User talk:JBW

If I left you a message on your talk page: please answer on your talk page, and drop me a brief note here to let me know you have done so. (You may do this by posting {{Talkback|your username}} on this page, or by writing your own note.) (I make only limited use of watchlisting, because I have found otherwise I am unable to keep it under control, and soon build up such a huge watchlist that it is unworkable.) If you leave me a message here: I will answer here, unless you request otherwise, or I think there are particular reasons to do otherwise, and usually I will notify you on your talk page. Please add new sections to the bottom of this page, and new messages to the bottoms of their sections. New messages at the top of the page may be overlooked. Clicking here will open a new section at the bottom of the page for a new message. After a section has not been edited for a week it is automatically moved to the latest archive. Links to those archives are given below. However, I reserve the right to delete vandalism, trolling or other unconstructive edits without archiving them.

Restoration of Page for My DNA Fragrance

Hello JBW,

My SEO person thought he was doing me a favor to do some editing to the wiki page, which has been there since 2008 with no issues. I would like to request the restoration of the deleted page for My DNA Fragrance and have it restored to the original content that has been there since the page was original accepted and approved in 2008. The page has not had any issues since then and My DNA Fragrance is a notable product that is eco-friendly and has garnered global media attention since its creation in 2007.

Please note that I cannot remember the login info for my original account JadeIce, and I do not have the same email address from that time. However, I would like instructions from you regarding what is necessary on my part to have the page restored as there are literally hundreds of links in google that go back to this page since 2007 and we would like to make sure that those links do not remain dead and expire.

Any follow up from you is greatly appreciated.

Jade. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jadeice1000 (talk • contribs) 00:24, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Firstly, the article was created on 18 May 2010, not 2008. The name of the account which created it was Jaydeice. By "with no issues" I assume that you mean that nobody objected to any aspect of it. However, that is not true: the very first edit made by anyone other than you had the edit summary "tone down wording", and consisted of reducing the amount of promotional language in the article. Apart from edits either by editors clearly working on behalf of the business, edits made by bots (i.e. computer programs doing routine maintenance tasks), and utterly trivial edits (such as replacing "My DNA Fragrance Official Website" by "My DNA Fragrance official website", adding a tag saying that the article had not been categorised, marking links as dead, etc) every single edit to the article consisted of removal of some of the promotional content that you or others working for the company had posted. Such edits were made by Slightsmile, Fetchcomms, and Ubiquity.

My guess is that your reason for mentioning the survival of the article "with no issues" is an assumption that an article which has gone unchallenged for a long time must be all right, as everyone who has seen it has accepted it. However, that is not necessarily true. While unacceptable content in an article on a prominent topic is likely to be seen by many thousands of people per day, including large numbers of active Wikipedia editors, an article on a more obscure topic may be seen by very few people, fewer still of whom are Wikipedia editors, and fewer still are Wikipedia editors who are likely to pick up policy violations such as use of Wikipedia for promotion, so problems can go undetected for a long time. I have known absolutely blatant vandalism on a little-viewed article to remain in place for years before being noticed and removed. For example, in the last 30 days the article Adolf Hitler has been viewed 659,182 times, and United States 1,169,961 times, while a sample of 10 months over the lifetime of the article you are concerned about suggests that it has been viewed on average about 7 times per day. Before April 2014, there had been a total of eight edits that were not either by the account that created the article or by bots. Seven of those eight edits made utterly trivial changes, as described above. The one other edit was the one I have already mentioned, reducing (but by no means eliminating) the promotional language. All that is entirely consistent with the hypothesis that the article had been left as it was because it was largely unnoticed, rather than because a lot of people approved it.

However, all that is of limited relevance, because the issue is whether the article was consistent with Wikipedia policies and guidelines, not how and why it escaped for so long. The editor Ubiquity studied the article and decided that it was an unambiguous advertisement, and nominated it for speedy deletion. As a Wikipedia administrator, I assessed the nomination, and concurred with Ubiquity's view. The article has been full of such marketing gobbledygook as "enjoying leading the field in this customization mega-trend, giving the consumer one-of-a-kind exclusively crafted items", and so on and so on. There is no way that any impartial observer could see the article as anything other than a blatant attempt to abuse Wikipedia by using it as a free advertising service. That is against Wikipedia policy, and any such article is liable to speedy deletion. You should consider yourself lucky that you got away with free advertising for four years before it was noticed. There is certainly no case for restoring it.

You ask "what is necessary on [your] part to have the page restored". I'm afraid that the answer to that is that you should not have any part in trying to get an article about your business in Wikipedia. Wikipedia's policy on conflict of interest strongly discourages editing in connection with a business you have a connection to, and you should certainly not be creating an article on this subject. Indeed, the totally promotional character of the article you did create is an excellent illustration of one of the reasons for that policy. Wikipedia is not a medium for businesses to publish information about themselves: that is what the company's own web site is for. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 11:00, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi James,

Thank you for a very concise explanation. I understand that Wiki is a neutral environment. My DNA Fragrance has significant international media attention and qualifies for inclusion in the Wiki. Will take all you said into consideration now. Thank you for your time.

