User talk:JamesBowen

Welcome!

Hello, JamesBowen, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place  before the question. Again, welcome! Nick-D (talk) 03:19, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
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Battle for Australia
I've just removed the material you added to the Battle for Australia website as it was taken from http://www.battleforaustralia.org. If, as your user name indicates, you are the owner of this website you need to either edit the website to show that the material has been released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA) and the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) or send an email to Wikimedia. Guidance on what this involves and how to do it is at Donating copyrighted materials. Please do not re-add this material until these conditions are met - you will likely be blocked from editing as Wikipedia takes copyright matters very seriously.

More generally, however, you should not be working on articles on topics with which you have a personal involvement, particularly if you have an advocacy role - please see Conflict of interest for guidance on this topic. Nick-D (talk) 04:54, 30 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi James, I think that the detail you're adding on the Kokoda Track campaign is excessive - Wikipedia has an article on this topic (Kokoda Track campaign) so there's no need to duplicate it. As such, I propose to reduce the material in the BoA article to a summary. Also, could you please provide sources for the material you're adding? - advice on how to format these is at Citing sources. Cheers, Nick-D (talk) 06:57, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I've just removed the claim you made about Peter Stanley as it was unreferenced (and seems to contradict what he's written). For your future reference, please note that a high degree of referencing is required for material concerning living people - please see Biographies of living persons for the relevant policy. Nick-D (talk) 07:03, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Reply to email
Thank you for your email James. Given that it is focused on the content of the Battle for Australia article, I'm responding to it here - I hope that this is OK. Please do remove this post if it isn't.

It's important to stress that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and not a forum for promoting anything. As such, the purpose of the Battle for Australia article (as I see it) is to cover these events, how they are commemorated and the historiographical dispute over whether there was a 'Battle for Australia'. Given that you're closely involved with the Battle of Australia commemorations it would be best if you didn't edit the article on the topic, particularly in detail and with the purpose of promoting this as a concept. If you haven't done so already, please do read Conflict of interest.

As there is disagreement over the concept of a 'Battle for Australia' from at least one prominent military historian who claims that other historians agree with him and this argument has been widely reported in the national media (as well as covered in talks, articles and books), it is appropriate for the article to acknowledge this in its lead section and then provide further detail in the body of the article as well as presenting the views of those who have been involved with having these events commemorated. I take your point about how this material was worded, however, and have changed it. It's not the purpose of Wikipedia to 'promote' or 'undermine' anything, but rather to provide a balanced view by presenting all significant viewpoints in appropriate levels of detail (please see Neutral point of view).

In regards to the material on the Kokoda Track Campaign, given that Wikipedia already has an article on this campaign, there seems to me to be no need to go into much detail on it in this article (or any of the other battles for that matter as there are reasonably detailed articles on them all - though all could be improved). That's only my view though, and I'd be very happy to discuss this further on the article's talk page (Talk:Battle for Australia) so that other editors can participate in the discussion.

regards, Nick-D (talk) 23:24, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Please stop replicating existing articles
James, Wikipedia has existing articles on the Kokoda Track Campaign and Guadalcanal Campaign. There's no need to replicate this in the Battle for Australia article - a short summary of the campaigns would be appropriate, but what you've been adding is, in my view, much too detailed. I've just removed the very detailed account of the Guadalcanal Campaign you've added, and please see Content forking for guidance on this topic. Nick-D (talk) 04:39, 13 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Can you please join the discussion at Talk:Battle for Australia? Please note that labeling good-faith editing 'vandalism' as you did here is considered really rude by most Wikipedia editors. Nick-D (talk) 07:45, 16 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I'd second Nick's invitation to you to join the talk-page discussion. A core ethos of Wikipedia is communication, so non-participation in discussion and failure to respond to editors' concerns is not really an option you can maintain for much longer; it will eventually be seen as disruptive and will result in you being prevented from editing the site. As has already been pointed out to you, there are a number of policy-based reasons why your edits on that article may be problematic - obviously the best solution is for us all to discuss this and come to some solution amicably. Regards, EyeSerene talk 08:39, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I have asked an uninvolved admin to review your talk page post
Informational note: this is to let you know that there is currently a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Regards, Nick-D (talk) 07:29, 17 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I have reviewed this and deleted from the talk page and talk page history comments you made which are potentially libellous/defamatory. You can of course cite quotes from anyone that meet our criteria at WP:RS and WP:VERIFY if you want to discuss whether any particular author's viewpoint belongs in the article or how it should be made. I also note the warning here that you were given. Dougweller (talk) 08:02, 17 March 2011 (UTC)