Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Help desk/Archives/2012 October 26

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October 26

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Myadcorner: Resubmitted article

I have resubmitted my article. How much time it will take place for review. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Myadcorner (talk • contribs) 10:35, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

There's a massive backlog; the oldest unreviewed submissions currently date from about October 14. So it may take a week or two until a reviewer takes a closer look at yours. However, at a glance I noticed several problems. First of all, you might want to have a look at our guideline on conflicts of interest; writing about your own company is discouraged.

The draft doesn't cite any reliable sources that are independent of the subject, such as newspaper articles. We need siginificant coverage in such sources, both to establish the subject's notability (see also WP:CORP for more specific notability criteria) and to allow our readers to verify the article's content. If no such sources can be found, your submission will be declined.

You might also want to have a look at out username policy. Your username might be seen as promotional and thus inappropriate because it's the name of a company. Wikipedia users are supposed to be individuals, not corporations. Since you have made very few edits with your account, it might be easiest to simply abandon it and to create a new account with an acceptable username. Huon (talk) 12:00, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Tim Wilson: Article Declined (again!)

I am trying to list a biography on Professor Sir Tim Wilson but each time I submit a revised version it keeps getting declined. The article draft is Wikipedia talk: Articles for creation/Tim Wilson

If anyone can explain to me in simple English what more I need to I would be grateful. I have included references as requested and even these don't seem to make a difference.

HELP?!!!!

Anne-Marie (aka Professor1949)

Professor1949 (talk) 12:38, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

The main problem is with the draft's sources. Wikipedia content should be based on reliable sources that are independent of the subject, such as newspaper articles. We need siginificant coverage in such sources, both to establish the subject's notability (see also WP:PROF for more specific notability criteria) and to allow our readers to verify the article's content. The best of the current sources is the EDP piece on Wilson's resignation: A newspaper article about Wilson himself. The Guardian effectively only uses Wilson as a spokesperson without providing significant details on him, the Wilson Review and the Unite Group look like primary sources, and the other sources don't provide significant coverage. Also, Wikipedia does not consider itself a reliable source.

That's a little thin for purposes of notability, and even worse, it doesn't support major parts of the draft's current text. For example, I don't think any of sources mentioned Temple Moor School, Pforzheim or the Royal Military College of Science. Especially for biographies of living persons we cannot accept submissions that are largely unverifiable: Either we need additional reliable sources, or the draft will have to be shortenend significantly. More sources would be better, of course, because they would also help clearly establish Wilson's notability.

It would also be helpful to use inline citations and footnotes to clarify which source supports which of the draft's statements. See also WP:Referencing for beginners on how to add foototes. Huon (talk) 13:15, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Review of Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/MIMS Ireland

Hi

I'm creating my first article in Wikipedia and I can't find the way to link the reference numbers in the texts to the references at the bottom.

Thanks

MC — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mcmousseau (talk • contribs) 15:51, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

The references should be included in the text proper, between the <ref> </ref> tags. The {{reflist}} template in the references section will then automatically display the footnotes there. I've done so for you. However, I don't think the draft's current references are quite sufficient to establish the topic's notability. They are two opinion pieces, published on the same day in the Irish Medical Times, copies of those opinion pieces published in the Health Well, plus the website of MIMS Hong Kong. Opinion pieces are usually considered reliable only for the opinion of their authors, but not necessarily for statements of facts. Furthermore, the Irish Medical Times seems closely related to MIMS Ireland, which casts doubt on the independence of the coverage. MIMS Hong Kong is a primary source and doesn't confirm what it's cited for anyway - for all I can tell it was first published at least a decade after MIMS Ireland was invented; it doesn't give an exact date and certainly doesn't say it "didn't take long" to spread from Ireland to Hong Kong. "It didn't take long" is opinion - you may say a decade isn't long, I'd say it is - and should be avoided in favour of hard facts. Huon (talk) 17:28, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Review of Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/PicMonkey.com

This article was declined due to a notability problem. I'm actually just trying to complete a simple redlink to PicMonkey.com in another article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picnik

Should I have done it differently?

