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Speedy Deletion of Sam (Seagull)

Why did you remove the template? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yutsi (talkcontribs) 15:54, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Speedy deletion criterion G1 is for "incoherent text or gibberish". This article was not incoherent text or gibberish: it contains perfectly coherent text, so the speedy deletion nomination was likely to fail. However, the article is clearly about an animal but does not indicate the importance or significance of that animal, so criterion A7 is likely to succeed. I see that other speedy deletion nominations you have made have also been rejected because the criteria chosen do not fit the articles in question: I strongly recommend reading the criteria carefully before tagging any more articles. While on the subject of speedy deletion proposals, whenever you make one you should also place a warning on the talk page of the user who created the article. JamesBWatson (talk) 16:02, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
Ah, well thank you for telling me why some of mine fail. I'll reread the guidelines. I've been getting in the habit of manually warning the creator on computers without twinkle due to them using IE. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yutsi (talkcontribs) 16:15, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
Since I wrote the above post I have looked at some more of your edits, and found that often you make perfectly good speedy deletion proposals, including notifying the user. When I wrote the above I had only seen a few of your less successful attempts. It's just a question of experience: keep working at it, and by all means if you are not sure ask, as you did above. JamesBWatson (talk) 16:23, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
By the way James, I find CSD Helper a useful script for declining CSDs - it automatically notifies the tagger in a similar way to Twinkle's notification of creators. You might find it helpful. Olaf Davis (talk) 16:19, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for that: I didn't know. I still find "James" a little funny. JamesBWatson (talk) 16:23, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
Well, is there anything you'd prefer? JamesBWatson seems a bit... formal. Also, I have some other handy scripts in my vector.js and monobook.js that may or may not be of interest. Olaf Davis (talk) 18:11, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
(1) Keep on with James, I'm not objecting, I just find it a little amusing, that's all. (2) by all means let me know what the scripts are if you feel inclined to, and I'll see if any of them are of any interest to me. JamesBWatson (talk) 19:50, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, I forgot to reply to this. The "admin rights" and "name highlighter" scripts are the non-admin-specific ones I find most useful, but you may find something else of use. By the way, I declined your A10 tagging of Disney XD (Australia) in favour of a redirect: if there's some reason you feel a redirect is not suitable feel free to retag it. Olaf Davis (talk) 16:31, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
(1) Thanks. (2) Redirect is fine: perhaps actually better than deletion, now I think of it. JamesBWatson (talk) 16:34, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Ok thanks for letting me know. pls assume that all the info I provided falls under one 'keep'. I await your decision. Please send me a message after references on said subject are verified. Article will be re-written to fall in line with Wiki's guidelines. You've been very helpful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Milanbijoux (talkcontribs) 20:17, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Proof of subject being the daughter of Dr. Blay-Miezah: 5th to last paragraph of article http://www.modernghana.com/news2/224131/7/blay-miezahs-billions.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by Milanbijoux (talkcontribs) 21:19, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Frankly, whether she is his daughter or not is irrelevant, because the issue is whether she is notable, and notability is not inherited. JamesBWatson (talk) 21:21, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

removing notice on tomas davíð

hey im sorry about removing the notices it is my first page on wikipedia and im getting help from some of sigur ros and jonsi administration now.. im Tómas Davíð's manager. sorry about all incinveiance —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.189.43.141 (talk) 22:01, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Tómas Davíð page.

the page has not been made by the one and the same and is not created for promotion purposes! in the city of reykjavik, Tómas Davíð has become a huge musical icon and has a big variety of fans and adorers in the music and art scene of iceland, please do not make statements about us that are completely irrelevant, i only stated, as his manager- that it was a mistake that i removed the notices, and the page has to be created because people of iceland and worldwide are getting to know the name Tómas Davíð now that he is touring the world with Jónsi and we need a wikipedia page to show personal musical information so people can find out things and productions about the musician that I am Managing.

Please to not make non logical decisions, please just tell us what we need to do on the page to make it compatible with your website's regulations and need's of reference! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.189.43.141 (talk) 22:14, 25 February 2010 (UTC) --68.189.43.141 (talk) 22:18, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I do not fully understand all of what is said above, but I will try to make the best of it that I can.
  1. I can only assume that "the page has not been made by the one and the same" refers to my statement at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tómas Davíð that I had formed the impression that Listarmadur and 68.189.43.141 (you) were the same person. Since both of you have stated that you are Tómas Davíð's manager, this does not seem to me to be an unreasonable inference. Does Tómas Davíð have more than one manager?
  2. You say that the article "is not created for promotion". However, in this edit you wrote "i am trying here with our technicians to make this page for the big promotions that are coming in april when he goes on tour with jónsi". It is very difficult to read that in any other way than that the article is created as part of a promotion campaign. If it was meant to mean something else then please clarify it, as otherwise both I and others will be misled.
  3. Above you wrote "we need a wikipedia page to show personal musical information so people can find out things and productions about the musician that I am Managing". This is a very common reason for creation of Wikipedia articles by people who are not used to how Wikipedia works. However, unfortunately it is not consistent with our policies. Wikipedia does not accept articles the purpose of which is to assist management in publicising their businesses: in fact this is exactly the sort of thing which is referred to as "promotion", so that this contradicts your statement that the article is not created for promotional purposes.
  4. You ask me not to make statements about you that are "completely irrelevant". I do not know what statements this refers to. If you can tell me which of my statements you think are irrelevant and why I will certainly consider your opinion. The same applies to your comment about "non logical decisions".
  5. You ask what to do to make the article acceptable. Before saying anything else on this I shall point out that you as his manager are strongly discouraged from editing this article at all, as you will see if you read the guideline on conflict of interest. However, I shall give a brief description of what is required for a subject to qualify for an article. Essentially it is necessary to show that the subject satisfies Wikipedia's notability criteria (if he does). A relevant source of information on this is Wikipedia's guideline on notability of people. The sections on creative professionals and entertainers are particularly worth reading, though neither of them refers directly to musicians. The general notability guideline is also relevant. Essentially what this guideline says is that you need to show that he has been given substantial coverage in reliable sources which are independent of him. Coverage in his own web site, press releases by his management, announcements of concerts he is to take part in, would not be considered independent. A brief announcement in a newspaper of a forthcoming concert or tour would not be substantial coverage. Blog posts, and forum posts are not usually reliable sources, as in most cases anyone can post there: for the same reason other Wikipedia articles are not reliable sources. You can read more about his, if you wish to, in the guideline on reliable sources. Naturally it is easiest for editors on English Wikipedia to assess sources and decide whether they are suitable if they are in English, but that does not mean that sources in other languages, such as Icelandic, are ruled out.
I think it is only fair to warn you that if Tómas Davíð is not notable by Wikipedia's criteria then any effort spent changing the article in an attempt to keep it is likely to fail. It is very common, when an article is made for promotional purposes by someone unused to Wikipedia's ways and is then considered for deletion, for the author of the article to concentrate on "what is wrong with how the article is written? How can it be changed to make it acceptable?" when often the problem is not with the writing of the article, but with the notability of the subject. If the subject is not notable then no amount of rewriting the article will make it notable. I am not prejudging this case, and if suitable sources can be produced I shall be delighted to accept the article. However, at present I am very firmly of the impression that he is not notable by Wikipedia's standards. Apart from the failure of the article to cite suitable sources, I have myself spent a considerable amount of time searching for information about Tómas Davíð. I have looked at numerous web pages, both in Icelandic and in English. The vast majority of them are clearly about other people called Tómas Davíð. I found no independent sources about this Tómas Davíð at all. In fact pages which were certainly or very probably about him were restricted to self-published material such as social networking sites, e.g. this and this. If anything better exists then I shall be pleased to see it.
I have put some time and thought into trying to answer your request for help. I hope it is of some use to you. Please feel very welcome to ask again if you have any more questions. JamesBWatson (talk) 10:47, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Talkback.

Hello, JBW. You have new messages at Zhang He's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

- Zhang He (talk) 15:39, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Tómas Davíð

Hi. Thanks for all your work hunting for info on this, and for your usual patience with the new editor. Shame that this one turned out to be a timewaster, and I hope that doesn't put you off continuing your excellent work. MuffledThud (talk) 15:47, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. I did actually try quite hard to be constructive and helpful to an editor who I thought was sincere but misguided, and yes it was rather disheartening to realise I had been wasting my time on a hoaxer. However, I still believe that such wasted time is made up for by the times when a useful result is achieved. The occasional words of encouragement such as yours are appreciated. JamesBWatson (talk) 15:53, 26 February 2010 (UTC)



Tómas Davíð's

this is insulting.. if you wanted reliable sources of the highly known musician who goes mostly undi tósóngli merlódíus or, in fact the name- sigur rós! then you should have said so in the first place instead of wanting to delete so soon.. maybe our lack of english knowlidge made this more difficault for you and i am sorry for that but there is really nothing i can do about wikipedia's staff's ignorance.. and agin you have misunderstood! the page is not for promotion, even though it is made for people to read when the attraction is coming higher over the world tour, the page is made for informational purposes only! just to project information on this encyclopedia, everyone wants this information! all the co-laborers like sigur ros are not nearly as popular as tósóngli in the countries we work in! please try to at least concider there are more countries in this world with people who live in this world other than only USA! and they even have more cultural values than hamburgers.