Jade — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jadeice1000 (talk • contribs) 01:11, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

OK. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 09:36, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Talkback from Fetald

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

Seen. Thanks. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 09:36, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bal_Rajagopalan

Hello, I had written before and I can't seem to find your response. I placed the following page with lots of references and facts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bal_Rajagopalan

Can you please reconsider restoring the entry as it does not promote with unsubstantiated material. In addition, I could point out at least 10 physician entries that have much less in the way of references and facts and are still there.

Davidlgreene1969 (talk) 19:06, 16 April 2014 (UTC) David Greene

You can see your previous message and my reply to it in an archive of old talk page content at User talk:JamesBWatson/Archive 58#Requesting Re-Review of Dr. Raj's page. As for the 10 poor quality articles you mention, please let me know what they are, so I can consider whether to nominate them for deletion. Among the four and a half million articles on English Wikipedia, there are, unfortunately, thousands that are unsuitable, and it is only when someone notices one and flags it up that any action can be taken. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 09:12, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Russian American

Hi,

I saw you were the one who protected Russian American. I saw a certain user added people without discussion or agreement, could you please revert it? I can't revert for whatever reason.

Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by FixTheErrorNow (talk • contribs) 20:07, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

-i gave links for Pamela Anderson, bloomberg and this other women have it stated they have ancestry from russia--Crossswords (talk) 23:44, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

I have no knowledge of the people involved, and have no idea whether they should be included. I protected the article to stop disruptive edit warring, but I have no intention of taking sides in content disputes about the article. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 09:18, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

The Shard

Hi there,

I created a page for submission a while back in August with information on the viewing platforms at the top of The Shard. I would love to resubmit the article, but would like some feedback on why the submission was deleted so i can make relevant amends?

"16:09, 27 March 2014 JamesBWatson (talk | contribs) deleted page Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/The View from The Shard (G13: Abandoned AfC submission)"

Many thanks, Andy — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrewswilson87 (talk • contribs) 09:05, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Hello, Andy. I have restored the page, so that you can see for yourself what was said about the reason for declining the submission, and so that you can edit it to address the issue. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 09:34, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Fresh eyes please

Could you have a look at this sequence please.

• |I blocked User:IRoNGRoN after happening upon an insulting attack he made on another editor.

• This insulting post was then made to my talk page by IP:220.236.1.216 but was signed IRoNGRoN.

• Shortly after that, the IP made edits to the Lockheed A-12 article where he was involved in a dispute.

Perhaps I am damned if I do or damned if I don't in this situation, so could you take a look please. Moriori (talk) 21:14, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

@Moriori: Totally unacceptable. I have blocked both the account and the IP address for a week, and reverted the IP edits to the article. I will be willing to consider further action if the editor continues in a similar way. Please feel welcome to contact me again if necessary, though I will be less available than usual for the next few days. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 08:08, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

By the way, personally if I had been in your position I would have just removed the post to your talk page without comment, on the principle of not feeding the troll. However, that is obviously a matter for personal judgement. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 08:12, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

@Moriori: ...and now there has been more block evasion from another IP address geolocating not far from the first one. I have increased the block length again, and given a warning that the next one will be indef. However, as a kindness to the editor, I have semi-protected the article for the duration of the block. If it isn't obvious why that is a kindness to the editor, it's because it reduces the likelihood that he/she will evade the block again and get the indef block. It is to be hoped that he/she will have the sense to get the message, and either request an unblock or stop editing until the block expires. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 08:24, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Pseudo-grammarian

Hi,

Re that/which: I make changes so that the sentences concerned have their intended meaning. It's mostly for my benefit, because it annoys me to read incorrect usages. I'm cynical enough not to expect the general public to be able to understand the distinction between the words, but it's surprising to me how many mathematicians haven't grasped this either. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.181.213.132 (talk) 13:33, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

...and what is this supposed "distinction between the words"? And on what basis do you think that the supposed distinction reflects actual English usage? The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 17:10, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Can I direct you to google something along the lines of 'difference between that and which'?

