Woodlandpath

Proposed revision to Devil's Bridge entry

Comment First of all, I'd suggest copying this proposal to Talk:Devil's_Bridge. I don't know that much about the subject, but here's how'd I'd approach such situations in general:

1. Is one particular Devil's Bridge the most notable? Assuming that the one in Wales is, you could have "Devil's Bridge" redirect to "Devil's Bridge (Wales)", with a disambigutation link at the top. The disambig page could list other Devil's Bridge entries, with a short intro on the general etymology. I couldn't think of a very similar example (i.e., a named shared by multiple places with a common etymological root) but I guess I would be a hybrid between Downtown and London.
2. An alternative approach would be to have "Devil's Bridge" link to the general etymology page, with a list of links to other Devil's Bridges. See the entry for Springfield for an example. OhNoitsJamie^Talk 19:00, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Reply: No single Devil's Bridge is most notable. One may be more valued for it's beauty (Lucca, Italy), one for the technological achievement (St Gotthard, Switzerland), and there are a few which have such fully realized legends (Beaugency and Valentre, France) that they are remarkable for that fact alone. It's all over the map. Thanks for the input. I will post this to the DB discussion page when I have the (rather brief) text revision ready. Woodlandpath 19:24, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

As suggested, this dialogue has been moved to the Talk:Devil's_Bridge. Thanks, --Woodlandpath 22:31, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

International approach

Thanks for your work to Devil's Bridge. However, according to Manual of Style this should be an international encyclopedia (English is first language not only in Anglo-Saxon countries, and furthermore here could be a place to write things about specific countries which, in this way, can be not limited to a local language and be free to the whole world), I'd ask you to: 1) avoid make references to British themes which can be unknown, or hardly understandable, abroad, or even sound biased (for example, if there are 20 and more Devil's Bridges in the whole world, it has no meaning to specify "in Europe and United Kingdom". Devil's Bridges are not a British speciality. Thus I reverted it to "in Europe" simply.); 2) use also international units of measures always. Apart this, thanks for good work!! Attilios.

Attilios: Thanks for your comments and improvements. I hope you will watch this page and continue to contribute. Perhaps we can look for an alternate way of handling the entries for the bridges, as there are currently only two with elaboration. --Woodlandpath 03:12, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Tim Williams

Hi, I've cleared out my talk, so that might help. I deleted your recent article because it did not provide independent verifiable sources that he meets the notability guidelines. Although he may, for all I know, be notable, the only ref is his own page, not independent, so I cannot verify from the article. Giving that his work is praised without a source, this also looks like vanity/hagiography/spam. None of the books is linked to its Wikipedia article (assuming that they are notable enough to have one). Another editor deleted the image because it did not have an appropriate licence for use on Wikipedia. I'll put the text here shortly so that you can try to improve it, with appropriate sources. jimfbleak (talk) 07:18, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I've just followed the link, your article is largely copied from the website, and as a blatant copyright violation cannot be accepted in anything like its present form jimfbleak (talk) 07:22, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Jim,

Thanks for your reply.

The photo link was copied from another site as a template. I was just heading off to the Wikipedia help page to learn how to upload photos when I discovered that you had deleted the page. I was astonished at how fast you acted, and thought you must have a bot that looked for new pages.

The books were not referenced for the same reason: I had planned to provide more information, including the publisher, dates, synopsis, etc, over time. I worked on my Devil's Bridge page the same way (which people have now virtually ruined by chipping away at it).

Yes, the author information is copied from the website, which I admit I also posted, so it is not plagery. And it is not a vanity site. I live in Seattle and read the books several years ago and tracked the author down in the French West Indies where he's currently living, to ask why he's no longer writing and publishing. I am attempting to bring more awareness of his work, and to encourage him to continue publishing.

I have at times been discouraged by some of the editing, especially when I discovered that the editor who had been deleting many of my entries on the Devil's Bridge page, and who had so many edits he had become an administrator, was a 16 year old British schoolboy who was skipping classes so he would delete pages on Wikipedia. I believe he's either lost his admin privileges or became bored. But he wore me out first.