(talk) 07:46, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I did search thoroughly for "Tósóngli Melódíus" as well as for "Tómas Davíð", and found no evidence of substantial independent coverage. I have no idea at all why you assume I am from the USA. To start a post with "this is insulting" and finish with such a remark about hamburgers shows an interesting kind of irony. Your remarks do not address the issues which led to deletion at all. JamesBWatson (talk) 11:25, 28 February 2010 (UTC)


oh, well then sorry for wasting your time! i assume youre from amerika because otherwise you would be a listener of the page you deleted.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.189.43.141 (talk) 19:47, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

More attention pls

Check the other contr. is a different person. I am not me the person who changed the notice. Thank you for your attention!--Caragea Florina (talk) 21:09, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry if the anonymous editor who removed the speedy deletion tag was not you: it certainly looked as though it was. If this was a mistake it was caused by difficulty in distinguishing genuine editing by an anonymous editor who has no recent editing history from the behaviour of an editor of an editor who had logged out to give the impression of being someone else, not lack of attention. Also the fact that the anonymous editor is editing from Rumania, and you are Rumanian, encouraged this impression. There was certainly no lack of attention: I checked quite carefully. Sorry again if I made a mistake, but unfortunately there is a lot of dishonesty around, and I made a judgement as to what looked most likely. JamesBWatson (talk) 21:17, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
Well, it's easy to say sorry, but you must repair the error pls. If somebody from Romania erased the notice, maybe with some reasons, you must respect the decision and the rules. Pls delete the notice and let the others contr. to help me with this article. I will appreciate your help and your honesty.--Caragea Florina (talk) 21:28, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
Unfortunately "it's easy to say sorry" is often used as a way of dismissing an apology: I hope that is not how you meant it. I once restored the tag which looked as though it was removed by the author of the article. Since then the tag has been removed and restored again. I will assume you are acting in good faith and remove the tag again, but I should warn you that I think the article should still be deleted for other reasons, and very likely will be. JamesBWatson (talk) 21:34, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
I must thank you for honesty. I will try to translate from spanish. Is not easy, but I can put some links to improve the article. Is not a crime to help somebody, and for me is not a crime to help my brother. Have a god day from Montreal.--Caragea Florina (talk) 22:16, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

tagging of .sic

You tagged .sic for deletion under WP:CSD#A7. i have declined the speedy. it is my view that top-level internet domains are sufficiently significant, when accepted by ICANN, to avoid A7 deletion, and may be inherently notable. DES (talk) 21:38, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, on reflection I agree. The version of the article that I found contained an element of spam, and although I removed it I allowed the memory of it to colour my judgement of the article. Thank you for correcting my mistake. JamesBWatson (talk) 21:49, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

David Toledo (Artist)

Hello James ~

We are wondering why you have removed links to the Unified Outreach and Precious Casting sites as "unverifiable"? The 2010 MAC Fashion House Youth Expose was January 23, 2010. Verifiable via www.brownpapertickets.com, organized and directed by David Toledo under the Unified Outreach/Precious Casting non-profit group.

We appreciate you efforts to keep Wikipedia clutter free and hope that this clarifies the accuracy of the link. If you have questions feel free to contact Unified Outreach at 206-333-8118.

Our thanks,

UO —Preceding unsigned comment added by Joshyslas (talkcontribs) 19:46, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

  1. The fact that you give a phone number of Unified Outreach suggests that you are editing on behalf of an organisation. I see that some of the links added to the article David Toledo (Artist) were to pages of Unified Outreach's website, and that in the above message you mention that Toledo has done work in connection with Unified Outreach. This strongly suggests that at best you have a conflict of interest, and should not be editing in connection with this article, and at worst that the article has been created for the purpose of promotion. I very strongly suggest that you read Wikipedia's conflict of interest guideline, and also the policy that Wikipedia is not a means of promotion.
  2. I did not remove any links as "unverifiable", and I am not sure why you think I did. To begin with I thought that you must have confused me with someone else, but there is no record of anyone removing links from the article and giving lack of verifiability as a reason. I have reread the edit summaries that I gave when I removed references, and I do not understand what is unclear about them. For example, for one edit I gave the summary "Removing "references" none of which supports the assertions to which they were attached - most of them were just links to pages about or YouTube videos of people/things mentioned in the article.". The first of the references is attached to the statement "David belonged to a loose group of friends that rode dirt bikes in the area and called themselves the “Outsiders,” after the book by S.E. Hinton", so the reference should be to a source which confirms that the statement is true: i.e. a source which tells us that Toledo belonged to a group of friends that called themselves the "Outsiders" after a book by S.E. Hinton. That is what a "reference" means. In fact it was just a link to the front page of S.E. Hinton's web site: the page does not mention Toledo, let alone that he belonged to a group that called themselves the "Outsiders". In other words it was not a reference, but just a link to a page concerning someone who was mentioned in passing in the article, which is what my edit summary said. Exactly similar considerations apply to all of the other links which I removed in that edit.
JamesBWatson (talk) 11:41, 2 March 2010 (UTC)



Why are you deleting good links such as www.unifiedoutreach.com? You state that there is no reference to David Toledo, yet if you visit the "contact us" page you will see that he is listed as staff; having designed most of the arts programs and acting as instructor for a variety of programs.

The Unified Outreach site also references Precious Casting. It is easy to deduce that if David Toledo is active in the arts programs at Unified Outreach (and Precious Casting is part of that program), then David Toledo is most likely active in that as well.

This is just one example of how you have removed previously verified information without doing the proper investigative work. I am sure this was a small oversight, but it is very important that as an editor that you are 100% accurate in your removals.

Thank you,

DOM —Preceding unsigned comment added by Docoofthemix (talkcontribs) 21:20, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

A reference to a web page needs to be a reference to a web page which supports the statement to which the reference is attached. It is not enough to give a reference to a page which has a link to another page which contains information from which it is possible to deduce the statement to which the reference is attached. Also it is not sufficient to give a reference to something which suggests that the statement given is "most likely" true. You are mistaken in thinking that "this was a small oversight": it was quite deliberate, and entirely in line with the standards required for referencing of Wikipedia articles. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:37, 3 March 2010 (UTC)


I am sorry James I just read your note saying that you were not the one removing links. You inquire as to the relationship between David, Myself, and the posts and imply that I should not be making updates because I know David personally. I find this confusing; as I have first hand knowledge of David's history and current activities I am best to update the site.

It was not me who originally designed the site; David is in fact an established artist in a variety of mediums who deserves to have his information readily available.

I am curious as to your targeting of the site? Are you personally aquinted with Mr. Toledo? Did he do something that deserves this attack?

If not, I ask you to please stop your assault; with all that is going on in the world today isn't there more important things that we could do than go back and forth on this issue? If there is no harm being done, can't we just live and let live?

Thank you,

DOM —Preceding unsigned comment added by Docoofthemix (talkcontribs) 21:31, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I did not say that I did not remove links: I said that I did not remove the links because they were "unverifiable".
You refer to "attack" and "assault". Unfortunately it is common for editors new to Wikipedia to view proposals to delete articles as personal attacks. Outsiders often confuse "anyone is welcome to contribute to Wikipedia" with "anyone is welcome to contribute anything they like to Wikipedia", which is not the case: we have standards and criteria for acceptance of articles, and at present it seems to me that this article does not satisfy those criteria. This is purely a judgement about the quality of the article, and is not at all personal.
You say that I "inquire as to the relationship between" David Toledo and you, and "and imply that [you] should not be making updates because [you] know David personally". I am not aware of making any such enquiry: if I have done so perhaps you can remind me where I did so. Otherwise the only thing I can think of which this can possibly refer to is the fact that I suggested that Joshyslas might have a conflict of interest. If you are the same person as Joshyslas then please say so, and explain why you have used two accounts. If you have a legitimate reason for doing so then that is fine, so long as you explain it. If, however, people get the impression that you are using two accounts with the intention of being deceptive, then this is likely to cause them to take a highly critical line towards you: I suggest that you read Wikipedia's policy on sockpuppetry to see why. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:55, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I am still confused why you are deleting links that are good and that reflect the subjects projects and affiliations?

It does seem like you are ignoring substantive facts that establish notoriety of the subject.

It would appear to most that are viewing this page that you have embarked down a road which your pride is unwilling to allow you to deter from.

You delete links and change information and then say you want to discuss if the article should remain, sighting lack of content or authenticity. Don't you think you should have left the links so that those involved in the discussion could see for themselves?

It is not fair for you to delete information and then tell people to discuss why there is no information. I'm sure it was not your intention to come across as being deceitful but there is something here that smells fishy.--Joshyslas (talk) 18:58, 3 March 2010 (UTC)JoshYslas

Also, there seems to be several pages that you have requested deletion of. And strangely enough the same people that agree to delete this article agree to delete the others. Do you and specific other users work as a team? There is no neutral discussion when you have an "attack group" working together to spam discussions with your views.

We ask only that if you really have a personal vendetta against David Toledo that you be the bigger man and let it go.

Thank you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Joshyslas (talkcontribs) 18:58, 3 March 2010 JamesBWatson (talk) 19:15, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I suggest you read my comments and the relevant Wikipedia policies and guidelines on notability and reliable sources. As for your accusations of bad faith, I have done my best to reassure you. JamesBWatson (talk) 19:15, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Speedy Deletion of Article BurnAware

Thank you for the time you took to review my article.I am new to Wikipedia and I have many things to learn. I am finally thinking of writing the contents of the article to another article (BurnAware Technologies). I request you to place a speedy deletion tag in it so that it gets deleted. Thanking you. Rishabhchandan (talk) 22:50, 2 March 2010 (ISD)

"I am new to Wikipedia" seems a surprising statement by someone who has been editing since November 2008. JamesBWatson (talk) 17:25, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Please Keep Pobble

You have no idea how important this article is! This is part of our GCSE coursework, involving coding! I used Wikipedia Markup for the coding bit and Pobble for the actual coursework bit! As for the importance, it is giving readers important information, much like The Sun, The Daily Mirror, The Star (all online newspapers, would you like me to go on?)

Please rethink about deleting the Pobble article! --Micky 1234567890123 (talk) 20:23, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I sympathise with you if you intended this to be part of your GCSE coursework. However, Wikipedia does not accept articles about just anything: subjects have to satisfy our notability criteria, which I am afraid this one doesn't. I suggest you should read the notability guideline to see what is required. Even if the article is "giving readers important information", Wikipedia does not give new information, but only serves as a database of information which has already been given significant coverage. (I am also doubtful about the appropriateness of the word "important".) JamesBWatson (talk) 20:28, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
I would like to complain about the deletion of User:Micky 1234567890123/Pobble. This is a sub-page of my userpage and I have no intentions of re-posting it to the main Wikipedia. To my understanding, sub-pages of users like the one you placed a Speedy Deletion tag to, are the property of the user, are they not? Please just leave my userpage alone! --Micky 1234567890123 (talk) 15:47, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
No Wikipedia pages are the property of individual users. User pages are provided for use in connection with working on the encyclopedia, not for any purpose a user chooses. It is true that a good deal of leeway is allowed in user space, but in this case it was perfectly clear that you were using this page as a way of getting round deletion of an article, not for working on the encyclopedia. In fact what you wrote above confirms this: "I have no intentions of re-posting it to the main Wikipedia". Wikipedia is not a free web host. JamesBWatson (talk) 15:55, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
Well surely archived talk pages serve the same purpose do they not? And anyway, I read that you can have a user-page with an article in it which is not yet ready for the main Wikipedia. What I mean to write above was "I have no intentions of re-posting it to the main Wikipedia yet". Once the newsletter gains a bit more interest and the article is better written, then I will consider posting it. Can you please revert the deletion? --Micky 1234567890123 (talk) 15:59, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
An article which is not yet ready for main space is quite different from an article which will never be ready for main space because it is on a non-notable subject. Consequently, even if you are sincere in saying that you meant you had no intention of posting it "yet", it is still not suitable for userfication. In addition, your statement "I would like to keep the work, even though it does not meet Wikipedias stupid notability guidelines" does not, on the face of it, tend to suggest that that is what you had in mind. JamesBWatson (talk) 16:07, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
You're just not getting it, are you? I would like to keep the sub-page to edit for when the topic becomes notable, then I don't have to waste my time creating one from scratch when it does (and it will) become notable!!! --Micky 1234567890123 (talk) 19:28, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
I am also highly offended by your quote: "never be ready for main space". You have no right to criticise someone elses project or ambitions, nevertheless their articles. You just try creating an article about a completely new topic in which there is very little information to write about. I know what your gonna say - that previous sentence doesn't give the impression the article is notable etc. etc. but to be honest, I don't care! You will be sorry when your precious "Wikipedia" is feeding from Pobble. You will reference articles to Pobble! Wikipedia will revolve around Pobble! And when that day comes, I will be straight onto this userpage, saying to you - "I-Told-You-So!" --Micky 1234567890123 (talk) 19:38, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, I actually wasted my time writing an answer to the last post but one on this topic and got an edit conflict, but in view of the last post it is clearly not worth posting my answer. JamesBWatson (talk) 19:45, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Just got a tad caught up in the moment. --Micky 1234567890123 (talk) 19:49, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
No! I want to hear your answer! I repeat: "I am also highly offended by your quote: "never be ready for main space". You have no right to criticise someone elses project or ambitions, nevertheless their articles." --Micky 1234567890123 (talk) 16:23, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

