User talk:Bluestarfish88

Welcome

Welcome!

Hello, Bluestarfish88, 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
Tutorial
How to edit a page and How to develop articles
How to create your first article (using the Article Wizard if you wish)
Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion 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 {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! -- Cirt (talk) 00:27, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome, but this is a problematic edit

Welcome to Wikipedia. This edit of yours used Wikipedia articles as "sources" even though I doubt the material about Broder is present in those articles. Even if it the information was present, it would violate WP:CIRCULAR. Any questions? Thanks. =) -Shootbamboo (talk) 22:32, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome suggestions to correct the edit on David S. Broder

Good point Shootbamboo. What research is suggested to correct the edit so it complies with guidelines? Bluestarfish88 (talk) 22:43, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well to fix the problem you could remove the material until you find reliable sources to cite (in order to verify the information). You can click on reliable sources to read about what things we find reliable. In general, mainstream news, books, and scholarly articles are good. You can click on cite to see instructions on how to format your citation. In general, you seem to grasp the main idea for that. You specifically asked "[w]hat research is suggested". Perhaps a database you can access from your home through your membership at a local public library would be useful. Or google books, google news, the New York Times, etc. Stuff like that. -Shootbamboo (talk) 23:01, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify my question, I am asking what other research might be useful to comply with guidelines. I conducted the research of the newspapers David S. Broder worked at. Human Resources (at the newspapers) have him on file as a former employee. Those newspapers do not have online archives dating back that far. It's verifiable. What other method of citation is acceptable? Bluestarfish88 (talk) 23:13, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

When you use the word verifiable I don't think you are using the Wikipedia definition. "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. That is, whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true." So, we don't expect editors here to check things by calling newspapers. We write things that have been published. Also, we don't need the newspapers to have online archives dating back that far. Sometimes I cite things that are only available through databases. Your edit here isn't exactly appropriate either, sorry. =) Let me explain. You are adding inline citations behind material that is unsupported by the links. (FYI, I did find this.) From your experiences, it appears you obviously know certain things about Broder as a fact. But right now, that material is unsupported with any citations, so it doesn't exactly belong. Again, welcome, and sorry to break the bad news. =) That's just how things work around here. I hope you understand that this is really the only way they could work around here. Please let me know if you have any more questions or concerns. Thanks again. -Shootbamboo (talk) 00:15, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Understood. I'll see where I can find and include citations such as the example you've given. Thank you Shootbamboo.

You're welcome. Happy editing. =) -Shootbamboo (talk) 01:35, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A note on ISBNs

Hi, Bluestarfish88! I just wanted to drop you a friendly note regarding ISBN numbers. David S. Broder appeared in Category:Articles with invalid ISBNs, which I'm trying to resolve, and I noticed that you added an ISBN that was invalid. I think what went wrong is that you only noted 10 digits in the ISBN you saw on the book, but noticed that the other ISBNs provided by User:Flatterworld all started with "978". ISBNs with 13 digits have only been issued since about 2007, but there is a straightforward conversion between ISBN10s and ISBN13s. Since the last digit is a checksum digit, though, just adding "978" to the front almost never works. Probably the way to go for the future is just to add whatever is physically on the book. Best regards, and thanks for you contributions to Wikipedia! :-) Storkk (talk) 13:37, 11 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Storkk

Thank you for the correction!