User talk:James Nicol

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Guy Davenport
We seem to have some differences of opinion with regard to the article Guy Davenport. I know how protective one can feel about an article that one has worked on, but I hope you will take a look at my comments on that article's Talk page. I see no reason to get into an edit war over this. Deor 01:15, 10 March 2007 (UTC)


 * You may find it useful to take a look at WP:OWN. Deor 15:26, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

User discussion pages
If you have anything to say to a WP editor, all you have to do is go to the relevant user page (by clicking on a linked user name, like mine at the end of this message, or by entering "User:[user's name]" in the search box available on any page), then clicking on "discussion" at the top of that page and editing the Talk page to put your message at the bottom. Don't forget to sign the message with four tildes. Deor 01:48, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Notability of Laurence Scott
A tag has been placed on Laurence Scott, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done because the article seems to be about a person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content, but it does not indicate how or why the subject is notable, that is, why an article about that subject should be included in Wikipedia. Under the criteria for speedy deletion, articles that do not assert notability may be deleted at any time. Please see the guidelines for what is generally accepted as notable, and if you can indicate why the subject of this article is notable, you may contest the tagging. To do this, add  on the top of the page (below the existing db tag) and leave a note on the article's talk page explaining your position. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would confirm its subject's notability under the guidelines.

For guidelines on specific types of articles, you may want to check out our criteria for biographies, for web sites, for bands, or for companies. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you have any questions about this. Betaeleven 14:18, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

A tag has been placed on Laurence Scott, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done because the article appears to be a repost of material that was previously deleted following a. If you can indicate how Laurence Scott is different from the previously posted material, or if you can indicate why this article should not be deleted, I advise you to place the template hangon underneath the other template on the article, and also put a note on Talk:Laurence Scott saying why this article should stay. An admin should check for such edits before deleting the article. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you have any questions about this. Please read our criteria for speedy deletion, particularly item 4 under General criteria. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself. We welcome your help in trying to improve Wikipedia, and we request you to follow these instructions. Deor 15:22, 20 March 2007 (UTC)


 * * I did not delete the article. I submitted it to AFD to be deleted.  There was discussion amongst other users, and the consensus was to delete.  Betaeleven 17:43, 20 March 2007 (UTC)


 * * You've apparently been messing about on Wikipedia for more than a year and a half. If you haven't learned anything about why articles are deleted or how the process works, it's your own fault. You've shown no desire to investigate or abide by WP policies, so don't be surprised when one jumps up to bite you. Deor 18:14, 20 March 2007 (UTC)


 * * James, did you even read the AFD log for the Laurence Scott article? Did you click on the links within there about what constitutes notability?  I nominated the article for AFD (anyone can do this).  During this standard process, there was a tag on the top of the article (similar to the one on it now) with a link to a discussion that is open for five days that anyone can participate in.  Why don't you try doing a bit of research on why your article may have been a candidate for deletion, instead of accusing people of having some vendetta against your article.  IT WAS NOT NOTABLE.  See WP:BIO for more information.  There is a new page of articles nominated each day that go through this process, why don't you take the time and look at these yourself.  You might even find a link that shows you how to contest a deletion, rather than wasting time going to our user pages and making accusations with silly references about pulling triggers and telling others to "shoot!"?  Betaeleven 22:27, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

A tag has been placed on Laurence Scott, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done because the article appears to be a repost of material that was previously deleted following a. If you can indicate how Laurence Scott is different from the previously posted material, or if you can indicate why this article should not be deleted, I advise you to place the template hangon underneath the other template on the article, and also put a note on Talk:Laurence Scott saying why this article should stay. An admin should check for such edits before deleting the article. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you have any questions about this. Please read our criteria for speedy deletion, particularly item 4 under General criteria. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself. We welcome your help in trying to improve Wikipedia, and we request you to follow these instructions. 216.163.255.1 16:10, 22 March 2007 (UTC)


 * wow, i didn't notice all of this discussion before. gee, why did i nominate the "pertinent" (as you put it) Laurence Scott article for deletion again?  see the above.  looks like its been deleted twice already, and now it's been deleted again.


 * let it go. you're beginning to look pathetic now, especially if you create it again. please don't.