If anything new comes up on this I will consider whether to make a new response. JamesBWatson (talk) 08:07, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm quitting Wikipedia. This is clearly not the welcoming community I had thought it had. You criticise less experienced editors for their mistakes, and then don't tell them how to fix those problems! Well that is... IT!!! I quit, never to return! All thanks to you! :) >:-( Micky 1234567890123 (talk) 16:47, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

RE Some of your changes to my article

Hi, thank you for contributing to the article and for clearing up some of the old/dead references (I have to admit I reconstructed this pretty sloppily from parts of an older article that had been userfied). I have two things I would like your perspective on, the first you removed a reference (which I didn't add) to a newspaper article, I feel the reference is important but I'm wondering why you removed it (the article was in The Australian Newspaper and was different to the review which is listed online). The other point I wanted clarification on was the removal of one blog in particular, a Triple J Home & Hosed blog - I understand that 'blogs' as a concept are seen as unreliable, but in this particular case it's a program blog from the national broadcaster, it's part of the ABC's content in Australia and was being used to verify a claim made in the sentence - under that circumstance is it still inappropriate or should I replace it? Cheers Stevezimmy (talk) 03:51, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

You are quite right, and I have now restored both the references. I am guilty of removing the newspaper reference hastily without checking carefully enough: the reference tag contained a link to a Wikipedia article as well as the actual citation to the newspaper, and I saw it as just a reference to the Wikipedia article. As for the blog, I am aware that some perfectly respectable sources call themselves "blogs", but this post looked at a glance like an open posting by a member of the public ("Posted by Dom" suggests an anonymous person's user name, rather than a respectable journalist's byline). Closer examination shows that it is, in fact, a reliable source.
Sorry about this, and thanks for pointing it out to me. Incidentally, for future reference, you can make life easier when you make posts like this to talk pages by giving slightly more specific information. First of all, you didn't say what article was involved, so I had to look back at edit histories to find out. Secondly, I had to search through my past edits to find which particular references you were referring to. This time it only added a couple of minutes to the time it took me, and was not a big deal, but sometimes details like this can make a big difference. JamesBWatson (talk) 10:50, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

March 2010

Hi! I would have liked deleting this entry, drawn empty one only and then I created it sometime. Excuse me for the nuisances.--195.128.232.8 (talk) 12:26, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

It took me a while to work out what you meant. I assume you are referring to Category:MTE-Motim footballers, and that you are saying that you are Canysp (the creator of the category), and that you want the category deleted. I have tagged it for deletion. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:32, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Linking to categories

Regarding this edit, the reason the text became invisible is that it was interpreted as an instruction to add this talk page to the category itself. Try putting a colon at the start of the brackets, so: Category:MTE-Motim footballers. Olaf Davis (talk) 14:05, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I realised myself immediately after my edit what the cause of the problem was, but I didn't know what the solution was. Thanks. JamesBWatson (talk) 14:08, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Picture License for "PIIGS

Please, go to the source (it's the link of a greek newspaper) Avgi.gr. At the bottom of the page it's clearly stated in greek that "the product it's available without restrictions, on the condition that you refer to the source, for non-commercial purposes. There is a link for the license 3.0 CC. Now, for the "editwar" look better in the history who is trying desperately to find excuses to delete the picture just because it doesn't suit with his "style" (or just because he might be racist). The picture represents perfectly that the term "PIIGS" is widely used. So it's a historical record that was used also by the people and not only by some lobbies of journalists. Yion (talk) 08:11, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I do not understand at all. In this edit I expressly explained that the problem was that Wikipedia cannot accept images licensed only for non-commercial use, and yet the above post does not address that at all. I do not know whether the person who originally tagged the image for deletion did so because it didn't suit his style, nor whether it was for racist reasons, but I do know that even if either of those is true it does not alter the fact that the image is licensed under terms which are incompatible with the CC-BY-SA 3.0 and GFDL licenses which English Wikipedia uses. JamesBWatson (talk) 19:21, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Huggle Revisions

Yes, you are most certainly correct. There are two conflicting actions that took place: the removal of the speedy deletion tag, and the good-faith blanking of the article. In retrospect, it may have been better for me to look back through the previous revisions of the page, and I would have seen that he/she was the sole author. I definitely agree with you; when using Huggle, it's way too easy to see a superfluous edit and revert it without ever looking back into the revision history and see where that edit came from. If you read the archives of my talk pages, you'll see that this definitely isn't the first time I've unknowingly bitten someone, and I really do hope to, well, stop.

(And, for the record, I had this all typed out before you reverted your edit to my talk page; it's the only reason I'm posting it here).

Thank you so much for your feedback and for mentioning it. Only through a supportive community that provides you with feedback can we all learn to be better editors, and contribute to the health of Wikipedia. Cheers! ~SpK 20:37, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the reason I reverted was that I realised your warning was not for removing the speedy tag, but for blanking the page, which I think is not quite so clearly undesirable, but debatable. However, it shows that I too am capable of acting hastily without checking carefully enough even when I am warning another editor about doing exactly that, which is rather humbling. JamesBWatson (talk) 20:42, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Sara Sandys

The profile on Jonathan Sandys is NOT spam and it is not promoting a product or person. The profile is unbias and the reason I feel it should be included, (as do others), is because Jonathan Sandys is a notable figure due to the fact that he is continuing the legacy of his great-grandfather, Sir Winston Churchill. At NO point have I made reference to any requests for business or donations. At NO point have I digressed from the subject.

The profile is a biography of Jonathan Sandys and is going to be expanded. I am continuing to add further information relating to Jonathan's childhood and some of the stories his father, (Churchill's grandson, Julian Sandys), and his great-aunt Mary Soames have told him over the years.

Please will you contact me urgently if you really feel that this is spam or an advert. I would like this posted correctly and I followed the guidelines to the letter. I don't understand why you are seeking to delete this.

Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sara Sandys (talkcontribs) 21:06, 4 March 2010

I see you posted a copy of the same message on your talk page, and I have replied there. JamesBWatson (talk) 21:39, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


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I have added to the page to give background information on Jonathan. As to your comment on notability, I have not mentioned this because of his relationship to Churchill, as you can see from the article, Jonathan is ACTUALLY doing something. Many people have suggested that a Wiki page be created as Jonathan is very active in the cause of education, the profile has been added by me because it was thought that I was the best person to write it. There really is NO bias because I have stated NO opinion on anything. I have reported the facts as they have been presented. I have followed several designs from Wiki pages of a similar sort and I'm confident that I have stayed within the guidelines to neither offend people, or pursuade them either way. Politicians have pages, celebrities have pages, why not the President of a foundation dedicated to education. However, if the article were written by someone other than myself, would you then accept it?

Respectfully. Thank you

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Thank you so much for the time you have given to changing the profile. I am very grateful. Bless you!

{Unsigned2|02:40, 5 March 2010|Sara Sandys}}

The answer to your question "However, if the article were written by someone other than myself, would you then accept it?" is no. The point is not "Someone with a connection to the subject of the article wrote it, so the article is unacceptable. It is "Someone with a connection to the subject of the article wrote it, with the result that they did not see the subject in the same objective light as an outsider would. This means that they have failed to see the lack of notability of the subject, and the essentially promotional tone and character of the article". In other words if someone with a close connection to a subject writes an article on that subject there is a greater likelihood that the article will finish up with certain faults, but those faults would have been equally unacceptable whoever had written the article. Editors with a conflict of interest are discouraged from editing because of this likelihood of a (very often unintentional) lack of objectivity, but if an article is perfectly good by other standards who wrote it is not a consideration in whether to delete it or not. JamesBWatson (talk) 08:07, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Re:Removal of prod

Thanks for the pointers on this, James - it's one of the many finer details about WP that one must learn as we go. =) --Dennis The Tiger (Rawr and stuff) 22:12, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Husein Alicajic

An editor has nominated one or more articles which you have created or worked on, for deletion. The nominated article is Husein Alicajic. 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/Husein Alicajic. 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) 01:04, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

in response to your proposed deletion of Paul D. Marks article

Dear James B. Watson,

You had put a notice on Paul D. Marks' Wikipedia entry. Everything stated on that page is true. Paul is a writer of short fiction who has been published in many places over several years with an ongoing career. We think that qualifies him under the notable category (if that's the correct term). Following are some of the web references to his work that we found in a quick search under the terms "Paul D. Marks" and there are others as well as many references that are not on the web. He has won or placed for several awards and is an ongoing writer. You might need to search "Marks" on the pages below to find the reference to him.-- Thank you.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/BookSearch/results.asp?ATH=Paul+D.+Marks http://topmysteries.com/News.html http://overmydeadbody.com/sunblvd.htm http://www.jasonsanford.com/jason/2010/01/reader-nominations-for-2010-million-writers-award/comments/page/2/ http://la-noir.blogspot.com/ http://www.weber.edu/WSUImages/weberjournal/JournalPDF%27s/FallIssue09.pdf http://www.philsp.com/homeville/msf/s149.htm -- different entries from the philsp one below http://www.philsp.com/homeville/FMI/s1601.htm http://www.amazon.com/Landmarked-Murder-Gay-Degani/dp/1929976372/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267870061&sr=8-2 http://www.amazon.com/Murder-Sunset-Boulevard-Rochelle-Majer/dp/1929976194/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267870087&sr=1-1 http://www.crimestalkers.com/book_reviews.html http://www.jandysbooks.com/mystery/snstblvd.html http://www.authordarrelljames.com/wst_page5.html http://www.amazon.com/Murder-Across-Map-al-Halloway/dp/1929976348/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267870444&sr=8-1 http://www.fmam.biz/dime.shtml http://www.amazon.com/Dime-Babs-Lakey/dp/0974960861/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267870630&sr=8-1

