User talk:Jamesdowallen

Wikipedia Quality has declined greatly

Ten years ago or so I was a great fan of Wikipedia. I used to say "I'd rather have ONLY Wikipedia than to have the whole 'Net without Wikipedia"!

Those days are gone. Much of the great information of Wikipedia has vanished, or been hidden. As just one simple example, there was a great series of maps showing the progress of WW II. I couldn't find it when I looked for it. I'm sure zealous but pedantic Wiki editor decided it didn't quite belong in the obvious places, moved the maps, neglected to provide useful links.

Starting September 2018, I may mention some more specific examples here on my Talk page.

Why don't I add to the many other drains on my time and be a useful Wiki editor myself? I have tried off and on. On some occasions I've had my changes reverted by zealous and pedantic Wikiers WHO KNEW NOTHING ABOUT THE TOPIC but noticed that I hadn't given the proper "Wiki in-with-the-in-crowd handshake." Pedantry rules. (I won't be surprised if someone needs to call attention to my use of ALL-CAPS here! :-) Jamesdowallen (talk) 15:42, 9 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Example: What actor played Omar Little?

I just copied this from my post ('Poor organization') at "Talk:The Wire"

I wanted to know the name of the actor who played Omar Little.

(1) I clicked on The Wire, then clicked on Main_cast, couldn't find what I wanted easily so clicked over to

(2) List of The Wire characters

If I were designing the "List of the Wire characters" page, I'd start with a ... [wait for it] ... List! But maybe that's just me. Still couldn't find what I wanted so clicked from there to

(3) Street-level_characters_of_The_Wire

then clicked to Omar's_crew; then to yet another page

(4) Omar Little and associates

By this time the click-click-click was getting amusing :-) But still no Omar. From there I clicked to

(5) Omar Little

Even there, the actor's name wasn't in the opening paragraph, where it should be IMO.

Yes, I see that there were ways to find cleverer, less obvious, places to click to short-circuit this chain somewhat. I see this sort of anal retentive re-directions a lot at Wikipedia lately. If all y'all don't see the problem, I'm afraid I can't edify y'all Jamesdowallen (talk) 11:13, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

October 2018

Please refrain from making unconstructive edits to Wikipedia, as you did at Solutrean. Your edits appear to be disruptive and have been or will be reverted.

If you are engaged in an article content dispute with another editor, please discuss the matter with the editor at their talk page, or the article's talk page, and seek consensus with them. Alternatively, you can read Wikipedia's dispute resolution page, and ask for independent help at one of the relevant notice boards.
If you are engaged in any other form of dispute that is not covered on the dispute resolution page, please seek assistance at Wikipedia's Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents.

Please ensure you are familiar with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, and please do not continue to make edits that appear disruptive. Continual disruptive editing may result in loss of editing privileges. Encyclopedia articles are not discussion forums. If you want to discuss some aspect of an article, please do so on its talkpage. Eric ^talk 11:06, 28 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Don't use article pages to bring problems to anyone's attention

Seriously. Use the talk page, use a wikiproject page, actually make an edit. But I see you insist that's the only solution. It isn't and it's unacceptable. I don't want to have to block you over something so easily avoidable. Doug Weller talk 12:19, 28 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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Discussion pages on Wikipedia

Hi Jamesdowallen,

If you want to write comments like this on Wikipedia, please use the talk page (a.k.a. discussion page) relevant to that Wikipedia article, not the article itself. Let me know if you need assistance.

—Ynhockey ^(Talk) 17:01, 16 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"Let me know if you need assistance." What a pretentious dolt.

Yes, I "need assistance" -- I need someone -- obviously not you -- who understands why that article's title is STUPID. List of countries by wage level" when only OECD -- hardly a representative sample of the world's countries -- are listed.

There are various ways to fix the article:

(1) Change the title.

(2) Add a larger, more representative, group of countries.

(3) Add a disclaimer early on explaining that the article doesn't match the title.

Which solution is best? I dunno. I might make time to fix it myself, but why run the risk that any effort I spend would be sabotaged by pretentious Wikiers?

No, mentioning such an important problem only on the Talk page wouldn't work -- it would be ignored.

HTH.Jamesdowallen (talk) 18:15, 16 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You have been asked before not to leave comments on article pages (two sections up ↑). You may want to review Wikipedia's guidelines before you continue editing: Help:Menu/Editing_Wikipedia. Eric ^talk 18:56, 16 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again, making personal attacks and further disrupting Wikipedia to prove your point won't get you anywhere. If you'd like to edit constructively, as a veteran editor I again offer my assistance. If not, you will be blocked from editing. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 08:40, 17 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

On editing Wikipedia: no one expects you to learn all of the rules and best practices immediately, just to try to follow them in good faith. When in Rome do as Romans do, you know? Other editors are here to help, but our time is equally as valuable as yours, and patrolling articles for unconstructive edits is a time-consuming task. Believe me, I'd rather be doing something else.

On the actual article: we don't normally discuss article issues outside of the article's talk page. In short: The article is nominally about wages in all countries. Actually there was a list for all countries but someone removed it, and actually I am the one who asked about this some time ago, just forgot to follow up. Changing the article title is not the solution though—sometimes editors who want to change the scope of an article will change its content and then change its name with the excuse that the new content should be under a new name. This is not helpful, especially in the case of the OECD where it's easy to get statistics—what we really want is a list for the entire world. Note that the article also has UN statistics, which admittedly mostly include OECD countries. IMO the end goal for us should be to either return the ILO list or create a self-reported list (most countries have statistics bureaus that report such information). If you have comments on this, let's move it to the article's talk page.

Ynhockey ^(Talk) 13:21, 17 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Re deleted page: Yes, it was deleted because it was an exact duplicate of an existing page. With very rare exceptions, you can't just create an identical page and call it something else. If you believe that a certain page's title should be changed, you can open a move request. Duplicating the page's content is not the correct way to do this, as it disrupts the page's history and creates confusion. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 14:59, 27 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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Your submission at Articles for creation: Jamie's Trit (October 5)

Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by Headbomb was:

This submission's references do not show that the subject qualifies for a Wikipedia article—that is, they do not show significant coverage (not just passing mentions) about the subject in published, reliable, secondary sources that are independent of the subject. Before any resubmission, additional references meeting these criteria should be added (see technical help and learn about mistakes to avoid when addressing this issue). If no additional references exist, the subject is not suitable for Wikipedia.

The comment the reviewer left was:

See WP:GNG. viXra is not a reliable source.

Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit when they have been resolved.

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Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:06, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia. FireflyBot (talk) 16:45, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Your draft article, Draft:Jamie's Trit

Hello, Jamesdowallen. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "Jamie's Trit".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been deleted. If you plan on working on it further and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thanks for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 18:03, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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Draft:Jamie's Trit, a page which you created or substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; you may participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Jamie's Trit and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Draft:Jamie's Trit during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:38, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

July 2022

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