User talk:Bertissimo

May 2013

Hi. Welcome to Wikipedia, and thanks for working to improve the site with your edit to The Real World: Back to New York, as we really appreciate your participation. However, the edit had to be reverted, because Wikipedia cannot accept unsourced material or original research. This includes material lacking cited sources, material obtained through personal knowledge, or which constitutes the an analysis or interpretation of by the editor that is not found in cited sources. Wikipedia requires that the material in its articles be accompanied by reliable, verifiable (usually secondary) sources explicitly cited in the article text in the form of an inline citation, which you can learn to make here. It is possible that the friends referenced in his MTV biography are his childhood or neighborhood friends, and that the friends seen in the season are those he made at college. In any event, it is not our place to make personal observations, or analyses of source material. If you ever have any other questions about editing, or need help regarding the site's policies, just let me know by leaving a message for me in a new section at the bottom of my talk page. Thanks. :-) Nightscream (talk) 05:21, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

You're very welcome. :-)

Regarding your statement on MTV's journalistic credentials and how that fails to meet WP:V and WP:IRS, unfortunately, that's not how it works. Verifiability refers to providing in-text citations of sources, and not truth, since Wikipedia can only report what sources say, and cannot make any judgments on its own insofar as truth is concerned. (Please see Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth, as well as the other policies and guidelines I've linked you to here and above for more explanation on these.)

As for as source reliability, that is not based on some absolute standard (at least not entirely) but is also relative to the field, endeavor or area of study of which the specific article is a part. For example, while reality television is hardly a bastion of realism or authenticity, when we write what happens in episodes, for example, naturally, the episodes themselves are usually going to function as the source for them. Similarly, the biographical material we have for cast members is derived from MTV, even if MTV is hardly a paragon of truth. Granted, we also do come across other sources for the cast bio material, which you can see in the current article and others, but we can't rely on personal knowledge, since that is called original research, which isn't permitted. Similarly, while it is certainly valid to report when something we see that in a source is wrong, removing it or correctly it without a correspondingly reliable or more reliable source is problematic, for the same reason.

The MTV bio for Melissa Padron from the Miami season, for example, once stated that she had worked as a phone sex operator. Someone tried to remove that from the article on the grounds that this was wrong, but the problem with this is that we can't just accept take it on some editor's word. Ultimately, the editor (who was presumably Ms. Padron or one of her friends or family members) contacted MTV, who then removed that bit of info from their website, and that was when I was okay with removing it from Wikipedia.

If you have sources that specifically address that information about Malik, or the MTV bio, feel free to present them, and I'll work with you in examining this issue, and if necessary, amending the article. I would suggest you begin by familiarizing yourself with policies I've linked to here: WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:IRS and WP:USERG. Let me know if you have any questions.

Btw, when creating a new heading, the material in that section goes under the heading. Thanks again. :-) Nightscream (talk) 02:09, 12 May 2013 (UTC)