User talk:Rockdowner

Smoking ban
Hi. I've removed most of your recent edits to the Smoking ban article and I'd like to explain why. Firstly, none of what you were adding was supported by cites. Secondly they were not neutrally phrased. There is a section on the article about criticisms of bans, so if you have cited material about opposition to bans, then this is the place to add them. Adding thinly veiled POV inserts into the article is not the way to do it. More specifically;


 * "Sumptuary laws." - This is a pejorative term.  You can't add it to the lead paragraph with only a weaselly "considered to be" to support it.  Some opponents may say this, but they need to be attributed and cited.
 * "Social Engineering" - The 'see also' connection here is clearly matter of opinion, and again a pejorative term.
 * "The primary rationale of smoke-free laws of anti-smoking groups is to reduce demand for tobacco" - anti-smoking groups do not introduce laws, governments do.
 * "In the United States, the late 1990's saw the creation of the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement. For the first time anti-smoking policy groups could now pull large sums of money from the agreement through various Federal and State laws. This influx of money allowed the formation of numerous new anti-smoking political action committees which were both well funded and very aggressive. Since this time, these lobbyist groups have become increasingly skilled at pushing through ever more restrictive legislation." - This may start off factual, but we need cites to support all the results that you claim are a result of the creation of the Agreement.  Words such as "aggressive", "pushing" and "restrictive" are also clearly not neutral.
 * "despite non-compliance that occurs to this day" - cite for this?

Thanks. -- Escape Orbit (Talk) 18:26, 19 October 2008 (UTC)


 * [[Image:Information.svg|25px]] Please do not add commentary or your own personal analysis to Wikipedia articles. Doing so violates Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy and breaches the formal tone expected in an encyclopedia.  MastCell Talk 04:36, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Please stop labelling the cited individuals and organisations in the Smoking ban article, implying their lack of objectivity. The reader can read the cited articles and make their own evaluation of the source and possible bias without your prompting. It is also not acceptable to put sarcastic quotes around statements to indicate your scepticism of its accuracy. -- Escape Orbit (Talk) 10:25, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Sen. Sam Slom
If you wish to use this; http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?7374b275-81b1-4d4f-9c0c-bda88583eb7d, as a cite you will have to make it clear that it is an opinion piece by an individual. Please also stick to what they said without adding your own POV adjectives that are never used, or suggested, in the article, e.g. "aggressive". -- Escape Orbit (Talk) 14:18, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Sourcing
Please take another look at our guidelines on appropriate sourcing; the sources you're trying to introduce at smoking ban are not appropriate for an encyclopedia. MastCell Talk 23:27, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Notability of Tavern League of Wisconsin
A tag has been placed on Tavern League of Wisconsin requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done because the article, which appears to be about a real person, organization (band, club, company, etc.), or web content, does not indicate how or why the subject is notable: that is, why an article about that subject should be included in an encyclopedia. Under the criteria for speedy deletion, articles that do not indicate the subject's importance or significance may be deleted at any time. Please see the guidelines for what is generally accepted as notable. If this is the first page that you have created, then you should read the guide to writing your first article.

If you think that you can assert the notability of the subject, you may contest the deletion by adding  to the top of the article (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the article's talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the article meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would confirm the subject's notability under Wikipedia 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. -- Shadowlynk (Talk) 07:56, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Sources and agendas
I've noticed that your edits here uniformly seem to advance a specific agenda. That by itself is a bit problematic, since Wikipedia is not a venue for advocacy. More to the point, please review our policies on verifiability, undue weight, and appropriate sourcing. Many of the sources you keep reintroducing are clearly unacceptable from this encyclopedia's standpoint; those that may potentially be acceptable tend to be shoehorned to fit your editorial agenda, which raises the concern of original synthesis. Wikipedia isn't really the right agenda to advocate for your agenda; if you're interested in this project, then a good place to start is by finding the best available sources (as Wikipedia defines quality). If your main goal is to argue against smoking bans, then there are any number of more appropriate venues to do so. I'm sorry to be direct, but it's obvious that this is not a new issue, nor am I the only one to raise questions about your editing in this regard. MastCell Talk 04:54, 23 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Along similar lines, I've reverted your changes to Smokeasy and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. I suggest you spend a bit of time editing articles on topics other than smoking, so you can see how the process works, and learn to contribute without wasting your own time and everyone else's. JQ (talk) 05:27, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Edit-warring
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 a large number of reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring, even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing. Please do not repeatedly revert edits, but use the talk page to work towards wording and content that gains a consensus among editors. If necessary, pursue dispute resolution. MastCell Talk 04:35, 24 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I know you've been here awhile, but your recent conduct and your talk page full of warnings suggest that it might be worth mentioning a few things. Wikipedia functions by consensus. You're reinserting the same disputed material again and again, without addressing the concerns I've raised on the talk pages. In fact, you're not even bothering with an edit summary - just knee-jerk reverts. I raised my concerns about policy violations and so forth on your talk page, and you responded solely by attempting to personalize the dispute and attack me rather than addressing the underlying policy issues I'd raised. Please stop edit-warring and stop by the talk page to discuss these issues - I can guarantee you that you won't succeed in "forcing" your agenda onto Wikipedia without even bothering to use an article talk page or discuss other editors' concerns. MastCell Talk 20:33, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
Hi, You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:54, 24 November 2015 (UTC)