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Garth saloner

What is that academic notability tag you used? I've run across a few articles that could use it... 98.248.32.178 (talk) 17:04, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

It is {{notability|academics}}. The {{notability}} template is documented at Template:Notability, and academics is just one of several arguments which can be added. JamesBWatson (talk) 07:02, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, it should come in handy. 98.248.32.178 (talk) 07:05, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Removal of PROD from Rue de la Bûcherie

Hello JamesBWatson, this is an automated message from SDPatrolBot to inform you the PROD template you added to Rue de la Bûcherie has been removed. It was removed by Phil Bridger with the following edit summary '(remove prod tag - if you think this should have more citations then you can find hundreds of sources with a Google Books search)'. Please consider discussing your concerns with Phil Bridger before pursuing deletion further yourself. If you still think the article should be deleted after communicating with the 'dePRODer,' you may want to send the article to AfD for community discussion. Thank you, SDPatrolBot (talk) 20:32, 5 August 2009 (UTC) (Learn how to opt out of these messages)

New page: LO MÁS IMPORTANTE DE LA VIDA ES NO HABER MUERTO

Dear JamesBWatson,

LO MÁS IMPORTANTE DE LA VIDA ES NO HABER MUERTO is an important arthouse film, with notable Spanish actors, namely Emilio Gutiérrez Caba and Marián Aguilera. The film will be completed September 2009 and will start on the festival/ theatrical distribution circuit soonafter.

The page is not worthy of deletion. Both actors have requested cross-references from their English and Spanish wiki pages.

Please contact me saskia_vischer@mac.com if you require any additional information.

Kind regards, Saskia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.105.101.56 (talk) 15:19, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

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Removal of PROD from SIM Reservoir

Hello JamesBWatson, this is an automated message from SDPatrolBot to inform you the PROD template you added to SIM Reservoir has been removed. It was removed by Norfrode with the following edit summary '(Removed the deletion marking on the top as this product has unique features that makes it noteworthy)'. Please consider discussing your concerns with Norfrode before pursuing deletion further yourself. If you still think the article should be deleted after communicating with the 'dePRODer,' you may want to send the article to AfD for community discussion. Thank you, SDPatrolBot (talk) 01:34, 18 August 2009 (UTC) (Learn how to opt out of these messages)

Removal of PROD from Servo Robot Group

Hello JamesBWatson, this is an automated message from SDPatrolBot to inform you the PROD template you added to Servo Robot Group has been removed. It was removed by Judlef with the following edit summary '(no edit summary)'. Please consider discussing your concerns with Judlef before pursuing deletion further yourself. If you still think the article should be deleted after communicating with the 'dePRODer,' you may want to send the article to AfD for community discussion. Thank you, SDPatrolBot (talk) 23:03, 21 August 2009 (UTC) (Learn how to opt out of these messages)

AFd comment

re this, check out the date the actual article was deleted compared to when the afd was closed and who deleted it. Made me laugh--Jac16888^Talk 21:24, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Makes me wonder why I bother. JamesBWatson (talk) 08:13, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

MyPath

Thanks for the warning. --Orange Mike | Talk 13:03, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

For copyright reasons...

Why did you modify the corporate FAQ to remove that shared accounts are not allowed "for copyright reasons"? Has the foundation changed its policy with regard to shared copyright attribution? Was this change published somewhere? Gigs (talk) 20:06, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

It was a while ago when I did this. Perhaps it was a mistake; I can't remember the exact circumstances. It might help to be given a link to the page in question so I could look back at it. JamesBWatson (talk) 07:58, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Since writing the above I have coincidentally had to refer to the same FAQ for other reasons. I had previously failed to find it because it is called FAQ/Organizations, so searching for various combinations including corporate was a waste of time. I think my edit summary "Not for copyright reasons" was a mistake, and I can't think why I wrote that. However, it does not seem to me that it is necessary to specify "for copyright reasons" in the FAQ: a FAQ should give the essential information concisely, and background information such as the reason for the policy belongs elsewhere, such as the relevant policy document. Therefore, whatever my thoughts may have been at the time, I now think that it is better left out, but I would not get upset if it went back in. JamesBWatson (talk) 11:38, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm still trying to find a solid source for it. I know I had one somewhere (a mailing list post from someone official)... We can leave it out for now. Gigs (talk) 13:55, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

NOINDEX in Sandbox

Thanks for placing NOINDEX in my Sandbox code. I was unaware that I needed to take this step, and another editor had previously deleted my entire sandbox page (with some work I had been keeping on it that wasn't fully backed up on my hard drive) without explaining to me that they did so because it was improperly showing up in the index. So give yourself some "helping rather than unnecessarily frustrating an inexperienced Wikipedian" point or two. Leeatcookerly (talk) 15:11, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

You are welcome. I suppose I should have explained what I was doing, instead of just doing it, but evidently you have found out anyway. If there is anything else I can help you with, let me know on my talk page. JamesBWatson (talk) 20:24, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Alice duplicate

Sorry to brand you as a newbie. I can't remember how I found it, but the article looked odd. After a too brief investigation, I "prodded" it. Glad you agree. JMcC (talk) 11:18, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Removal of PROD from GNOME Games

Hello JamesBWatson, this is an automated message from SDPatrolBot to inform you the PROD template you added to GNOME Games has been removed. It was removed by ThaddeusB with the following edit summary '(contest prod - appears to be a notable software collection (see http://books.google.com/books?um=1&q=%22GNOME+Games%22&btnG=Search+Books) - at worst it should be merged - will source & expand ASAP)'. Please consider discussing your concerns with ThaddeusB before pursuing deletion further yourself. If you still think the article should be deleted after communicating with the 'dePRODer,' you may want to send the article to AfD for community discussion. Thank you, SDPatrolBot (talk) 22:54, 27 August 2009 (UTC) (Learn how to opt out of these messages)

Judlef

Hi; Judlef (talk · contribs) has responded to your comments and asked further questions on their talk page, but they used a 'helpme' tag to do so. I have cancelled out the tag, tried to explain it a bit, and said I'd let you know here. Cheers,  Chzz  ►  14:17, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

sockpuppet

May I wikilink sockpuppets?

BTW, why are your editing previews and editing comments so, like, hidden?

Also, if you read user cpiral, you'll remember that user page, (well, maybe not the logic why I e-love Wikipedia, but you'll remember the contents outline).
The outline's landed just, well... right. Thanks. CpiralCpiral 09:16, 5 September 2009 (UTC) —Preceding comment added by Cpiral (talk • contribs) 09:16, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't really understand this post. You may wikilink sockpuppets, but where and why do you want to? Can you be more specific about how you think "editing previews and editing comments" are hidden, and what you want to know about them? JamesBWatson (talk) 10:13, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusion. I was attributing my browser faults to some imagined wizardry on your part. (My browser would not let me wikilink sockpuppet, a word you used in the article under discussion. My browser would show neither the Edit summary box (which I called the "editing comment" box) nore the Preview section.) Forgive me. I was too tired to be so bold, because it was late at night.

I have corrected myself here. I have wikilinked your use of sockpuppet. And my user page is still recommended reading there-->CpiralCpiral 19:40, 8 September 2009 (UTC).

Ah, now I understand, at least partly. However, it might have been easier to understand if you had said you wanted to wikilink "sockpuppets" on my user page. Also I still don't know what I am supposed to remember when I look at your user page. Finally, I think it is more useful to wikilink to Wikipedia:Sock_puppetry rather than to Sockpuppet, which is about hand puppets made from socks. JamesBWatson (talk) 11:55, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Personally, because I am a poetic and deep writer, all sockpuppets, I would weakly argue, are the same. For the same reason, and because you say on your user page you "occasionally" find an interesting user page, check out my outline and checkout my footnote. These two are most catchy of interest.

Wikipedially, I just realized (duh) the logic why there was "no Edit Summary Box" when I was adding a new section to your discussions. There need not be one!

