User talk:Connietidwell/Archive 1

Hello, Connietidwell, 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:

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! Royal broil 12:49, 19 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Conflict of interest

If you have a close connection to some of the people, places or things you have written about in the article Charles Tidwell, you may have a conflict of interest. In keeping with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy, edits where there is a conflict of interest, or where such a conflict might reasonably be inferred from the tone of the edit and the proximity of the editor to the subject, are strongly discouraged. If you have a conflict of interest, you should avoid or exercise great caution when:

editing or creating articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with;
participating in deletion discussions about articles related to your organization or its competitors;
linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Wikipedia:Spam); and,
avoid breaching relevant policies and guidelines, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, verifiability of information, and autobiographies.

For information on how to contribute to Wikipedia when you have conflict of interest, please see our frequently asked questions for businesses. For more details about what, exactly, constitutes a conflict of interest, please see our conflict of interest guidelines. Thank you. Royal broil 13:11, 19 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Charles Tidwell article

I reviewed your edits to your edits to the article. There are some improvements, but there are also some biases that you introduced. Please be careful to document the sources that you used to create the article. First of all, all wikia's like the Third Turn or even the English Wikipedia are not reliable sources as they are created by an open community. You need to access the sources used by that article's writer to write this article. See WP:CITE. Second, you are introducing strong bias into the article. You wrote "He was rated as the top Strictly Stock racecar driver in both the southeastern United States and in his home state". I wonder - WHO said that he was rated...? A citation from a reliable source from some well-known entity would go far with that statement. ESPN said... The George Auto Racing Hall of Fame said... All bold statements need to be backed with sources, else they can be removed by any editor who challenges them. I'm going to go through the article and remove some unsourced content and you can only add it back with sources. I will mark other statements as unsourced needing cleanup. I will help you with adding inline citations if you ask me (I don't bite}. Articles need to be written from a neutral point of view. Wikilinks have no spaces before or after them, just [[Junior Johnson]], not [[ Junior Johnson ]].

I am very uneasy with the photograph. It was definitely photographed by a professional photographer in a studio. There's no way that the photographer signed away the license on the photograph to allow the picture to be used on Wikipedia. The photographer is most likely dead or not interested in Wikipedia. Do you have a family photograph of him? It could be in the pits or on the track, just as long as either you or your family took the picture. Make sure that the photographer gave you verbal permission, or they are dead and you have all of the living heir's permission. I think that's good enough permission in a case like this, but don't quote me as I'm not an image expert. Royal broil 13:11, 19 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, thank you for your input. Most of my information came from newspaper articles that were collected over the years from The Macon Telegraph in Macon, Georgia. Some of them do not have dates. I have scanned them all into my computer and am planning to post them to my website for viewing asap. As for him being the only deaf racecar driver at the time, I am honestly guessing at this, as I've never, ever heard of another and nobody else has been able to confirm or deny this. I've done a search online and haven't found another who raced during his time. In regards to his being rated as the top driver in the state of GA and also in the southeast, this can be confirmed with the newspaper articles, so I do have proof of that. I also cannot prove without a doubt that he is the only one to have a human mascot, although there is nothing out there to prove that there was ever another. He and Little Willie were famous all over the southeast and although there were other types of mascots, such as a monkey, Little Willie, I'm quite certain is the only human mascot ever and what made him so special was his size since he was a dwarf and his outgoing personality. I can either use my website for cites or the Macon Telegraph, but these things took place before there was much of a record of many of these things. I was born after he retired from racing and didn't learn much about his career until after he died in 1990. Can you tell me how to insert cites, like give me the coding for it so I can follow that, please? My email address is sweetgapeach@cox.net if you can email me. I still have a great deal to learn about Wikipedia. Thanks again, (Angela "Connie" Tidwell Frady (talk) 03:02, 20 September 2008 (UTC)) I was just checking Fonty Flock's page to get some ideas as to how to cite my father's and I'm just wondering why the person who posted his page didn't have to cite so many of their claims as I am being asked to cite on my father's. I'm still learning here, so I'm not being cocky, just asking. Pretty much ALL of my cites will come from the same page on my website, although I have articles to back up my claims, including that he was on the board of governors with GASCAR because I have one of their booklets listing him as such. These kinds of things are nowhere on the internet at all. Just my website. Won't it be tacky for me to cite the same website so many times?(Angela "Connie" Tidwell Frady (talk) 03:36, 20 September 2008 (UTC))[reply]

