Hi Ally2good: Per your request at User talk:MrLinkinPark333#Ocarina of Time and username question, I have userfied the content you have requested to your userspace at User:Ally2good/The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I recommend that you merge the usable content you mentioned at the discussion into the The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time article. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 02:57, 23 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Will do. Any chance you could also look into the username part of my question? If it isn't any trouble. Or did you? Thanks again! Ally2good (talk) 15:03, 23 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Ally2good, and welcome to Wikipedia. Thank you for your contributions to the encyclopedia. If you need assistance, check out the Getting Help section below or place {{Help me}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by using four tildes (~~~~), which will automatically produce your username and the date. Also, please always fill in the edit summary field to describe your edits. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. Cordially, North America1000 03:02, 23 February 2016 (UTC)}}[reply] Getting started Wikipedia's five pillars • A tutorial • Getting mentored How to: Edit a page • Upload and use images • Create your first article Article Creation Wizard Getting help Frequently asked questions • Tips Where to ask questions or make comments • Help desk • Teahouse • Help directory Request administrator attention Policies and guidelines Neutral point of view • No original research Verifiability • Reliable sources • Citing sources • Topic notability What Wikipedia is not • Biographies of living persons List of policies • List of guidelines • Three-revert rule • Copyrights Image use policy • Policy for non-free content • Deletion policy External links • Spam • Vandalism • Conflict of interest • Sock puppetry Writing articles Be bold in editing • Develop an article • Simplified manual of style Stubs • Categories • Disambiguation The perfect article • Peer review • Featured content The community Assume good faith • Civility • Etiquette Build consensus • Resolve disputes • No personal attacks • No legal threats Community portal • Village pump • Signpost • IRC channels Miscellaneous User pages • Talk pages • Portals Clean up: General • Spam • Vandalism Join a WikiProject • Translation Useful templates • Tools • User scripts Awards that registered contributors can achieve and award

User:Ally2good/The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, a page which you created or substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; you may participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Ally2good/The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of User:Ally2good/The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 04:39, 16 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I see on Northamerica1000's talk page that you requested restoration of the page at User:Ally2good/The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Per the userpage policy on copies of mainspace articles, we don't usually host copies of mainspace articles in userspace for long, for attribution reasons. Do you have a specific intent to work on this copy in a way that will be integrated into mainspace in a timely manner, as the policy requires? ♠PMC♠ (talk) 00:44, 30 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You mean will I merge any usable content to the page promptly? I will. As for attribution, how do you handle this if you know the info is genuine, but the source is now defunct? Allytogood (talk) 06:08, 30 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hosting userspace copies of mainspace articles is supposed to be temporary, for "short-term, active drafting or experimental purposes". It's not supposed to be long-term. Is there a specific reason for restoring this specific, very old copy of the mainspace article for you to work on, instead of you working on the mainspace version, which is significantly different and a featured article?

In this case, "attribution" doesn't refer to sources and citations in the article. It refers to the credit, or attribution, for anyone who makes edits to a page. The copying within Wikipedia page has more detail, but basically, copying stuff into userspace can create problems with attributing the right changes to the right people, because it's just a copy of the text without any of the history saying who did what and when. If that gets copied back into mainspace, it can make it confusing to figure out who introduced what content.

That being said, with regard to dead sources: unfortunately, we can't rely on an editor "knowing" the information is genuine. There has to be a source that can be pointed to so other editors can verify the facts. Otherwise, the info is likely to be challenged and removed. Have you tried archive.org to check for archived versions? ♠PMC♠ (talk) 06:32, 30 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. The reason is as you noted that a significant chunk of info varies. Specifically said info comes from a Times article that offers the earliest citation of the creator's personal thoughts on the lasting impact of the mainspace topic, among possible other details. Moreover, this source is linked to a follow-up interview by Times only six months later, to which I do have a source and relevant to the info I want to transpose from the requested content. Thank you for your clarification on the rest. I understand now. Allytogood (talk) 17:53, 30 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, you're looking to source and re-introduce the content from the deleted version? I'll undelete, but you need to be careful to correctly attribute the userspace content when you put it back into main. It looks like the bulk of the userspace version was copied into userspace by Tristam on March 26, 2007, possibly from the March 26 version of the mainspace article (this diff is a close match but not exact). Because he didn't say exactly what version he copied from, it's hard to be sure, so it makes the attribution cloudy. In your edit summary for any edit re-introducing the userspace content, you need to link to the userspace article and explain the situation. (Something like, "re-adding content from User:Allytogood/The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, created from the March 25 version of this article: [1], now sourced", except copy the source text not the rendered text when you use that.) ♠PMC♠ (talk) 18:22, 30 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Side note, I'm going to undelete it at User:Allytogood/The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time rather than User:Ally2good/The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time since the first is your actual username. And, also, the undelete will only be temporary in order to permit this re-integration - after that, it really should be deleted again to prevent this kind of thing. Please tag it with {{Db-userreq}} once you are done. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 18:24, 30 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I've saved the page and will note what you've said, but I believe I'll have to track down the original Times magazine for the full context before I can do what you've suggested. Tristam's mainspace is scarcer than I remember on the specific topic I had in mind. Allytogood (talk) 06:03, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Best luck. I have access to Highbeam and Newspapers.com if the Times you're thinking of is archived at either. Just let me know. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 06:38, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]