This discussion has been a dandy for me, and I've learned, partly from a hint by User:Marx01, that an email might be a better venue for user page recommendations. Thank you for lending me your keen focus JamesBWatson.

CpiralCpiral 16:14, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Port of Ravenna

Hi James The picture you removed from "Port of Ravenna" is one of the 2 original V Century wall pictures (musaics) referred through the article That picture was already in the "commons", but there are problem to find "free" pictures of nowadays port. Your work is much appreciated, anyway. Thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alberto bazzi (talk • contribs) 10:38, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

My edit summary was "Remove unclear image of at best marginal relevance". Perhaps more precise would have been "Remove image so small that it is impossible to see what it represents at the scale at which it appears, depicting something which may be relevant to the article, but, since there is no caption or other explanation of the picture, it is impossible to know what its relevance is." There was no mention of the picture in the article. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:49, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Paul Haygood

See this comment above yours. You may wish to edit your remarks. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 13:14, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I had thought carefully about that comment before writing mine. I can find no evidence that the society has issued a publication under the title given. If anyone cares to follow the matter up and check with the society then that will be very helpful in resolving any residual element of doubt, but I am not willing to spend more time on it, as this looks to me very much like a duck. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:23, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

On second thoughts, although I suspect this reference to be spurious, I will give it the benefit of the doubt for now. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:28, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Please don't misunderstand, I too think this is smells like a hoax, but the reference does exist. Thanks. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 13:46, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I didn't misunderstand, in fact your ANI comment to which you link was what originally called my attention to the Paul Haygood article. However, it is not clear to me that the reference exists. JamesBWatson (talk) 14:01, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Northgate Information Solutions

An article that you have been involved in editing, Northgate Information Solutions, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Northgate Information Solutions. Thank you.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. Thryduulf (talk) 14:03, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

re: Copyright Law

Thanks for your message. I've read the Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing essay, and it states "Closely paraphrased material that infringes on the copyright of its source material should be rewritten or deleted to avoid infringement". I believe the offending sections have been rewritten per this essay - it says nothing about having to delete the entire article and start from scratch. The policy Wikipedia:Copyright violations states that text in violation of copyright should be removed or rewritten. Many articles have text pasted into them in violation of copyright and this is simply reverted. If this is incorrect, can I suggest that you ask an administrator to delete those versions from the article history that are in breach of copyright, though of course this may raise issues regarding attribution. If you believe that the guidelines should state that an article containing copyright violations should be deleted and recreated then perhaps you could also raise this at the appropriate forum so that the guidelines and policies can be changed or clarified? Thanks. --Michig (talk) 16:06, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Off hand I can't give chapter and verse for Wikipedia policy or guideline support for "the whole article should be deleted", but I am pretty sure the principal is mentioned somewhere. It is true that this principle is not usually followed in cases where the copyright infringement applies only to small parts of an article, and indeed in cases where a small amount of unacceptable material has been pasted into a longstanding and much-edited article doing so would be more trouble than it is worth; however, it is common practice (whether it is a policy or not) to delete and restart way if substantially the whole of an article is involved. In any case, whatever Wikipedia policies and guidelines do or do not say, retaining material which breaches copyright in a publicly accessible form is illegal, and any copyright holder would be justified in demanding that it be deleted. Having said all that, I don't feel strongly enough about it to take the further actions that you suggest, but I still think that it is better practice, where all or a substantial portion of a page infringes copyright, to follow the delete/recreate line, and I have in the past done so myself. JamesBWatson (talk) 16:28, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Talkback

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UltraMagnus (talk) 20:40, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Qaimganj

I moved Qaimganj. Talk:Kaimganj contained a post by you, which I'm copying here in case you want to reinsert it into the new Talk:Kaimganj:

Wikipedia's policy on [[Wikipedia:Naming_conventions|the naming of articles]] is that we should normally use the name most commonly used and recognised in English. My investigation indicates that "Kaimanj" is ''far'' more common in English than "Qaimanj": for example a Google search for pages in English containing "Qaimganj" produces 203 hits, while a similar search for "Kaimganj" produces 9650. (It does not, in fact, make much difference if we do not restrict the search to pages in English: the corresponding figures are respectively 234 and 10600.) Consequently the article's title should be "Kaimganj", not "Qaimganj". [[User:JamesBWatson|JamesBWatson]] ([[User talk:JamesBWatson|talk]]) 11:59, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

— Sebastian 19:54, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Caroline

It started out as a hoax, but after re-reading, I came across this gem: "By this time she had finished her ninth volume, The Politics of Puberty, which analysed angst in the international arena and gave advice on how to pick up men. A friend at the time, Percy Rockefeller-Vanderbilt III, remembered, “Everybody liked Caroline at Exeter. Her ability to change water into wine added to her popularity.” Comparing someone to Jesus Christ and claiming that they gave advice on how to pick up men crossed the line from hoax, to personal defamation/attack. Just sayin' ;o) --OliverTwisted ^(Talk) (Stuff) 13:21, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I see what you mean. However, "hoax" seems blatantly clear to me, while "attack" is at best less obvious, so I think we are safer with "hoax". JamesBWatson (talk) 13:24, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

You are probably right. "Boozehound" isn't much better though... --OliverTwisted ^(Talk) (Stuff) 13:25, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Speedy deletion declined: Here Come The Girls - The Tour

Hello JamesBWatson, and thanks for your work patrolling new changes. I am just informing you that I declined the speedy deletion of Here Come The Girls - The Tour - a page you tagged - because: Not unambiguously promotional. Please review the criteria for speedy deletion before tagging further pages. If you have any questions or problems, please let me know. decltype (talk) 16:30, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Simulation12

(Formerly under Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Fjfhgfhdstty) → Case is now completed after requesting CheckUser. All accounts reported have been sockblocked, which also includes a few extra ones just discovered by CU. Regards, MuZemike 21:28, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Good person who is not a bot. Have a cookie. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 13:14, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Denialism

This is a heads up in case denialism is not on your watch list, I replied to your last posting to Talk:Denialism. -- PBS (talk) 12:23, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

newbie article writers

Hi James, I've just deleted a couple of articles that you tagged for deletion, and noticed that you hadn't templated the author. Now sometimes giving a spammer yet another template is a waste of electrons, but in these cases it was the newbies first article, and if you don't use the template that the tag generates for those people they might not learn why their article has just disappeared. Sorry if that sounds like nagging and thanks for the tags. ϢereSpielChequers 13:38, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

No, it doesn't sound like nagging at all. Normally I do warn the authors, and I am grateful to you for pointing out that this time I have forgotten to do it. I shall try to remember in future. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:47, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

ϢereSpielChequers is offering you a Wiki Beer! Liquid refreshment promotes WikiHarmony and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the harmony by offering a beer to someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Cheers, and Happy editing!
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hi

Editing

Well James, i guess you are mistaken brother. I am trying my best to help wikipedia get the right and true info. While i am also noticing repeated false editing by other users on Shia related personalities and articles. Muhammed Ali Jinnah and Fatima Jinnah are the two article that are being monitored by me, on which i have seen false information regarding the personalities. For which i have to repeatedly re-edit the articles an restore them back to their original status. I have provided neutral and true references supporting the claim for this true information. But i am unable to stop or comprehend those culprits who repeatedly falsify the information. My given reference are:

You can kindly check the links for your personal satisfaction. While on the other hand i'll request you to ban those culprits from future edits on these articles. I have already protested about this on the Jinnah Talk page you can read it. But no action has been taken so far by you or by the Admin. Hence i had to put the articles on my checklist. I hope you will take an action against these members. While you can trust me, i'll go on contributing the right info on Wikipedia. You can see my known edits in Pakistan Army section, for which i have be selected as a team member.

