Talk:Cougar Mountain Zoo

Request for help completely revamping an article

Note:Copied from my talk page.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 17:08, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Hi and thank you in advance for your time! I work for the Zoological Society of Washington (ZSW) which is the governing body (501c(3) non-profit, tax exempt, charitable organization) for Cougar Mountain Zoo. We would like to update the Wikipedia article on Cougar Mountain Zoo. However, when I edited in all the new text (logged in as user CougarMZoo) all of it was removed and switched back to the old text along with postings in the talk page and messages about COI and NPOV. So then I tried posting the entire edit on the talk page attempting to explain that I work for ZSW. Once again denied. I believe you can see all of what I put on the talk page. But if not, I can email you with the proposed new article (less pictures and an updated info box). My email is misty@cougarmountainzoo.org. I realize now that while I am employed by ZSW I was only paid to upload the material, not to come up with the material. The ZSW Board came up with the new text and they do not receive any compensation for their efforts from ZSW or Cougar Mountain Zoo. Can you help? Thanks again. Misty Cougar Mountain Zoo 21:47, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Hi Misty. I am more sympathetic and willing to help a zoo seeking to have a better article, than I am that of a pure commercial venture (which constantly post commercials here), but the prohibition against the misuse of Wikipedia as an advertising platform is in no way limited to commercial organizations, and the edit you posted was a blatant commercial—promotional in tone and content and reading very much like an advertising brochure touting the virtues of the subject and written to convince readers to visit this wonderful place, and very much not like a neutrally-written, encyclopedia article.

I gather from your talk page and above, you now understand some of these matters, including that article subjects, rather than having control over articles about themselves, are considered to have conflicts of interest in editing articles about themselves, and such edits are scrutinized for self-serving content and the like. That does not mean those with vested interests cannot suggest edits, ask for misinformation to be removed, and so forth – and successfully have their suggestion acted upon – but I think you (and/or the ZSW Board) need to know more to do so effectively. This is actually easier to do for this not-very-well-developed article, than it would otherwise be.

Let me provide a rundown of specific problems with the reverted edits you made, that might help with your/the ZSW Board's next effort. I will get into the procedural aspects of what to do near the end. Up front, please understand that this text was so unsuitable and lacking in certain conditions precedent for inclusion, that there's no easy path from looking at it, to making any changes to the article. You (and/or the ZSW Board) need to put in time to understand what would be needed, and do the work to make suggestions that can be acted upon. The balance of this post is my advice to make that task, if taken on, more likely to succeed.

First one technical issue. Your username is a problem and I would not be surprised if you were blocked soon in the ordinary course, with a note advising you to change it (I will not do so). It is a violation of WP:ORGNAME and WP:ISU. I suggest you change it before doing anything else, so that this is not an issue later. You can create a new account with a username that represents only yourself as an individual, or more formally request a change of username. A name like Misty at CougarMZoo is allowed. On a related note, your signature is also a violation. Sorry. It must contains a link to your user page, talk page, or contributions. Here, I think all you need to do (or will need to do for a new name, if the same issue crops up) is go to your preferences and take the checkmark out of the box for "Treat the above as wiki markup".

• 1) Take a careful tour through the Wikipedia:Tutorial. It will teach you some of the things I mention below and others in a guided fashion.
• 2) Probably the most crucial and overarching point to understand, Wikipedia runs on reliable sourcing. Expanding on that:

• Content must be verifiable in reliable sources and we cite sources using inline citations to verify content additions.
• To learn about how to cite sources, see Help:Referencing for beginners and Help:Introduction to referencing/1, and then seeing Wikipedia:Citing sources for a more involved treatment, noting that each contains see also sections linking to additional help pages, guides and tutorials.
• The 's share of content should be cited to secondary sources that are entirely independent of the subject of an article. Primary sources can be used to verify information, but their use is limited because the content they can be used to verify must not be unduly self-serving, and can only be used for straightforward statements of fact, rather than any analysis, evaluation or synthesis, where secondary sources can be used for those puposes.

• 3) In your edit you cited no sources whatsoever, and also removed some sourced content (this will trigger a near knee jerk revert in many editors).
• 4) Use resources like Google Books to your advantage to hunt down independent reliable sources, e.g., maybe some of those found here. Then write what can be verified from those you locate, rather than writing what you known or what is contained in unpublished sources (which cannot be used).