I have done that, since you suggest doing so, and I found exactly what I expected. Much of it was prescriptive grammar, using the concept of "correct" usage, with no attempt whatever to show that the supposed distinction reflects real English usage. There were also people giving examples such as "The books, which have red covers, are new" versus "The books that have red covers are new", which misses the point, because exactly the same distinction exists between "The books, which have red covers, are new" and "The books which have red covers are new". Everything I saw, in fact, conformed exactly to the impressions I have formed over the years, namely that this supposed distinction is a totally artificial one, not actually reflecting what English speaking people say and what they understand to be the meaning. Can you actually provide any justification whatever for claiming that the supposed distinction actually exists in current English usage? If not, then it is a pseudo-grammatical rule, as artificial as the nonsense about not using "split infinitives" and not putting prepositions anywhere other than before a noun or noun equivalent. Merely pointing to a way that I can find loads of people prescribing the distinction (which is all that your suggested Google search achieved), without providing any justification for their doing so, achieves nothing useful. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 17:32, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

OK. Instances where misuse of 'which' cause a genuine risk of ambiguity are rare. I'll try and find a good example.

Here is an example of a sentence that I underlined when I first read it because I wasn't sure of its meaning. It is on page xiii of Blackburn, de Rijke and Venema's Modal Logic: In this framework, modal formulas are viewed as algebraic terms which have a natural algebraic semantics in terms of boolean algebras with operators.... It was not clear to me whether 'algebraic terms' all have natural algebraic semantics in terms of boolean algebras with operators or not.

Your contention seems to be that there should be no doubt about the meaning because 'which' is always used to mean 'that' and ', which' is always used to mean ', which'. I don't agree that people are always reliable with their use of commas, nor with their pauses when they are speaking. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.181.213.132 (talk • contribs) 19:39, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

1. Yes, that is a genuinely ambiguous sentence, and an interesting one at that. Thanks for drawing my attention to it.
2. No, I wasn't suggesting that people are always reliable with their use of commas: I was just suggesting that in the example quoted, the disambiguation is sufficiently achieved by the use of commas, irrespective of what relative pronoun is used, so that citing it as an example is misleading.
3. The example you quote is, as I said, genuinely ambiguous. However, it would not be ambiguous if we could be sure that it were written by someone competent at punctuation. If, on the other hand, the writer is capable of writing "Modal formulas are viewed as algebraic terms which have a natural algebraic semantic" when meaning "Modal formulas are viewed as algebraic terms, which have a natural algebraic semantic" then can we be confident that he or she is not capable of writing "Modal formulas are viewed as algebraic terms, that have a natural algebraic semantic" to mean what you would require to be written as "... algebraic terms, which have ..."? There are certainly people who are capable of that, and even people who are capable of doing the same but without the comma. It therefore seems to me that (a) if I am confident that I am reading something written by someone with the level of clarity about such issues that you evidently have, then whether that person makes the distinction that you insist on or not is irrelevant, as he or she will disambiguate in other ways, such as appropriate punctuation, while (b) if I am not confident that the writer has such clarity, then self-evidently I cannot rely on his or her use of "that" and "which" to disambiguate his or her meaning; thus in neither case does his or her making that distinction help to disambiguate. Conceivably there may be a middle ground of people who consistently follow the distinction you require in use of relatives but are careless or incompetent in their use of punctuation, but even if there is, I cannot rely on the assumption that I am dealing with such a person. Indeed, you have explicitly acknowledged that in citing the example you give: if you really thought that the that/which distinction were a rule of how English is used, then you would have found no ambiguity in the sentence that you cited, as the word "which" would be unambiguous. You found the sentence ambiguous only because you know full well that in fact there is no such rule in real English: it is a fake rule that you and various other people wish were a rule of English. I take the view that it is futile to try to impose a grammatical rule which does not correspond to the reality of how a language is used, no matter how good a logical case there may for holding the view that it would be better if we did all follow that rule. I myself make considerable use of grammatical distinctions which are lacking in the present day speech of almost all native speakers of English: for example, I make fairly frequent use of the subjunctive. However, using it myself is a different matter from trying to impose it, by changing what others have written.
4. Having said all that, I do now see that you had some reason for what you were doing, rather than just doing it because of some arbitrary rule of thumb you had been taught or had read somewhere, which is nearly always the reason for some editor suddenly appearing and making strings of changes to one grammatical point. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 20:34, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Auto block finder

The tools are up, and should remain up, but can still intermittently fail.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 18:50, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

User:Corkythehornetfan

A few of this blocked user's image uploads were tagged with CSD#G5 deletion tags due to the user being a sock puppet and banned/blocked. I'm not really sure how those should be handled, but I've declines all of the speedies because the images are within policy and there are currently no replacements on Wikipedia. I don't think those articles should be stripped of their content simply because a user was blocked. Do you have any guidance on this? Or thoughts? Cheers, TLSuda (talk) 13:39, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

@TLSuda: There is no clear answer in this sort of situation. I tend towards the view that letting a blocked editor find that he or she can keep creating sockpuppets, and having them blocked, but it doesn't matter because their edits stay anyway, encourages them to keep socking, whereas letting them find that doing so is a waste of their time, because whatever they do with sockpuppets gets reverted or deleted, encourages them to stop doing so. For that reason, I usually delete in this situation. However, I can see that there is a case for the view that useful images are still useful even though uploaded in violation of a block, so I will not criticise you if you take a different view from me. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 17:33, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I guess I could go through and upload exact copies of the files and delete the SP's revisions. At least his name would disappear and we would keep the same images. Would that work enough to show that it is a waste of time, or would the images being there at all be counter productive in the battle against SPs? TLSuda (talk) 14:50, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Apologizing to everyone?