Thanks - Cwhiton Cwhiton (talk) 21:06, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, notability requires significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject (see also WP:CORP for more specific guidelines on companies, and WP:WEB for websites might also be applicable). The sources for the PicMonkey article are Trademarkia, which is basically just a directory entry and not considered significant, and GeekWire, which is a better source but notes that it isn't quite independent of PicMonkey. So maybe PicMonkey just isn't notable enough to receive its own article, or better sources are out there and we have to find them.

Also, the draft struck me as very short. There's almost no relevant information, probably at least in part due to the company's youth. How many employees does the company have? Are revenues or profit figures available? How much venture capital did the founders raise for their startup? The answers to these questions could help the reader tell whether it's two guys in a garage or a major company. I expect it's a little early for answers to those questions - the company hasn't been active for an entire financial year yet - but I also expect that therefore it may simply be too early to write an article on them. When they receive more news coverage, things might get easier. Huon (talk) 22:11, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Review of Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Scott Jay Kenyon

First, A big thanks to Huon for his detailed and very helpful reply - it is very interesting and instructive to see how this process works and I hope I get it now.

I have two questions. When replying to a thread in this section of talk is it ok to add via edit or is there another way to keep the threads together? I have been starting a new thread with each new set of questions and I see that Huon was able to paste them together.

Also, I have been able to edit some of the article along the lines Huon suggested. It would be very helpful if the first parts - the opening, Career, and the first two paragraphs of Scientific Work - could be looked at and critiqued so I can see whether or not I am on the right track and whether the subject is starting to seem notable enough.

Thanks again for your help. Seriouscallersonly (talk) 22:25, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

When you re-open an older thread via "edit", there's a certain risk that it might be missed - in this case, I think a new thread was entirely appropriate. When the thread you're replying to is quite recent, just editing it may be easier - the last time I simply had to remove the section heading to merge two consecutive sections on the same topic into one. So that's something of a judgement call. If in doubt, starting a new section cannot hurt.

I'm rather busy right now, but I have added the draft to my watchlist and will take a closer look to those paragraphs tomorrow. Huon (talk) 22:40, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! Seriouscallersonly (talk) 22:47, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

I did have another question. Hypervelocity stars have lots of news coverage so they are notable & they have an entry in Wikipedia - does that give the discoverers some notability? I know it is not hard & fast one way or the other but your thoughts would be helpful - thanks! Seriouscallersonly (talk) 17:36, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

I just had a closer look at those sections, and I believe the sources are still problematic. For example, the list of publications is sufficient to see that Kenyon has a h-index of 63 (if one knows how to compute the h-index, which laypersons probably don't know) - but a source that explicitly says "Kenyon has a h-index of 63" and continues "that means he's broadly cited" would be much better. The latter part is currently opinion - I agree with the assessment, but it's still our personal opinion. In general, sources that actually discuss Kenyon in some detail are better than lists of data that mention him.

The coverage of the luminosity problem relies heavily on Kenyon's own papers, with secondary sources cited for claims that a priori aren't related to him. But Offner and McKee mention both Kenyon's discovery of the luminosity problem and his suggested solution - and we should cite them for it, not Kenyon himself. For comparison have a look at Clyde Tombaugh's article: I believe that manages not to cite a single Tombaugh paper and still has sources for his various discoveries. Another article worth a look might be that on Stephen Hawking: It's a featured article, among the best Wikipedia has to offer. It does cite some Hawking papers, but it also offers numerous secondary sources on his research. Of course Hawking is probably the most famous physicist alive and had entire biographies written about him; we cannot expect quite the same for Kenyon. But the article may still serve as an example of what we'd ideally like to have.

The answer to the hypervelocity stars is similar: Their discovery surely gives notability - but it would be better to have a secondary source saying that Kenyon discovered them, not just Kenyon's own paper. The basic idea of Wikipedia's notability is not that you did something important, but that others have acknowledged you did so.

Articles on people with importand publications sometimes have a dedicated "publications" section that lists the person's own papers without using them as references. For someone with as many publications as Kenyon we should probably only list the highlights - his book on symbiotic stars, the luminosity problem paper, the hypervelocity star paper, and so on. Huon (talk) 19:04, 27 October 2012 (UTC)