I'm not trying to pick on you and I think your questions are reasonable and not cocky. ALL content should be using citations. This used to be quite lax a few years ago, but Wikipedia got a lot stronger in this area since the media was beating up Wikipedia for being unreliable. Things have changed a lot and Wikipedia is far more reliable now. You did make some well-beyond-ordinary claims (like racing despite being deaf, best driver in the southeast, etc.), which is why I requested that they be cited. Wikipedia doesn't use superlative words without citaions, and you did. If you were to read Wikipedia guidelines (I think WP:RS), it talks about using sources independent of the article's subject. So official website can only be used for few cites, such as a quote. As the child of the person in the article, your website similarly close to being an official website. Neither are independent of the article's subject, so your website should not be used as a source. That is why I added it as an external link - it's the closest thing available to an official website and it belongs in the article. See WP:EL for criteria for the policy on links to external websites. The newspaper articles are a different story. Even if you don't have dates, you have independent articles. They are what you should use to cite what you have added. Same thing with the list of board members in GASCAR - their official material is fine since it is not from Charles Tidwell. NASCAR's website is often used for NASCAR driver's articles, as long as it's not an incidental mention. Noting that his memoriabilia was on display at the International Motorsports Hall of Fame would be a lot more reliably sourced if cited for their information/website. Some of the wording needs adjustment on Charle's article in order for it to sounds more neutral and encyclopedic, but I'd like to see the articles that you posted on your website so see exactly how to word it.

How to add cites: The easiest way is to change your preferences. First click on "My Preferences" on the top by your name. Click on the "Gadgets" tab, the one farthest to the right. In the "Editing gadgets" section, add a check mark for "refTools, adds a "cite" button to the editing toolbar for quick and easy addition of commonly used citation templates". Now when you edit, there will be a button for you to add citations. Click edit on the page that you want to modify. Click the mouse to move the insertion point to the exact place that you want to add a citation. The right-most button will say "{{cite}}", so click it to add a citation. You want a newspaper in this case, so click on "News". Fill in all of the fields that you have, plus add any unique name in the Named Reference field (I like article date plus newspaper)), then click "Add Citation". The next time you want to use that same article, click the same {{cite}}} button. Then click "Named References". Click the name that you added earlier and it will take care of the coding. Royal broil 05:35, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the info. I will check on that in the morning. I understand what you are saying, and I don't think that he was probably rated as the top driver after he lost his hearing, as he became deaf sometime during his racing years due to multiple ear infections as a child, and hearing damage from driving tanks and also racing cars. I kind of felt like he may have lost some of his confidence after he suffered the hearing loss, but I was born 5 years after he retired, so I'm just guessing. I think he was at the top of his game earlier in his career. He raced at Darlington, Charlotte, Talladega, and Daytona, yet I have never been able to find much info on them. All I have is what my grandmother tore or cut out of the newspapers. I can't say for sure that he was the first totally deaf racecar driver, nor that he's the first to have a human mascot, but I'd be willing to gamble it, I feel that certain. I can't find anything on the internet to dispute it and nobody else in the racing field that I've met from back then has ever told me any different. I'm working tonight on making thumbnails for the articles I've scanned and will get those posted asap. Would you like for me to let you know when I have them up? Thank you for your suggestions. (Angela "Connie" Tidwell Frady (talk) 05:55, 20 September 2008 (UTC))[reply]

Okay, I have uploaded the newspaper articles that were passed down to me from my father to my website, and I have gone through the wiki page and added citations to each of the places you asked me to, linking them directly to the articles that made those particular statements. If there is anything more that I need to do to make this page complete, please let me know. Thank you so much. (Angela "Connie" Tidwell Frady (talk) 17:29, 21 September 2008 (UTC))[reply]

You didn't do the citations right - you did something against Wikipedia's rules. You can't link to newspaper articles on a website, as that website is doing an illegal copyright infringement which Wikipedia can't use to cite. You should be following the citation template trick that I explained in my last post. It's not too hard - give it a chance. What you did looks like a promotion for your website (to someone who doesn't know what I know)! Royal broil 22:49, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so very much for your patience and help in this. I am going to try that now. I have removed the cites that I had linked to the articles. Also, just to let you know, I have contacted the Macon Telegraph to ask for their permission to post the articles. If they do give me their approval, I will have them posted on my website, giving them full credit of course. As to the picture that is posted, I am assuming that the photographer is dead after all of these years. I have no earthly idea who took it, as there is no signature or stamp on the back of the original. I don't know much about copyright but had assumed that all of his photographs that are in my possession are now copyrighted to me. I don't think there is another person out there anywhere with that image. I have photographs/snapshots in his photo albums of him during his career but I have no idea who took them. What might you suggest? I have had that same photograph on my website for 11 years with no problem so far. As a matter of fact, someone with one of the racing associations here stole the image off of my website last year and worked it up in a graphic program with some other photographs, then made multiple small copies and 2 or 3 poster sized ones in frames and sold the small ones and auctioned off the large ones. We were quite upset that they did this, but my family and I were there and witnessed it ourselves. I guess they weren't the least bit worried about copyright, lol. I'll go now to work on those sites with the gadget thing. Thanks again! (Angela "Connie" Tidwell Frady (talk) 19:54, 22 September 2008 (UTC)) By the way, am I allowed to link to the booklet page that states he was on the board of governors using the citation gadget? GASCAR closed many years ago and I don't know that there would be any kind of copyright on any of those things that I would need to worry about. I have a few for viewing on my website. Thanks!! (Angela "Connie" Tidwell Frady (talk) 20:26, 22 September 2008 (UTC))[reply]

