User talk:RM395

Student discussions
The discussions by your students on how Wikipedia functions and sustains itself are very interesting. Many have incredibly succinctly explained complex procedures, in-house cultural norms and evolving editing trends. And yet some appear to have ideas about how things work that are way off base. With such a contrast in understanding, it's fascinating reading. --Geniac (talk) 15:25, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

James B. Hunt Jr. Library
Much of this article is a very close paraphrase of the library's web site. Although it is sometimes difficult to present purely routine factual material in a significantly different way, the wording here  is too closely parallel. I've advised the students accordingly; I recognize it is almost the end of the academic terms, but I hope they will be able to fix the problems nevertheless, or it will be necessary for me to delete or rewrite the worst of it, though it is not bad enough to warrant deleting the article It would probably be a good idea to check your group's other articles as well for this problem. I will do so also if I have a chance.

I've been a teacher (and librarian) myself. Effectively explaining how to avoid this  always seems to be necessary--and it is a significant problem throughout WP. Usually at WP the problem of plagiarism has been so difficult that we are often glad if we can just avoid direct copypaste, but we're giving this increasing attention. In the early years of WP partial of complete plagiarism was almost routine, and standards have been rising in the 7 years I've been here. I've come to be a little suspicious of anything that looks like the way a web page on the subject might have been written--for every page where it might be relevant, I now always check the subject's web site, sometimes going one or two layers deeper than the home page. (And if the article does not list a web site for a topic where one would be expected, I become all the more suspicious)

BTW, I notice from your regular page you're interested in deletionism/inclusionism. This has been a major practical concern of mine for many years,and if you would like to talk, send me an email and we can arrange a time.  DGG ( talk ) 02:50, 7 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi there. Thanks for your comments. I'm going to respond to the Hunt Library issues on that talk page directly (which I will do shortly). Regarding inclusionism/deletionism, once the semester is over I'd be very happy to take you up on your offer to talk more about the issue. Briefly, I'm mainly trying to analyze the particularities of the debate itself and its relationship to Wikipedia's identity as an encyclopedia. I'll send an email in the near future. Thanks.
 * By the way, my other account is the best one for correspondence about anything other than the class or class activities (I say this mainly because the class is coming to a close soon). --RM395 (talk) 05:50, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Issue with pending GA Review for James B. Hunt Jr. Library
Thank you for your quality improvement efforts to this topic.

Are you going to respond to this issue at Talk:James_B._Hunt_Jr._Library and address it?

I fear that unless it is successfully addressed, potential GA Reviewers won't review it and it will sit in the queue idle.

Worse yet, this issue could make it fodder for a GA Review quickfail for this problem, unless it is addressed.

Just giving you a friendly heads up, &mdash; Cirt (talk) 18:04, 31 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for following up. The close paraphrasing issue has largely been addressed (see Talk:James B. Hunt Jr. Library). Would love to get additional GA feedback if you find yourself with time. --Rhododendrites (talk) 15:10, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of James B. Hunt Jr. Library
The article James B. Hunt Jr. Library you nominated as a good article has failed ; see Talk:James B. Hunt Jr. Library for reasons why the nomination failed. If or when these points have been taken care of, you may apply for a new nomination of the article. Adabow (talk) 05:23, 15 June 2013 (UTC)