User talk:TomHedges
Welcome![edit]
Hi Tom, thanks for reaching out! I'm excited that you want to help improve the article about your father at Andrew Hedges (bobsleigh), since it's pretty bare right now, and it sounds like he had an interesting career.
Since you're a family member, the best way to edit is slightly indirect, to avoid conflict of interest issues (see Wikipedia:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide): you can recommend changes by writing on the "talk" page here: Talk:Andrew Hedges (bobsleigh). You can propose a new term for the article title and provide the new text that you'd propose for the article body. It's ideal to include sources for anything you'd like to add, such as links to newspaper or magazine articles, or citations to pages in a published book.
I'll keep an eye on that "talk" page so that I can help with integrating the new material into the article. Please let me know if you have more questions. Dreamyshade (talk) 03:22, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
- This seems like an incredibly inefficient method of creating the correct content for the page as it relies on others responding to requests rather than a proactive approach. The source material to update the entry is readily available online so I can easily include them. I think the best way forward would be to create a new page and request a redirect from the original author. How does one go about creating a new page entry? TomHedges (talk) 07:24, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
- Sure, it's inefficient, but supports the integrity of Wikipedia - it's the appropriate process here for contributing to articles when a person has some form of relationship with the subject of the article. It gives an opportunity for an independent non-affiliated person to review the material, and I can do that work.
- You can also write a new draft of the article in your sandbox (User:TomHedges/sandbox), or you can create a standalone draft article - see Wikipedia:Drafts for instructions. When you're ready for review, you can post a link to the draft on Talk:Andrew Hedges (bobsleigh), or just write a note on my talk page, and I'll check it out, fix any formatting issues or typos or other miscellaneous issues, and integrate the material into the "main" article. If I'm not available or taking too long to respond (I'm just a fellow volunteer), you can add an "edit requested" tag to the page as described at Wikipedia:Edit requests, and that will alert other editors who may be interested in helping you.
- Really I'd recommend that kind of draft process for new editors interested in doing major work on any stub article, even if you didn't have a relationship with the subject. Wikipedia formatting and house style can be fussy and a little complicated, and it can be nice to work out the details at your own pace in a sandbox instead of seeing somebody revert your changes because there's an issue that you could have fixed. I'm myself working on a draft at Draft:Weston Havens House even though I have no relationship with the subject, so that I gradually write the article at my own pace. Dreamyshade (talk) 14:18, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
- Oh, for example, in your recent edits to the article, you removed the citation to the MG Vintage Racers' Newsletter, and you added new material that doesn't have any citations. Most sentences should have a citation to a source, so that the reader can find out where the information is verified (Wikipedia:Verifiability) - it's one reason why my own draft isn't ready yet, because I haven't integrated references for all the information yet. There's also now a red "warning" at the bottom of the article about a minor technical issue you introduced. Wikipedia house style avoids descriptions like "infamous". All of those issues are fixable, not a reason to get discouraged, but all are great examples of why working in a draft space, with support from another editor, is very helpful while you're getting started. Dreamyshade (talk) 14:27, 4 August 2023 (UTC)