  This is much easier than trying to back into proposed content you've written first by trying to locate sources for it later, if they even exist. (Remember, do not copy the words, which outside of short quotes, marked as such, would be a copyright violation; sources are used to verify information, that editors write in their own words.) The former approach is what makes writing a suitable Wikipedia article so difficult for many. In short: gather sources first; digest them; and only then put 'pen to paper' (fingers to keyboard).

• 5) As I've already mentioned, the edit was replete with promotional language. It contained touting, empty buzz words and peacock adjectives and puffery. Please read Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. It also contained much evaluative content in Wikipedia's voice. An example: "The manifestation of their deep devotion to all creatures large and small..." This is pure evaluation, appropriate at, say, the Zoo's own website or Facebook page, but never here except possibly as a quote from a secondary and independent source, using quote marks, and cited to the source using an inline citation. (Side note: much of this type of material violates the principle of effective writing, show, don't tell). Anyway, Just. The. Facts... and only those that are verifiable in the right type of reliable sources, depending on what is being verified. Maybe this will help:

• "The Cougar Mountain Zoo is centrally located in the friendly alpine City of Issaquah, Washington. Nestled on the north facing slope of Cougar Mountain, the scenic grounds offer a breathtaking view of Lake Sammamish and the rugged Cascade Mountain Range."

  The Zoo is located in the alpine city of Issaquah, Washington on the north facing slope of Cougar Mountain, providing a view of Lake Sammamish and the Cascade Mountain Range.^{[citing a reliable source]}

• "Visit this magical place where art and the beauty of wildlife merge to speak a common language. Enjoy the view, great photo opportunities, feed the animals, sit and relax and admire the largest bronze animal collection of any Zoo in the Country."

I can't do what I did for the one above b/c almost everything is wrong here not just in its adjective-filled, evaluative wording, but in content. An encyclopedia article does not urge people to visit anything or postulate what enjoyment people might get out of doing proposed activities.

This exhibit _______ and houses the largest bronze animal collection of any zoo in the U.S.^{[citing a reliable source]}

• 6) Some more minor style notes:
   • At the first mention of the subject in the opening sentence it is placed in boldface (by enclosing it in three '''apostrophes''' – which you removed in your edit). BTW, please read WP:LEAD.
   • After the first mention of a subject we do not repeat its full name at every subsequent mention.
   • We generally do not use html markup: ===Magic Forest===, not <b><u>Magic Forest</u></b><br/> (see MOS:SECTIONS).
   • Wikipedia uses sentence case for headlines, so only the first word and proper nouns are capitalized in them: "Notable animals", not "Notable Animals".

PROCEDURE:

• 7) Once you have composed suitable text, open a section at the article's talk page (the article's talk page, Talk:Cougar Mountain Zoo; not your talk page) and lay out your suggestions. If it does not follow what I've advised about citing reliable sources (among other matters), it will surely be rejected.
• 8) Place above your suggestions this template, to draw users to your request: {{Request edit}}. Read that linked template's documentation for other instructions. Please do not expect a response within an hour or a day, and maybe not even within a week. Wikipedia is a slow motion place.

I am going to copy this thread to the article's talk page (so if you're reading this response there, the request edit template, and suggestion for content would go in a new thread at the bottom of that talk page). I think it best if discussion of the article takes place on the page that exists for that purpose. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 17:01, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Helping the zoo article

Dear Misty, Since the Cougar Mountain Zoo is a nonprofit, and it's mission and motives are fairly clear, it is getting a huge pass for an article that otherwise would have been deleted as being promotional, being written by an employee of the subject of the article, at the request the subject's board of directors. I have tried to help the article by discarding promotional language, and adding some references. I too am a pupil of Fuhghettaboutit, who has been a patient mentor to me, as he is now being to you. It would be helpful to state the number of individual animals the zoo has, and the number of species; also the annual attendance and whether or not the zoo is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, etc.. An example is Nashville Zoo at Grassmere, and, of course the Bronx Zoo as suggested. As yet, I have not found those facts about CMZ in any published source. Surely the Seattle papers must have more articles about the zoo. Please look at my contributions on the "old" article HERE before trying to paste an entirely new one over it. Fughettaboutit can guide you here. We welcome you to Wiki, happy editing !. --Eagledj (talk) 00:13, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Cougar Mountain Zoo article