Regards. Paki90 (talk) 22:14, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Message from vandal

PLZ DNT DELETE STUFF A RITE —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sally2k9 (talk • contribs) 16:07, 19 September 2009

File:Cristoferus.jpg

I put a note on the image and the AfD discussions to keep the image up throughout the AfD; the closing admin will delete it when the AfD is completed. Thanks. Skier Dude (talk) 21:37, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Lean assessment dePRODed

Hi. Not sure if you noticed, but the author of the article removed your PROD. Since then he has made some additions to the article, but there are still several issues, especially regarding notability. I'm kinda on the fence with respect to an AfD. What's your opinion? The author is not very cooperative, in fact he keeps removing the maintenance templates from the article. Favonian (talk) 18:49, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, you are certainly right about the user not being very cooperative. The expression "Lean assessment" does exist, but I am not sure that it is notable, and the author of the article has taken no effort to show that it is; perhaps an AfD would be a good way to see if anyone else can. JamesBWatson (talk) 18:58, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

'tis done! I took the liberty of using parts of your original PROD. Let's see how it goes. Favonian (talk) 19:06, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for RV/V!

		The Anti-Vandalism Barnstar
		Thanks for reverting vandalism on my user talk page! A More Perfect Onion (talk) 20:26, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

You are welcome. Thanks for the barnstar: I will treasure it. JamesBWatson (talk) 20:28, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Something needs to be done about this

Ok first off, whoever wrote the whole article about the sling (weapon), had his facts messed up,and also seemed to belittle the sling as a weapon. As you might not have seen, there are lots of complaints on the discussion section about the article, some people are complaining (and I agree with them) about the sling not being able to penetrate armor. Heres the quote : “Ancient authors seemed to believe, incorrectly, that sling-bullets could penetrate armour” . And there is a quote from a roman author : The late Roman writer Vegetius, in his work De Re Militari, wrote: Recruits are to be taught the art of throwing stones both with the hand and sling. The inhabitants of the Balearic Islands are said to have been the inventors of slings, and to have managed them with surprising dexterity, owing to the manner of bringing up their children. The children were not allowed to have their food by their mothers till they had first struck it with their sling. Soldiers, notwithstanding their defensive armour, are often more annoyed by the round stones from the sling than by all the arrows of the enemy. Stones kill without mangling the body, and the contusion is mortal without loss of blood. It is universally known the ancients employed slingers in all their engagements. There is the greater reason for instructing all troops, without exception, in this exercise, as the sling cannot be reckoned any encumbrance, and often is of the greatest service, especially when they are obliged to engage in stony places, to defend a mountain or an eminence, or to repulse an enemy at the attack of a castle or city.

Now come on, if you know anything at all about slings, you got to admit that this is the most ridiculous description about slings, and it might lead readers to think that slings aren’t that deadly of weapons.

And also, staff slings, whoever wrote this thinks staff slings deliver greater range than a hand sling, which is ABSURD. Staff slings cannot deliver as much centrifugal force as a hand sling, period.

So the conclusion is that this article needs to be fixed and have other quotes talking about what slings can really do.

Something needs to be done about this so people learning about the sling knows its true potential, and that it’s not a toy!!! What are your thoughts? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Daman123455 (talk • contribs) 01:14, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I think you may well be right. Clearly you know much more about this than I do, but even I can see some things in the article which seem doubtful to say the least: for example "Ancient authors seemed to believe, incorrectly, that sling-bullets could penetrate armour". However, I think some of the ways you have done your editing have been such as to be likely to turn people against you and perceive you as being unconstructive. If they had a more positive attitude to you they might be more receptive to your work. I will try to describe some of the ways I feel this has happened: I hope it may be of some help.

For one thing, your edit summaries have not always been helpful. Giving an edit summary "fixing misspelled words" on an edit which, amongst other things, replaces "throw" by "project" is not likely to encourage people to take you seriously. The edit summary "cold hard facts not fiction, people were complaining about alot of bs the author wrote so i fixed them with truth" reads like a declaration that you have contempt for your fellow editors. Whether you actually do have contempt for them or not is irrelevant: the point is that giving them that impression will antagonise them. The longer I have been editing Wikipedia the more I have come to realise that being courteous and civil to other editors is more likely to get what you think is right, even when think some editors don't deserve courtesy.

Then there is your repeated replacing of British spellings by American ones. The first time you did this perhaps you did not realise that this was what you were doing, and you thought you were simply correcting errors, but by the third time you did so it had been pointed out, and giving "fixing misspelled words" as an edit summary once again is likely to have given the impression of a contemptuous attitude, whether correctly or not. Apart, however, from the way you have done this and the character of your edit summaries, the very fact that you are repeatedly replacing British by American English will in itself turn people against you. Not only is it Wikipedia policy that you do not do so, but also many people who are not American perceive this as an arrogant USA-centric approach to the world, and are likely to resent it.

Finally, there is the fact that you have mixed together edits of different calibres. As you know I reverted one of your edits. Before doing so I spent some time reading through what you had done, initially with the intention of deciding which bits of your editing I agreed with and which I didn't. After a while, though, I decided it was going to take far too long too plough through it all. It seemed likely that some of your changes were improvements, but they were lost among other changes which weren't, and rather than spend forever trying to separate the wheat from the chaff I finished up just reverting the lot.

Following on from that, here are my suggestions: it is, of course, up to you to decide whether they are helpful.

1. Be careful to be accurate in how you describe what you are doing, whether in edit summaries or on talk pages. Describe factually what you are doing (e.g. replacing The thrower stands 60 degrees away from the target with The slinger stands 60 degrees away from the target is not accurately described by "Some spelling and bad grammar corrections").
2. Be civil: do not risk antagonising your fellow editors. Remember that, even if you think they are wrong, most of them sincerely believe they are working to improve the encyclopedia, and if you seem to be dismissive of their attempts they are likely to perceive you as obstructive. It is perfectly clear to me that you are genuinely concerned with improving the article, but it might not look like that.
3. Leave out mere stylistic changes which do not significantly affect the meaning, because if other editors don't like them you may find they revert them, and, with them, more important edits. For example don't bother with replacing "throw" by "project", and above all don't impose American English on the article. Concentrate instead on changes which significantly improve the accuracy of what the article says.
4. One other suggestion which may or may not help is to edit in smaller pieces. What I mean by this is start by taking one fault you think the article has and correct it, and make another change some time later. I do not mean that you should break the editing down into hundreds of absurdly small parts, but consider the possibility of moving somewhat in this direction. There are two reasons why this may help. Firstly, if an editor does not like one bit of what you have done they may revert just that bit, and you don't lose the rest of your work with it. Secondly, there is less of a risk that others will think "Oh no, it's some arrogant person who thinks he can take over the whole article and totally change it", so that they are less likely to turn against you.
5. Finally, a point which is very important, and which it took me quite a while to fully grasp when I started on Wikipedia, and which some editors never grasp. Realise that Wikipedia is a joint venture, and you can't always have things 100% as you would like. Even when you are 100% certain that you are right be prepared to accept compromises. If you finish up with 20% of the changes you would like you should be pleased that you have got some of what you would have liked; if you finish up with 80% of what you would like then you should be delighted. Wikipedia editors who take an "all or nothing" approach sooner or later suffer so much frustration that they give up, and effectively settle for "nothing" rather than "all", when they could have settled for "some". Also, be prepared to discuss your ideas: making this query on my talk page has indicated you are willing to consider doing so. You will find that sometimes even editors who were initially hostile to your ideas will either change their mind or at least be prepared to reluctantly accept your proposal.

