User talk:10mcleod

Welcome

Welcome!

Hello, 10mcleod, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

The five pillars of Wikipedia
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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{help me}} before the question. Again, welcome! -Michaelzeng7 (talk - contribs) 20:08, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Merge discussion for The Amateurs (Washington University in St. Louis)

An article that you have been involved in editing, The Amateurs (Washington University in St. Louis) , has been proposed for a merge with another article. If you are interested in the merge discussion, please participate by going here, and adding your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. MelanieN (talk) 19:03, 17 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No offense intended to your article, which is well written, but Wikipedia has standards for something to have a stand-alone article; those standards are described at WP:GROUP and very few college a capella groups can meet them. This group does not seem to have the required substantial coverage from independent reliable sources. If you feel that such coverage does exist, please feel free to add it as references to the article. If you have questions or want help, just click on my "talk" icon. --MelanieN (talk) 19:03, 17 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your note on my talk page. If you can find significant coverage of the group in independent reliable sources we can certainly keep the article. An independent reliable source is one which gets its information independently (not a press release) and has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy (not a blog or website). An example of an independent reliable source would be newspapers (general interest newspapers, not the college paper), TV stations, general-circulation magazines, etc. The coverage has to be significantly about the group (not a calendar item listing a performance, for example). The best place to look for such coverage is Google News Archive. I was unable to find such coverage but maybe you can. Without it, the group does not pass Wikipedia's requirements for an article about an organization, as expressed at WP:GROUP. I know it might surprise you that Wikipedia has criteria for what kind of articles can be here - since the motto is "the free encyclopedia anyone can edit" - but there have to be standards if Wikipedia is to keep its status as an international encyclopedia.

In the meantime I will not merge the article; I already copied your note into the discussion as a vote against merger. If we can't find the required coverage, I will take it to a general discussion of Wikipedia articles and see if we can reach consensus what to do. --MelanieN (talk) 15:44, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]