User:GoldRomean/Adopt/Not-cheesewhisk3rs

Not-cheesewhisk3rs (talk · contribs)

Hi Not-cheesewhisk3rs, and welcome to your adoption center! This is your official page, where you will find all of your lessons and tests. If you would like, you can use our own talk area, located at User talk:GoldRomean/Adopt/Not-cheesewhisk3rs to ask any general questions or comments. GoldRomean (talk) 00:57, 11 June 2025 (UTC)

Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing. – Jimbo Wales

Lesson 0: Five pillars

One of the most important essays in Wikipedia is WP:FIVEPILLARS, which sums up what we're here for. Once you get your head around these five pillars, you will be a Wikipedian. All five will be covered in this adoption school, though at different lengths.

Q1. Please summarize and explain each of the five pillars in your own words.

P1: Wikipedia's purpose is to provide information in a generally consistent way, which is mostly that of an encyclopedia. This should be kept in mind as there are many things Wikipedia must not be used for.

P2: Wikipedia is neutral, so it is not censored and keeps to a neutral point of view.

P3: Wikipedia belongs to no single person or cabal so should not be copyrighted, nor should copyrighted content be plagiarised onto here.

P4: If you are civil, respectful and always assume good faith, you might not always get along with everyone, but you will be great at interacting with the overall Wikipedia community :)

P5: Wikipedia is not paper and neither are its policies; it improves over time because consensus changes.

Comment: All basically correct, I really like your answers! GoldRomean (talk) 14:47, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

Lesson 1: Sourcing

How articles should be written

The articles in Wikipedia are designed to represent "the sum of human knowledge". Each article should be written from a neutral point of view—personal opinions should never appear. Neutrality also means giving due weight to the different points of view. If the broad scientific community has one set of opinions, then the minority opinion should not be shown as much. For example, homeopathy should not be included in a neutral article about the treatment of a broken leg. On the other hand, both sides should be presented in a controversial article where many people disagree.

To ensure that the information in an article is correct, Wikipedia has adopted a policy of verifiability. Anything written in Wikipedia should be available to confirm by looking at the associated reliable source. Wikipedia should not include anything not verifiable, or unable to be verified; in other words, it should contain no original research.

Reliable sources

So what is a source? In general, you would expect a reliable source to be published materials with a reliable publication process, authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject, or both. This doesn't mean that a source that is reliable on one topic is reliable on every topic, it must be regarded as authoritative in that topic. For example, whilst Airfix Monthly may be a good source on the first model aeroplane, I would not expect it to be authoritative on regular, full-size, airplanes.

A source that is self-published is, in general, considered unreliable, unless it is published by a recognized expert in the field. This is a very rare exception, so self-publishing is generally not allowed. This means that anything in a forum, blog, or even most websites are considered unreliable by default.

One interesting caveat is on self-published sources talking about themselves. Obviously, a source talking about itself is going to be authoritative, but be careful; the article should not be totally based on a direct source like that.

Mainstream news sources are generally considered reliable, but any single article should be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Some news organizations have been known to check their information on Wikipedia—so be careful!

Please read WP:RS for a lot more about what makes a source reliable.

Practice

Q1. List two examples of generally reliable sources (ex. The New York Times).

A1. Nature, NASA

Q2. List two examples of generally unreliable sources (ex. my friend Sally's personal blog).

A2. FANDOM, Generative artificial intelligence (especially deepfakes)

Comment: Great answers!

Questions

Any questions, or would you like to try the test?

Nope! I'll complete it now --cheesewhisk3rs (pester) 08:41, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

Test 1: Sourcing

This test is going to be based on questions. One word "yes" or "no" answers are unacceptable; please provide evidence of a "thought process". There's no time limit—answer in your own words and we will discuss your answers.

Q1. You have just discovered from a friend that the new Ford Escort is only going to be available in blue. Can you add this to the Ford Escort article?

A1. Not without them providing a source for it (or me finding one) - I can't just accept it as a fact and add it to the article but I could ask my friend for a source or Google one myself. If no source is found it can't be added to the article.

Q2. A mainstream newspaper has published a cartoon that you think is clearly racist. Can you include this as an example of racism on the newspaper's article? What about on the racism article?

A2. If "[I] think" it's racist that's not the same as reliable sources saying that it is racist. Racism is also - understandably - a really controversial topic so making a claim like that would probably be instantly reverted. Creating a discussion on the talk page might be a better alternative.