Eagledj - thank you for your suggestions and encouragement. I will pass those suggestions along to the Zoological Society of Washington (ZSW) board. But they are fairly decided on what they would like to see in the Cougar Mountain Zoo article. I know for sure they they explicitly do not want to mention how many animals, species or attendance since we can't even begin to compare to the Bronx Zoo, etc. From what I can tell, only the really large zoos include those numbers in their Wikipedia articles. The ZSW board did revise it extensively (that revision in it's entirety is in my sandbox, wasn't sure if you looked at that or not) after my first naive attempt to revise it on the page itself, not understanding pretty much everything about how Wikipedia works :) Thank you also for your edits on the current article, new sources, etc. There is one pre-existing incorrect fact (our size is 11 acres, not 8), one typo you introduced (heard instead herd for the reindeer) and a mis-interpretation (the bronze statues are not part of the Wildlife Museum, they are separate). I guess I will try to fix them and see what happens.... Found the accreditation page for ZAA; added that to the "current" article and the one in my sandbox! FYI - The biggest source of newspaper articles on the Zoo, The Issaquah Press, closed it's doors earlier this year. And they removed all of their articles from the internet. Had to remove all of those links from the Zoo's News & Events page. Had other articles listed on that page but they were getting quite dated so we removed them all. Will see it there are any useful links to articles in my saved copies of older versions of that page of the website :) Misty at CougarMountainZoo (talk) 20:56, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Misty, one more time, you miss a fundamental concept of Wikipedia. Boards do not approve articles on Wikipedia, nor do they direct what goes into them or control them. Facts in secondary, reliable sources are what we rely on, whether the board approves or not, assuming the statements are not libelous and are properly sourced. That is the COI part of this that you have been told by Fuhghettaboutit, but you persist this wrong thinking seen in your above post. We are not working with you and your boss doing a sales job for the Zoo. You cannot write articles about yourself. That's what we mean by "secondary" sources—unbiased, disinterested, objective references. That is why this isn't working. A quote from the COI page: "COI editors are generally advised not to edit affected articles directly, and to propose changes on talk pages instead." From here forward, let's adhere to that, with the exception of typos and any errors of fact.

Once again, from the conflict of interest COI page:

• Do not edit articles about yourself, your family or friends, your organization, your clients, or your competitors.
• The role of editors is to summarize, inform, and reference, not promote, whitewash, or sell.
• you are strongly discouraged from editing affected articles directly.

Ignoring these principles can result in your being banned from editing. Now I have taken a large part of your sandbox, put it in the article, then edited it down, discarding the repetitious, unnecessary, and promotional parts. I think the article is taking shape HERE. Best regards--Eagledj (talk) 20:08, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

I was only trying to fix typos, and not add unsubstantiated information. And unfortunately I obviously still don't know how to do things correctly and made some mistakes. If I see something that is incorrect, should I let you know here or on the talk page of Cougar Mountain Zoo? Also, there are many links (both to Wikipedia articles, else where and to the Zoo's website) that I had in my sandbox version. A lot of those are not in your version. For example, I linked the word "endangered" to that Wikipedia article. Am I allowed to add links like that on the user page or do I suggest them on the talk page? Can I move the reference to the Living Classroom program to after it in quotes? That program services any child or youth program; not just schools which you imply. It's small subtleties like this that I see and understand which you may not. Make sense? And also just so you know my background is in embedded software verification and validation. That and many of the things I do for the Zoo as the Assistant Administrator mean that I focus on small very specific details. I do appreciate your insight and help. And I am very sorry that I do continue to things incorrectly. Misty at CougarMountainZoo (talk) 22:36, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

Would it be okay for me to add the following 3 things to the infobox? And if so, how do I do that; user page or talk? |date_opened=1972 |exhibits= World of Tigers, World of Macaws, World of Lemurs, World of Reindeer, World of Wolves, World of Cougars, Magic Forest, World of Ratites, ::World of Marsupials |website=www.cougarmountainzoo.org The website was in there and has since disappeared. The date_opened and exhibits are in other zoo info boxes. That's why I had that in my sandbox. Also we realized the date the zoo was donated to ZSW was incorrect; should be 1990 and not 1987. I fixed this yesterday on the zoo's website. Also Peter Rittler was not and is not the development director. He is president of ZSW. That was incorrectly published by that newspaper. You will find many incorrect "facts" in newspaper articles. Just about every time an article was done on the Zoo by the now defunct Issaquah Press, they got something wrong :) This is knowledge that I have from my work here and is another reason why we hoping the "facts" could come from us. I am continuing to look for sources outside the Zoo's website. I have several that I haven't been able to figure out how to input into the sandbox version. I can try to figure out to pass them along to you if you want to take a look at them. Signing off for the weekend. Hope you have a great one! Misty at CougarMountainZoo (talk) 22:59, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

Misty, Do not make any more edits of any kind to the article or the infobox because they will be reverted.