--SpaceOdyssey (talk) 10:29, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

First of all thank you for informing me: I appreciate that courtesy. However, "Everything stated on that page is true" is not sufficient: Wikipedia does not indiscriminately give any information which is true, but only information which satisfies the Wikipedia notability criteria. You may like to read Wikipedia:Existence ≠ Notability, which discusses the distinction. More important, however, are Wikipedia's notability guidelines, and I suggest reading at least the general notability guideline and the specific guideline for notability of authors.
As far as the links you provided above go, none of them constitutes significant coverage in reliable independent sources, nor even comes remotely near to doing so. Consequently they do not establish notability. What is more, even what the article says does not come anywhere near suggesting satisfying the guideline for authors. JamesBWatson (talk) 10:55, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. Can you please tell us specifically what we would have to do, include, cite, etc., in order for this article on Paul D. Marks to meet the criteria. We have looked at the links you provided and they seem rather subjective, especially as we have seen many, many articles on Wikipedia that don't seem to meet the criteria you suggest. We want to do things right but we're also frustrated with your comments and responses. So we would appreciate it if you tell us point by point what we have to do to qualify this article for inclusion as well as what your credentials are in terms of being an editor of either Wikipedia or anything else? Are you simply a self-appointed arbiter? What in your background gives you the expertise to make these decisions? We're not trying to be argumentative, but we feel we have a right to know as you are passing judgment on us. Thank you.--SpaceOdyssey (talk) 03:07, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

  1. I am not sure in what way you mean that the links "seem rather subjective". Wikipedia:Existence ≠ Notability is not a policy or official guideline, but attempts to explain a point which is often not fully understood by people new to editing Wikipedia. Personally I think it does a good job of doing so, but if you found it unhelpful, sorry. The other two links are to official Wikipedia guidelines, and describe the approach that Wikipedia takes to the question of notability. Another relevant page which I did not link to above is the policy on reliable sources.
  2. I am not "passing judgment" on you. I have looked at the evidence provided for notability the subject of an article, and attempted to assess them against Wikipedia's notability criteria. I have explained my assessment. Anyone else is free to examine the same evidence and assess it, and to express their agreement or disagreement with my assessment if they choose to.
  3. I am no more and no less "self appointed" than anyone else. Nor am I an "arbiter": I have, as I have indicated above, expressed a judgement which forms the starting point of a discussion, at the end of which an administrator will make a decision as to the force of any arguments on both sides. That is how an "article for deletion" discussion works. I have, however, been active on Wikipedia for over three and a half years and have made over 14 thousand edits in that time. A large proportion of my work here has been concerned with the assessment of new articles. Consequently I have a fairly substantial amount of experience of how Wikipedia works and what its policies and guidelines are. On the basis of that experience I have spent a significant amount of time reading your posts to me, checking the references you provided, and explaining my impressions. I hope this is of help to you in understanding the way Wikipedia works.
  4. The argument that there are other articles on Wikipedia which don't seem to satisfy the criteria will on the face of it seem reasonable to a newcomer: it did to me when I was new to Wikipedia. However, with experience it becomes apparent that this is not relevant. Firstly, it may well be that some of the articles you refer to do satisfy the notability criteria better than the one we are considering, even if you do not immediately see why. More importantly, though, there certainly are many articles on Wikipedia which don't satisfy the criteria, and which therefore should be deleted. Many of them will be deleted once somebody gets round to them. We cannot deal with every problem at once: this does not mean that we should not deal with as many as we can. Obviously someone with little experience of Wikipedia will be likely to think that what already exists is a guide to what is acceptable, but unfortunately this is not entirely so.
  5. The fact that you use "us" and "we" suggests that you may be editing from a shared account. For reasons of copyright accountability Wikipedia's policy is that an account is for an individual user. If this is a shared account then you must stop sharing it: please have one account each.
  6. Now for the essential point, I think, of your post above, namely "Can you please tell us specifically what we would have to do, include, cite, etc., in order for this article on Paul D. Marks to meet the criteria". If the subject is notable but you haven't shown that he is then yes "what can I do to the article to demonstrate notability" is the right question, and I shall say a little more about that in a minute. However, before even asking that question you should consider the more fundamental question "is the subject notable?" Very many people come to Wikipedia specifically for the purpose of creating an article on a particular subject which they wish to publicise. Since their whole focus is on getting publicity for their subject they tend to concentrate on "what is it about the article which is unacceptable", and do not consider "what is it about the subject of the article which is unacceptable". If Paul D. Marks does not satisfy Wikipedia's notability criteria then nothing you do to the article will alter that, and any attempt to do so will be a waste of time. If, however, Paul D. Marks does satisfy those criteria, then the answer is (a) read again the notability guidelines and see in what way he satisfies the criteria, so you know exactly what you need to show, and (b) read the policies on reliable sources and verifiability so that you know how to show it.
  7. As I have already indicated, I have spent a significant amount of time trying to help. I hope my efforts have been some use to you. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:24, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Jamie Colby

james - would appreciate it if you would not edit my wiki page further. thanks. jamie —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.120.99.138 (talk) 15:37, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

It would have saved me some time if you had told me what article you were referring to. I assume you mean Jamie Colby. Please note that this is not "your" page: individual editors do not own Wikipedia articles, and no editor has the right to instruct another editor not to edit a particular article. The edits you have made have quite unambiguously been promotional in nature, and, since Wikipedia's policy is that Wikipedia is not used for promotion I certainly shall continue to take steps to stop this use. Your use of the expression "my wiki page", your putting "jamie" at the end of the above post, and your editing from an IP address allocated to Fox News Channel encourage me to think you may be Jamie Colby. If so then you have a conflict of interest with respect to this article, and Wikipedia strongly discourages editing by an editor with a conflict of interest. I suggest you read the Wikipedia policies and guidelines on Ownership of articles, using Wikipedia for promotion, and Conflict of interest.

There's no need to tag an article for speedy deletion if it's already been blanked for evaluation at WP:CP. Regards, Theleftorium 20:42, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Right. It wasn't obvious to me that the notice meant it was awaiting evaluation at WP:CP. Thanks for telling me. JamesBWatson (talk) 20:45, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
No worries. :) Theleftorium 20:46, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
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The Cambridge School, Doha, Qatar

In this one the text I checked was not a verbatum copy, and some of the other text like the vision, should be a direct copy, with attribution. With copyright violations on significant topic (or promotions which are often combined) you can delete the big chunks of text and leave a stub behind. Also I find that even though it is a copy, it is often made by the copyright holder, just with no proof, anyway this kind of text should be deleted too if no OTRS is forthcoming. Thanks for asking. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:44, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

I understand what you say, and up to a point I agree. I have removed all the text which I have been able to trace to specific copyright sources. This has reduced the length of the text (excluding section headings, external links section, etc) from about 1600 words to about 320. It is true that copies are often made by the copyright owner, but I am confident that is not the case on this occasion. In any case, even if the copyright issue were dealt with by that, the text was so blatantly promotional that I find it surprising that you declined the {{db-spam}}. Anyway, I'll see how the article fares now. JamesBWatson (talk) 22:45, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, I will often decline spam nominations if it is not 100% spam, if 95% of text can be taken out instead, that is a better outcome. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:49, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Gay Mafia

James,

I have opened an account with wikipedia. I was the individual who made the changes on Gay Mafia. I happen to be the resource of the information and I know what I know, because I watched it first hand, was around it, basically, I lived it and still deal with it. And yes, I am gay and breaking ranks against my own. But exploitation is exploitation, and for 17yrs I have been waging a private war against them and noone believed me until the group finally went after parts of my extended family and now they are under protection. So I ask you, What is your idea of a verifiable source? The few officials who are working on it get all their information from me so I am the credible expert on the subject. I finally put my direct knowledge up on the pages I did and their connections because only through the awareness of this by our whole society can an abhorent exploitation be stopped. A minority community that forever faced discrimination, and been marginalized and ignored by authorities, police, and the public at large, sounds like a perfect condition for exploitation. It was and is, and has and is being exploited by a group that calles themselves the gay mafia, whos general lackeys are gay and some straight guys, but their top guy in each city or area claims to be gay but has sex with men and women. The groups connection is with the chicago mob syndicate, and so on. All is first hand knowledge, first hand observation, first hand conversations, names, places, groups etc.. The call is yours. Let the world know a hidden dirty secret that authorities dont want to admit because it was their sexual orientation discriminatory policies that allowed it to gain power and spread, and the victims never come forward because they are either still being victimized, blackmailed, dead, or terrified. This last year they kidnapped my partner and when I refused to backdown, they did horrible things him that hospitalized him, and months later after torn abdominals from the inside and broken bones healed, he is so terrified still he wont tell anyone what happened, not officials, friends, or even me. He is far away from me now and wont even associate. Its up to you....keep the U.S.'s dirty little secret? Or let it out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Riseofthephoenix2101 (talkcontribs) 14:04, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

  1. Unfortunately Wikipedia does not accept "I know, because I was there, so you can take my word for it" as justification for inclusion of material. There are several reasons for this; probably the most obvious is the fact that anyone at all can edit Wikipedia and claim to have first hand knowledge, so the claim is not reliable. The Wikipedia guideline on reliable sources and the verifiability policy specify what is required by way of sources.
  2. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Our policy is to have information only on subjects which have received significant coverage in reliable sources independent of the source. If you can show existing published sources which have given prominent coverage to the statements you make then that will be justification for incorporating them into the article. However, the general character of your comments suggests that you want to incorporate this information precisely because it has not received publicity, and you think it should. If what you have written is true then I sympathise with you 100% in trying to get it publicised, but Wikipedia is not the right place to do it. There are numerous other places on the internet which allow fairly open use to publicise information or opinions, but this is not one of them. You may like to read Wikipedia's notability guideline, and also the policy on what Wikipedia is not, particularly the section on not being a means of promotion. JamesBWatson (talk) 08:29, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

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Again:

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And once again:

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Appreciations

The discussion we had at this this AFD kept me thinking and kept me on my toes, and I appreciate this acknowledgement of the awards. Happy editing, Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 15:48, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

You and I tend, I find, to think along different lines, Michael: I am much closer to being a deletionist than you. However, I am always willing to be proved wrong, and if a subject does seem to be suitable for an article I am certainly glad to accept it - after all, that is what we are here for. JamesBWatson (talk) 15:52, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
The best foods have a little savory, a little salt, a litle sweet, a litle bitter... all together to make something worth eating. Decent discussions help us all hone our skills... so again, thank you. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 22:36, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Ref: Men of Power

I give up trying to put up information on Wikipedia concerning this particular academic thesis, as you won't/can't accept any information from either author (the most authoritative source), or the publisher -- myself. And I can't even be bothered to find someone else to do it for me, instead. (Which of course is the obvious way to get round your 'no self-promotion' rules.)

