User talk:Bill Levinson

Welcome

Hello Bill Levinson and welcome to Wikipedia! I'm glad you've chosen to join us. This is a great project with lots of dedicated people, which might seem intimidating at times, but don't let anything discourage you. Be bold!, explore, and contribute. If you want to learn more,

Wikipedia:Bootcamp teaches you the basics quickly,
Wikipedia:Tutorial is more in-depth, and
Wikipedia:Topical index is exhaustive.

The following links might also come in handy:

Float around for awhile until you find something that tickles your fancy. One easy way to do this is to hit the random page button in the navigation bar to the left. You can write new articles, add to existing ones, or edit any and all pages that appear. There are also many great committees and groups that focus on particular jobs. My personal favorite stomping grounds are Wikipedia:Translation into English and Wikipedia:Cleanup for sloppy articles, but they may not interest you. Finally, the Wikimedia Foundation has several other wiki projects that you might enjoy more, but Wikipedia is the most popular by far.

There are a few crucial points to keep in mind when editing. Be civil with users, strive to maintain a neutral point of view, and show good etiquette like signing your comments with four tildas like this: ~~~~ If you have any more questions, always feel free to ask me anything on my talk page or ask the true experts at Wikipedia:Help desk. Again, welcome! Draeco 21:40, 26 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Rachel Corrie

Hi Bill, I've reverted your edits to the above, as they constitute original research i.e. your own opinions and arguments. To make these claims, you'd have to find a credible published source who had made them, and attribute the arguments to that source. See Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Verifiability. You may also want to review Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia:Reliable sources, and Wikipedia:Cite sources. Cheers, SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:18, 27 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Palestinian exodus

I reverted your edits because there was a lot of POV and removal of NPOV content.--Adam ^(talk) 02:39, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No problem, and keep up the good work.--Adam

^(talk) 13:42, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

AfD

From your comment on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Islam: What the West Needs to Know second nomination, I think you might be confused about the nature of AfD pages. We're not there to vote, but to attempt to find a consensus on what to do with the article. If I say "Keep per X", that means that I endorse X's rationale for keeping the article. Often you'll see people say "Delete per nom", which means they endorse the nominator's reasons for deletion. But it makes no sense to say "Keep per myself" without any explanation, and it frustrates those of us who are trying to reason with each other. Please consider revisiting the page and spelling out your reasons. Melchoir 00:12, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Israeli apartheid, deletion of

Deletion appears unlikely now; that's been debated several times with no consensus. Political speech has annoying terms like that; consider Death tax and pro-life. Cleaning up the article seems more useful at this point, and there's been some recent progress. --John Nagle 18:55, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Israeli apartheid

Please see Talk:Israeli apartheid, the last section. Homey 21:13, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

RfM

A request for mediation has been filed with the Mediation Committee that lists you as a party. The Mediation Committee requires that all parties listed in a mediation must be notified of the mediation. Please review the request at [[Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Apartheid (disambiguation)]], and indicate whether you agree or refuse to mediate. If you are unfamiliar with mediation, please refer to Wikipedia:Mediation. There are only seven days for everyone to agree, so please check as soon as possible.-- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 22:26, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Court documents, edit warring, and discussion

Please note that you've begun edit wars at Joe Paterno and Penn State child sex abuse scandal so it would be prudent for you to revert your most recent edits and open discussion in the Talk page of each article. That - adding new material, allowing it to be reverted by another editor, and then opening a discussion - is how we generally work when editors disagree about new content. Reverting another editor's reversion to add your preferred material back to an article is textbook edit warring which is not a collegial way to work with others.

We are also extremely cautious about our use of primary sources such as transcripts. Articles should rely on secondary and tertiary sources. In other words, if the information really is something that should be in an encyclopedia then you should be able to find others who have already published it.

(Finally, in Penn State child sex abuse scandal, the article already says that "the board had no choice but to force Paterno to leave immediately to contain the growing outrage over the scandal." So in addition to being inherently problematic as it comes from a primary source, the quote doesn't seem to add anything new to the article.) ElKevbo (talk) 22:56, 19 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Bill Levinson (talk) 19:50, 28 March 2015 (UTC) The "primary sources" in question are court depositions that were made under oath, and available as public records. I am not sure how to convert these into secondary sources, which would be inherently less reliable as paraphrases (and therefore open to subjective coloring and re-phrasing). The depositions are, on the other hand, objective facts.[reply]