User talk:PatrickSmithUSA

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Please be more careful with your edits. Your first one got it wrong. The Donegal marathon in 2014 was won by Benny Mullan and Philip Rainey and not by Declan and Brian Boyle who probably did not even participate. Declan and Brian Boyle won a rally, i.e. an auto racing event in 2014, but not a marathon. This is obvious from the article you refered to. I've fixed this now. Regards, AFBorchert (talk) 21:24, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

August 2020
Hi PatrickSmithUSA! I noticed that you recently marked an edit as minor&#32;at Mount Rushmore that may not have been. "Minor edit" has a very specific definition on Wikipedia – it refers only to superficial edits that could never be the subject of a dispute, such as typo corrections or reverting obvious vandalism. Any edit that changes the meaning of an article is not a minor edit, even if it only concerns a single word. Please see Help:Minor edit for more information. ''It appears, from your editing history, that you mark virtually every edit you make as "Minor", even when they add hundreds of characters to the article. Please don't do this—it makes your fellow Wikipedians' work much more difficult.'' &mdash; UncleBubba ( T @ C ) 16:35, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Hello, I'm Lard Almighty. I noticed that you added or changed content in an article, Ryanair, but you didn't provide a reliable source. It's been removed and archived in the page history for now, but if you'd like to include a citation and re-add it, please do so. You can have a look at the tutorial on citing sources. If you think I made a mistake, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you. Lard Almighty (talk) 14:31, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Date formats
Hi Patrick. Please make sure your additions conform to the date formats of a given article. I fixed this for you at Troy Parrott in this change. The Parrott article uses the dmy, not the mdy format so the day comes before the month. Kind regards, Robby.is.on (talk) 15:12, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

November 2020
Please do not add inappropriate external links to Wikipedia, as you did to Email spam. Wikipedia is not a collection of links, nor should it be used for advertising or promotion. Inappropriate links include, but are not limited to, links to personal websites, links to websites with which you are affiliated (whether as a link in article text, or a citation in an article), and links that attract visitors to a website or promote a product. See the external links guideline and spam guideline for further explanations. Because Wikipedia uses the nofollow attribute value, its external links are disregarded by most search engines. If you feel the link should be added to the page, please discuss it on the associated talk page rather than re-adding it.  MrOllie (talk) 15:00, 20 November 2020 (UTC)


 * MrOllie (talk) I didn't realise that I was doing anything wrong. I was simply adding a little about Cloud Computing and used that site as a reference for an explainer. Is there a difference between that and linking to an newspaper website that is loaded with adverts? PatrickSmithUSA (talk) 20:20, 23 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Yes, of course there is a difference. Newspapers check facts and have an independent editorial staff. Corporate marketing materials (as you linked) are purely designed to sell their products. - MrOllie (talk) 21:57, 23 November 2020 (UTC)


 * MrOllie (talk) ok, I;'ve worked in my previous career as a journalist for many years and I can tell you that this is definitely not the case unless it's specifically about breaking news stories. Features are, mroe often than not, aimed at selling a product for an advertiser on the page. I won't use a link like that again for fear of it being deleted but it's definitely something that a conversation needs to be started on as media and advertising no longer conforms to the norms of five years ago.


 * That is why we avoid using articles that are obviously "advertorials" and publications (like the Daily Mail) that have very poor editorial standards. But most mainstream news coverage is just that, X did Y, X said Y, X event happened, straight reportage that is adequately fact-checked and therefore reliable as a source for Wikipedia. I suggest you acquaint yourself with WP:RS, which specifically addresses sponsored content. Lard Almighty (talk) 12:29, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

November 2023
You may be blocked from editing without further warning the next time you insert a spam link. Persistent spammers may have their websites blacklisted, preventing anyone from linking to them from all Wikimedia sites as well as potentially being penalized by search engines. Sam Kuru (talk) 11:52, 5 November 2023 (UTC)