It just really isn't worth it. You don't seem to have any mechanism in place to differentiate academic research from Viagra spam -- if it's presented to you by the author.

[Oh, and you're now accusing me of vandalism because I deleted all information from a page I created myself -- but which you don't want to accept.]

Have you any real mechanism for deleting pages you obviously can't be bothered with?

Please note: I've been using Wikipedia since the month it was created (as both editor and reader), and you've now deleted my personal page so many times it is no longer funny.

"RabCNesbitt" [a.k.a. MartinWheeler]

MartinWheeler (talk) 17:46, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

I understand your point about the distinction between academic research and "Viagra spam", and I sympathise. However, the point here is not that this is spam at the Viagra level, but that the article was written in a way that seemed totally promotional. This was stated both in the speedy deletion notice on the article and also in the notification on your user page, so I am surprised you did not realise that. The conflict of interest issue is relevant not because authorship of an article by an involved party means the article is unacceptable, but because the fact of being an involved person means that you will not see the article from an independent perspective, and, even if you have honourable intentions, you may not see the promotional nature of the article. Judging by your comments above this may well be so in this case. While the reason for deletion on this occasion was its promotional tone, even if you rewrite the article in a non-promotional tone it is nevertheless likely to be deleted because

there is no evidence that the work has received significant attention in reliable independent sources. Since you have been on Wikipedia so long you must be aware of that criterion. I don't think that your suggestion of using a meatpuppet would work either, since there still would not be significant independent coverage. I am a little puzzled by some of the other statements you make above. For example, you say I have accused you of vandalism, but I can find no record of that on your talk page, and I can't think of anywhere else I might have done it. Can you provide me with a link to where I made that suggestion? JamesBWatson (talk) 08:06, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Rescuing Wikipedia from some of its editors

You have been proudly referred to: http://rubenerd.com/wikipedia-problems/

http://rubenerd.com/rescuing-wikipedia-part-two/ Keep up the excellent zeal! --Zor2711 (talk) 18:31, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Natalia Sosnina

An editor has nominated one or more articles which you have created or worked on, for deletion. The nominated article is Natalia Sosnina. 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/Natalia Sosnina. 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) 01:04, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Template removal

I never removed the template for the GTA-NeXt Network page. Just a note. Joker264 (talk) 10:30, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

I think this must concern this edit, where you removed a "hangon" tag. Unfortunately this gets tagged in the edit history as removal of a speedy deletion template: I must have seen the tag and issued a warning without checking. If so I apologise: normally I do check, and I am surprised that I failed to do so this time. JamesBWatson (talk) 10:38, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Non-English contributors

Hi. A tip for dealing with people who contribute in foreign languages, like our French friend just now: there is a template {{contrib-fr1}} which delivers the message, and pointer to the other WP, bilingually. There are others for other languages - list at WP:PNT/T. (I have once enjoyed using {{contrib-sq1}} for real!) Regards, JohnCD (talk) 18:39, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

When you gave me the above message I didn't imagine that within 3 days I would be using {{contrib-lv1}} for real! JamesBWatson (talk) 10:38, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
I have used {{contrib-hr1}} in earnest, though it's disappointingly monolingual. I should think {{contrib-mk1}} and {{contrib-ta1}} are the next most exotic - race you to see who can find a use for them first! JohnCD (talk) 15:34, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Heheh speedy

9 months free advertising if you checkout http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Fienso  :( SatuSuro 12:56, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes! JamesBWatson (talk) 13:14, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citra_Indah_Residence is much more the speedy rather than the other one SatuSuro 12:58, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. However, for an article that has lasted for so long another week isn't going to make much difference. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:14, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry didnt see you put the ref in - have reverted self - could we actually talk about all of this please? I have just put stuff up to afd in process - and I am not 100% sure what you are up to? SatuSuro 13:01, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry am about to get off -perhaps they (residence and group) shoulda been speedied rather than afd'd - what do you think? SatuSuro 13:06, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

As far as your "unreferenced" tag is concerned, I agree it is essentially unreferenced. However, I had removed an external link which I thought was irrelevant, but then realised it does serve as a reference for one small detail in the article, so I thought I should put it back in. To remove the one valid reference from an article in desperate need of references did not seem a good idea. I fully agree with your AfDs: in fact I think that both Ciputra Group and Citra_Indah_Residence should be speedy-deleted, but deletion under AfD is almost as good, and can be kept as a backup. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:14, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for taking the time to explain clearly - it is really appreciated - I think an Indonesian ed or two might emerge within the usual afd time - maybe - we are a bit quiet on the ground at times :( - cheers SatuSuro 13:34, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Help

I am trying yto add a factual article for the history of the English Cheesecake Company and to add this to the page on Cheesecakes - Eli's and the Cheesecake factory ar on there so why when I replicate the information exactly with our details - do you keep deleting them? Help - Thanks ! Annabel —Preceding unsigned comment added by English Cheesecake (talkcontribs) 13:58, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

  1. Explanations have been given on your talk page. I suggest in particular reading Rlandmann's first comment, and the pages linked to in that comment. The essential points are need for notability and not using Wikipedia for promotion.
  2. Your contributions have not shown that the company is notable. The article The Cheesecake Factory does show notability, with numerous references. You may also find Wikipedia:FAQ/Organizations helpful, particularly the sections Why doesn't Wikipedia have an article on my organization? and "I think my organization deserves an article on Wikipedia but none exists. What can I do?".
  3. Your user name makes it clear that you are an involved party, and as such you are discouraged from writing or editing these articles by Wikipedia's conflict of interest guidelines. If you do edit them then there is a risk you may not see things from a neutral point of view.
  4. Your user name also suggests that the account represents a company. For copyright attribution reasons Wikipedia's policy is that accounts are for individuals, so you should not continue to edit from this account.

JamesBWatson (talk) 14:20, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Youth in Indian Politics

Hi James --

There's actually a tiny, tiny germ of an article buried in this mess -- take a look at my revision here. Unfortunately, the original contributor doesn't like it like that :(

Anyway, I'm through. Did you check out the talk page?

Cheers --Rlandmann (talk) 14:36, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I agree, and your attempt to clean up the article was noble. However, the article in its present form is nothing but promotion of a point of view, and rather than fight a futile edit war over the article it seems to me better to have it deleted. JamesBWatson (talk) 14:42, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
No arguments here *sigh* --Rlandmann (talk) 15:01, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Help with a DOB dispute

Hi, I wouldn't mind some advice on trying to resolve a dispute: The subject is Chubby Chaney. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Chaney One editor's reference to the 1918 DOB is based on a book written in the 1970s, and last updated in 1992. I entered a 1914 DOB, supported by the death certificate and the 1920 census, which would seem to be more accurate. I have since updated the discussion page with the sources that support that date, and posted a copy of his death cert online, but I haven't tried to update the page again. I think that the 1914 date is more reliable that the 1918 date, as it is based on government records, but I don't want to try changing it again, only to have it reverted and incur some more snarky responses.

And if this isn't the proper place for the message, please set me in the right direction. Stembark (talk) 19:12, 10 March 2010 (UTC)Stembark

I am quite happy for you to post the message here, and I shall try to help. I have read the discussion about this and looked up the relevant links. It seems perfectly clear to me that you are right in your assessment. I have posted a comment to the article's talk page, and have also made an edit to the article. In that edit to the article I have not only posted what I am sure is the reliably sourced date of birth, but have also given justification for the date. I think that justification really belongs on the talk page rather than in the article, but there is just a slight hope that this may make it more likely the change will be allowed to stay. I shall see if that works, and if not then will think again. JamesBWatson (talk) 10:22, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for your help and time! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.156.101.6 (talk) 14:03, 11 March 2010 (UTC) Forgot to sign in. Stembark (talk) 14:05, 11 March 2010 (UTC)Stembark

Hi IT's probably fairly obvious that I'm new to wikipedia article creating. Thanks for the feedback on my article Social Finance Ltd. We're a non-profit so not looking to promote any products. I've had a go at adding some more content. I hope it now meets Wikipedia's criteria. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by W7aqhh3 (talkcontribs) 14:34, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

deleting a page

Hi James, How do I delete a page I created? Natalia Sosnina Unforunately, we do not have sufficient references at this time and we would like the page deleted. thanks very much Kimberley fuller 917-675-9080 Fullerkim (talk) 17:11, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Howdy James, I noticed that you had removed some information from the above page as a copy-vio. I did want to let you know that we had actually received OTRS permission. If you think it should be removed for other reasons please feel free to leave it out but I wanted to make sure you knew it wasn't in fact a copy-vio. James (T|C) 23:58, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Message from Despi4lyf

why u hatin' on ma article/help me don't hate! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Despi4lyf (talkcontribs) 09:18, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Here is an account of my actions concerning the article Despi(Rapper), which is clearly what you are referring to:
  1. You removed all the content from the article, leaving it blank. Commonly this is done by an inexperienced user in an attempt to delete the article, so I tried to help you by tagging it to be speedily deleted. You then restored some text to the article, so I realised that you didn't want it deleted, and I left it.
  2. You placed a comment about the article in the article itself: such comments belong on talk pages, not in articles. I could have simply removed the comment, but to be more helpful to you I took the small amount of trouble of moving it to the talk page for you.
  3. Kittensandrainbows had tagged the article for speedy deletion, and you had added a {{hangon}} tag, but you had put it in the wrong place. I helped you by moving it to the correct place.
  4. I read your comments asking for the article not to be deleted, and explained to you why your reason would not be likely to save the article. I briefly indicated what was necessary for it to be saved, and gave you a link to where you could find more relevant information.
The response I get to this is an incoherent message accusing me of hatred. I wonder which of my actions suggested hatred. You may also like to think about whether the message you gave me was the most likely way of encouraging me to be helpful to you.
Despite the above, if you have any specific question you would like to ask I will consider it. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:37, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Anonymous message

then change the fucking summaries on the page and ill stop deleting them —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.253.12.96 (talkcontribs) 13:12, 12 March 2010

Would you like to clarify that? JamesBWatson (talk) 13:15, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

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Message from vandal

Well, pigs Bold textare pink!!!! Nascarfans (talk) 20:08, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes. And if that had been your only unhelpful edit I would have just reverted it and left it at that. JamesBWatson (talk) 20:10, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Regarding your rv of that IP user on Mohanlal's filmography,