For you to tell me that, for example, a date is wrong or Rittler's job description is wrong in a newspaper article, we cannot just go change that information because that would be called "original research". If we change what source says, then we cannot quote that source, can we? Strange, isn't it? Things have to be verifiable by a secondary source. If the newspaper is wrong, then it's on them. That said, I hate errors, so I can reword the article to hedge by saying different words, in order to to reconcile the Rittler inconsistency. I can fix the incorrect date only because you changed the source..We needn't name all the exhibits in the inbox or in the article. I have added a bullet list of some of the other exhibits. Do not ask me to include The magic forest, etc. This is not a recreation of your zoo's website. We are not going to mention everything. I am an editor, and that is what editors do.

Just so you'll know for other articles you might edit: A "link" can mean a wikilink (hyperlink) where the word turns blue; an "external link" takes the reader to a non-Wiki website. Do not over-link words like "exhibit" or "endangered" that are common knowledge.(WP:MOSLINK) External links are not normally used in the body of an article (WP:EXT). When you respond on a talk page, use a colon to offset your text from the previous person's text. To offset more, use 2 colons.

Anyone who has, himself, been the subject of a Wiki article sees imperfections he would like to change, but he is not allowed to. Also strange? The point is, the final article will never make you happy because you are biased. That is common in paid editors—so please accept it gracefully. Think of the article as a portrait that captures the big picture, rather than a photograph with faultless perfection. Don't expect the article to change very much from its present state. That said, I have tried to reconcile the points you have made. I say these things in kindness and good will. Do not respond to this with a long letter. I have to move on to other projects; however, if you make a concise bullet point list on the article's talk page and I will consider your future requests. Good luck,--Eagledj (talk) 15:43, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

(outdent) Misty's original edits to the article were not just fixing typos and not adding unreferenced information as claimed above. Edit summaries of "Major revision; was very outdated and needed a lot more content." and adding thousands of bytes to the article go against this claim. I reverted the original edits because it took an encyclopedic article that if changes were needed could have been to an unencyclopedic article with unreferenced material and original research. Eagledj, I think your recent edits have improved the article to keep it up to date without adding original research. Aspects (talk) 03:49, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Add website to infobox, correct one word and reverse the order of two sentences so they are in chronological order.

1. Please add the following as the last line of the infobox: website= 2. In the first sentence of the lead paragraph please change "southeast of Seattle" to "east of "Seattle". Here is one reference directly supporting that;

That is also what is stated in this reference;

I have a copy of that book and can provide a picture of p. 75 as proof if that would help. Just let me know that is needed and I will submit the request to have it uploaded.

3. Reverse the order of the last two sentences under the heading "Exhibits". Then everything under that heading will be in chronological order.

Request #1 is unclear.  Implemented Requests # 2 and 3 have been implemented.  Spintendo  ᔦᔭ  08:04, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Thank you in advance for your consideration of these changes and your time. Misty at CougarMountainZoo (talk) 22:10, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

I'm not seeing any references, but it looks like this has been changed. Kingofaces43 (talk) 17:09, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Ancillary features; request to remove leading "the" from first three bullets points, add references to first three bullet points and revise bullet point 3 to more accurately reflect the referenced material

Please remove leading "the" from the first three bullet points.

Please add the following new reference at the end of bullet point one; Magnani Nature Gallery About Us

Please add the following existing reference to the end of bullet points two and three; It's the same reference as for bullet point four, Cougar Mountain Zoo Unique Features reference number 6.

Please revise bullet point three to read; Wildlife Museum, wildlife and paraphernalia donated for use in educational programs.

Thank you in advance for your consideration and your time. Misty at CougarMountainZoo (talk) 23:15, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Misty,

I asked you to provide a list in bullet form. Do that by typing an asterisk(*). It helps us address each point. I have already incorporated some of your requests into the article. If a request is not included, consider it denied. Also, do not add refs to a talk page. They need to be removed, and referred to in the body not in Wiki markup form.

• A list of items typical in a zoo infobox is found HERE. Read it please. Please tell me the number of animals, number of annual visitors, and number of species. I'll consider adding some more. I did add the website.