I can't promise that this advice will work miracles, but I think there is a good chance it may help, so you may like to consider it. JamesBWatson (talk) 08:57, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Changes Removed From History

Hello, I was wondering if you could answer a question for me. I have noticed that edits reverted because they are vandalism sometimes no longer can be viewed from the history section of an article, such as some recent edits to the Jodie Sweetin article. Can you tell me why that is and when this started? Thanks! Faethon Ghost (talk) 14:53, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

It is possible to remove edits from the edit history of an article so that normal users can't see them, and it is also possible to remove them even more thoroughly so that not even administrators can view them. This is normally only done for a few specific reasons. The reason can be that the material deleted was thought to be libelous or grossly offensive to a person; that it was a very serious copyright infringement; that it revealed information which was thought to be a serious invasion of privacy; that it linked to unacceptable web sites (such as illegal sites); or that it contained extremely unacceptable material such as serious threats or html code designed to do damage to a user's computer system. I don't know specifically about Jodie Sweetin, but in general if material disappears from the edit history of an article about a person I think it is most likely to be because of either libel or invasion of privacy. JamesBWatson (talk) 15:31, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the info! Faethon Ghost (talk) 15:51, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Talkback

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Surfbug1

Hi.
Placing {{hangon}} on the WP:CSD page is a rather common mistake, happens from time to time. It was reverted, and the user added the hangon tag a couple minutes later at the proper place, the Danalee Jean Fowler article. It still was deleted, as was Danalee Fowler. At this point, I'd already be happy if he ever returned here, and offered some more volunteer time.
Those uw-* warnings are not placed procedurally, and are not an end in itself. Can you explain the value of placating the talk page of a new user, who made his first article, made two accidental edits in the process, and had his articles deleted, and how this is benefiting the encyclopedia?
Cheers, Amalthea 11:53, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

As far as I am concerned the purpose of putting such a note on a new user's talk page is to let them know they have made a mistake, and give them a small amount of information about how they should have proceeded, to help them for the future. I don't know what you mean by "placating": the verb to placate normally means to pacify, which makes no sense here, so I assume you must mean something else. The general tone of your remarks seems to suggest that you think the message I placed was aggressive, although you do not say so. My message certainly was not intended to be aggressive. An experienced Wikipedian will, of course, recognise the level 1 test warning as a first step in a process which may go through such stages as "Please stop making test edits to Wikipedia. It is considered vandalism, which, under Wikipedia policy, can lead to blocking of editing privileges. If you would like to experiment again, please use the sandbox", and may therefore very well think of the note as critical. However, there is no reason I know of to suppose that a new user will see anything other than a helpful note explaining that they have made a mistake. There had been a level one test warning (Welcome and thank you for experimenting with Wikipedia. Your test on the page Template:Wikipedia/doc worked, and it has been reverted or removed. Please take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. If you would like to experiment further, please use the sandbox instead. Thank you) and I put a note saying "The same applies to your test edit to Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion. Please use the sandbox for any future test edits." I don't see anything aggressive or threatening there: simply informing the user that a mistake had been made, and reminding them of the Sandbox. The attribution of the error to a test very probably was a mistake, and, once you had pointed this out, I removed the references to tests. Other than that, though, I am at a loss to know what you object to. Perhaps you can clarify this for me. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:18, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi James
Placarding was probably the word I was looking for, darn false friends, and I'm unsure if it's used like that in the first place.
Basically, I didn't see the value in the message, and I think leaving too much negative feedback on the talk page of a new user tends to drive them away. The whole thing is no big deal in this case, the user is most probably gone anyway, but I believe that explicitly pointing out all mistakes a brand-new user made, one who had just had his first articles deleted, is counterproductive. Even if the tone is informative, receiving several such messages on top of an SD nomination is, I believe, overwhelming. Yes, he might not make those mistakes again. He might also just leave, seeing the negative feedback (and it is perceived as negative feedback, I think). Quiet correction of those mistakes is often quite enough, in particular if the moment has come and gone, and by all indications he has realized his mistake by himself, since as I said he placed a hangon tag at the article a couple minutes after it was removed from WP:CSD. Amalthea 13:49, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

OK, I see your point: it probably is unnecessary to point out every mistake in a case like this: the first one was enough. Thanks for pointing this out to me: I will think about your comments before doing the same again. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:58, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Great, thanks.
I still don't know if I could have used "placarding" there though ... :)
Cheers, Amalthea

Well, whether or not "placarding" would have been accepted usage, I would have understood perfectly well what you meant, whereas with "placating" I was puzzled. JamesBWatson (talk) 14:09, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Understandably so, and I guess I'll avoid it in the future anyway, seems like the connotations it has in German are lost in translation.
Cheers, and have a nice day, Amalthea 14:26, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Città di Brescia International Violin Compertition

Buongiorno. I'm Mrs Donati, the secretary of the "Città di Brescia" international violin competition. I don't understand why you removed our links in the WFIMC page: we are WFIMC member since 2005, these aren't promotional links, are just to inform about what is true. You asked also abut more references for the page in wikipedia and you removed the list of the past winners and past jurors: I'm really sorry, but I don't understand Your decision. The page was written following the style of others competitions' wikipedia's pages. In fact, all competitions' wikipedia's pages report the list of the past competition's editions. I'd like to inform You that the "Città di Brescia" International Violin Competition is really one of the most prestigious Competition in the world, not a young Prize to need particular promotion. Our organization exists to help the careers of the young performers and to promote the winners is one of our objectives. So to describe like "promotional" what is simply an "historical" information could appeare like a complete mistake. Thanks for helping and sorry for my bad english. All the best. Giovanna Donati --- "Città di Brescia" International violin competition. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.37.210.93 (talk • contribs) 14:11, 25 September 2009

Buongiorno, Signora Donati. I have now restored your link in the WFIMC article. I saw a lot of new editing concerning this competition, and formed the impression that it was being done by someone working for the competition organisers, which you have now confirmed. You may or may not know that Wikipedia generally discourages editing of an article about an organisation by someone working for that organisation, as it can lead to a conflict of interest. Unfortunately such editing is frequently done to promote or advertise an organisation. Because of this, when I see editing which appears to be done by an involved person I tend to look for anything which looks promotional, and adding links to other articles is frequently a way this is done. In your case, now that I have thought about it, I think that the link is legitimate, whether or not you intended it to be promotional. On the question of lists of past winners, I think they are much better in their present form: the way they were originally laid out seemed to me to be excessivley long. I am not entirely convinced, though, that the purpose of including lists of winners is not to promote those winners, which would not be consistent with Wikipedia's policies.

As for the references, it is Wikipedia policy that information should be included only if it can be confirmed from independent sources: the organisation's own web site, publications, etc are not good enough on their own. JamesBWatson (talk) 14:35, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the answer. To use wikipedia is a little difficult for new "writers", next time I'll try to follow your kind instructions. Thanks. Giovanna

Well done for catching me out.

However, when I created that page, I knew a proof (that I later forgot). And some 6 months ago, an example sheet question taught me a presumably different proof, involving a reduction formula, polynomials multiplied by sin and cos terms, and some sort of factorial contradiction. But I've since forgotten that proof, although given the starting integral I could probably reconstruct it. Anyway, seeing as I barely edit on here anymore, time to blank that page I think...

Now, let's see, I think it was 4 tildes...

Andymc (talk) 01:00, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

deleting my pic

so is it common pratice to delet own work designed for only my user page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Spzmnky (talk • contribs) 16:57, 27 September 2009

WIkipedia is an encyclopedia. Anything that does not contribute to the encyclopedia may be deleted. A certain amount of leeway is commonly allowed to user pages, but they are subject to the same rules as the rest of the encyclopedia. JamesBWatson (talk) 20:01, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

why!

