User talk:Softlavender

(copied from his talkpage)

I find a lot of the sources through databases available through Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library (TWL) as well as other databases I have access to. When searching for sources for AfD, the resources I find most useful are the British Newspaper Archive, EBSCO, Gale (Wikipedia:Gale), ProQuest, and Wikipedia:Newspapers.com, and to a much lesser extent Wikipedia:Newspaperarchive.com. I also have access to NewsBank which The Wikipedia Library is missing. NewsBank frequently has sources that the other databases don't have (and vice versa). Some academic institutions and public libraries grant access to NewsBank. I also do searches on Internet Archive, Google, Google Books, Google News, and Google Scholar.

Using Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Oasis (British TV series) as an example: For Oasis (British TV series), I was able to find a television review in The Stage via the British Newspaper Archive and ProQuest as well several articles in Newspapers.com. Compared to to topics with unique names, it was more difficult to find sources for Oasis, which is a common name. I refined the search by searching for "Oasis" and people or topics related to the television series such as "Carlton Television", "Carlton", "ITV", "CITV", "Zenith North", "Dean Gaffney", "John Simm", "Posh Robert", "wasteland", "The Jungle", and "Byker Grove" which helped filter out irrelevant results. Another tip is I used quotation marks around search terms so that the query returned only results with those exact phrases. When there were too many results, I also refined the searches by narrowing search results to the years 1992 to 1994 since the television series aired in 1993. For some topics, I do several combinations of searches in multiple places which is why for some of the harder cases it takes me between one and three hours for source searches.

Cunard (talk) 09:32, 27 August 2024 (UTC) )

Softlavender, thanks again for your efforts regarding the image of the painting The Goddess Pele by the late Arthur Johnsen, whom I knew personally and attended some of his classes as an amateur. Because I'm editing in German more frequently, I'm not too familiar with the quite intricate rules in the English Wikipedia. Please let me know, if there's any way I can assist. I think, the image should be shown in the articles Arthur Johnsen (The Goddess Pele) and Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park (Painting of Pele). Best, --ThT (talk) 11:51, 16 December 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the message, ThT! I agree the image should be restored to the Arthur Johnsen article, and I will create a rationale for that and do it, when I have a decent amount of time. In terms of HVNP, I will have to look at the article and see. Cheers, Softlavender (talk) 20:51, 16 December 2025 (UTC)

Well, I've tried to help here and there. During the process I noticed, that Maluhia Kuahiwinui, a daughter of the late uncle Robert, was the model for Arthur (). I had the privilege to talk to uncle once and in 2015 I attended his funeral in Kaimū. Best, --ThT (talk) 16:21, 29 December 2025 (UTC)

I know that you have commented about this article before, in addition to working on it. There is a new discussion on the Talk page about the list of recordings listed in the article. Feel free to contribute to the discussion. -- Ssilvers (talk) 14:54, 9 February 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping; somehow the article wasn't still on my watchlist. Too often allowing personal preferences in adding recordings results in vast random COATRACKs that spin out of control. I think the only way to prevent that is to require criteria such as charting cover or from a charting album. Too many covers get "reviewed" but that doesn't mean they belong in a cover list, especially for a GAS or popular or showtune standard. Softlavender (talk) 04:11, 10 February 2026 (UTC)