 * (oh, and please don't leave messages on my user page any more. that's what my talk page is for) 216.163.255.1 15:09, 23 March 2007 (UTC)


 * click on the link of my ip address, you moron. that will link you to my talk page.  as far as deleting your article, i did no such thing.  i only put the speedy delete notice on it.  it appears that you keep creating it, and wikipedia admins keep deleting it.  leave your articles alone?  i feel sorry for you.  216.163.255.1 17:44, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

A tag has been placed on Laurence Scott, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done because the article appears to be a repost of material that was previously deleted following a. If you can indicate how Laurence Scott is different from the previously posted material, or if you can indicate why this article should not be deleted, I advise you to place the template hangon underneath the other template on the article, and also put a note on Talk:Laurence Scott saying why this article should stay. An admin should check for such edits before deleting the article. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you have any questions about this. Please read our criteria for speedy deletion, particularly item 4 under General criteria. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself. We welcome your help in trying to improve Wikipedia, and we request you to follow these instructions. Betaeleven 18:01, 23 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I have to agree with the anonymous IP user. This is getting ridiculous.  Betaeleven 18:02, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Three words:

'''HE'S. NOT. NOTABLE.'''

It's ridiculous that you can't grasp this simple concept, yet you still re-create the same article after it has been reviewed by others, and deleted each time. Betaeleven 18:51, 23 March 2007 (UTC)


 * You have recently recreated or reposted material which previously was deleted in accordance with Wikipedia's deletion policies. Please do not recreate this article without prior approval from an administrator or you may be blocked from editing. We ask that you respect what Wikipedia is not. If you disagree with the article's deletion, you may seek an independent deletion review.  Deor 19:51, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

James, you amaze me. You want this article so bad, yet you did not once follow the proper procedure to save it from deletion. Not once. You didn't participate in the AFD discussion. You apparently never researched what the AFD process was. You said no one voiced their opinion on it. Well, the AFD tag was up there for five days. Anyone can participate and anyone can give their opinion. And, just because only two people "voted" doesn't mean anything. If you had researched AFD, you would have learned that it's not necessarily a popular vote, but the admins only take in consideration how the vote went. You could have also learned how you could have submitted it for a deletion review (like it is now - by someone else). You apparently didn't research WP:BIO or WP:PROF to see what makes an article notable. What did you do instead? You whined. You complained. You accused. And then you proceeded to recreate the EXACT same article four more times and were surprised each time it got deleted. Did you ever try to improve the article to make it more notable? No. You added one insignificant reference from a school's website throughout this entire time. And then, each time it when it nominated for a speedy delete, did you ever once put a hangon tag on the article to perhaps try and save it? No. Did you ever read the entire tag to see what you could do to put it up for deletion review? No. All you did was complain and yell at others for daring to nominate it for deletion. We told you why it was nominated, yet you never did anything to improve it. Yet, you managed to fill up a bunch of talk pages complaining. I laughed each time you re-created the article, because you never tried to do a damn thing about making it better. And then, you have the nerve to come back to me and yell at me again for wanting it deleted? Pull your head out and stop acting like a child. This whole issue could have probably been resolved two weeks ago, if you had taken the time to find out what was wrong with your article, what you could do to make it better, and what you could have done to save it from deletion besides yell at other users. If you had just done that once, I would have had no problem with the article staying on Wikipedia, but you were so blinded in your anger and belief that it was some personal vendetta against you or Laurence Scott, you only made yourself look more and more like a fool each time you made the article. Cheers. Betaeleven 20:16, 24 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Now you're either lying or you're confused what the hangon tag is, because it was never on any of the articles. You complained on the article discussion page, my talk page, and other's, but you never put the hangon tag on.  Besides, once you put the tag on, you're supposed to improve the article, not let it continue to suck.  Betaeleven


 * You're confused what the hangon is. You're not supposed to click on it.  You were supposed to add it to the article when it was submitted for deletion.  You didn't.  You really, really need to learn how to read better.  The instructions on what to do were in front of you each time, yet you never followed them.  I hope you were kidding about being a teacher...  Betaeleven 14:19, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

