User talk:Dwsafford

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I saw your article at AfC , though I did not formally review it. What I suggest, as a very experienced editor here, is that you instead use the material to expnd the existing articleKleig light--an article which is very much in need of this expansion.

The two brothers are each of them qualified for individual WP articles, as they had editorial obits in the NYTimes (and probably elsewhere). Even so, it would be best to bring this material together, because that's what the readers are likely to find most suitable. I think you've done an excellent job, but there should also be extensive available references in every book on Stage Lighting.

If you need any assistance, I will be very glad to help. please ask me directly on my user talk page. DGG ( talk ) 04:35, 10 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Your submission at AfC Kliegl Bros. Universal Electric Stage Lighting Co., Inc. (August 27)[edit]

Thank you for your recent submission to Articles for Creation. Your article submission has been reviewed. Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. Please view your submission to see the comments left by the reviewer. You are welcome to edit the submission to address the issues raised, and resubmit if you feel they have been resolved.

Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia! —Anne Delong (talk) 12:23, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]


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Hello! Dwsafford, I noticed your article was declined at Articles for Creation, and that can be disappointing. If you are wondering or curious about why your article submission was declined please post a question at the Articles for creation help desk. If you have any other questions about your editing experience, we'd love to help you at the Teahouse, a friendly space on Wikipedia where experienced editors lend a hand to help new editors like yourself! See you there!

Reply to your Articles for Creation Help Desk question on Kliegl Bros. Universal Electric Stage Lighting Co., Inc.[edit]

Hello, Dwsafford! I'm Huon. I have replied to your question on the Articles for Creation Help Desk about Kliegl Bros. Universal Electric Stage Lighting Co., Inc..
You can read it at Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Help desk#Review of Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Kliegl Bros. Universal Electric Stage Lighting Co., Inc.. Huon (talk) 00:56, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Your submission at Articles for creation: Kliegl Bros. Universal Electric Stage Lighting Co., Inc. (September 19)[edit]

Thank you for your recent submission to Articles for Creation. Your article submission has been reviewed. Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. Please view your submission to see the comments left by the reviewer. You are welcome to edit the submission to address the issues raised, and resubmit if you feel they have been resolved.

Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia! Zach Vega (talk to me) 01:19, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You have new message/s Hello. You have a new message at Huon's talk page. Huon (talk) 21:29, 6 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome[edit]

Hello, Dwsafford, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:

Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing 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! FireflySixtySeven (talk) 17:57, 5 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Yngvadottir, and thank you for your comments. I am, however, somewhat baffled as to how to proceed, or exactly how to make sense of what appear to be the Wikipedia rules. First, while it is transparently clear that quoting someone who is discussing his own actions may not provide objective truth, it is less clear that citing an objective fact is liable to the same peril, especially if the limitations on the information cited are made clear. For example, if I state (as I do) that such and such is shown in catalog thus and so, this is (if I have done my work properly) unimpeachable. If the referenced catalog is readily available for inspection, as they are, the reference appears, in my innocence, to be sound. Were I to state that some number of the items referenced were, in fact, manufactured, I would have clearly overstepped the bounds as I cannot cite a reference to that, but I have not (I believe) done so. As the publication of a catalog constitutes an offer to sell, its existence is sound evidence that the objects therein displayed were, in fact, offered for sale.

You correctly note that a main reference is an "unpublished" doctoral thesis. But, while this is not available at Barnes and Nobel, it is available from a public source, and I have cited that source. As this appears to be exactly the secondary source desired, I do not see the issue here.

I have, in fact, mined the Google News sources and such of the books as were available to me. The books I found (and I freely admit that my budget does not extend to overnight stays in remote cities, although I did make an exception to this rule in searching the archives at Penn State) by and the large did not add to my store of knowledge, and in a regrettable number of cases were themselves inaccurate in provable ways. Indeed, it was the inaccuracies in the existing article on "Klieglight" that was the impetus to my taking up this project in the first place. Further, some of the listings under Google Books were published by the company, and not proper sources.

The reviled obituaries are not used as a source of biographical data, but merely evidence of dates of birth and death. And so on. In short, I need some reasonable boundary around the questionable items that remain. I have three times now attempted in good faith to provide a proper article as I have understood the rules, but cannot box at shadows indefinitely. Please believe that I do not wish to abandon the work, and am willing to delete or shore up what is within my power to execute.

Dwsafford (talk) 01:30, 6 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Putting my response here, hope it's clear :-) ... I tend to agree, the material from the company catalogs is useful. What we need is to add external sources, mostly to demonstrate that it has been written about, and secondly to support what we can of the outline of the history of the business. That will mean the unpublished dissertation - which doesn't have the same authority as it would if a book publisher had thought it worth bringing out - won't be carrying so much weight as a source. This is the way Wikipedia works, because of the definition of notability used here (and the policy against original research). You say that some of the external sources out there are inaccurate; but corrections could be appended in the relevant footnotes, and the fact there are such sources is important in getting the article accepted by Wikipedia. So ... let me ask you this. Would you be amenable to a few of us editing the draft, in particular adding more secondary sources, to try to get it over the hump? You could of course add your objections in the footnotes then and there, or put them here ... or wait till it's accepted and in Main Space and rewrite then, whichever you prefer. We don't have your expertise in the subject matter, but with our knowledge of Wikipedia norms, I think we can get it accepted. How would you feel about that? Yngvadottir (talk) 19:31, 6 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much for your response. Certainly, if you are able and willing to edit the material without changing the facts (other than deletions of material considered unsupportable)I would be a fool to decline. Please note, however, that most of the facts supported by the dissertation are actually supported through the dissertation by another source. I have credited the dissertation rather than the original source through an unwillingness to deprive the author of credit for his work. If it would be of assistance, I can winkle out the applicable references and provide the original sources. Please let me know promptly as I will need to recapture my copy of the document.

