User talk:Tomvwash

October 2008

Welcome to Wikipedia. The recent edit you made to Thomas Verne Washington has been reverted, as it appears to be unconstructive. Use the sandbox for testing; if you believe the edit was constructive, ensure that you provide an informative edit summary. You may also wish to read the introduction to editing. Thank you. Soliloquial^talk 19:32, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

The recent edit you made to Thomas Verne Washington constitutes vandalism, and has been reverted. Please do not continue to remove content. Thank you. Soliloquial^talk 19:41, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Are you, yourself, Thomas Washington the writer?

If you are, you appear to have made several attempts to remove all mention of yourself from Wikipedia. As the subject of a biographical article on a living person, Wikipedia has strict policies to protect you from potential defamation etc. If you would like to discuss your article and any problems you have with it, please do so by editing my talk page to leave a message. You can find advice and help at the section of our guideline on biographies of living persons called 'Dealing with articles about yourself' and the help page for people uncomfortable with their biographical article on Wikipedia, WP:BLPHELP. Please note however that you may not have the right to remove yourself from Wikipedia, as by becoming a notable person yourself you cannot prevent others from documenting your notability. Thanks. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ 13:21, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

It's no problem at all to make those changes. Don't take this the wrong way, but I have no interest whatsoever in you, your work or your personal life - I merely happened upon a biographical article on Wikipedia that needed improvement, and attempted to improve it.

The reference to the PhD in Library Science has been deleted, although the Common Review article has been left as an example of your work. I've removed the commentary on your style/subjects of writing (that would generally need to be cited or blindingly obvious anyway). I was not able to verify your birth date anywhere online - is it February 19 1960, February 19 1965 (which was an alternate that it was changed to at one point in the article's history) or neither? Would you be willing to confirm your real birth date for the article? The reference to Wayne, Illinois has been removed - and by your lack of mention of it I assume that the assertion you were born/raised in or near Chicago is correct. The New Atlantis piece has also been removed. The article has been moved to Thomas Washington (writer), as though Verne may be part of your real name, none of the sources I have found have ever included it in your name in the byline. Biographical articles in Wikipedia are usually named according to that which the person concerned is more generally known as, not their full or birth name (such as Elton John, not Reginald Kenneth Dwight; Barbra Streisand, not Barbra Joan Streisand). If you wish, it can simply be added to the first line as in those two articles. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ 14:49, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

In order to prevent offhand vandalism (as your article experienced for a while - I've been through the entire edit history and know that you tried to change it back with limited success, and that the vandalism concerned could be quite distressing for you), I could employ the third method detailed here - page protection. Since the vandalism to your page was mostly by anonymous users who hadn't created an account, I can request for the page to be semi-protected - only users who have created an account, made 10 useful edits and had the account in existence for four days can edit the article. It's an anti-vandalism measure that's usually quite effective, and if the most determined of vandals manages to comply with those conditions and still vandalises the article, the fact that they've created an account makes it easier to reprimand them and block them. If you have no objections, I'll go ahead and make the request. I'll also keep a personal eye on the article (using my watchlist) and scrutinise every edit that is made to it. As I said, my efforts here are not due to any particular reverence for you and your life, I'd just like to make one person in the world less uncomfortable with being featured on Wikipedia. If you'd like to provide any more information for the article, I'd be happy to write it in. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ 20:12, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Your recent edits

Hi there. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. If you can't type the tilde character, you should click on the signature button located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you! --SineBot (talk) 01:09, 31 March 2009 (UTC)