User talk:219.73.75.20

Referencing

Hello, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia. I noticed that a few of your edits seem to rely on your personal knowledge or experience with the subject matter. The edit that first caught my attention was to Cassius Marcellus Clay, an article to which I've made small contributions and is thus on my watchlist. Your edit summary stated: "I have visited the historic site (Clay's home near Lexington, KY) and research there." As you appear to be a relatively new editor, perhaps you may not be aware of Wikipedia's fundamental policy on verifiability and referencing. The Verifiability policy states that all information in Wikipedia encyclopedia articles (but not associated "Talk" pages) must be verifiable as having been published in reliable sources. That is, even if an editor has personal experience or knowledge about some aspect of the subject, that personal knowledge is not an acceptable source to justify inclusion of the information in an article. The information must have actually been published in a reliable source. This does not mean that every sentence must be referenced, but does mean that any and all information in the text must be traceable to reliable published sources.

The help page "Referencing for Beginners" shows how to make footnotes that cite published material. A more detailed help page is "Footnotes". The text you added to the Clay article ("The cannon had been long mounted on a high crow's nest...") may well be accurate, but it should be footnoted to a published reliable source, rather than, as appears, dependent on your first-hand knowledge of the site. Thanks again for contributing, and I hope you will see this message as instructional and not criticism. DonFB (talk) 07:40, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

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