Hi again, James! I'm sorry to bother you, but I did have a question. I'm trying to find a way of apologizing to everyone involved in this discussion for my immature and inappropriate behavior (without spamming). I was thinking of emailing them, or leaving them messages on their talk pages, but I'm not sure if that would seem too spammy. I just wanted to show them that I have matured and turned myself around. Maybe my actions will show that, though (they speak louder than words)? But let me know what you think. Thank you. EmilyREditor (talk) 04:51, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

My thinking is as follows, "Emily". Obviously the affair will see a big issue to you, as it affected you to great extent. However, all of the editors who took part in the discussion have made thousands of edits on Wikipedia, most of them tens of thousands, and after nine months they will have pretty well forgotten what to them was one small incident concerning one of the hundreds of Wikipedia editors they have had dealings with. It's up to you, but my advice is to drop the matter: put your past problems behind you, and concentrate on the good editing you can do from now on. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 09:29, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback. Yes, the avoidance of bringing it back to the table is the best advice to me, so I will definitely have to use it as I find a better way to help out. Thanks again. EmilyREditor (talk) 18:40, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Irongron

WP:ANI#Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#IRoNGRoN_indef_block_-_more_eyes_requested

It's quite possible I'm not seeing the whole story here, but I see this rate of escalation to an indef as quite wasteful of someone who looked like a useful editor. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:16, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

About my earlier comment

Although I'd appreciate if you withdrew/struck the part where you said that I've "brought up an ad hominem argument that has no bearing" on the ANI complaint, if you still maintain that it was ad hominem after seeing my reply here, can you please quote the portions of my earlier comment that I should strike out accordingly? Thank you. Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:32, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

I have no doubt that your comment was made in good faith, but I think it was mistaken, as the earlier problems with the editor's contributions have no bearing on the issue currently under discussion. Bringing up past problems involving the same person, but not related to the issue at hand, is an ad hominem argument. I don't see any need to withdraw or strike out any part of what I wrote. As for your striking out any part of what you have written, that is entirely up to you: there is nothing that I wish to request that you strike out. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 11:37, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi

Hi James, I object the article Iceberg B31 to be deleted. THanks Ashish Lohorung (talk) 12:10, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

You are perfectly free to contest deletion by proposed deletion, but if you do it may still be deleted at WP:AfD. You may like to edit it to give an indication of size that means something to people who have no experience of Atlanta, i.e the overwhelming majority of the world's population. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 12:24, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

About Wesley Witherspoon

Hi JamesB. It appears Mr Witherspoon, formerly of the University of Memphis Tigers has been picked up by Philippine Basketball Association team Air21 Express.

Would it be OK with you if I undeleted the article without going through the bureaucratic processes? The article didn't have an explanation of the subject's significance (real person), admittedly. --Shirt58 (talk) 10:11, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

@Shirt58: Yes, of course. The deletion was because there was no explanation of the subject's significance, and if you can provide evidence of significance, then there is no problem at all. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 10:17, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps You Can Help

I am trying to create a note that is also a reference for an article. I am trying to put this reference link along with the words "Ratings - Nielsen's in TV and Arbitron's in radio - help determine how much advertisers are charged to run commercials during TV programs and radio listening hours. The higher the rating, the more people there are watching and listening. That translates into a higher price for a commercial spot." I am trying to explain what references are in an article (which I hope to take to FAC) without going off-topic (and outside the scope of the article) in one of the sentences.

I have seen this done in other articles, but for the life of me I can't find any of them. Can you help? - Neutralhomer • Talk • 12:08, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm afraid at the moment I can't think of anything helpful. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 12:15, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

No worries. :) Take Care...Neutralhomer • Talk • 12:20, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

For review

Can you review my article? And is this article appropriate for publication ? link :- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation/Veron_%28Software%29 Nip123 (talk) 13:58, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Top neek

Oi you wasteman why u deleting my Neal patel page for - dont ever touch my shizzle or you will face the full wrath of my powers - you batty boy — Preceding unsigned comment added by Willoughby2613 (talk • contribs) 14:45, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Topic Ban

Regarding your notification of the topic ban, please back up your following accusations with facts. "You have continued to repeatedly re-create versions of a page which you know full well has more than once been discussed at deletion discussions and deleted. You have also edited disruptively in other places in connection with the page." - Synsepalum2013 (talk) 15:51, 24 April 2014 (UTC)