I understand why you deleated my hidden page barnstar, but why did you deleat all the barnstars that I have recived, please answer back soon.--Orangesodakid 18:11, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

As you know full well all or virtually all of this was part of the use by you and your friends of Wikipedia as a playground. Finding a "hidden page" and signing a "guest book" are not part of improving Wikipedia, and giving barnstars for doing so is not constructive by any stretch of the imagination. JamesBWatson (talk) 19:13, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

LT.COLONEL PADMASREE DR. MOHANLAL

I deleted the article as an unworthy (potential) redirect, without realizing that you had just converted it into one, else I would have consulted you before the speedy. Hope you don't object to the deletion as such. Abecedare (talk) 11:40, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I certainly don't object. In fact I actually received an edit conflict, as I was trying to propose a speedy deletion while you deleted it. Converting to a redirect was just an intermediate step. JamesBWatson (talk) 11:43, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Great. We were on the same page then. :-) Abecedare (talk) 11:46, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Removal of PROD from Girish Paranjpe

Hello JamesBWatson, this is an automated message from SDPatrolBot to inform you the PROD template you added to Girish Paranjpe has been removed. It was removed by Phil Bridger with the following edit summary '(contest prod - the profiles linked demonstrate notability, and there are plenty more sources found by Google News and Google Books searches, such as ISBN 9780071474788)'. Please consider discussing your concerns with Phil Bridger before pursuing deletion further yourself. If you still think the article should be deleted after communicating with the 'dePRODer,' you may want to send the article to AfD for community discussion. Thank you, SDPatrolBot (talk) 20:25, 6 October 2009 (UTC) (Learn how to opt out of these messages) 20:25, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Cpiral-Ling (again)

I started learning Wikipedia three months ago. Recently I reworded an entire section of WP:fringe, changing it's three paragraphs to four, and adding some new ideas. Well, it was reverted, but I was determined to discuss my ideas. It took only one day for me to get six different editors' consistent remarks showing general distaste of the style and wording. The next day I took my lumps and conceded the debate, and bowed out as honorably as I could. It was clearly a messy and sorry experience for me there. For four days, I thought it was over.

Then you came along yesterday and said 2500 words on an article discussion page in which were phrases like

• Cpiral seems to be totally unaware...
• What on earth does that mean?
• I can only guess that Cpiral does not know...
• And what on earth does ... mean?
• almost all of what Cpiral says is ... incomprehensible
• ...which has nothing whatsoever to do with...
• ...has nothing to do with...

saying my user name over ten times. In the first paragraph alone you fire ten questions. Later you find a mistakes I made in my word choice ("explicate"), and you hammer away at nothing I meant.

You obviously were thorough in your review of the discussion before you made your entry. I am at a loss, then, for your reasoning: why that tone (on an article discussion page)? I respectfully request a simple confirmation that I appeared to need to hear all that. Finally, did you have a real expectation at any kind of answer or discussion? If so, I would be honored for a gentler dialog.

I would sincerely appreciate and be honored to receive on my user page, any remarks about Cpiral in general, and my general style. If you would like to share your personal opinion about me or my style, or an opinion about other editors opinions of a particular issue, I think these kinds of things are best kept to our user pages. I have a subpage with my work on fringe theory. I'll finish it up tomorrow, and then your opinion would be valued. I'm sorry to have to waste your valued time on the old piece.

CpiralCpiral 02:13, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'm sorry that I seem to have upset you, or annoyed you, or whatever is the right word. I suppose, thinking back, that I could have been gentler. However, since you ask, what I said was largely an expression of a sense of frustration, as various people had tried to communicate with you, and seemed to have failed. I genuinely found it bewildering that you could write so much in a way that is impossible for anyone else to understand., and apparently be unaware of the fact that you are not writing normal English. I also suggest that you wait until you have more experience of the way that Wikipedia works before undertaking such a major task as substantially rewriting a guideline. When you have been here longer perhaps you will understand just how central to Wikipedia is the concept of notability via reliable sources, which your editing seems to indicate you have not yet fully grasped. Yes, you are aware of the concept, but you seem not to have grasped that it is the fundamental basis for inclusion or exclusion; no matter whether a concept is totally mainstream or totally at odds with the mainstream, it deserves space in Wikipedia if it has received substantial coverage in reliable sources, and not otherwise. It may be that you know that, and deliberately intended to change Wikipedia policy, but your writing seemed to indicate that you did not realise it. JamesBWatson (talk) 15:52, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

My Dear Mr. Watson, I aim at bringing section one of WP:fringe to it's next level, analogous to the way Descartes evolved the concept of dimension from Euclid's more qualitative and common-sense approach to a more quantitative approach based on coordinates. The notability guidelines banner says common-sense is the best approach, but for those of us who want to try an algorithm I think Wikipedia:Fringe#Identifying_fringe_theories lacks an explicit, systematic, quantitative approach to "significance".

Without talking too far past my original posting, yes, my attempt to copyedit the original version's section one included language that was idiosyncratic. (i.e. It was concentrated but not lucid.) But the side-effect of our discussion taught me more about politics (the topic here) than about my work. In order to copyedit at the level of a major policy section, careful ideation is not enough, I must go through discussion.

Please understand that as an unintended side-effect of working on WP:fringe, I had several social networking spats. I tire of this aspect (it has taken several full days of my time), and should want to get back to the wiki after a nice long break. But I find myself making similar efforts here. To get the social networking part correct in my mind by my actions for Wikipedia, I must point out what I feel are some elementary errors on your part.

1. In debate, make sure and look at the dates that the comments were made. (I feel safe in making this minor assertion because otherwise I would have to make a major assertion.)
2. When making a response to someone who even slightly implies that they may have been personally attacked
   1. Be more careful than usual with wording.
   2. Be more certain in counter claims or debate.
   3. If you should decide to defend yourself, keep near the nature of the topic. It's not technical.
   4. If you should decide to make an apology to the other, make it for your own actions. Do not apologize for the feelings of another person.
3. When deciding to ignore some rules, be more careful on the purpose, especially if they are etiquette.

The other editors purpose in breaking etiquette might be justifiable, but yours was more like a mockery because it was late. I will be happy to explain, if you do not understand each point.

My top post is objective. The bottom is neutral. The tone in both is cordial.

Please verify this for yourself. Thank you very much for your valuable time.

I look forward to perhaps getting some approval from you on some shared page in the future. Happy editing!

CpiralCpiral 22:30, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I have read your post. I understand some of its points, but not all. For example, I do not know what your comment about checking dates refers to; if it is important then perhaps you may like to specify which comments you are referring to. At first I did not know what your remark about apologising for the feelings of others referred to, but after some thought I decided that it was intended to refer to "I'm sorry that I seem to have upset you, or annoyed you, or whatever is the right word. I suppose, thinking back, that I could have been gentler". If so I think you have misread what I wrote: I apologised that I had upset you, and said that I could have been gentler in my expression: I did not say "sorry that you have chosen to feel upset". I hope you can accept my apology for what it was intended to be.

It is not clear to me whether or not you have taken my essential points. It is unfortunate that, because of my not-very-careful choice of how to express myself, I seem to have largely deflected your concerns onto how you view my behaviour, and away from what were intended to be my essential points. The most important point, I think, is that there seems to be a clear consensus against the kind of change you are single-handedly attempting to make. You refer to "those of us who want to try an algorithm": I doubt that many people do. You say that the present version of the page in question "lacks an explicit, systematic, quantitative approach to significance", but you do not explain why we need a "systematic, quantitative approach", or in what way the present guideline suffers from not, in your opinion, being sufficiently systematic and quantitive. When I wrote my comment in Wikipedia talk:Fringe theories I had carefully read and re-read the section to which I added my comment, to make sure I was aware of the full debate. Since then I have realised that the section does not in fact contain the full debate, as for some reason the discussion of your ideas for changes has been broken into about five separate sections instead of being kept together in one. In my comment I wrote "seven other editors have commented in this section, and not one has given any support at all to the proposal". I now realise that the full amount of discussion on your proposals is even greater, with more than seven editors opposing your suggestions, and still none at all supporting them. Wikipedia works by consensus: since there is a clear consensus against your proposals you really should drop them. There are plenty of areas of Wikipedia to which you could make constructive contributions, but on present showing this does not appear to be one of them. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:14, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I personally receive the first paragraph of the first section of WP:fringe, poorly. It simply defies my logic to hear you advising me against wp:fringe when you (as you say) "do not understood a single point" I have made about wp:fringe, (and similarly when telling me in a discussion what the opinion of the other editors in the discussion are.) In general any unsolicited advise from a person of your high esteem can easily be misinterpreted dramatically. I and others like me are not so easily dissuaded, persuaded or swayed in any way by such advise. I defend my right to make my own judgments honorably, even if it lessons the honor of those who would do it for me.