Q3. You find an article that shows that people in the state of Ohio eat more butternut squashes than anywhere in the world and ranks each of the U.S. states by squashes per head. Interestingly you find another article that ranks baldness in the United States and they are almost identical! Can you include this information anywhere on Wikipedia? Perhaps the baldness article or the butternut squash article?

A3. I don't understand if the "and they are almost identical" is important here. I'm not sure, but I've never seen a "[...] is/has the most [...] in the world/the country/etc." fact anywhere on Wikipedia. If the butternut squash fact where to be added anywhere, I think adding it to the article for butternut squash would be a little trivial, so cuisine of Ohio might be a better place to add it to. As for the baldness in the United States fact, I don't think it would be worth adding to the baldness article as it's only one country which is too specific. If there was an article on baldness in continental America or the USA then maybe it could be added there though.

Q4. Would you consider BBC News a reliable source on The Troubles? What about on its rival, ITV?

A4. I don't know anything about that conflict, but to be safe, examining sources on a case-by-case basis rather than based on the TV network would be what I would do. A conflict is a controversial issue, so if anything is disputed, more than 1 sources would be required from different news/books/etc (assuming the content in them is legitimate). As for the BBC and ITV specifically, I didn't find much about their opinions (I did a few searches).

Q5. Would you consider Ben and Jerry's official Facebook page a reliable source?

A5. If it's official, it has the credibility, but it is not an independent source. I don't know how reliable it is to use official Facebook accounts as a source, but just to be safe, another source would be better to use.

Q6. A "forum official" on a Daily Telegraph community forum comments on Daily Telegraph's stance on world hunger. Would this be a reliable source?

A6. No, because the user might have personal biases.

Q7. ChatGPT tells you that the moon is made of cheese. Can you add this to the moon article?

A7. No, because an AI is unreliable. It can take information from anywhere on the Internet without factchecking it and claim it is real, which can't be disproven. Also, anyone could claim that an AI says something, and nobody would be able to check as the text written by the AI is only visible to the person who had it generated. (Not to mention that the moon is not made of cheese.)

Q8. Would you have any problem with IMDb being used as a source in a film-related article?

A8. I'm not certain because I've never heard of it before, but taking a look at the article, it looks Wikipedia:SELFPUBlished as it's written by movie fans.

Q9. Would you have any issue with using the About Us page on Xerox as a source for the history section of the Xerox article?

A9. I think that would be a self published source because the Wikipedia:Verifiability article section on self-published sources begins with a mention of a "personal web page" as self published.

Q10. Everybody knows that the sky is blue right? An editor doesn't agree—he says it is bronze. Do you need a source?

A10. I could mention Russell's teapot and how claiming the sky is bronze would require a source to begin with, except it's faster to just send this or this instead. A source wouldn't be needed to prove the sky is blue but rather to prove it's bronze, which sources clearly say it isn't.

Since writing that I found WP:SKYBLUE, which isn't exactly what I was trying to say but I still agree with it.

Q11. A Reddit post with over 100,000 upvotes reports that over 20 million Americans believe in the Flat Earth theory. Can you add that to the Flat Earth page?

A11. No because it is self published and a lot of social media posts are hoaxes.

Results

Final score:

Questions

Any questions regarding the test?

Lesson 2: Wikiquette

WP:WIKIQUETTE is the etiquette of Wikipedia. I'm going to highlight some of the important Wikiquette items that you should try and remember.

Assume good faith—This is fundamental and you'll be seeing it a lot if you stick around. Editors here are trying to improve the encyclopedia. If you read a comment or look at an edit and it seems wrong in some way, don't just jump straight in and accuse things like vandalism or disruptive editing. Try and see it from the other editors point of view, remembering that they are also just trying to improve the encyclopedia.

On talk pages, sign your messages with four tildes ( ~~~~ ) and ping users if you want to get their attention. Try and keep to threading—have a read of WP:THREAD to see how this works. Please note that if you use [reply] button, this is done automatically, but it's helpful to know for certain areas of Wikipedia where the button is not always there.

Don't forget to assume good faith.

Watch out for common mistakes.

Be polite, and treat others as you would want to be treated.

Comment on the edits, not the editor.

Did I mention that you should assume good faith?

Q1. Should you assume good faith?

A1. Absolutely

Questions

Any questions?

No :) --cheesewhisk3rs (pester) 21:57, 28 June 2025 (UTC)