Actually, everything that you just proposed doesn't work with Wikipedia's standards, as Wikipedia is extremely concerned about copyright. There is a possibility (remote) that someone who is the heir of the photographer could identify the picture as being taken by this photographer and could sue Wikipedia for copyright infringement. These things can happen when you are one of the top 10 websites. Is your mother alive and do you have a traditional mother-father with no divorce/dead until-death-do-us-depart situation? Since you are an heir to the family's estate (I assume), you could get the permission of the living heirs to the estate and ask that them all to agree to license the picture as, say, Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike. Or your mother could give the permission to you. I think your verbal permission would suffice in either case. Just make sure that it wasn't taken for certain by a professional photographer but was most likely taken by your family. This is why I earlier suggested a picture from the pits.

I have heard stranger stories about stolen old photographs - one of my friends on a photo sharing website posted hundreds of pictures of 1970s and 1980s northeast modifieds and found them for sale by someone else at a track he went to. The sad part is that my friend actually bought one off the scam artists knowing that it was his own picture!

You didn't use the correct cite option that I was suggesting. You are still linking to your website. I am certain that your verbal permission would NOT be acceptable for linking directly to those newspaper clippings. The problem is the link, not the content. Since you have the clippings in your hand, you CAN cite them directly since Wikipedia will assume with good faith that you actually have them in your hand. Pretty weird - linking to them is no good but we believe you when you say you have them in your hand. We actually don't want you to prove it!

Maybe to "compensate" for all of my help here, you could work on an article on another notable racer from the period? It would be good karma! Royal broil 22:57, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't mind helping at all. I am very interested in helping to document the history of racing back around the time my father and the other pioneers of racing were battling it on the tracks! I have a few in mind that I checked on last week to see if they had wikipedia pages and they do not. Some need more info and I might be able to make calls and gather more information from them in order to put up a decent page for them.

As for the links that I did to my site, those particular claims or statements may only be confirmed that way, as we are family and those kinds of things are mostly undocumented. There is no newspaper or book to give credit to for those things. Do you have any idea what I can do about that? I'd hate to have to remove those, as they are absolutely the truth. Perhaps I could get my mother to write them down as she knows them and them use that as documented proof? As for the clippings, I am only asking for written permission to use them, so it wouldn't be word of mouth. However, I am going through the articles right now and am nearly finished doing the cites. Some of them have no dates, and I noticed earlier that the person writing most of them did not put their name on them at the top like they used to do. The author's names are nowhere on most of them, but I did notate that they came from the Macon Telegraph and I gave the titles for the ones I had incomplete information on. (Angela "Connie" Tidwell Frady (talk) 23:13, 22 September 2008 (UTC))[reply]

Okay, I have completed the cites using the cites gadget, with the exception of the 8 things that I had linked to my website to the page with The Charles Tidwell Story, as there is no other written information on any of those things. As for the picture, my sisters were by my father's first marriage and were estranged from my father pretty much my whole life. I never met one of them and the other I've only seen three times my entire 44 years. My mother turned his legacy over to me, so it is all my legal property and in my possession only. I will pass it on to my four children when I die. He had a will and left everything to my mother and she gave it to me, so it is all legally mine. I checked through all of his photographs this evening and most of them do appear to be professional, some of them being of the entire group of drivers at an event. I have only one photograph of him that looks decent and doesn't appear to be taken by a professional and it's a tiny one taken when he was in the Army. No racing photos that look nice at all. I can remove the photo if you think I should. Back then, people didn't take photographs as often as we do today. By the way, where do I go to start a new article on a different driver? My father's mascot's nephew started this one and then asked me to add the info on it, so I haven't actually started an article on my own. Thanks!! (Angela "Connie" Tidwell Frady (talk) 01:46, 23 September 2008 (UTC))[reply]

