User talk:Terran57

'Yowani Choctaws' listed for deletion

A page that you have been involved in editing, Yowani Choctaws, has been listed for deletion; you may wish to participate in the deletion discussion. Thank you. StaticGull Talk 13:50, 16 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mount Tabor Indian Cemetery and editing stuff

I have deleted Mount Tabor Indian Cemetery because it was a copyright infringement. You cannot take information from someone else's webpage and post it in its entirety (or pretty close) on Wikipedia, even if it is cited. Not only is that a copyright infringement, but other websites present information differently than Wikipedia and have different rules than Wikipedia, so it is often not appropriate to paste the information. I've also recently done a cleanup on the article Yowani Choctaws.

You appear to be a new contributor who is anxious to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Choctaw topics, but you might want to review some of Wikipedia's core policies and guidelines:

No original research and verifiability - Wikipedia can't publish information that hasn't already been published somewhere else. Commentary is not allowed.
Reliable sources - Information on WP should be cited to a reliable source. This usually does not include a self-published source like a website. Books, journal articles and newspaper articles are considered reliable sources.
Neutral point of view (NPOV) - Articles on wikipedia must be written in the neutral point of view. That means we present facts but not opinions. This is especially difficult, but equally necessary, in articles on Native American history. For example, it is not NPOV to say that "Things were changing in Texas and not for the good as 1835 passed on to 1836." That type of sentence should be left out, and instead the article should focus on explaning the events that happened. Then the reader can make the determination for themselves as to whether the changes were good or bad.
How to cite sources - You've done a great job including the list of sources that you used, but it would also be helpful if you used inline citations. That way people can see where each piece of the article comes from. Information about the history of Native American tribes is often disputed, and having inline citations for each piece of information helps readers to understand who is saying what.

It might also be helpful to read Wikipedia:Writing better articles. There's lots of rules at Wikipedia, and it's often hard when you are new to figure out what to do. Your work is helping to fill in some big gaps that Wikipedia has right now. If you need any help understanding any of the policies or figuring out how they apply to what you are trying to do, please ask me. I'll be happy to help! Karanacs (talk) 17:38, 25 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]