User:Go Phightins!/Adopt/Lee Tru.

Hi Lee, my name is Ben (Go Phightins!) and I will be your adopter in the adopt-a-user program. I will guide you through a series of lessons followed by tests for comprehension which will be graded. You must achieve an 80% to pass; 70-80 is at my discretion, and below 70% we will do some remediation to help you understand. The first lesson is below. Good luck! Go Phightins! 17:02, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Lesson one

One of the most important essays in Wikipedia is WP:FIVEPILLARS which is designed to summarize why we're here.

• Pillar one defines Wikipedia as an encyclopedia. It suggests some things that we are not. Thoughts about what we are not are covered in the deletion lesson.
• Pillar two talks about neutrality, a concept that this lesson will be concentrating on.
• Pillar three talks about free content. The Copyright lesson will go into this in more detail.
• Pillar four talks about civility. Wikipedia is a collaborative working environment and nothing would ever get done if it wasn't. I'll go into civility more during the dispute resolution module.
• Pillar five explains that Wikipedia does not have firm rules. This is a difficult concept and will be covered in the Policy and consensus lesson.

How articles should be written

The articles in Wikipedia are designed to represent the sum of human knowledge. Each article should be written from a neutral point of view – personal opinions such as right and wrong should never appear, nor should an editors experience. Neutrality also means giving due weight to the different points of view. If the broad scientific community has one set of opinions – then the minority opinion should not be shown. An example is in medicine – if there was an article on say treatment of a broken leg, a neutral article would not include anything on homeopathy.

To ensure that the information in an article is correct, Wikipedia has adopted a policy of verifiability. Anything written in Wikipedia should be available to confirm by looking at the associated reliable source. Wikipedia should not include anything not verifiable by seeing it is published elsewhere; in other words, it should not contain anything original.

Reliable sources

So what is a source? Wikipedia uses the word source for three interchangeable ideas – a piece of work, the work's creator or the work's publisher. In general, you would expect a reliable source to be published materials with a reliable publication process, authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject, or both. This doesn't mean that a source that is reliable on one topic is reliable on every topic, it must be regarded as authoritative in that topic – so while "Airfix monthly" may be a good source on the first model aeroplane, it probably would not be authoritative on the Boeing 737.

A source that is self-published is in general considered unreliable, unless it is published by a recognized expert in the field. Generally, self-published sources aren't considered reliable. This means that anything in a forum or a blog and even most websites are considered unreliable by default. One interesting sidepoint is on self-published sources talking about themselves. Obviously, a source talking about itself is going to be authoritative, but be careful that the source is not too self-serving – the article really should not be totally based on a direct source like that.

Mainstream news sources are generally considered reliable... but any single article should be assessed on a case by case basis. Some news organizations have been known to check their information on Wikipedia – so be careful not to get into a cyclic sourcing issue!

There's a lot more about what makes a source reliable here.

Questions?

Any questions? If not, I will post the test. Go Phightins!

Test

Here is the test. You have up to one week to complete it once I've posted it, but it shouldn't take more than 30 minutes maximum to complete. I'm looking for thoughtfulness in your answers, and reserve the right to post follow-up questions should your answer be ambiguous or not on the right track. Good luck, and here we go:

NOTE: PLEASE EXPLAIN YOUR ANSWERS CITING POLICY IN ORDER TO ADVANCE. THANK YOU. Go Phightins! 12:16, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

1.) Q- You have heard from a friend that Mitt Romney has been appointed the chancellor of Harvard University. Can you add this to Romney's (or Harvard's) article? Why?

A-No, this original research.

2.) Q - The Daily Telegraph has published a cartoon which you see is clearly racist as part of an article. Can you include this as an example of racism on the newspaper's article? What about on the racism article?

A-No, that would be a example of Wikipedia:Non-free images

3.) Q- You find a reliable article that says Americans are more likely to get diabetes than British people and British people are more likely to get cancer than Americans. You find another reliable article that says Americans are Capitalists and British people are Socialists. Can you include information that says Capitalists are more likely to get diabetes and socialists are more likely to get cancer anywhere on Wikipedia?

A-No, that is a unfounded deduction, plus it makes no sense.

4.) Q- Would you consider FOX News to be a reliable source for information on MSNBC? What about for information on Sarah Palin?

A-yes, see Wikipedia:SELFSOURCE

5.) Q- Would you consider Ben and Jerry's official Twitter page a reliable source?

A-yes,see Wikipedia:SELFSOURCE

6.) Q- A "forum official" from the Chicago Tribune community forums comments on the newspaper's stance on world hunger. Would this be a reliable source?

A-yes, ses Wikipedia:SELFSOURCE

7.) Q- Would you object to the "about us" section on say Burger King's website being used as a citation in its article? (Hint: see WP:SELFSOURCE)

A-no see Wikipedia:SELFSOURCE

8.) Q- Everybody knows that the sky is blue right? An editor doesn't agree - he says it is bronze, do you need a source?

A-Considering that this user is probably in a insane asylum, no, on Earth anyways the sky is blue (I am assuming we are talking about Earth) also, aconding to WP: V something only needs to be sourced if it is likely to be chalanged.