User talk:David Michael Jones

The article you posted about CheapOair has significant issues. The article is written to sound like a news release. Furthermore, none of the references you provided can be considered reliable sources, because they are all news releases issued by the company through Internet-based news release distribution sites. Because this material is controlled by the company itself, it cannot be considered objective or independent. Please supply references from independent, reliable sources such as legitimate news media. Otherwise, this article may be marked as an advertisement, which is not allowed at Wikipedia. - Realkyhick (Talk to me) 16:17, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The links that you added (without signing on with your user name) to CheapOair were also unsuitable. Do not use references that are based on press releases by the company. References which are distributed from companies such as PR Newswire are ultimately controlled by the company that issues the story, and therefore not considered reliable. Likewise, remarks about the company on discussion boards or blogs are not considered reliable, because they can be posted by anyone, including those associated with the company. Therefore, these links have been removed.

It is becoming apparent that the ultimate purpose of this article is to promote CheapOair. Promotion of a company is a major violation of Wikipedia policies against advertising and spamming, and such articles will be removed. Persistent posting of this type of article will result in a user being blocked from further editing. If you have ant sort of connection with this company, you are also in violation of policies against conflicts of interest. - Realkyhick (Talk to me) 17:22, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, you should log in every time you post changes to this article or post messages to other editors. If you do not, it is very difficulat to follow the line of conversation and the history of edits. Now to answer your question: Only the TRUSTe link would be considered reliable, as the others are obviously news releases issued by the company or its partners. "Stories" which have so-called "safe harbor" statements at the end are virtually always news releases.

By the way, are you somehow connected to CheapOair, either as an employee or in some sort of PR capacity? - Realkyhick (Talk to me) 19:16, 23 June 2008 (UTC) Never mind - you posted the answer as I was posting the question. That happens some times. By the way, the WCBS link would definitely be useful - that's exactly what we're looking for. - Realkyhick (Talk to me) 19:17, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

TheInquirer.com link is good, even though it quotes a news release, because it's an independent source that didn't just regurgitate the press release verbatim. They sought out further response from the company and did independent reporting. That's good. The McAfee link is reliable and independent, though I'm not sure how much relevance it would have unless CheapOair has had issues with site security in the past. But it wouldn't hurt.

You're definitely headed in the right direction. By the way, now that you have some independent sources, it won't hurt to include a news release or two from the company. That will give the article some balance. The problem lies when we rely only on stuff the company says. I'm a reporter by profession, so we're by nature suspicious of news releases and other PR stuff. There's an old saying in the business: "If your mother says she loves you, check it out." Wikipedia's insistence on independent sources to support facts has its roots in that principle, as well as that required in academic research.

By the way, I've been remiss in giving you The Official Wikipedia New-User Welcome, so here it is. There's some useful links there that you might want to check out. - Realkyhick (Talk to me) 20:13, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome!

Hello, David Michael Jones, 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!

thanks, Realkyhick - I like this saying - "If your mother says she loves you, check it out." I will start using this more. I will add the links for Inquirer and Mcafee. I am going to research which PR from the company may be good to be added. Thanks for the welcome.

rgds David Michael Jones (talk) 20:30, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The press.cheapoair.com link is probably not a good idea, although it's probably not something that anyone would raise a huge fuss about. The problem is that press release pages tend to be pretty promotional in nature. Besides, you have a link to their home page, and generally that is the only link that is posted for an article about a company, since everything can be found from that point. There are exceptions, but usually for special circumstances. This isn't one of them.

The other article is not necessary at all. The main reason is that it duplicates Travel website. Another problem is the title. It should either be "Online travel agency" or "OTA," but not both. Now in this case, what should be done is to change the title to "Online travel agency" - I'll have to do that, since you haven't been a user long enough (I think). Later on, you'll see a tab at the top of your page that says "move," and that's where yo go to move an article to a new title. The old one stays in plays and becomes a "redirect" - a special kind of article that immediately moves to the new title when you go to the original.

Now redirects can also be created manually, and that's the thing we need to do with Online travel agency, which I moved to the new title while I was writing this message. We need to turn your article into a redirect that leads to Travel website. To do that, we open up "Online travel agency" for editing, we erase everything you've done so far, and replace it with this line at the top:

#REDIRECT [[Travel website]]

Then you save it, and the deed is done. :Now, if there are things that you think need to be added to Travel website, you can do that. I'll let you do this part as an exercise; let me know if you run into a snag. (This page goes into more detail about redirects.)

Whenever you are thinking about creating a new article about a fairly generic topic, you might want to search Wikipedia to see if there's an article already written about it. Usually there is. It may be that a similar title needs to be created as a redirect, and you're encouraged to do so. - Realkyhick (Talk to me) 04:26, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have now done the redirect myself. - Realkyhick (Talk to me) 17:24, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination of CheapOair for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article CheapOair is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/CheapOair until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:04, 11 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]