1. "Five different sections"? I broke the first discussion off because the arguments were unwieldy. I see no good reason to continue on this point, nor on the other technical points you take up, although I could elsewhere. I am more concerned here with your unawareness of drama causation.
2. "Date?": Each user entry has a date. Please make note of them when considering an entry into a "debate". In the discussion we address here, the other half-dozen or so editors all made there remarks on Oct 1. My bowing was on Oct 2, and yours was on Oct 6. The dates are important in the context of your statement "[They] seemed to have failed [to communicate to you]" Why? In actuality they had communicated to me four and five days earlier. During that four days of silence, certainly (had you observed the dates), you could have imagined that I had gotten the messages.
3. "Others feelings". Because I am somewhat taken aback by the "dates" question, I hesitate due to DFTT to completely answer the question of "apologizing for other's feelings". Thank you very much for reiterating. I understand that you are quite aware that one does not cause another person's feelings. I better see where you are coming from your heart. But the words I read belie the heart I now "see". The short answer is this. If you will agree on the two principles 1) Be responsible for your actions. and 2) Don't blame others for any drama troubles. It simply follows "Don't apologize for another's feelings in a shared drama."

I am still learning from you that my writing is unclear. I truly desire my writing clarity for your reading clarity. As I shape my active response, I begin to understand that it is getting drama out that I am concerned with. Drama is addictive. It is pushed (but not necessarily effected) in the following ways that you should understand since they apply directly to your recent past with me:

• making a discouraging remark
• making a personal remark: a user name, the pronouns you or your
• coughing up an unsolicited apology
• dumping the specifics of an article or proposal (If there is that much wrong, consider the "How to provide a solicited opinion" response instead.)
• making any general remark about the wording of a proposal (I cannot think of a single general descriptive remark about a proposal for an improvement, no matter the size, that is productive except the general "No". Can you?)
• giving personal advise that is general in nature or unsolicited
• referring to anything but the project at hand
• making reference to non-existent drama. The reference alone is a trigger.

There may be more violations, (the pointing, the pulling of triggers, the firing of questions) but should we not prefer instead to meet in a green field, graze on the actual data (words in an article), piece by peace in a slow and steady manner? I to am here with you in a dark, mysterious, project-data-less drama, but I don't break "no drama" rules on discussion pages as you have. One of the worst distractions in communicating useful information is the long-term effects of negative drama. They can last forever. Humor (moo pow) is a drama that has a short-term positive impact but mockery is a dangerous humor.

I never asked for an apology from you, but only hoped that by "confirming" your actions, that I would have an opportunity to question and dialog that would lead to revelations, if only by simply looking back and reviewing (about the dates for example.) I will thank you for acknowledging a latent "gentleness" inside, but how can I accept "I'm sorry that I seem to have upset you"?

I never said or implied that I was upset. If I had either said I was upset or asked for an apology, then your way of apologizing would have been acceptable to anyone. I could accept if you had apologized "for loading you with seven quotes of your remarks all at once". That would be apologizing for the cause.

Apologizing for an effect, as you have done, is, in effect apologizing for "feelings that should not be there." In general that kind of apology backfires. (Do you debate this point further?)

In our case (to address your entire second paragraph), your potentially beautiful, valid, "essential points" are indeed not being studied by me, and for many good reasons, chief among them being "drama". The lack of appreciation of your project-data-points is however, something that you could choose to take a responsibility for by considering 1)People and there feelings are primary in all situations, and must first be relaxed not re-taxed. "People first." is logical when considering the biggest picture possible ("What is life.") and 2) your deep down earnest desire to help by way of addressing "where it does need" (making specific, self-responsibility-oriented, types of apologies) and not "where it should need" (giving a vague apology addressing a supposed egotist). The validation of my refusal to study them is here: 1) There is little feeling of loss amongst the group who ejects a brilliant person who could have otherwise made superior contributions and 2) it is analogous to the way Wikipedia has a paradoxical stance: no experts allowed.

If you are still not clear on the detractive nature of the apology you offer and have defended, or remain unsatisfied concerning "deflection of essential points", or do nut understand any point I have set forth, I will answer you in response until we are clear. However, I hope it will not be to familiarize you with any more of my experiences of just how you were both a root cause of a drama, and a furtherance of it for me, personally. Please believe me that the resulting reasoning presented here is not so personally directed as could be imagined. This discussion has become to me a work to express my attribution of drama as the main the counter-force of any project, and to you a main force for the project. Happy editing.

CpiralCpiral 06:23, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

The substantial majority of the above I do not understand, and I am not willing to spend yet more of my time on trying to fathom your attempts to communicate. However, the following two points appear to be clear: (1) you prefer to deflect discussion onto what you think are defects in how I have expressed myself, rather than onto what I have tried to convey about your editing, and (2) you show no interest at all in the fact that your proposal is totally against consensus. I do not propose to spend any more effort trying to explain my points to you: they are there for you to read and think about if you choose to. JamesBWatson (talk) 10:47, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

 – No time to fathom.

Happy editing!

CpiralCpiral 17:40, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Speedy deletion declined: City Of My Heart

Hello JamesBWatson, and thanks for your work patrolling new changes. I am just informing you that I declined the speedy deletion of City Of My Heart - a page you tagged - because: The artist is notable. Please review the criteria for speedy deletion before tagging further pages. If you have any questions or problems, please let me know. decltype (talk) 17:01, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

You are quite right. I still feel the article "does not indicate why its subject is important or significant", but I had forgotten that the relevant sentence of WP:CSD continues with "and where the artist's article does not exist". Thank you for drawing my error to my attention. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:16, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Nigel Sweeney

Thanks for fixing that page. I was fishing for a reference to Justice Sweeney being responsible for the injunction but still don't have one (apart from Twitter). Any idea who User/Judicial Comms is? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Po8crg (talk • contribs) 12:24, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I would have preferred a better reference, but I thought the one I gave was usable. I have been wondering myself about User:Judicial Comms. I notice that this edit is his/her [[Special:Contributions/Judicial_Comms|only contribution]. ~~

I've removed the section again and your reference James - see the article's talk page. Olaf Davis (talk) 13:01, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I have replied on that talk page. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:18, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Removal of PROD from Bay FM Exmouth

Hello JamesBWatson, this is an automated message from SDPatrolBot to inform you the PROD template you added to Bay FM Exmouth has been removed. It was removed by Chriscgw999 with the following edit summary '(placed underconstruction at top of page to show currently developing page)'. Please consider discussing your concerns with Chriscgw999 before pursuing deletion further yourself. If you still think the article should be deleted after communicating with the 'dePRODer,' you may want to send the article to AfD for community discussion. Thank you, SDPatrolBot (talk) 20:48, 13 October 2009 (UTC) (Learn how to opt out of these messages) 20:48, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Robert S. Wistrich

I'm not sure I am writing to the right person but I hope I do. I am the one that made changes to because there were various errors in the item, I had the bad idea (because of ignorance) of using his name as username. But I think the item is not biased I just cited many facts without expressing any ideas on him or his work, it can still be edited but if you can please help me get rid of the:
"A major contributor to this article appears to have a conflict of interest with its subject. It may require cleanup to comply with Wikipedia's content policies, particularly neutral point of view. Please discuss further on the talk page"
I will be very happy and I promise never try to correct any other item in wikipedia, not to ruin anybody's article "by my contribution" thank you Wistrich (talk) 15:12, 14 October 2009 (UTC)Sara Grosvald

Thanks for your explanation. I have no particular problem with the edits you made, and I have now removed the conflict of interest tag. I don't remember the exact circumstances when I put the tag there, but I think it was just because of the user name. Let me know if you have any more questions. JamesBWatson (talk) 15:18, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Replied....

on my talk page. Cheers ^Khukri 16:37, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank You

Moved from User:JamesBWatson

Thank you for your help and kind words. Regarding Bonkyl Kirk, I thought that by placing points of reference in the 'references area' was enough to justify. I really do not understand what inline citations are. I am a write of Scottish Social history but obviously writing articles is different from writing on Wikipedia. I must add, I am hopeless regarding computers and some of the reference phrasing - like inline citations, I'm sorry _ Jamea--Jimmydenham (talk) 19:07, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

If you can let me know specific examples of "such and such a sentence gives information from such and such a source" I will gladly inline them for you. Incidentally, you put your above comment on my user page, whereas it belongs on my user talk page, so I have moved it. Everyone makes little mistakes like that when they are new to Wikipedia editing, so don't worry about it. Also don't allow yourself to be intimidated by Wikipedia editors who take the line "here is a new editor who doesn't know the system, so let's just delete anything he does that doesn't quite follow the rules". They were all new once, and most of them did a much worse job than you are doing when they were new. Keep up the good work, and you will learn as you go along. JamesBWatson (talk) 19:39, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

huh?

