much depth about things that aren't about Gatwood. For example, the spoken word section is only slightly about Gatwood and is primarily about events in which she participates. This should be re-written to be more to the point. Here's an example as to how I'd re-write it (you can use this if you wish):

Gatwood often uses spoken word poetry as a platform for her activism and has participated in shows and festivals like Brave New Voices, Women of the World Poetry Slam (WOWps), and the National Poetry Slam. Gatwood has competed in the WOWps for two years, and earning sixth place in 2012 out of 72 contestants. She has also competed in the National Poetry Slam two years in a row, with her team coming in second place in 2014.

That's really all that's needed in the article - there's no need to go into detail about each different show or festival or about spoken word poetry, especially as there are already articles about these things. Putting them in the main article for Gatwood would just be a little redundant and also be kind of off topic in this situation.

• There is not enough coverage about the court case to justify mentioning it in the article or in this amount of detail. Per Wikipedia's policy for biographies of living persons, court cases should only be included in an article if there's a lot of coverage about this in independent, reliable sources to show where this is high profile enough to justify including in the article. The reason for this is that it poses issues of both notability and privacy. Notability because we have to be able to show where this was high profile enough - essentially a historic event, but also privacy because there's a general assumption of privacy when it comes to legal issues, especially when it involves people who are not very public personas. Going forward with a court case doesn't always mean that those involved want it to be on Wikipedia, for example.

• Amazon rankings aren't seen as notable on Wikipedia and aren't included in articles at all. This may seem odd, but there are a few reasons for this. There's a lot of history behind all of this, so I will try to summarize it as best as possible. First is that sales rankings can be manipulated by the authors, which has happened a lot before. Here's an article about some of it. Another is that this is something that's often used to promote the book/author on Wikipedia, to the point where it's been outright stated as something that Wikipedia isn't interested in having in the articles unless there's a ton of coverage about the ranking, which is relatively atypical. Finally, it's also just too difficult to verify the rankings because the rankings can constantly change throughout the day and it's something that isn't usually covered in media coverage. This is something that is more specific to Amazon because of the aforementioned history. If you're curious, I can give a slightly more fleshed out version of this since it's kind of an interesting story.

• This needs more sourcing to back up the claims as well as to establish notability, as there are a lot of statements in the article (some of which are written from a specific point of view) that lack sourcing. I'm also concerned that Gatwood may not pass notability guidelines for a creative person, as she doesn't seem to have been the focus of a lot of independent and reliable sources. It looks like there's some limited mention of her, but what we need are things like reviews of her work or coverage of her in journals or newspapers. Some websites can also provide notability, but they have to be seen as reliable sources by other reliable, authoritative sources. Unfortunately it's really difficult for a lot of poets and writers to gain this coverage, as there are always more writers and poets than there are places that would cover them. Wikipedia doesn't count most self-published sources as reliable (blogs and the like) and primary sources can't establish notability.

I hope that this helps! I can definitely see where this is someone who you're very passionate about, so don't lose heart! Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:55, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Notes 2

Hi! I have a few more notes:

• This needs more sourcing. I added some, but I'm not 100% firm with them. They should generally be usable, but some of them aren't the strongest. Also, there needs to be more information about this essay to show where it was published and when - keep in mind that not all sourcing on the Internet is reliable and it's entirely possible that this was something that was self-published and as such, hasn't undergone the type of editorial oversight and verification that reliable sources tend to undergo.

• The writing here is generally good - just be very careful about editorializing. For example, you describe her as an up and coming writer, however that is something that could be seen as a personal opinion since a person's viewpoint on that would differ depending on the person. If you have a source that states this, then it should be attributed. Also, there is a lot of content in the page that is unsourced - all claims, especially when relating to a living person, must be backed up with a reliable source. This brochure goes over this in a bit more detail.

I especially want to emphasize that any coverage as far as reception and reviews go must be backed up as well, otherwise it can be seen as a personal interpretation as well. Keep in mind that Wikipedia is only concerned with reviews in outlets such as newspapers, journals, and other reliable sources. Goodreads or Amazon ratings don't count towards notability.

As far as the page getting reverted back to a redirect, I think that this was because my colleague was concerned that the page didn't have enough sourcing to establish notability and had so many unsourced claims, which can pose a huge issue on Wikipedia. The page is fairly lengthy, but there is an overview of this at the biography of living persons guidelines page - the brochure covers this to a degree. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 15:10, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

• Oops - sorry, the ReaderofthePack is myself - I forgot to log into my work account. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:13, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

The single biggest issue with the edits on the Olivia Gatwood page are that writing from personal knowledge of a subject is prohibited here. Instead, find sources, and relate what those sources say. Best sources have author names, dates, and identifiable publishers (which check facts, have something to lose if content is fake news). Generally frowned upon content includes people writing about and publishing about themselves (e.g., personal website content). Please see WP:VERIFY and WP:ORIGINAL RESEARCH for more information. 2601:246:C700:19D:A893:D336:57FE:E91C (talk) 22:24, 8 January 2020 (UTC)