I noticed that there had been a previous Timothy Williams page which had been deleted for good cause; I believe it was a schoolboy prank. That's one reason I gave this page a different name by adding middle initials.

BTW, one thing that would be highly valued to many would be stict editing of several pages associated with folklore and myth. The metalheads and cultists have taken over the pages concerning the devil in folklore, a subject which should be of little interest to those interested in Goth music. Thanks for your work on Wikipedia Woodlandpath (talk) 14:50, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

If you wish to use the website text, you must

Put a note on the original website stating that re-use is permitted under the GFDL or released into the public domain leave a note at the talk page with a link to where we can find that note.

Otherwise, you are encouraged to rewrite this article in your own words to avoid any copyright infringement.

Admins are not appointed on the number of edits, there is a procedure for this, but sometimes we make errors

There is a "new pages" button on every page

you need to be careful about making claims about the author's quality etc, unless you can reference the claims to an independent source.

Hope this helps jimfbleak (talk) 15:24, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Jim, the words were mine in both instances, but point taken. I have added the GFDL note on the Colophon Page of the website at http://www.timothywilliams.uk.com/details.html . I will not make claims about his writing, but may include a brief snippet of a review. Is this adequate to allow the page to be reposted, so I may improve it? Many thanks, Woodlandpath (talk) 16:57, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Request re Timothy Williams article

Jim, I've added to the article enough that I hope it now merits reposting. I intend to continue developing the article, and trust that other fans from Europe, Japan, the Balkans, and Scandinavia, all of whom have read his work, will also add. I expect that if I do not add synopses, other will. I expect the page will eventually be a resource in much the same way as The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency is, a page similar in many respects. Thank you.Woodlandpath (talk) 22:26, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

You need an independent reference for the crime award, since without that there is no evidence of his notability - just having written novels isn't enough, unless you can show that they were best-sellers or award winners. As it stands, with only the author's site, it is likely to be deleted as non-notable or advertising.

Some suggestions to improve. Date of birth of author if available, dates of publication and isbn numbers for books (get from Amazon). Start by saying what he is Timothy Williams (b. 1897) is a British writer, who has has written five novels featuring Commissario Piero Trotti...

either leave out or source (independent) spammy bits The presentation of modern Italy in general and Lombardy in particular is faithful.

One critic who? where? needs a ref

jimfbleak (talk) 05:39, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

New request re Timothy Williams entry

I believe I have substantially improved the article. Would you be so kind as to remove it from the sandbox and post it? Thanks for your help in encouraging me to improve this article.Woodlandpath (talk) 17:57, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I've done some formatting. The phrase mani pulite should be in italics, since non-English; I don't know whether it should be caps or lower case, but not as you had it, with one of each. The real weakness still is that the characterization and writing style sections have no sources and look like original research, which could lead to listing for deletion. There is nothing to stop you pasting this into Timothy H. D. Williams when you are ready, the article name isn't protected. It's up to you to recreate when you are ready, I'm not going to post it since

1. any messages would come to me, not you
2. it would be automatically white-listed and avoid a check on whether it should be listed for deletion

jimfbleak (talk) 06:03, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Jim: I posted the article to Timothy H.D. Williams.

I assume you've looked at the three other authors with whom Williams is often grouped. I think this article compares favorably and is far more substantial. I'll continue to work on it to try to comply with the NOR, which I have just read.Woodlandpath (talk) 12:01, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I've actually moved the page to Timothy Williams and made THDW the redirect, since all the links go to TW, and the article omits the HD anyway. I wasn't criticising the content of the article other than from the pov of NOR/ adequate referencing jimfbleak (talk) 12:22, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

The Clifton Report

Hi, I deleted the article

• because it did not provide independent verifiable sources to enable us to verify the facts or show that it meets the notability guidelines. Its only reference is to the author's site, and an EL to the publisher. Given the possibly contentious nature of the publication, if it is as notable as you say, it should be easy to find some independent references.
• It it was written in a promotional tone. Please see this information. This includes claims without independent sources: authoritative report... only continuously updated database
• How do you reconcile "authoritative" with "sometimes disputed"?
• The offer of a free PDF is pretty spammy. It would be better to have an EL to the PDF

If you are going to write about what appears to be a contentious issue, you need to make sure that your language is absolutely neutral, and that any claims can be supported by proper independent sources; if not, they should be removed Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:04, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

You still have major problems with notability and sourcing.