Great - I can't promise blinding speed, and I hope there will be more than one of us working on it, and please feel free to correct anything we inadvertently make incorrect. As to the dissertation citations, what's best is something on the order of:
Joe Bloggs, "Kliegl and Klieg Lights", Theatrical Quarterly volume 12 (1932) p. 21, cited in Doe, p. 94.
where Doe is the author you found the information cited in, and to whom you have previously referred. That would help, yes, so it would be great if you could retrieve that file and add those where applicable. Yngvadottir (talk) 05:25, 7 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Kliegl Bros.[edit]

Hi Dwsafford: I'd like to try to give you some further information about writing for Wikipedia in hopes of getting that article accepted, because I believe the topic is important and I want us to have your knowledge (preferably in other articles too). First of all, Huon mentioned above that he'd responded to you on his talk page, but the section has now been archived: it's here. Secondly, he found (as I just confirmed myself) that there is a lot of material in books accessible through Google Books, but Google News Archive has been suspended or discontinued, so that search link he gives you there is useless now. However, someone just told me how Google News archives can still be accessed: here. As I suspected, among the fluff there are some solid mentions of the company.

The draft article as it is now relies almost entirely on primary sources (the patents, product listings, etc.). Plus the unpublished dissertation. This is problematic for two reasons: one is that Wikipedia measures notability almost entirely by coverage of the topic in reliable independent sources (summary); the other is that as an encyclopedia, we have a policy of using secondary sources as far as humanly possible, to avoid original research (more detailed explanation). So what you need to do is to add secondary sources: newspaper articles and book pages referencing the stages of the company's history. These together with the dissertation will make the article potentially verifiable, as well as documenting that the topic is notable. Such third-party sources don't need to be online, but it's helpful to include a URL if they are available online, so that the reviewer and any interested reader can have a look. If you supplement what you have with that kind of sources, the article should either pass or need only revisions of tone to pass. Does that sound do-able? I'm thinking you may well have relevant books or know what to look for in the news archives. If you have further questions, as indicated in the template above, putting {{help me}} and a question here will attract attention; or try my talk page or FireflySixtySeven's - or Huon's again :-) One of us may be able to help or know someone else to ask. Anyway, I hope this advice helps, and I apologize for how complex Wikipedia can be. Thanks for trying to give us this article, let's see if we can make it happen soon. Yngvadottir (talk) 18:58, 5 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, FireflySixtySeven has written articles on the Kliegl brothers themselves, Anton Kliegl and Johann Kliegl, partly based on the German Wikipedia article on Anton. Some of those sources may also serve for an article on the company. Huon (talk) 19:45, 5 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Your submission at AfC Kliegl Bros. Universal Electric Stage Lighting Co., Inc. was accepted[edit]

Kliegl Bros. Universal Electric Stage Lighting Co., Inc., which you submitted to Articles for creation, has been created.
The article has been assessed as C-Class, which is recorded on the article's talk page. You may like to take a look at the grading scheme to see how you can improve the article.

You are more than welcome to continue making quality contributions to Wikipedia. Note that because you are a logged-in user, you can create articles yourself, and don't have to post a request. However, you may continue submitting work to Articles for Creation if you prefer.

Thank you for helping improve Wikipedia!

Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 17:50, 10 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ediiting[edit]

Thanks to all those who helped with the fine tuning that put my article in condition for acceptance. I have, however, some addition detail for the references that I would like to add, but am bewildered by some of the inserted editing marks and associated material. Much of this does not show up in the displayed text, but I hesitate to tinker with what I don't know. Also I am not clear as to the purpose of the "|encyclopedia" insertions. Please advise.

I expect you mean the {{cite encyclopedia}} citation template? The Dr. Joel E. Rubin Collection for which it's used isn't quite an encyclopedia, but the other citation templates (such as {{cite book}} or {{cite web}}) don't fit any better - this one is made for works that come in several parts (or "edited collections", as the template page says), where the "encyclopedia=" parameter is for the work and the "title=" parameter would identify a single item or volume of that larger work. The template takes a bunch of parameters such as those and turns them into a well-formatted reference. The full list of available parameters is listed on the template page. Those references could indeed do with some additional details, thanks for that. If there are specific editing marks you want to know more about, please be a little more specific.
On an unrelated note, if you want to ask for advice here on your user talk page, it's a good idea to add a {{help me}} template to your question; that will add your talk page to a central category of users looking for help, and it will become far more likely that helpers will see it quickly. Huon (talk) 19:59, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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