A final attempt
Reluctant as I am to initiate more formal procedures, I'll urge you one last time to allow other editors to contribute to Guy Davenport without interference. Repeatedly undoing the good-faith contributions of others—whether all at once or bit by bit in multiple edits, whether immediately or after a few days—in an attempt to establish complete control over the text of an article is not acceptable behavior on the part of a Wikipedia editor. Nor is failing to supply edit summaries, supplying misleading edit summaries (like this), or marking significant revisions as minor edits. Editors who persistently flout Wikipedia policies and guidelines, such as WP:OWN, WP:TE, and WP:DE, may be blocked from editing particular articles or, in egregious cases, be blocked from editing Wikipedia entirely. Deor 00:59, 16 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Edit summaries should not be in-jokes; they are visible to all WP users and should accurately reflect the edits made. What further measures are taken will depend on your future behavior at the article Guy Davenport. Deor 04:20, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Please stop assuming ownership of articles. Doing so may lead to disruptive behavior such as edit wars and is a violation of policy, which may lead to a block from editing. Deor 15:25, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Deor and will join in supporting a block if you don't stop reverting other people's contributions.--SethTisue 16:00, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, James, I'm following the discussion on the talk page. I understand that you don't agree with me and Deor about whether the article is overlinked, but your last revert to that page was broader than that; you threw out a bunch of other valuable changes at the same time you undid the link changes. If you disagree with specific changes, you need to revert only those specific changes, not throw the baby out with the bathwater. You say you're happy to discuss it when there are disagreements; but then when we and others have a discussion, and in the end everyone still disagrees with you, you still insist on having your way. What kind of discussion is that? --SethTisue 17:41, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Scott deletion review
I think the deletion was possibly unjustified--I usually try to catch academic related deletions but I apparently missed his one, for which I apologize. Let me help you get the article into shape and survive deletion, if it is justified, for the best likely result of the Deletion review is another listing at AfD. If the career is sufficiently distinguished, it ought to be kept and it will be if presented right. If, unfortunately, it is not sufficiently distinguished, then probably it will stay deleted, no matter how well presented. If he's not notable by the usual standards here, he's not notable for WP. Let's see what can be appropriately done:
 * to do this I need career details, Either post them in a completely objective calm way to the DelRev, or post them here on a subpage of this talk page, or rewrite the article on a subpage. and I will discuss them at Del Rev, with a suitable tone. I'll take a look in another hour or two to see what else is needed. But in general do it by:

and, most important, giving some 3rd party sources. A website at a university etc. can be one, but it cannot be the only one. Book reviews are fine, or a newspaper stories. Print or web is OK, but not from a list or a blog. If there is a published discussion of his career from a journal, that would be just the thing.
 * saying in the first sentence something to dramatically demonstrate notability, like "A.b. is an internationally-known professor of X at, winner of the XYZ prize and 10 honorary doctorates", or A.B. is a notable authority on Whatever. She is ... (etc) (whatever applies best). Use the exact wording I recommend, including either the word "notable" or "internationally-known" or "nationally-known"; do not use "famous" -- May sound silly, but that is what many people look for here.
 * listing college degrees with university and year -- and putting the university names in double brackets
 * listing important awards, *listing important memberships and offices held A list usually reads better than a paragraph
 * listing books published as formal references style: Author, title, Publisher, year, ISBN if possible.
 * listing some major published papers, say how many total

But please' help your own case by not fighting with the guys at deletion review--though i can understand why you might feel considerably annoyed about this. If there is personal animus, it will become clear enough. If you all argue, you are the one who ends up looking bad, and potential friends will probably stay away. My email is enabled, by the way. DGG 20:17, 24 March 2007 (UTC)


 * James, read this to help save your Laurence Scott article. Betaeleven 20:23, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I haven't fought w/ anyone, DGG. Beta &al. has fought w/ me. My goal, throughout everything I've done on Wikipedia, has been to craft well-written informative sentences on interesting topics about which there is a need to write. Beta, Deor, and the other Wiki-crats are making what could've been an open, progressive, site for fascinating information into a series of less substantial, clunky articles that begin w/ puffery & continue with a kind of leaden, machine-made prose. I appreciate DGG's work on Laurence Scott, but I don't have high hopes that he can do anything to escape the Wiki-crats. Finally, the kind of puffery required to make something "notable" is rather embarrassing. No print encyclopedia would require that.

I think that I'd rather return to my own work than try to make this better. I'll suggest to my students that they not use Wikipedia either. There's much less here than meets the eye. Someday soon, Google will start Google-pedia--if it hasn't already, and other people will do the same, and one of them will value the well-crafted. Good luck in the meantime. James Nicol 04:59, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Let's be realistic. this place is run by thousands of diverse human beings. There are 100s of wikicrats and they rarely agree on much. When working in unfamiliar complex systems, it helps to have an advisor--or to go slowly and watch first. There is so much potential conflict that everyone must actively try not to get involved, and it doesn't matter who's in the right. All publication media have customs. WP articles, blog postings, whatever--they all have their styles and to be effective it is necessary to learn them. Print encyclopedia have their own criteria, but can be subject to the arbitrary whim of single editors.
 * Unfortunately, as to Scott, I have not been able to find enough. Apparently he never actually had a professorship, he translated one famous book, and published little or nothing else. Most of the apparent links lead to that translation. He was undoubtedly a very good teacher, and many good universities have relied on people like him in teaching languages in particular. I do not think I have missed much, and the article will have to go. What counts as notability is very low in some fields, and there is prejudice against academics.  But the WP reliance upon a criterion of 3rd party published sources is fundamentally a sound one, and there truly is an urgent need to improve quality by insisting on it.
 * I wish we would stop using the terminology "not-notable'' it implies something and intrinsic worth. It shouldn't be taken that way, it actually means "being suitable for a WP article" If you every want to come back, you should write the article first and ask someone to check it. It seems to be the best way. Feel free to ask me, and almost anyone would also be equally pleased to do it. DGG 08:46, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