The links to the newspaper articles are much better and they work. You did the right thing by listing the dates as unknown. The statements in both that article and Ethel Flock Mobley's article talking about how they were the best driver in the southeast definitely has to be deleted. It may be true, but reliably sourced documented truth is what Wikipedia needs. Documented truth means documented in an independent third party, such as a newspaper, magazine, book, research paper, etc. Having your mom give statements isn't documented truth, but it does give you a direction to head for you to be able to find documentation. Newspaper and magazine sometimes use word of mouth from relatives in their articles, so statements can lead to documentation. Please review Wikipedia:Reliable sources because that's the guideline that I'm explaining. Wikipedia articles need to be written in a neutral point of view without leading the reader into conclusions. Let the facts speak for themselves and the reader will make that conclusion themself! See Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words. I have been the reviewer for numerous Good Article reviews and weasel words are something that I look for. The only way that you can get away with calling someone the best in a region is to quote an authority in an actual sourced quote. So if the International Motorsports hall of Fame gave this quote, then you could add it. I VERY RARELY see articles have quotes like this and they shouldn't be needed. You've prove that Charles Tidwell is notable since you had so many quality sources, so you shouldn't worry about it.

About the photograph, it needs to be removed. You don't hold the copyright. What you do on your website is your business. Only add a photograph if your fairly certain that it was taken by your mother. You probably are okay legally since you are the only heir to the photographs (through the estate). You could add a family photograph from outside of racing. The Army photograph is okay if your family took it. It might be okay if the Army took it as part of an official duty.

There might be enough notability for your father's mascot, as long as someone can provide at least 3 solid independent and sources that talk directly about him. To start an article, you should create it in your own "userspace" before you make it live. New page patrollers look for unsourced articles and delete them. So the article needs to be well-sourced on a notable topic for it to survive more than a few hours. Having a NASCAR start is usually enough to guarantee notability, but it's not required. Creating it in your userspace gives you time to polish it before posting it live. I usually create new articles in my sandbox first. You would create an article at User:Connietidwell/Sandbox by clicking on this red link. The link will turn blue after you start it. Once your done you either move it to the regular location, or you cut and paste the article. I recommend that you ask my opinion (not my permission or approval) at my talk page to make sure that the article meets standards, at least for the first article or 2. I am excited to see that someone wants to develop articles on some of the forgotten notable drivers from that era. I am involved in a WikiProject on the history of motorsports, and I have written numerous articles on drivers from the 1890s to present. I really enjoyed writing the Rajo Jack article. Royal broil 16:59, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, thanks! I don't know how to remove the photo from Wikipedia, as I am not the person who uploaded it, and I've never uploaded a photo here before. I can remove the link from the code and will do that today. Will try to find something more suitable that I can legally use. As for the statements about Charles & Ethel Mobley being the top drivers, those are cited to newspaper articles that make those direct claims, so they are documented with a reliable source, which is what you are saying that needed to be done. Do they still need to be removed even though they are cited properly? If so, I will remove them. Do you have any particular drivers you would like me to help with? I posted an article last night at The Third Turn on James "Bunk" Ezell, but I'm not sure if he was notable enough to be listed here. (Angela "Connie" Tidwell Frady (talk) 17:44, 23 September 2008 (UTC))[reply]

I reviewed the source of the quote, and I left it with identifying the source. That's a liberal interpretation, so don't be surprised if someone else removes it. You asked who should be worked on. How about drivers who don't currently have articles? I'll nominate the image for deletion discussion since I'm the one with the problem with it. You can replace it at any time. Royal broil 18:33, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Creating New Articles

There might be enough notability for your father's mascot, as long as someone can provide at least 3 solid independent and sources that talk directly about him. To start an article, you should create it in your own "userspace" before you make it live. New page patrollers look for unsourced articles and delete them. So the article needs to be well-sourced on a notable topic for it to survive more than a few hours. Having a NASCAR start is usually enough to guarantee notability, but it's not required. Creating it in your userspace gives you time to polish it before posting it live. I usually create new articles in my sandbox first. You would create an article at User:Connietidwell/Sandbox by clicking on this red link. The link will turn blue after you start it. Once your done you either move it to the regular location, or you cut and paste the article. I recommend that you ask my opinion (not my permission or approval) at my talk page to make sure that the article meets standards, at least for the first article or 2. I am excited to see that someone wants to develop articles on some of the forgotten notable drivers from that era. I am involved in a WikiProject on the history of motorsports, and I have written numerous articles on drivers from the 1890s to present. I really enjoyed writing the Rajo Jack article. Royal broil 16:59, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Remove Photo

