User talk:WiseOldRafiki

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Please start a message and I will answer ASAP. Thanks and have an awesome day!

[edit] Finn Whitman

Someone - not logged on so I can't tell who - left a note on my talk page about Finn Whitman - I assume it's you as it talks about creating the article, but even if it isn't the following is probably worth reading

Dear Iridescenti -

I created a Finn Whitman page to discuss a character from the novel, The Kingdom Keepers. You recently placed a "notability issure" box on the page. If you could please tell me what (exactly) this means and help me to complete what's necessary, I would be so thankful! I'm wlling to do what I need to do in order to keep at least one of my articles on Wikipedia.

Thanks for your time - --72.199.242.220 20:49, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Basically, it means that you have to prove the character is important enough to warrant his own page rather than just a paragraph in the page for the book. This is annoying - and everyone here has had articles deleted because of it - but it's necessary to stop Wikipedia getting overrun with pages on every minor topic there is. Read WP:N for a full discussion of what a page needs to have to stay up ('notability' in Wikipedia jargon); the most important thing, which every page needs to have, is "multiple non-trivial independent sources". It sounds a lot more complicated than it is - basically, you need to show that other books, newspapers etc talk about the character (eg, "the character of Finn Whitman is important because...").

Once you've found a couple of sources, put them into the article. The "correct" way to do it is at WP:CITE, but don't worry too much about doing it perfectly; as long as you put the references in, someone will at some point tidy it up.

The system is a bit unfair on new books - established characters from older or from very famous books (for example Peter Pettigrew or Heathcliff) stay up even though they break all the rules, because the admins know that the characters genuinely are important, while with newer books they don't necessarily recognise the names. As long as you've made the effort and the article isn't nonsense, the worst that will happen is that it will get merged with the main article; despite what some people think, most people here don't like deleting things if they can possibly help it. If someone does decide to delete it, don't take it as an insult; it won't just vanish, but will go to Articles for Deletion, where everyone (including you) can explain why it ought to be kept or deleted. It might be a good idea to have a look at the current AfD's and see what kind of things are being kept and what's being deleted.

Hope that helps! It would probably be a good idea to have a look at WikiProject Children's Literature and ask for help on their talk page as there's a good chance someone there will be able to help further. - iridescenti (talk to me!) 21:16, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes - basically, because Wikipedia's s "tertiary source", every article needs to show that someone else thinks it's important. - iridescenti (talk to me!) 14:16, 19 April 2007 (UTC)