Not sure what you had in mind with this edit; those date headers are not unnecessary. —Steve Summit (talk) 20:24, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry. For some reason i mistakenly thought that there was already a date heading for "October 15", and a user had unnecessarily added another one. Clearly I must have misread something. Thanks for calling my attention to my mistake. JamesBWatson (talk) 20:31, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Speedy deletion notifications/your talk page is really long

Hello JBW. You tagged GCYPAA for speedy deletion, but you did not notify the article's creator that it had been so tagged. There is strong consensus that the creators of articles tagged for speedy deletion should be warned and that the person placing the tag has that responsibility. All of the major speedy deletion templates contain a pre-formatted warning for this purpose—just copy and past to the creator's talk page. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:41, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes. I actually placed a warning note on the user's talk page, but forgot to click on "Save page". When I realised my mistake and did click "Save page" it was too late: the article had gone. JamesBWatson (talk) 21:46, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

This talk page is becoming very long. Please consider archiving. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:41, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes. I have been thinking of archiving some of it, and very likely I will do so soon. JamesBWatson (talk) 21:46, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Alrighty then. If I can think of any more things to nitpick at you about, I'll let you know. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:56, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Nothanks

I hope you realise what was wrong with this edit. I did not bother to convert it - if that user has not got the message by now, they never will! — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 18:29, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, in fact I tried to correct it, but you beat me to it, resulting in an edit conflict. Thanks for mentioning it though. He was adding copyvio articles so fast that I was rushing to tag them, and in my haste made a mistake. I had in fact just about decided that there was no point in more warnings on the user talk page for each one, and a general "you will be blocked" was more useful.JamesBWatson (talk) 18:32, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Abu Hureyra

thank you for informing me about trying to build an encyclopedia.but when i tried google this showed up and i decided since i use this search every time i might as well join it but when i looked up abu hureyra not much content showed up which is a problem for me.i want to help build an encyclopediabut where do you get the information on these things? Like lucy the austrolipithecen my whole class looked up lucy on here and thanks to you guys i got an A+ but abu hureyra and continental drift is what i really need do you know any users that know about that kind of stuff? plz reply soon.bye —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mia9013 (talk • contribs) 18:17, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, I tried a Google search for "abu hureyra" and got lots of pages. Some of them don't say much, but some of them do. If you spend a little time looking through them you should be able to find enough information, I should think. JamesBWatson (talk) 18:24, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Flying Spaghetti Monster

Hiya.

I greatly appreciate your edits to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but one image you returned to the article, File:FSM Logo on bumper.JPG, has some oddish copyright issues, as you can see on the review page. I had removed the image because I thought it not worth the trouble; I have no problem with it being in the article, of course, as long as the copyright issues are resolved. So, could you either remove the image or take the necessary actions to correct the image? Should you choose the latter, please make that known on the GA review page I wiki-linked above. Thanks, Mnation2 (talk) 18:52, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying why you removed the image; I have removed it again. Unfortunately "uneeded image not worth the trouble" in your edit summary looked rather like the sort of thing some editors write to mean "I don't like it", but now that I know what the issue is I agree: it is not worth the trouble. JamesBWatson (talk) 19:03, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

(talkback)abu hureyra

thank you for telling me that i'll search more carefully this time but can you simplfy some of your responses cause some words i really dont understand what they mean. it like a secret code you have to decipher. its just a suggestion and thanks again bye :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mia9013 (talk • contribs) 18:55, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Archive

The motto is be bold so I have invoked the MiszaBot at the top of this page. But feel free to remove it. — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 22:55, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. I sort of thought that in another user's userspace the extent to which one is bold is a little more circumscribed. I may well decide to use MiszaBot, as it has been a while since I manually archived, and it would certainly save trouble. However, before doing so I think I want to know a bit more about exactly what it does. Consequently I am removing it for now. JamesBWatson (talk) 23:03, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

AfD nomination of NOS (drink)

An editor has nominated one or more articles which you have created or worked on, for deletion. The nominated article is NOS (drink). We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also Wikipedia:Notability and "What Wikipedia is not").

Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion(s) by adding your comments to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/NOS (drink). Please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~).

You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate.

Please note: This is an automatic notification by a bot. I have nothing to do with this article or the deletion nomination, and can't do anything about it. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 01:06, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Jane Wattenberg

Jane Wattenberg is a great illustrator, photographer, and artist. I believe that she deserves to be recognized on Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lemonxjuice (talk • contribs) 14:38, 22 October 2009

Yes, but Wikipedia does not include articles on the basis that someone thinks the subject of the article is deserving of recognition. Our inclusion criterion is that the subject is sufficiently notable to have received substantial independent coverage. Has Jane Wattenberg received such coverage? I have seen no evidence that she has. JamesBWatson (talk) 14:45, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Concerning your edit of the spam link in the eSignal article

Hi, JamesBWatson,

Thank you for your edit correction in the eSignal article back to NinjaTrader from the ShareScope (possible spam) edit made by Nomad0404 on October 5. I really appreciate help in keeping the article accurate.

Daniellegs Daniellegs (talk) 23:31, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Template:PRODwarning

Hello, JBW … I noticed that you edited User talk:Ali Muratovic to wikilink section headings generated by {{PRODwarning}} … FYI, I have edited the template so that now it generates them automagically, just like the {{nn-warn}} template for speedy deletions … Happy Editing! — 141.156.161.245 (talk · contribs) _{10:12, 23 October 2009 (UTC)}

I seem to have opened a can of worms … would you care to voice an opinion at Template talk:PRODWarning#Linked article name in section headings? — 141.156.161.245 (talk) 13:39, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I have done so. JamesBWatson (talk) 14:01, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

FYI, after your "he/she" comment, I decided to add {{User:UBX/male}} to my user page … I guess I can't rely on people checking out User:The Bipolar Anon-IP Gnome to see that I'm an Eagle Scout, and thus, by definition, male … this should avoid genderplex problems in the future. :-) — 141.156.161.245 (talk) 18:15, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Template:Oldprodfull

Hello again, JBW … FYI, when you {{PROD}}, {{Prod-2}}, or contest a PROD, please remember to add or update the {{Oldprodfull}} template on the article's talk page … this is handy because PROD may only be used once, and it is not always apparent from the edit summaries in the article's History that this has been done.

Happy Editing! — 141.156.161.245 (talk · contribs) _{18:35, 23 October 2009 (UTC)}

Thanks. I almost always forget about that. The more often I'm reminded the better. JamesBWatson (talk) 19:11, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Ed Johnson (victim of lynching)

Hi James. I just removed your speedy deletion tag from Ed Johnson (victim of lynching). I thought citing a book about the case which claims it "launched 100 years of federalism" amounted to an implicit claim of importance, or at least shows that one can be made. Whether he's notable on his own or should perhaps be merged into Lynching of Ed Johnson or something, I don't know.