You are indeed right. Looking at it more closely(I was reverting before as they are blocked, but I only quickly glanced and it appeared vandalism) is indeed vandalism. I am of course speaking of their edit here, where they add awards that he never received about a movie he was never in and didn't make.— dαlus Contribs 10:27, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I can't actually find any record of my having reverted any edits for this IP, though I do remember looking at the IP's edits and wondering if they were to be trusted, and I see I gave a warning on the user's talk page. JamesBWatson (talk) 10:33, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
My mistake, it wasn't a revert, but ya, you did warn them.— dαlus Contribs 10:37, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

ManU To-do list

hello, CSD G8 woudl not apply to to-do lists as they are a subpage of the talk page itself and in general cosidered usfeul. For more info see Wikipedia:To-do list. On a further note, if you tag something that is transcluded it is best to sue nowiki tags to avoid that that thee transcluding pages themselves appear in CAT:CSD. Best--Tikiwont (talk) 12:33, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the information: I will try to remember. For future reference, it would have saved me some trouble if you had mentioned Talk:Manchester United F.C./to do, rather than "ManU To-do list", as it took me a while of searching to work out what edit you were referring to. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:40, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
Indeed, the actual link got lost in editing. Sorry about that.--Tikiwont (talk) 12:42, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Why two tags? Isn't one enough? Curious, --Dennis The Tiger (Rawr and stuff) 14:34, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, one is almost certainly enough, and I admit there is probably no good reason for a second one in this case. Sometimes, however, promotion/spam is borderline, and in case of an admin who is inclined to be generous on that count it can be useful to tag for A7 too as a backup. Quickly glancing at the first few sentences of the article I thought this might be one of those cases. However, now I have looked again I see that later it becomes abundantly clear that the article is promotional. JamesBWatson (talk) 14:42, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Kalamandallam Tirur Nambissan

SIR, ihave tried maximum to keep the wki policy with my knowledge. but i cold not prevent from deletion. i checked some other articles about some persons who have the same importance in the same field.even they are more space using,they havent addressed the deletion problem.the person noted in my contribution,had done enogh to live in the hearts of people,and passed away.i tried to present some evidences like paper cuttings,a web(cyber kerala),photos,vedeo url,etc ,but you rejected all of that evidencs. ihave no evdence of a online news like hindu.what can i do ? who can help me in this project?who is near to me (in palakkad or malappuram) help me .other wise this person may be deleted from the history .also i request you to make your polcy simple enough to acheive for the common people. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mohanantirur (talk Mohanantirur (talk) 18:07, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, JBW. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2010_March_16.
Message added 18:52, 16 March 2010 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Answer regarding you asking why I relisted provided there. Taelus (talk) 18:52, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Some unjust censorship

ok im sorry i will not post anything that is untrue. But i did right some true facts that this fellow citizen does not agree with but it is fact. We have no transport system at all and the local park was left to the people but was taken away from them. i will take away any sarcastic remarks i put in but i feel that some facts should be allowed to be kept in because it is part of the true history of Oldcastle.Co.Meath. is it ok if i put factual infomation only? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yoda23456 (talkcontribs) 11:54, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I strongly encourage you to read Wikipedia's notability and reliable sources guidelines to see the standards required for information to be added to articles. Please also note that Wikipedia is not a medium to be used for gaining publicity for a point of view. On this subject you may like to read the policy that Wikipedia is not a means of promotion. Also relevant is the policy on Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:02, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

ok thank you. I will follow the guidelines you have sent me. Thank you for your time —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yoda23456 (talkcontribs) 12:44, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Fantasticks

Hi JamesBWatson. I'm just wondering why you have removed the external link to the official website of The Fantasticks London production which opens in May 2010? This is a genuine website related to the production which is discussed in the article. Many thanks Sav552 (talk) 13:19, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Looking back now I can't see any good reason for removing it, so I have restored the link. I think probably I removed the link while removing a lot of other links that fall foul of WP:ELNO without checking carefully enough. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:23, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
Thank you. I see no reason why any of the other links you have seen fit to remove fall foul of WP:ELNO. They are all genuine websites and give Wikipedia visitors the option to find out more about what is being discussed in the article. They are not SPAM and have not been there to "promote" the websites. They are there to allow people to find out more about what is being discussed from the official source. For example - the link you have removed for Love Never Dies to the reallyuseful.com website is pointing to Andrew Lloyd Webber's official companies website. He is the composer, producer, promoter and Adelphi Theatre owner. I do feel you have been quick to remove important external links. Sav552 (talk) 13:29, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Looks like he's also at work using this ip as well see here, the same stuff adding a fictitous Randall Cooper all over the place. NtheP (talk) 13:30, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes indeed. I have given both Rudolph22 and the IP final warnings. I think this is justified as they are clearly the same person. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:40, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Dynamic awareness theory

I have removed the prod. Someone keeps removing all the references and stripping it back to a stub, claiming (miscellaneously) that he invented the theory, he's a student of the theory, or he's the professor of a student of the theory.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:32, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Disruptive Edit by Claudinian

Hi James,

I understand that you were responsible for blocking user Claudinian for disruptive edits and vandal on the Claudine Barretto article. It seems that the user is back and is still continuously doing alterations on the article thus not meeting NPOV. I would like to ask for help if you could post a ban for this user as you did the previous time as i might not have enough knowledge on the proceedings for meriting a ban. Your help will be greatly appreciated. Wiki pseud (talk) 03:57, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

dj flash

SORRY JAMES....I REALLY THOUGHT ONE OF YOU GUYS MIGHT HELP ME BRING THAT DJFLASH PAGE TO WITHEN THE GUIDELINES OF WIKIPEDIA......BUT ALL I SEE IS A LOT OF NAME CALLING AND HATIN ON HERE.....NO PROB....INSTEAD OF HELPING WITH THE SITUATION...YOU GUYS WANT TO PASTE BANNERS ON PAGES.....I SAW WHAT SOMEONE DID TO ICE T'S PAGE......ITS COOL THOUGH....YOUR CALLING THE SHOTS.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Djflash1957 (talkcontribs) 02:02, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Player Uno/Stupefied

Hello James,

This is Nicolas Dansereau. You were probably wondering why I was changing the pages of Player Uno and Stupefied. I wanted to change the name as I do not want people to know that I am in fact masked professional wrestler Player Uno and that Stupefied is in fact Marc Dionne. We would like the names to be stripped for the sake of our own privacy. If possible, please take these down.

-nick —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.179.113.41 (talk) 21:04, 21 March 2010 (UTC)


My first reaction is to think that Wikipedia is not censored, that reliably sourced information should not be removed, that information already publicly available on the internet cannot be regarded as confidential, and that the edits do not stop short at removing personal information but also add deliberate misinformation, so the request should be rejected. However, personal information may, in some circumstances, be removed from Wikipedia articles for privacy reasons. I am not sure that this case qualifies, but you could try asking elsewhere. I am not sure where is the best place to ask, but you could try Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard. JamesBWatson (talk) 21:21, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Author blanking of article

I noticed recently that you have more than once reverted edits where the author of an article has blanked that article, and you have placed a warning on that user's talk page, using Huggle. Certainly generally it is not accepted for the author of a page to remove a speedy deletion tag, but it is generally accepted that if the author of an article blanks the article, and no other user has added any significant content, then the blanking is taken as indicating that the author wants the page deleted, and it can then be tagged for speedy deletion with {{db-blanked}}. This commonly accepted view is mentioned at WP:CSD. Very often new users who don't know how Wikipedia works see an article they have created tagged for deletion, accept that the article should be deleted, and remove the content, thinking that is deleting it. It is much better in such a case not to bite the newcomer by giving them a warning that they have done something wrong by trying to comply with the deletion notice. You may know all this already: I know from my own experience of using Huggle that it is very easy to slip into simply clicking on the revert button and moving on without checking the edit history carefully enough, but I thought it would not harm to mention this. JamesBWatson (talk) 20:49, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, i'm not entirely sure what i can say here. Yes, i knew this, as i am quite active in new page patrol if in not on the lookout for vandalism. As you didn't list any article's specifically i can't comment on any specific case either. So perhaps i should just say: Sure, ill keep an extra eye open for this :). Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)

Robin Steal

Someone else tried to A7 the article, but it was knocked back with an edit summary "Speedy deletion declined. Criterion A7 does not apply: The article makes a credible assertion of importance or significance, sufficient to pass A7". So we wait a week or go to AfD. In any event, the article is toast :) --Tagishsimon (talk) 14:18, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I know about the history. However, I have two thoughts on this. As far as the letter of the law goes, for speedy deletion (unlike a prod) there is nowhere, so far as I can find, that says you can't restore a speedy deletion tag if you think someone has unreasonably removed it. As far as the spirit of the law goes, why should we have to wait a week because someone has unreasonably removed a tag? So on both counts I think it is OK to restore the tag. If it's removed again I will probably hold back, rather than get into a sort of speedy-tag-war. JamesBWatson (talk) 14:25, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
You've only done what I very very nearly did; I hope your A7 is successful and I commend your boldness. --Tagishsimon (talk) 14:31, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Okay; that worked :) --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:21, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Ancient history

I think I mentioned this to you before: this was the page of rules "to consider" in September 2001. Note in particular the section titled "Keep rules simple". Olaf Davis (talk) 15:39, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, very interesting. In some ways an even greater contrast with the current situation than old pages I had seen before. JamesBWatson (talk) 15:34, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

{{Talkback}}

Family Movement

Would appreciate feedback.

Hello, JBW. You have new messages at Your username's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Stefanlorimer (talk) 18:26, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Replied at User talk:Stefanlorimer JamesBWatson (talk) 15:37, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Theodore Borders

Hi James. I have rejected your speedy deletion request regarding Theodore Borders. While I would certainly question whether he is notable, I feel that the acting roles mentioned - and in particular the regular role on Flash Forward - constitute a credible claim of significance. I would urge you to WP:PROD the article or take it through WP:AFD - this person seems to be borderline at best in terms of notability, but the article does not meet A7 as defined. Let me know if you have any questions. Best wishes, Rje (talk) 02:15, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Vandalism on my Talk Page

Thanks for the quick revision of the vandalism by Everyone's Used Tissue. Much appreciated :) - NeutralHomerTalk08:36, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

sorry

i am sorry for the bad edits that i made sorry i will not be so stupid sorry --Ps0114 (talk) 17:02, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

OK. As long as you are willing to learn I am happy with that. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:05, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

soory to trouble you

i was wondering how to delete a page i made i stupidly made Nick Aird i want to delete it can you help thanks --Ps0114 (talk) 17:05, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Although I normally reply to queries in the place where they were made, this time I have replied on Ps0114's talk page JamesBWatson (talk) 09:06, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi man!

i have evidence to reference my adds to the "Budd" page adn the "Michael Weber" the evidence for budd is below

http:\\www.harlow.libdems.org/members.shtml

and michael can not be found at the present moment in time. also i myself am in fact a reference as they are both friends of mine!

