Hello, All.labour.in.vain, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions, especially what you did for Newdigate Prize. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:
The faster your respond, the better chance the article you created can be saved. This is because deletion debates only stay open for a few days, and the first comments are usually the most important.
There are several tools and other editors who can help you keep the page from being deleted forever:
You can request a mentor to help explain to you all of the complex rules that editors use to get a page deleted, here: Wikipedia:Adopt-a-User. But don't wait for a mentor to respond on the deletion page.
When try to delete a page, veteran editors love to use a lot of rule acronyms. Don't let these acronyms intimidate you. Here is a list of your own acronyms you can use yourself: WP:Deletion debate acronyms which may support the page you created being kept. Acronyms in deletion debates are sometimes incorrectly used, or ignore rules or exceptions.
You can merge the article into a larger or better established article on the same topic.
I am very impressed with your debating skills. I hope this episode was not stressful, and I sincerely invite you to call on me if you ever need assistance in your future editorial contributions. Be well. Ecoleetage (talk) 18:04, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I love an intelligent and spirited exchange of ideas, and this was a wonderfully refreshing debate. Again, my congratulations. And I am going to head over to Amazon to see about obtaining a copy of Mr. Abbott's new book! Stay in touch and be well. Ecoleetage (talk) 18:21, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This is an automated message from CorenSearchBot. I have performed a web search with the contents of Tower Poetry, and it appears to include a substantial copy of http://towerpoetry.org.uk/about/index.html. For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions will be deleted. You may use external websites as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences.
This message was placed automatically, and it is possible that the bot is confused and found similarity where none actually exists. If that is the case, you can remove the tag from the article and it would be appreciated if you could drop a note on the maintainer's talk page. CorenSearchBot (talk) 10:50, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Guide to referencing
Click on "show" on the right of the orange bar to open contents.
Using references (citations)
Help another user by posting this to them. Put {{subst:refstart}} on their talk page or a relevant article talk page.
Alternatively, use the link WP:REFB, which goes to a help page.
I thought you might find it useful to have some information about references (refs) on wikipedia. These are important to validate your writing and inform the reader. Any editor can remove unreferenced material; and unsubstantiated articles may end up getting deleted, so when you add something to an article, it's highly advisable to also include a reference to say where it came from. Referencing may look daunting, but it's easy enough to do. Here's a guide to getting started. If you need any assistance, let me know. -- Ty12:49, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Good references
A reference must be accurate, i.e. it must prove the statement in the text. To validate "Mike Brown climbed Everest", it's no good linking to a page about Everest, if Mike Brown isn't mentioned, nor to one on Mike Brown, if it doesn't say that he climbed Everest. You have to link to a source that proves his achievement is true. You must use reliable sources, such as published books, mainstream press, and authorised web sites. Blogs, Myspace, Youtube, fan sites and extreme minority texts are not usually acceptable, nor is original research (e.g. your own unpublished, or self-published, essay or research), or another wikipedia article.
Inserting a reference
The first thing you have to do is to create a "Notes and references" section (unless it already exists). This goes towards the bottom of the page, below the "See also" section and above the "External links" section. Enter this code:
==Notes and references==
{{reflist}}
The next step is to put a reference in the text. Here is the code to do that. It goes at the end of the relevant term, phrase, sentence, or paragraph to which the note refers, and after punctuation such as a full stop, without a space (to prevent separation through line wrap):
<ref> </ref>
Whatever text you put in between these two tags will become visible in the "Notes and references" section as your reference.
Test it out
Open the edit box for this page, copy the following text (inserting your own text where indicated), paste it at the bottom of the page and save the page:
==Reference test==
This is the text which you are going to verify with a reference.<ref>Reference details go here</ref>
==Notes and references==
{{reflist}}
(End of text to copy and paste.)
It should appear like this:
Reference test
This is the text which you are going to verify with a reference.[1]
Note the single square brackets around the URL and the article title. The format is:
[http://URL "Title of article"]
Make sure there is a space between the URL and the Title. This code results in the URL being hidden and the title showing as a link. Use double apostrophes for the article title (it is quoted text), and two single quote marks either side of the name of the paper (to generate italics). Double square brackets round the name of the paper create an internal link (a wikilink) to the relevant wikipedia article. Apostrophes must go outside the brackets.
The date after The Guardian is the date of the newspaper, and the date after "Retrieved on" is the date you accessed the site – useful for searching the web archive in case the link goes dead.
References not online
You can use sources which are not online, but which you have found in a library or elsewhere—in which case leave out the information which is not relevant. The newspaper example above would be formatted like this:
The first time a reference appears in the article, you can give it a simple name in the <ref> code:
<ref name=smith>Details of ref here</ref>
The second time you use the same reference in the article, you need only to create a short cut instead of typing it all out again:
<ref name=smith/>
You can then use the short cut as many times as you want. Don't forget the /, or it will blank the rest of the article! Some symbols don't work in the ref name, but you'll find out if you use them.
You can see multiple use of the same refs in action in the article William Bowyer (artist). There are 3 sources and they are each referenced 3 times. Each statement in the article has a footnote to show what its source is.
Alternative system
The above method is simple and combines references and notes into one section. A refinement is to put the full details of the references in their own section headed "References", while the notes which apply to them appear in a separate section headed "Notes". The notes can be inserted in the main article text in an abbreviated form as seen in Harriet Arbuthnot or in a full form as in Brown Dog affair.
A proposed deletion template has been added to the article Paul Thomas Abbott, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process because of the following concern:
Doesn't seem nearly notable enough. WP:NOTE. Seems like he is known for one poem that was simply mentioned in a mainstream media article. The award he was given has very few articles about the winners. President of your university's poetry society is not NOTE. Neither is being published in a single journal. Most of the original edits were done by a now-deleted user. And subsequent edits have been by not-logged-in-users. This in itself isn't a violation of anything, but shows that very few established editors find this article worth working with. This is an obvious violation of WP:NOTE.
All contributions are appreciated, but this article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice should explain why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page.
I have nominated Paul Thomas Abbott, an article that you created, for deletion. I do not think that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Paul Thomas Abbott (2nd nomination). Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time.
If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the page does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that they userfy the page or have a copy emailed to you. Peppagetlk13:17, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Flood (poem) 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 good 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 template from the top of the article. John Vandenberg(chat)04:09, 14 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