Okay, thanks! I don't know how to remove the photo from Wikipedia, as I am not the person who uploaded it, and I've never uploaded a photo here before. I can remove the link from the code and will do that today. Will try to find something more suitable that I can legally use. As for the statements about Charles & Ethel Mobley being the top drivers, those are cited to newspaper articles that make those direct claims, so they are documented with a reliable source, which is what you are saying that needed to be done. Do they still need to be removed even though they are cited properly? If so, I will remove them. Do you have any particular drivers you would like me to help with? I posted an article last night at The Third Turn on James "Bunk" Ezell, but I'm not sure if he was notable enough to be listed here. (Angela "Connie" Tidwell Frady (talk) 17:44, 23 September 2008 (UTC))[reply]

I reviewed the source of the quote, and I left it with identifying the source. That's a liberal interpretation, so don't be surprised if someone else removes it. You asked who should be worked on. How about drivers who don't currently have articles? I'll nominate the image for deletion discussion since I'm the one with the problem with it. You can replace it at any time. Royal broil 18:33, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bunk Ezell

Do you think Bunk Ezell is notable enough to be added to this site? If so, I will get to work on that. I have posted him at The Third Turn if you'd like to view the page and see if it's worth the effort to try and add him here. As for the quotes on Charles Tidwell and Ethel Mobley, I didn't view it as liberal, as the articles aren't stating the opinion of the person writing them, but stating that they were rated as the top drivers in their fields. Being rated as such doesn't sound like a liberal interpretation to me. It sounds to me like the industry in this area has rated them as such. I wouldn't have added something that I felt was only the author's personal opinion, as I know that wouldn't mean much. I don't know very much at all about most of the other drivers but thought I would try to contact some of them to get info to use. I will ask for articles or some sort of proof to use as cites. As for Little Willie Leonard, the mascot, back then they just didn't mention African Americans in the paper unless it was something extremely important. After all, we are in the deep south, and there were significant racial prejudices here back then. They just weren't seen as being notable, which of course is ridiculous, but that is just the way it was. I have never once come across an article with Little Willie mentioned. However, last week when I spoke to the president of the hall of fame in Dawsonville, Ga, I asked him if he remembered Little Willie. He laughed and said "Little Willie! Of course I remember Little Willie!". I may be able to get a few people to write down a few words about him if I'm lucky. His nephew, who started the Wikipedia page for my dad would like to start a Wikipedia page for him. He says he was also a mascot for the Macon Peaches baseball team at one time. Thanks! (Angela "Connie" Tidwell Frady (talk) 19:43, 23 September 2008 (UTC))[reply]

The notability standards are universal - if you can provide 3 reliable sources, then there's a good chance the article would be kept - that is if the person did something notable. Racing in NASCAR is usually considered notable. Racing in GASCAR probably won't be. Induction in a hall of fame would be. I looked up Buzz Ezell in a reference that I have, and it doesn't show that he raced in any of the big 3 current series. Did Ezell race in a different touring series like Modifieds, Convertibles, open wheel, etc. which are not covered by that website? Did he run at a NASCAR track under local sanction? Local sanction articles don't usually meet notability standards except if they're notable for something else. I looked you up on the Third Turn and I saw you criticisms. That wikia is not associated with the English Wikipedia. That wikia was started by a WikiProject NASCAR editor who wanted to see articles on every NASCAR driver. He decided to go another way when others didn't think that every driver passes notability standards. I don't have a problem with having an article on every driver if someone wants to spend the time. It's too bad that he left. The standards at the Third Turn are the way things used to be at the English Wikipedia which is pretty lax. Wikipedia got bashed by the media for being so unreliable, so the standards changed here to ensure that everything is more reliable. I'm advising what you are technically supposed to do to ensure that the articles and their content should remain and not get deleted. It's up to you if you want to follow my advice, but following my advice will ensure that it is most likely kept. I see you wrote an article on Speedy Morelock and he would be notable as a member of the GA Hall of Fame plus racers in the AAA are notable (as it evolved into USAC/CART/IRL). Nero Steptoe is probable notable with 5 Cup and 1 Convertible starts [1]. Your father is notable because he raced in NASCAR and MARC (which became ARCA). I didn't know that your family paid for a photographer to photograph your father - that might change things. Some Wikipedians coined a name for image issues: "copyright paranoia". I'm going to leave the photo alone and let someone else deal with it if they want since it's in a gray area. I don't know if Little Willie Leonard is notable enough or not. Again, it comes down to if you can find reliable sources. He definitely sounds appropriate for your website. How about write an article on GASCAR explaining what it is, list of champions, notable drivers, etc.? People might consider articles on GASCAR drivers more notable if you would create an article. Royal broil 01:34, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]