• For these things you want to add to the infobox, you have said, and I quote: "I know for sure they (the board of directors) explicitly do not want to mention how many animals, species or attendance since we can't even begin to compare to the Bronx Zoo, etc." This is proof that you are selective in your facts because the truth might not make your zoo look good. This is called "whitewashing" and is against the rules under WP:COI. Be honest, how many animals? The zoo started with 53?

• As far as listing "exhibits" in the infobox, that refers to the number of exhibits, and I will allow that, so what is the number?

• "East vs southeast of Seattle": When I wrote southeast I looked at Google maps to verify it and I check the mileage. I stand by it. It IS southeast; however, since you are a local, I gave deference and changed it to simply "east".

• For what reason, exactly, do you want the word "the" removed? Just curious.

• The "refs" you want to add after the bullet points are not true refs— they are to your OWN website, not secondary sources. You don't have to keep citing these basic facts. Some people might believe it adds gravitas to the article by showing a long, impressive-looking reflist at the bottom, but it does not. Request denied.

• For the Wildlife Museum bullet point: is actual wildlife donated? pictures of wildlife? taxidermy specimens? animal skins? skeletons? size of the museum? What, exactly, does "paraphernalia" mean in this context? Please elaborate, even though the info is a personal communication, not verifiable, and therefore probably not useable unless you change the zoo website. "Misty told me" won't do, but just curious.

I hope you answer to all the above is concise and reasoned, because your window is rapidly closing on this article. Best,--Eagledj (talk) 03:44, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Eagledj, First thank you for incorporating what you did. I really appreciate it. And I'm sorry that I did not have it in the correct format. I learn best by visually seeing and example so the fact that you wanted bullet points with an "*" didn't register in my brain.

• Most small and mid-size zoos that I have seen articles for on Wikipedia do not list how many animals, species or attendance. But then even Bronx Zoo and San Diego Zoo don't list their attendance. It's only the really large zoo that do that because they have such impressive numbers. If you like I can try to come up with examples. I don't remember those zoo off the top of my head as that was weeks ago.

• Hmm, everyone else seems to be listing the names of their major exhibits and not a number of exhibits. See infoboxes Bronx Zoo, Woodland Park Zoo (local), San Diego Zoo.

• East versus southeast, yes subjective. But I thought it needed to match was was stated on the zoo's website and in the book by Barbara Sleeper since they were the references cited.

• removing "the", thought it would read cleaner and make it less repetitive.

• "refs" - I though everything had to be referenced. So my apologies once again for my lack of understanding. Yes, Magnani is mentioned on the Zoo's website. But the link I suggested to Magnani is not to the Zoo's website. Magnani has it's own separate website and it's About Us page is the only place that I see that has the information you put into this article like the date established. But maybe it doesn't need a reference and it's my lack of understanding once again. The ref for bullet points two and three are the same as for bullet point 4 so seemed appropriate. Since all four of these bullets points are one the website page reference listed for bullet point four, would it make sense and be appropriate to put the reference once after the heading "Ancillary features"? Then like you say, it's only referenced once.

• In hindsight for the Wildlife Museum bullet point it probably doesn't make sense to say "wildlife and paraphernalia". The museum actually contains everything you listed and a lot more. And all of it is used for education purposes both here at the Zoo during our daily lectures and on outreaches. With regard to outreaches, the source you reference indicates that we visit more than just churches and senior centers. And since we do go anywhere and visit anyone for these outreaches would you be willing to word that to be more encompassing? Thanks in advance for considering it. And once again my thanks for all you have done on the article and educating me!

2603:3023:120:BD00:C49C:516C:4317:BAA3 (talk) 20:27, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Dear Misty,

I have made some edits and added a ref for the Magnani Gallery Website. It has been nice helping you. I will not be doing any more discussing, no more bargaining. No more changes for now, the article stands. Some other editors will be reviewing it in the future. Regards--Eagledj (talk) 00:01, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

Misty's original edits

(outdent) Misty's original edits to the article were not just fixing typos and not adding unreferenced information as claimed above. Edit summaries of "Major revision; was very outdated and needed a lot more content." and adding thousands of bytes to the article go against this claim. I reverted the original edits because it took an encyclopedic article that if changes were needed could have been to an unencyclopedic article with unreferenced material and original research. Eagledj, I think your recent edits have improved the article to keep it up to date without adding original research. Aspects (talk) 03:49, 7 September 2017 (UTC)