Connorsmithers (talk) 10:28, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you have now provided a source of a kind. However, you should read Wikipedia's guidelines on notability and reliable sources, particularly the guideline on notability of people. The web link you give is not an independent source, nor does it give substantial coverage. The fact that you say you know the people in question does not make your personal statement a reliable source: if you read the pages linked above you will see this. Anyone at all can edit Wikipedia and claim to have personal knowledge. In fact if you are a personal friend of the people you edit about then this makes you contributions less acceptable, as you will see if you read the guideline on conflict of interest. Finally, a Wikipedia disambiguation page is for a specific purpose: it is for navigating to Wikipedia articles which might all have the same name, not for adding information about subjects which do not qualify for articles of their own due to failing to satisfy the notability criteria. JamesBWatson (talk) 10:41, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I think you jumped the gun on the Fluenz page

Relook before you delete. It always take time to set up a page, not in a matter of minutes, but days or weeks.--Northerncedar (talk) 11:35, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I see no evidence of notability, either in the article or elsewhere.Of course the article does not have to be in its finished form immediately, but there is no good reason why it should not at least give an indication why the subject is notable right from the start. At present it does not do so. JamesBWatson (talk) 11:48, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the review for Fluenz

I guess you might not find it notable. But from a language learning standpoint (not on cost alone), this program will eventually be a classic like Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone. It is hard to take direct quote from reviews - I would have to list about 20 of all the RS product and Fluenz product. But you can not quite do that. I redone the reference at least to the 2 points I made. --Northerncedar (talk) 11:53, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately "will eventually be a classic" is not enough: Wikipedia requires notability now: Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. However, having thought about it I will remove the speedy deletion tag to allow you more time to establish notability. I don't promise not to restore it in a day or two if you have not done so, but I wish you luck in the attempt. JamesBWatson (talk) 11:56, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Brahmo Samaj

Hi, I have reverted your revert to what you perceived to be a "good" version. FYI, you have indiscriminately removed 7 references from reliable sources - such as "Brahmo Samaj and the Making of modern India by David Kopf", which is a standard reference text. I suggest that you either discuss your reverts, or challenge the "bad" texts (and this article is littered with them) in a mode which indicates your familiarity with the subject matter. I am prepared to provide additional sources for any material added by me and which has been deleted by you or user:dbachmann. I am also approaching my 3RR limit on this page so am not editing this article {AGF} for the stipulated period. Somendas (talk) 14:12, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I accept most of what you say. I did revert a whole chunk of edits, and I accept that this probably included both good and bad. JamesBWatson (talk) 14:14, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

apologies

Sorry for the url linking. We have a rather over eager member of staff, shall we say. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ennkay77 (talkcontribs) 16:29, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

thank you

thank you for telling me how to delete Nick Aird how did you become a wikipeadia police officer? --Ps0114 (talk) 16:54, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Family Movement Update

Hello, JBW. You have new messages at Your username's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Abbey College Ramsey

The things i put on the abbey college ramsey page were true, i have an article on the internet to prove one part. (http://www.huntspost.co.uk/content/hunts/news/story.aspx?brand=HPTOnline&category=News&tBrand=HertsCambsOnline&tCategory=newslatestHPT&itemid=WEED17%20Mar%202010%2012:24:44:497)

I will find the links to prove my other points. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.141.190.113 (talk) 15:16, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Hello, would you mind chiming in on this article again. I'm not sure how I should go about handling this editors contributions. If he has a point and game articles have no need for references, then my mistake, but I'm pretty sure they do. Thanks! SpigotMap 18:08, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

There are several separate issues involved.
  1. Is the subject notable enough for an article to exist? For this we need reliable independent sources. I have had a quick glance at a few of the references given, and my initial impression is that none of them are independent of the subject. Consequently I have restored the {{Primary sources}} tag. If third party sources are not forthcoming we could take it to Articles for Deletion, but I should emphasise that I have not checked all the references.
  2. Assuming the subject is notable enough for an article, are particular statements made in the article verifiable? For this we need only reliable sources, they do not need to be independent of the subject. For this purpose the IP editor is right in thinking that primary sources are sufficient.
  3. Assuming that particular facts given in the article are verifiable from the sources, are they notable enough to be included in an encyclopedia article? Here we are in the realms of subjective judgement. My own opinion is that over 90% of the material in almost all such articles about video games is not encyclopedic, but one is usually up against almost full-time video game fans who think every last trivial detail is notable, and I tend to find the effort of trying to fight against them is not worth it. Good luck to you, however, if you are willing to work at it.
I will have another look at the article when I have time, and I may make a few attempts to improve it. However, the amount of time I am willing to spend on these fan-dominated areas is limited. Provisionally, and subject to change of mind when I do look at it more thoroughly, my advice is to take one of the following three lines: (1) give up and move on to something else; (2) leave it and come back to it in a month or so (sometimes this works); (3) consider whether there are grounds for saying the whole article lacks notability, and if so consider taking it to AfD. In the long run option 3 may be the best course, but I would not recommend jumping straight into that now.
On a separate but related issue, the editor has been behaving quite unreasonably in some ways, such as this edit, in which you are given a warning for editing your own user page. I have given the editor a level 3 warning about this, and if such actions continue further action may be necessary. JamesBWatson (talk) 10:14, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

The purpose of my editing

Hi James,

We seem to have a misunderstanding that I'd like to clear up.

The purpose of editing the Al Kennedy High School Wikipedia page is to showcase how a pedagogical model of teaching at-risk youth about sustainability is working. Since we established the five domains of education three years ago -- those being sustainable agriculture, architecture, energy, forestry, and community -- dropout rate has decreased from around 70% to under 10%. Additionally, test scores have skyrocketed and school reputation around the community has improved dramatically. Kennedy is now known as a successful education institution in Cottage Grove rather than a depository for failed and hopeless kids.

Please understand, if we were to promote the school, we'd make posters at board meetings and wear school uniforms. The purpose of this Wikipedia page is to send a message, a message that schools across the nation must adopt sustainable practices and prepare the next generation of the environmental challenges ahead. And in the technological and media world we live in, why should Wikipedia prevent this movement?

This is Kennedy's identity. It doesn't harm anybody, nor is it derogatory to any race, gender, class or socioeconomic group. It's an idea, at a rural school in central Oregon. All I see is goodness, but for some reason, you think our page is bad. Please enlighten me with your rational.

Thank you for listening,

Runningking (talk) 18:32, 26 March 2010 (UTC)Ryan


You say your purpose is to "showcase" how a particular method works, to "send a message", and to indicate that schools "must adopt" a particular approach. All of these are ways of saying that you have been editing with the purpose of promoting a particular view. I do not "see the page as bad", but Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a medium for promotion of a particular view. There is no suggestion that Wikipedia should "prevent this movement", merely that Wikipedia should not promote the movement, which is a completely different matter. There a many free web hosts around on which you are very welcome to promote your message, and I wish you every success in doing so. However, Wikipedia is not one of these free web hosts. Very many people think "everyone is welcome to contribute to editing Wikipedia" means "everyone is welcome to contribute anything they like to Wikipedia", but this is a misunderstanding: there are policies as to what Wikipedia is and what it isn't, and anyone is welcome to contribute within the framework of those policies. Spreading a message, promoting a point of view, is not within that framework. JamesBWatson (talk) 19:33, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Doubt

Hi James, Im from Mexico and I work in the team of the senator in the "new media department", I read the guidelines but I dont understand why I cannot put links to the official facebook and the official youtube channel? since the information helps to know more about this politician?

Regards —Preceding unsigned comment added by Soyfrida (talkcontribs) 18:47, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Jamie Colby page Vandalized

70.18.34.18 is removing material repeatedly from the page. Several editors have reverted these edits, including yourself. There is no substantiation or reason given by that person for their edits.

Mojofan1945 (talk) 16:37, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Re: Robyn Young

There seems to be some mistake - I have a load of "edits" which I am clearly not the author of - nor am I qualified to be such! This includes "Robyn Young". I have no idea how to "talk" on Wikipedia nor any interest in so doing. Perhaps you can clarify for me what exactly is happening?

Many thanks

Alex Thurley-Ratcliff AlexTR (talk) 20:00, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

The article Robyn Young was created on 23 June 2007 by the user Alexthurleyratcliff, the same user account you used to post the above message. If you did not create that article then I can only assume that someone else has got hold of your password and has been using your account, in which case you should change your password at once. However, is there any possibility at all that you did create the article, and nearly three years later you don't remember doing so? What about the rest of the "load of edits" you mention? Were nay of those recent, or did they also take place years ago? JamesBWatson (talk) 20:08, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

errr... I really don't understand this "talk" business - so I hope it's right. Someone else must have got hold of my password and has been using your account, but it's odd, since the reference under Kookana (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kookana&action=historysubmit&diff=348720016&oldid=160101260) showing my supposed "edit" of 20:50, 24 September 2007 seems very knowledgeable and scholarly! Why would anyone use my account to add something worth adding? Beats me! The thing is, I have never even heard of the Kookana tribe and I am genuinely unqualified to comment! Ditto, "Batory Square", ditto "Black Sun". I admit some of the grammatical editings are possible here, but not the German translations from German website sources.

Anyway - I have since changed my password; but please could you do something about the repeated "warnings" I get about Robyn Young :-)

Thanks!

AlexTR 20:29, 28 March 2010 (UTC)AlexTR —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexthurleyratcliff (talkcontribs)


Re: Paul McConnor

So delete it already, friend. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ianlarson (talkcontribs) 13:34, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi, James.

This was one of those hedge cases that we run into - the article had been created previously, and I had tagged it yesterday for G3, after researching for information. (He didn't even turn up in iMDB, ergo the G3 hoax.) To my recollection, the article had been created under a different name - I guess I forgot to paste on the user's talk page. =( Nevertheless, I'm left with something of an impression that this guy may not atually be a newbie - just something at the back of my head is eating me on this, it feels just vaguely like we're seeing a case of sockpuppetry.

I'm not, however, going to worry much about this yet, unless the above article goes blue link again, or if this name comes up again despite warnings not to post such like this. I want to make sure I'm right before I start getting admins involved. --Dennis The Tiger (Rawr and stuff) 15:14, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Why is Zopherus jourdani notable? And of what?