• It's written by a guy without a Wikipedia article who works for a newspaper without a Wikipedia article. That doesn't suggest notability.
• It claims to be international, can't see much evidence of that in the text, unless you mean just US and Canada

• There is nothing to indicate the circulation or cost of the reports. For all I know there could be 10 subscribers or 10,000,000. Worse, they might be non-subscription web-only reports. You need to give more detail about the reports as publications, rather than just what they say.

• You need to support notability, especially if they are web-only, by showing, for example, that they are quoted by reliable sources, such as mainstream newspapers, government agencies or academic research.

• For an article like this, it is imperative that everything you claim is referenced. Although the history of the reports can reasonably be referenced to the organisation producing it, the statistics and claims need proper sources. Much of your article is unreferenced, and the references are not adequate

• Of your references, the III is excellent. Ref 3 wouldn't open, refs to Merritt are obviously not independent, and the Reno paper isn't proper journalism, just asking people to write in.

You obviously want to get this article on, presumably because you sympathise with the reports' findings, but there are really only two possibilities

• If the reports genuinely can't be shown to meet the notability criteria, as above. You may have to accept that it can't be posted.

• If it is notable, then there should be independent sources, both to support that notability, and to verify the claims made

Jimfbleak - talk to me? 14:53, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

This is my first edit, so please bear with me.

• i have deleted the items in section 2 that refer to material only sourced from the report itself, with no citations there or on this page.
• I have deleted the reference to it being the sole source of this information, other groups and agencies track this as well.
• i have deleted the last section (4) as it is related to a political discussion and is only related to the author of this report in his views, not in the supposed content of the report. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brianmchrist (talk • contribs) 15:17, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

more

• OK, the dead link yesterday opened instantly today and is clearly RS. Looking again, I'd also accept the Reno item, it's perhaps unfortunate that it starts with a couple of worthless vox pops.

Jim, The magazine "Animal People" has a paid print circulation in the tens of thousands as well as an online circulation. A ref for the circulation would be good, as that would go a long way to establishing notability.

• I fail to see that the current proposal fails the NPOV test but your comments dangerous dog advocates do everything in their power to discredit them. Wikipedia itself carries some of the disinformation suggest that you are not coming from a completely neutral viewpoint, and should be extra careful about ensuring your claims are verifiable.
• I think you still have a problem with referencing. The final section is fine, fully reffed to apparently RS sources. Your first section and most of the second have no refs; you must have obtained the information from somewhere? (As I said above, history can be sourced to the org itself)
• One style thing, you shouldn't have urls in the main text. If there's a wikipedia article, link to that. If it's being used as ref, format as such, if it's just a handy link, like the Canadian centre, put it as a url.

I think you are getting there, but notability needs beefing up if it is to survive being thrown to the (Wikipedia) wolves Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:59, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

[edit] I will continue to work on the citations. Thanks. --Woodlandpath (talk) 17:49, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

• Hi Woodland - I hadn't had time to edit Wikipedia for a while, so I missed Astro's battle regarding the Clifton report. I think I'd warned both editor's as it was a messy revert war (I didn't realise that it had carried on for far longer.) Really in the interest of wikipedia, the battle should have played out on the discussion page, not the article proper. Regardless of who was right, masses of reversions are hard to keep track of (Though I admit its frustrating when people consistently put up rubbish, and then use some vague wiki policy to protect it). Cheers Clovis Sangrail (talk) 00:15, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Animal People