DGG, i see no e-mail address from you. I'm happy to get e-mail, because there's little point in working here. Wikipedia isn't about "style"; it's about control & domination. Ultimately, it's about how one wants to use one's time. Why should i bother fighting w/ people like Beta & Deor? I have better things to do. The wikicrats wield terms like "notability" & "style" like a club. It leads to neither better writing, more information, nor a more useful website. Good luck. If you want to continue communicating w/ me, then e-mail me (jamesnicol2@yahoo.com). I sha'n't write here any longer. I hope that everyone respects my decision to pull all my writing off. James Nicol 13:35, 25 March 2007 (UTC)


 * James, if articles on people like Scott were allowed, then everyone would be able to have a wiki-article about themselves, and there would be no limit. Betaeleven 14:21, 25 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Beta: Firstly: Must there be a limit? Is Wikipedia running out of space? Secondly, the article on L. Scott wasn't a vanity piece. HE'S DEAD. I NEVER MET HIM.
 * Thank goodness that you're not a teacher. Abusing people who provide rational arguments that you don't like makes for bad teaching. James Nicol 14:43, 25 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Direct me to one rationale argument you made. Betaeleven 15:21, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Reversion warning on Davenport page
Watch out for WP:3RR. If you revert the Guy Davenport page too many times, you'll be in violation of the rule and liable to be blocked from editing the page.--SethTisue 17:23, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I have now reported you at WP:AN/3RR.--SethTisue 18:10, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

You have been blocked for 24 hours for violating the three revert rule. You may continue editing after the block expires, but please keep in mind that continued violations of the rule could lead to longer blocks. If you find yourself at three reverts again, please use the talk page to discuss changes. Thanks. --Wafulz 19:03, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Todd Palin
You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war. Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions on a single page within a 24 hour period. Additionally, users who perform several reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. When in dispute with another editor you should first try to discuss controversial changes to work towards wording and content that gains a consensus among editors. Should that prove unsuccessful, you are encouraged to seek dispute resolution, and in some cases it may be appropriate to request page protection. Please stop the disruption, otherwise you may be blocked from editing. user: J  aka justen (talk) 14:40, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

You have been blocked from editing for a period of 31 hours for your disruption caused by edit warring and violation of the three-revert rule&#32;at Todd Palin. During a dispute, you should first try to discuss controversial changes and seek consensus. If that proves unsuccessful you are encouraged to seek dispute resolution, and in some cases it may be appropriate to request page protection. If you believe this block is unjustified, you may contest the block by adding the text below, but you should read our guide to appealing blocks first. Nja 247 08:34, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:05, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Editing Talk archives
Hello, James Nicol! I reverted your last 2 edits to Talk:Second Amendment to the United States Constitution/Archive 35 here. That page is an archive and is not an active discussion. Instead, you should start a new discussion at Talk:Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 04:31, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Gun laws in Vermont
I've clearly explained via my edit summaries that the language you used initially for the lead in the article was biased and in violation of WP:NPOV. I reverted your edit and replaced the language with neutral wording that's stood for a substantial amount of time at the constitutional carry article, so as to specifically bring that section of the lead into compliance with WP:NPOV, yet you replace it with borderline-biased language and use political rhetoric in the summary. It makes it clear that your edits are of a biased, inflammatory nature. I've also noticed you've had a history of edit-warring with other users.

I'll be reverting your edit again. Until you can come up with a better reason and stop using politically-inflammed rhetoric to challenge what is established as being in compliance with WP:NPOV, it'll remain, and I'll pursue dispute resolution action in accordance with Wikipedia's rules if you challenge it again.

Oh, and bringing the abortion debate into an unrelated topic to justify your edits doesn't really justify them or make you look good. It really just makes you look politically biased. So, I'd appreciate it if you stopped doing that. Wikipedia isn't a political tool, it's an encyclopedia. MrThunderbolt1000T (talk) 09:35, 25 April 2021 (UTC)