Believe it or not I wasn't actually stalking you when I found this - I just opened Category:Candidates for speedy deletion and clicked on some random links. Small wiki! Olaf Davis (talk) 16:25, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

James B. Watson, I began the stub on Ed Johnson. In the future, if you decide to nominate for speedy deletion a stub that I began, please notify me. Thanks. Rich (talk) 10:01, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I apologise. I thought I had notified you: I certainly intended to. JamesBWatson (talk) 19:20, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

That's ok, I make mistakes too. Best wishes, Rich (talk) 00:16, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

regarding vividbraille site

Hello, I am new to wikipedia, and at times can get bogged down in the language. The contribution i made recently was taken off of the wiki. Can you please tell me what can be adjusted? I know that the sources referenced are valid (from the article). If different citations are needed, please inform me. I have the information from the direct magazines the article referenced, and can use that as a point of reference. Would this be a valid source of reference?

--Chart6789 (talk) 21:57, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia's policy is to include articles only on subjects which are "notable". The criterion used to establish notability is that a subject has received significant coverage in reliable independent sources. A source which is connected to the subject would not be regarded as independent, so that Vividbraille's web site woul not be acceptable, nor would any source where it is possible for a company to put its own information, such as an advertising medium or a blog. I have just done a Google search for "Vividbraille" and skimmed down the first 30 hits. I see the company's own website, MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, website listing and commercial information sites, publicity sites, etc. Since I have not seen anything which looks like substantial independent coverage of Vividbraille I begin to suspect that maybe none exists. If this is so, then unfortunately Vividbraille is not suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia. It may seem unfriendly saying this, but I think it would in fact be more unfriendly to encourage you to spend a lot of time and effort into trying to improve the article, only to have it deleted again. Of course you are welcome to try to prove me wrong, and if you can manage to produce evidence that Vividbraille satisfies Wikipedia's notability guidelines then that will be great, but unfortunately my investigation makes this look unlikely. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:00, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

re: vividbraille

Thank you for your input James. I will be reposting the site, with verifiable newspaper articles as well. While it is true, that Vividbraille does have blog entries, social pages, etc. the company does have credible resources that will be referenced. Thanks again for your help clarifying the issue.--Chart6789 (talk) 21:33, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

SD notifications

Hello James. If you nominate an article for speedy deletion, don't forget to notify the original page creator. You should copy the tag from the bottom of the warning and add it to the talk page of the creator. Thank you. --Vejvančický (talk) 08:00, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

This no doubt refers to User talk:Joshsantos18. I three times tried to post speedy deletion warnings to this page. The first twice I got edit conflicts because you were editing the page. The third time I finally managed to post a speedy deletion warning to the page, as you can see in this edit. JamesBWatson (talk) 08:06, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Oy, I'm sorry. Yes, I refer to User talk:Joshsantos18. It happens. It was just strange to me - three speedy nominations and no warnings. Keep up the good work :) --Vejvančický (talk) 08:11, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Removal of Link

Hi - I am unsure why our link on the Olympia Pages was removed as there are 10+ other links on the same section.

This is not advertising we are a consistent user of the Olympia venue for our events and this clearly demonstrates the use of the Olympia venue.

Please reply and re-instate.

Stephen BStartup (talk) 14:47, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for contacting me about this: I will try to explain my reasons. I understand that, when you have taken some trouble to put coverage of your organisation into Wikipedia and it is almost immediately removed, it is frustrating. However, the removal; of the link makes sense if you understand a little about Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Whether you regard the link as advertising or not it is difficult to see its inclusion as anything other than an attempt to promote the event, and it is a Wikipedia policy that we do not accept material with promotion of an entity as a major purpose. Your use of the word "we" indicates quite clearly that the editing has been done by someone representing the event, which does not fit well with Wikipedia's conflict of interest guidelines. Content of Wikipedia articles is required by the notability guidelines to be supported by the existence of substantial coverage in reliable independent sources. I have made extensive searches and failed to find substantial coverage in independent sources. For example, I have tried a Google search for "business start up" Olympia. Of the first thirty hits many are not about this event at all, and the others include www.bstartup.com, business directories, an advertisement for a hotel aiming to get custom from people attending the event, an account by a businessman using the event, a blog post, a "what's on" listing, a page about someone who is going to speak at the event, rather than about the event (and this from a business called "pr leap", with the slogan "accelerating search visibility", so it can hardly be regarded as independent anyway), and so on. I did not find a single example of anything which could remotely be considered to be substantial independent coverage by a reliable source. Very few of the pages I found satisfied even one of those three criteria. Other searches produced similar results. Furthermore, the guideline on external links to avoid discourages the use of links to "sites that are only indirectly related to the article's subject"; in this case the article is about Olympia, not about the business start up event. I am sorry that this is bound to be discouraging, but I really do not see that your inclusion of the link can be justified in terms of the way Wikipedia functions. Finally, the fact that there are "10+ other links on the same section" (I make it 9, but that is scarcely material) is irrelevant. It could be that there are good reasons for making a distinction, or it could be that those links are also inappropriate, and should be removed: in either case it does not justify this one. JamesBWatson (talk) 20:29, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Request for article help

I noticed that you are a mathy. Could you please see if you can help Wiles' proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. There is nothing specifically wrong with it, I would just like it to be as helpful as possible to the general public. If you are not interested, perhaps you could recommend it to someone else as a nice project.--Waywethin (talk) 21:30, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Certainly I'll have a look at it. This is an area of mathematics I have no specialist knowledge in, but I'll see what i think of it and let you know. JamesBWatson (talk) 07:53, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

VBA - incorrect

Hi - The "simpler wording" you reverted this page back to is incorrect. The correct definition for a VBA was in my revision. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Backup_Appliance —Preceding unsigned comment added by Train123 (talk • contribs) 12:46, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

You are quite right. In fact I was about to undo my change, but you have beaten me to it. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:55, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

No problem. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Train123 (talk • contribs) 13:56, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Quaternions

I had noticed that you added the example of Hamilton's quaternions to Ring (mathematics). Is this, in your view, an important first example of a ring? I personally feel that an inexperienced reader should first become accustomed to basic examples, such as the field of real numbers (which form a commutative ring), before noncommutative examples are introduced. On the other hand, it would be great if we could include a section on the quaternions, equipped with a detailed discussion of its properties and why it is noncommutative. However, I think that if this example is unaccompanied by explanation, it diverts the novice's attention (who will then proceed to click on the link, forgetting that he/she was in the progress of reading the article...). In particular, although the quaternions form an excellent example of a noncommutative division algebra, they certainly do not carry the intuitive nature of the complex numbers, which more people are familiar with (and which remains unmentioned). What is your opinion? --PST 14:47, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I see what you are saying. Certainly we should try to make the article accessible to the lay reader, especially the early part of it. However, I wonder whether this should be taken to the extent that we avoid mentioning anything which is not readily accessible to a beginner, and remember it is just a mention, with a link for anyone who wants to know more. I wouldn't object to moving the mention to a later part of the article, and I accept that might be better. As for having a whole section on the quaternions, I am not sure. I am more inclined to think that the article on Rings should be fairly basic and general, with brief mentions and links for more advanced topics. There are pros and cons for various possibilities, but for the moment I have removed the comment which you didn't like, and put a brief mention (linked to the article quaternion) in the section on noncommutative rings. Perhaps this is the best arrangement. JamesBWatson (talk) 18:44, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick reply. I think that the mention of the quaternions is now perfectly placed and will be noticed by anyone who suspects its mention in the relevant section. Perhaps, if I have the time, I will include a brief section on "Number sytems" and mention the quaternions briefly along with the complex numbers, real numbers and rational numbers. There is so much that has yet to have been mentioned in the article (for instance, group rings, modules, fields (from algebraic number theory to algebraic geometry), noncommutative geometry and topology, algebras etc) but I think that we will get to finishing the article at some point... --PST 01:15, 31 October 2009 (UTC)