It's a real example -- the article on Zopherus jourdani, I mean -- of the claim that all species of beetle are notable by virtue of their existence. I put a non-notable tag on the article back in 2008, where it sat until recently it was removed with the preceding rationale. You might find the exchange interesting. Timothy Perper (talk) 07:22, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

User Stemonitis just put the Z. jourdani article into the larger article about the genus Zopherus. A good thing, I think. Timothy Perper (talk) 07:35, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
I find it rather odd that the user who twice removed the notability tag and insisted both in edit summaries and on the talk page that all species are notable was the one who then merged it into another article. "The species is notable enough for its own article, yes it is, yes it is, yes it is, oh, erm, the species is not notable enough for its own article". Though possibly that is not fair, as it is not entirely unreasonable to think "well, although I think the species is notable enough for an article, the genus is even more notable, and a single article on the genus might on the whole be better". I have written a comment on the talk page of the article. I am, however, even more intrigued as to why you told me about this. I don't off hand remember your user name, and a quick glance at your recent editing history fails to reveal any contact we have had. ?? JamesBWatson (talk) 08:28, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
Seemed a bit self-contradictory, I'd say. I ran into something you'd written on the existence ≠ notability page, and thought you'd be interested in the issues raised by poor little Zopherus jourdani. Looks like I was right, too. Glad you weighed in. Timothy Perper (talk) 08:42, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

green infrastructure edits

James,

Please note as a new user that non of the edits for the above are contrary to the sites use and are updates to current industry development. the links placed on this artice are valid and within the guidance on the site. i hope these will not be deleted and the edits accepted. these edits reflect current updates from within this sector and have no commercial or other benefit over accuracy of the item.

Please advise whilst a new user these edits have been honest and for the interest and in following of the sites aims. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Teaks73 (talkcontribs) 09:35, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi:

You have changed a portion of a quote from a citation from "Sexual orientation is therefore not a choice, though sexual behavior clearly is" to "Sexual orientation is therefore not a choice, though sexual behavior may be". As I sad in my revert I understand where you are coming from, but I don't think that it is appropriate for you to change an authoritative source or citation just because you prefer that it is reworded differently.

My view of what the citation is saying is that it is comparing sexual orientation to sexual behavior. It is saying that Sexual orientation is not a choice, that a person is born with a particular orientation. It is saying that sexual behavior 'is a choice. The comparison made is something not within the control of an individual versus something that is within the control of an individual -- that is to say, behavioral in nature.

Your rewording that blurs that comparison. I am not sure I understand what you mean by trying to say that "Sexual behavior may be a choice". Are you suggesting that behavior on the part of an individual may not be within their control in some circumstances? Even if you were to view it from a psychological perspective, that some disorders cause "compulsive" behavior, the viewpoint that it is chosen behavior, or a choice would still be accurate. We are comparing chosen behavior, to genetically inborn sexual orientation.

The fact that we are discussing it like this suggests that it is a viewpoint, or possibly Original Research on our part. If the statement made is inaccurate (even though cited) we should provide other supporting or dissenting viewpoints, not try to change what the cited viewpoint seems to say just because it seems to be expressed too emphatically. We could replace the statement entirely with some other cited source. We could try for a blend/mash-up paraphrase of those three or four sources. But just changing a couple words changes the meaning of what the cited source says, in favor of what you believe, right?

So, I am not trying to be a nuisance. We are both experienced editors. There is no need for some kind of revert war. Wikipedia policies say that we should put in the article what the citations say. Atom (talk) 15:01, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

I understand everything you say, but I stand by my comment in an edit summary: the statement is given in the article as a fact, not as an attributed quotation. To say "we should put in the article what the citations say" fails to draw that distinction. If it were agreed by all or almost all reliable sources then for Wikipedia purposes it would be treated as a fact, no matter what you or I might think. However, to take a single opinion taken from a single source and state it as a fact is a different matter. The words "clearly is" indicate that the opinion stated is beyond reasonable dispute, which is simply not the case. To say "the Royal College of Psychiatrists said that it clearly is" would be justified by the sources, to say "it clearly is" is not. Would you be willing to compromise on "is" in place of "clearly is"? That would still assert the same fact as the version you prefer, and would in that sense satisfy your wish to follow what the source says, but would reduce the emphasis on the point to which I take exception. Even if the content of what we write has to follow our sources, we do not have to follow the exact wording. JamesBWatson (talk) 15:16, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
I seem to be bumping into edits by JamesBWatson recently. This is the second I've encountered in two days. Anyway, this disagreement is about whether or not a certain assertion is a quote or an opinion -- well, that's clear. It is certainly NOT a quote -- because it has no quotation marks and no references are given for it (the list of references several lines later doesn't count because you can't tell where they go). The assertion (the original, pre-Watson one) is also wrong, and very badly wrong. If some irate individual starts in on me about evidence, here's the original pre-Watson assertion: "Sexual orientation is therefore not a choice, though sexual behavior clearly is". Wrong, wrong, wrong. Timothy Perper (talk) 19:29, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
I would be okay with quoting it (with quote marks) and attributing it more directly (rather than with just the footnote.) If we want to say the gist of what they said, then we should paraphrase it better, IMO. I'm okay with your compromise, yes, I guess. I will ponder how it could be rewritten better. I guess I feel that the point is that we are not trying to assert that "sexual orientation is biological" as a fact. We are trying to assert that "reliable sources assert that sexual orientation is biological." So it seems that giving the strong statement ("Sexual orientation is therefore not a choice, though sexual behavior clearly is") and qualifying the source of who asserts that is the proper path -- Not weakening the statement so it sounds more palatable for the reader to believe. After all, "WE" aren't taking stand on the issue, we are presenting reliable information on the issue from a NPOV. Atom (talk) 21:20, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
Please do not interrupt someone else's comments. Mine have a time stamp of 19:29; your comments, inserted later, are time-stamped 21:20. These interruptions make it impossible to follow the argument. Thank you. Timothy Perper (talk) 01:09, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
Do you know what the word "rape" means? Some sexual behavior, at some times, has a voluntary component, but not all and not always (that includes homosexual rape, e.g., in prison (Google it)). The literature on the subject is immense, especially by feminist writers and by academics trying to prevent sexual coercion on campuses, e.g., between male faculty members and female students. Try Googling "sexual coercion" if you want documentation, much of it Wiki-reliable. The literature on sexual orientation is equally large (Google it if you don't believe me). This article is strongly POV, from a biological reductionist viewpoint. But JamesBWatson is quite right in the change he made. Timothy Perper (talk) 19:29, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
First I agree that a quotation should have quotes. One can quote without the quotation mark, it is just sloppy editing, poor habit and confusing to do it that way. Paraphrasing (which does not require quotes) by following the quote to the letter except for small things that you change is valid, but equally sloppy editing as it can confuse the reader too. (To think the source says something different than what it does. Of course, people in doubt should go to the original citation anyway.)
Second, it is not up to us to judge whether we agree with reliable sources or not. We should try to faithfully project the meaning of the original source. We can paraphrase, but if there is dispute to the meaning then there is a higher need to quote exactly rather than paraphrase. If we feel that the article is not NPOV, but weighted too heavily in some fashion, (And you indicate that you think this is the case) then the solution is not to weaken the language of the sources we have, but to provide reliable sources with alternate viewpoints. (In separate paragraphs or sections.) Mixing them in the same sentence or paragraph just confuses the reader. I'm sorry that you disagree with the cited source, but that is what they said. Their opinion is notable. Ours is not.
You may feel that sexual behavior is not a choice. My read (and I suspect others) is that behavior implies choice in this context. (the one given in the quote) I concur that being raped is not a choice. But then, I don't see rape as sexual behavior on the part of the victim either. It is often not sexual behavior on the part of the attacker for what little that matters, but an act of violence, power and control. "Sexual coercion" and "Sexual Behavior" are not synonyms. Atom (talk) 21:20, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
One thing at a time. I am going to repeat myself: there are no sources assigned to the sentence under discussion. References several lines later DO NOT COUNT because we cannot determine what they refer to. Atomaton, you say I disagree with the cited source. NO SOURCE IS CITED. If you want to quote something, do so, using "quotation marks." I believe you are acting in good faith, but you must cite your sources. It's Wiki policy, and not up for grabs. Otherwise, we have nothing at all. The rest of your comments are good faith opinions, but nothing more. Timothy Perper (talk) 01:09, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

I stand 100% by what I have already said: the statement in the article was given as a fact, whereas it is an opinion. Stating it without indicating that it is a quotation means that it is being asserted as a fact, not given as a quote, and there are no two ways about it. Beyond that, though, I had no idea that my simple edit was going to spark of such a debate. At present I have no more to say on the issue. JamesBWatson (talk) 18:17, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for answering my question about blp

Thanks! Xtzou (Talk) 20:34, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi. I see you have partly-reverted one of my changes and added the text "They have many pictures and links to audio and video clips from throughout Lena's career. These may be found at http://www.lena-zavaroni.co.uk and http://www.lenazavaroni.net." to the "Tribute websites" section - I thought the "They have many..." sentence was unnecessary myself, as people know what tribute sites are. But anyway, do you think that's an appropriate way of referencing them, especially as one of them is already linked in the "External links" section? (in fact, I see they both are now, as someone has just added the other one). In fact, is the "Tribute sites" section appropriate at all? -- Boing! said Zebedee 11:57, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I am not aware of partly reverting one of your edits: if I have then perhaps you can give me a link to the edit of yours in question. I did not add the text you quote, but removed part of the existing text, and slightly reworded what was left because the word "both" was inappropriate following "a number of" rather than "two". In answer to your question, no I don't think it is appropriate, and in fact my inclination was to remove the whole section, but I compromised by removing only part of it. If you want to remove the section entirely I won't object at all. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:06, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
Ah, looking more closely I think someone else reverted my change, and then you partly removed their addition (I'd done something very similar to you but I'd removed more of it). As you agree, I'll remove the whole section. Best regards -- Boing! said Zebedee 12:11, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
PS: Looks like the editor has got the message -- Boing! said Zebedee 12:42, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Russia blanking

Please take a look at the recent history of the Russia article. I don't think you meant to do that! Please be careful in future. --Tango (talk) 19:49, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi James,

I am from Expand Networks and would like to discuss our page as someone keeps posting incorrect financial information and take it off and get told I can't. Please advise on how I should proceed

Thanks

[email address removed] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.2.79.131 (talk) 19:56, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I have removed your email address to protect you from spam. I suggest you email info-en-q AT wikimedia.org explaining who you are and what the problem is. The volunteers that deal with emails to that address will be able to help you. James, I hope you don't mind me answering questions on your talk page! --Tango (talk) 22:01, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, JBW. You have new messages at Tommy2010's talk page.
Message added 21:13, 7 April 2010 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Tommy (msg) 21:13, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

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