Talk:Bentzin

The new information here (biography of Bentzin/company history) is good, but would be better if it cited a source. --Dustin McAmera (talk) 21:02, 19 January 2016 (CST)

The "new" information about Bentzin is based on more than 10 years of intensive research. In this research the work of Curt Bentzin and his cameras was meticulously checked. The information was compiled from company brochures, archive records, contemporary press information etc. which were available at the time of writing this article. Of cause it is not perfect, f.e. the start and end time of the different cameras could be even more precise. --hs (talk) 23:00, 22 January 2016 (CET)

Of course, I wasn't trying to cast doubt on the accuracy of what you have written. I'm glad to see someone knows enough to work on this: I know nothing about Bentzin (I even had to come back and edit how I'd spelled it)! I just meant to say, it's good practice to include citations to the sources of information used. Firstly, in the case of information taken from published books or other websites, it's courteous to acknowledge the work of authors and other researchers. Secondly, it may allow your readers to go and read the same source for themselves. Of course, this isn't always possible (if you cite a brochure that you have as a paper copy, others may not be able to find the same document for themselves), but anyway, it shows the care that has been taken to be sure the facts are correct. If you know a certain fact because someone from the camera factory told you in person, it's even ok to cite that; something like 'Personal communication from an ex-Zeiss factory worker, 1985.' For more about this, see our Help page Help:Citing sources.

In Camera-wiki (as in Wikipedia and most other serious wikis) we use footnotes for citing sources, inserted with the <ref> syntax. So in the edit-box, you might write:

'... in 1901 the companies bank ran into financial problems and Aktiengesellschaft Camerawerk Palmos was liquidated.<ref>Reported in ''Görlitzer Zeitung'', 29 May 1901.</ref>'

The footnote inserted like this will appear in the body text as a small blue footnote-number like this; (blue because it's a clickable link to the footnote itself). At the bottom of an article with refs, you have to add a marker where the footnotes themselves should appear. This is <references/>. We usually put it below a section title 'Notes': in the edit-box, we write:

==Notes==
<references/>

That footnote will appear in a numbered list with any others:

Notes

For a good example of the use of footnotes, look at almost any article written by User:rebollo_fr; one such is Semi Olympus.

Cheers! --Dustin McAmera (talk) 16:30, 22 January 2016 (CST)