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A tag has been placed on Animal People, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section G11 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the page seems to be unambiguous advertising which only promotes a company, product, group, service or person and would need to be fundamentally rewritten in order to become an encyclopedia article. Please read the guidelines on spam and Wikipedia:FAQ/Business for more information.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, contest the deletion by clicking on the button labelled "Click here to contest this speedy deletion". Doing so will take you to the talk page where you will find a pre-formatted place for you to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. You can also visit the the page's talk page directly to give your reasons, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, you can contact one of these administrators to request that the administrator userfy the page or email a copy to you. Avenue X at Cicero (talk) 07:19, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

The Clifton Report

You asked for my comments. First, it is too detailed. Include only material that would be of interest to a general reader coming across the mention of the organization and wanting the sort of information that would be found in an encyclopedia. Do not include material that would be of interest only to those associated with the organization, or to prospective supporters--that sort of content is considered promotional. Keep in mind that the goal of an encyclopedia is to say things in a concise manner, which is not the style of press releases or web sites, which are usually more expansive. Second, a Wikipedia article needs to show notability with references providing substantial coverage from 3rd party independent published reliable sources, print or online, but not blogs or press releases, or material derived from press releases. Some of the references are about dog attacks, not about the newsletter, and do not show notability of the newsletter. third, don't talk about the overall importance of the subject or the causes the newsletter promotes--just about the newsletter itself. I would seriously consider not writing a separate article at all, but moving it into a section of the article on the organization--better one strong article than two weak ones. It could still have a redirect, so people who look for it will find the information.

I remind you that, as a general rule, a suitable page will be best written by someone without Conflict of Interest; it's not impossible to do it properly with a conflict of interest, but it's relatively more difficult: you are automatically thinking in terms of the organization wishes to communicate to the public, but an uninvolved person will think in terms of what the public might wish to know. DGG ( talk ) 03:29, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

OK; thanks for your input. I'll think about it and continue to work on it.Woodlandpath (talk) 14:53, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

User:DGG and User:Jimfbleak . . . Thanks to both of you for setting the bar for my new page on the Clifton Report. I've removed a lot (nearly half of the article, I believe) of spurious material and otherwise improved the article. I believe I've excised any promotional tone. I've removed all external urls from the body of the article. I've improved the citations. I believe "Clifton Report" merits it's own page (as opposed to merging it with Animal People) for the following reasons: a/ the Clifton Reports are used and commented on far more than the Animal People magazine itself; people who know nothing about Animal People know of the Clifton Reports b/ if you search the internet for "Animal People" the results are ambiguous, but a search for "clifton report dog" returns 9.6 million results, and a search for "clifton report dog bite" returns nearly a quarter of a million. I believe this satisfies notability guidelines. The three reports collectively have high name recognition and merit Wikipedia inclusion. I trust my draft is now ready for prime time! Many thanks for your help and for setting the bar. Woodlandpath (talk) 01:05, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi, I've seen your message, but it will be mid-week before I can take a proper look due to RL commitments, hope that's OK Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

I notice that it doesn't actually say where the reports are based. I assume US, but Clifton is Canadian, so please clarify, otherwise "foreign" is meaningless. I still think that more references would help, since some of the text lacks references, notability could do with bolstering, and articles on a controversial subject need to be particularly solid to avoid claims of promoting a cause. The only way you will find out is to repost Jimfbleak - talk to me? 15:07, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I'll give location, and attempt a post. I continue to improve the page, along with others. I'm grateful for your help. Woodlandpath (talk) 17:03, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Clifton report

If this is the first article that you have created, you may want to read the guide to writing your first article.

You may want to consider using the Article Wizard to help you create articles.

A tag has been placed on Clifton report requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A7 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article appears to be about a person, a group of people, an individual animal, an organization (band, club, company, etc.), web content, or an organized event, but it does not credibly indicate how or why the subject is important or significant: that is, why an article about that subject should be included in an encyclopedia. Under the criteria for speedy deletion, such articles may be deleted at any time. Please read more about what is generally accepted as notable.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, and you wish to retrieve the deleted material for future reference or improvement, then please contact the deleting administrator. Daffydavid (talk) 05:54, 13 June 2016 (UTC)