User talk:Tom Ruffles

Please don't add yourself to articles
Please don't add yourself to articles. If you feel that you should be mentioned in an article, please bring it up on the talk page and let others add you if there is agreement to do so. Relevant policies about this are WP:AUTO and WP:COI. Thanks. --Minderbinder 20:32, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

June 2010
Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute to Wikipedia, at least one of your recent edits, such as the one you made to West Winch, did not appear to be constructive and has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any test edits you would like to make, and read the welcome page to learn more about contributing constructively to this encyclopedia. Thank you. Verbal chat  14:32, 9 June 2010 (UTC)


 * God Verbal, you are doing it again. What do you know about West Winch?  I had to live there for a decade so I know.  It was a straight fact. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tom Ruffles (talk • contribs)


 * We are trying to build an encyclopaedia here. Why not have a look at WP:TUTORIAL. Best, Verbal chat  13:08, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes but always on your terms, have you noticed? I saw your attitude to parapsychology, attitudes like that do not make for a good encyclopedia. You seem keener on knocking down than building, and stymie anything that offends your particular narrow views. Tom Ruffles (talk) 19:28, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

June 2010
Welcome to Wikipedia. Everyone is welcome to make constructive contributions to Wikipedia, but at least one of your recent edits, such as the one you made to West Winch, did not appear to be constructive and has been automatically reverted by ClueBot.
 * Please use the sandbox for any test edits you would like to make, and take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Note that human editors do monitor recent changes to Wikipedia articles, and administrators have the ability to block users from editing if they repeatedly engage in vandalism.
 * Cluebot produces very few false positives, but it does happen. If you believe the change you made should not have been detected as unconstructive, please report it here, remove this warning from your talk page, and then make the edit again.
 * The following is the log entry regarding this warning: West Winch was changed by Tom Ruffles (u) (t) making a minor change with obscenities on 2010-06-16T11:16:09+00:00 . Thank you. ClueBot (talk) 11:16, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm confused - please point out the 'obscenities'. I think this is tit for tat by Verbal.Tom Ruffles (talk) 11:18, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Nothing to do with me, it's automatic (a bot) because you used "cock" and are a new user. However, the edit would still probably be reverted because it is not encyclopaedic in tone and makes assertions that are not supported by reliable sources. Verbal chat  11:50, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

94.195.61.129
Please log in when you edit pages you have already edited under this account. Verbal chat  11:01, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Please go and do something constructive for a change, thanks.

Information on forgotten members of the SPR
Have you got any information on some of the original council members of the Society for Psychical Research, such as the electrician Desmond G. Fitzgerald (1834-1905)? See the talk page for the SPR. JuliaHunter (talk) 18:35, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, Unfortunately anything in the SPR journal or the Psypioneer (which I have read) and other parapsychology journals cannot be cited on Wikipedia, because they are not considered reliable sources per WP:FRIND or RS. Also Wikipedia rules on WP:FRINGE balance forbid this sort of thing, this is a mainstream encyclopaedia that deals with reliable academic sources on such topics. This is why SPR journals or other fringe journals should only be mentioned in the "further reading" sections of articles or cited if they are quoted in secondary independent sources which is rare.

I have no problem with citing academic books from the SPR like Alan Gauld's or Archie Roy etc. Academic or scholarly books that can be cited on the history of the SPR are Shane McCorristine, Janet Oppenheim, Roger Luckhurst, Trevor Hamilton etc, it would be good if members from the SPR joined Wikipedia and started adding such sources to improve this Wikipedia, the problem is that when pro-paranormal proponents turn up on Wikipedia they rarely cite academic books, instead they will quote from unreliable sources and go in full-blown citing fringe sources. But anyway, even these sources are not really helping me on some of the very first council members of the SPR who all seemed to be members of the British National Association of Spiritualists.

In Frazer Nichol's 1972 SPR paper (I have limited access on Google books) The Founders of the S.P.R, he says "Control of the Society passed slowly but surely from Spiritualists to the non-Spiritualists. By 1887, quite a number of disappointed Spiritualist Founders of the Society had resigned from the Council". Do you know who these members were that resigned? How many is quite a number? I hear about this a lot but cannot find any of the names apart from Stainton Moses. I am beginning to suspect that many of these early spiritualist members had died by around 1905-1908, not that they had resigned as such from the Society. If you check the talk-page for the SPR, that is all the sources I have found so far. JuliaHunter (talk) 19:31, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

I finally managed to find some of the early spiritualists who resigned over the Eglinton affair, the list of names is as follows: Stainton Moses, Dr. Stanhope Speer, G. D. Haughton, H. A. Kersey, Mrs E. Cannon and Mrs Brietzcke. JuliaHunter (talk) 22:05, 27 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Do you have an academic book that would qualify as a reliable source (RS) that mentions the above names that resigned? Oppenheim and other scholars have let us down here by not covering this in detail. Unfortunately we can't use the Nichol paper as it is not a reliable source. JuliaHunter (talk) 22:41, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Possible Pages for SPR members
Let me give you an example, I created the page Charles Massey. Do you see what I have done there? Cited academic books, not cited any nonsense. This really shouldn't be up to me creating these pages, but nobody else can be bothered. If you could get anyone on board to create such articles that just cite academic books and don't push any fringe nonsense, then this would be appreciated. I will create a page for George Wyld (1821-1906). I am afraid that will be the last SPR member I will be creating an article for. They take a lot of time, and I don't have much time for this anymore. I am interested in other articles on conjuring and will give up interest in psychical research. Take care. JuliaHunter (talk) 19:38, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Help me!
I'm trying to replace the logo on the page for the Society for Psychical Research. It has been altered, and I have uploaded the new version, but am not able to put it on the page. (It is easily recognised as it has 'Est. 1882' at the bottom rather than the 'SPR' shown in the old logo. Can someone help with this?  Thanks.

Please help me with...

Tom Ruffles (talk) 13:29, 26 July 2018 (UTC)


 * The old version is a free image on commons, so upload it there. You can probably just upload a new version at c:File:Society_for_Psychical_Research.jpg - the license is already set up for you - use the link under the "File History", and then the articles will all change automatically. Ron h jones (Talk) 14:56, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Unspecified source/license for File:SPR-Logo(Black).jpg
Thanks for uploading File:SPR-Logo(Black).jpg. The image has been identified as not specifying the copyright status of the image, which is required by Wikipedia's policy on images. Even if you created the image yourself, you still need to release it so Wikipedia can use it. If you don't indicate the copyright status of the image on the image's description page, using an appropriate copyright tag, it may be deleted some time after the next seven days. If you made this image yourself, you can use copyright tags like PD-self (to release all rights), (to require that you be credited), or any tag here - just go to the image, click edit, and add one of those. If you have uploaded other images, please verify that you have provided copyright information for them as well.

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Unspecified source/license for File:SPR-Logo.jpg
Thanks for uploading File:SPR-Logo.jpg. The image has been identified as not specifying the copyright status of the image, which is required by Wikipedia's policy on images. Even if you created the image yourself, you still need to release it so Wikipedia can use it. If you don't indicate the copyright status of the image on the image's description page, using an appropriate copyright tag, it may be deleted some time after the next seven days. If you made this image yourself, you can use copyright tags like PD-self (to release all rights), (to require that you be credited), or any tag here - just go to the image, click edit, and add one of those. If you have uploaded other images, please verify that you have provided copyright information for them as well.

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This is an automated notice by MifterBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Media copyright questions. NOTE: Once you correct this, please remove the tag from the image's page. --MifterBot (Talk • Contribs • Owner) 14:46, 26 July 2018 (UTC)