Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Billy Hathorn

In order to remain listed at Requests for comment/User conduct, at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this user and have failed. This must involve the same dispute with a single user, not different disputes or multiple users. The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with &#126;&#126;&#126;&#126;. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 14:58, 10 November 2007 (UTC)), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is:, 29 July 2024 (UTC).



This RfC was closed as certified and endorsed without opposition. Gwen Gale (talk) 21:21, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Users should only edit one summary or view, other than to endorse.

Statement of the dispute
Billy Hathorn appears to create a new article for every single obituary or newspaper story he reads. His deleted contributions list is substantial, longer than any other editor I can recall, other than acute POV-pushers. Billy is not a POV-pusher. His talk page shows a never-ending series of speedy deletion and AfD notices; a high proportion of these are deleted. Some are simply copy-pastes form external sites, occasionally with minor textual changes.

Some of his articles are good, or become good through the work of others.

Desired outcome
Billy Hathorn needs to:
 * Stop copying text from other websites.
 * Pay more attention to the biographical notability guideline and provide good evidence of the significance of subjects.
 * Be especially careful to follow the living individuals guidelines in the case of subjects who are living or recently deceased.
 * Keep in mind the WP:RS limitations on using unpublished archival sources, self-published works, and unauthoritative obituaries.

Evidence of disputed behavior
See for example Articles for deletion/Glenn E. Ratcliff, Articles for deletion/Henry Wiggins. See also Billy Hathorn's talk page.

Applicable policies and guidelines
{list the policies and guidelines that apply to the disputed conduct}
 * WP:BLP
 * WP:BIO
 * WP:NOT a memorial

Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute
Billy's Talk page is one long series of people bringing this to his attention, he does not seem to understand the problem.
 * I have written to hiom several itimes, explaining in detail the problems with his articles, and making suggestions for doing them in a more encyclopedic manner--he is always polite, but he never changes. Examples:
 * 
 * 
 * 

DGG (talk) 18:05, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

As DGG says, Billy's talk page is a long list of warnings. Earlier this year, following a mass AfD nomination of a number of his contributions (not by myself), I (and many others) tried to point out what Billy was doing wrong, mainly on AfD discussions. However, while Billy was always polite, nothing that was said seems to have made any difference — other than that he ceased to post pure cut-and-paste copyright violations. In April Billy posted this discussion at AN/I, which sums up the problem at the time fairly well. Although it didn't seem to have any effect, following the AN/I debate I deliberately avoided nominating/tagging any of Billy's articles to avoid any appearance of wikistalking, and I believe the other participants did the same. Because those editors who were keeping an eye out for him in Recent Changes were leaving him alone, more of his articles "slipped through the net", which may have given him the impression that policy has changed. I agree with Guy that this RFC is necessary, although possibly for different reasons; as these circumstances have now caused a backlog of articles that almost certainly warrant deletion, at some point they are going to need to be cleared up and any unilateral mass-tagging by any editor is likely to restart the accusations of bad faith. While Billy is valuable to Wikipedia, as a bona fide expert in his field (the politics of Louisiana), he seems unwilling to accept WP:N and WP:V; his contributions still regularly cite "personal testimony" as a source. His articles as a whole would make a useful book on Louisiana history, but aren't appropriate for Wikipedia; I'd suggest that if he were to move to Wikibooks, he'd likely very rapidly rise to one of their leading political contributors. —  iride  scent  17:33, 12 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I regret to say that my own best efforts may have been at AFD and in the above-referenced AN/I discussion. (I will check, now that I've a bit more time.) I deliberately and genuinely praised Hathorn for his article construction skills. Very few of them need any sort of stylistic cleanup. He also creates many necessary articles such as politicians at the state legislator level and up. But he is not discriminate; either he is using a see-what-sticks strategy, or he is simply ignoring WP:BIO entirely. Outside of bios there are multitudes of articles that could use his contributions. Billy is definitely an editor who could be a tremendous asset to the project. But he needs to pay attention to notability guidelines and in particular WP:LOCAL. I'm one of the most inclusionist regulars on AFD and quite a few of his articles strike _me_ as frivolous. Now, as to sourcing. Many articles are obviously cut-and-paste newspaper obituaries with some rewording. Given his other skills as an editor this is particularly disappointing. First, our notability standards are higher than "had a glowing obit" and second, we should be using as many different sources as possible, with an obit as a last resort. (NYT obits are a notable exception, as they are professionally and neutrally written. Many local newspaper obits are written by the family, failing WP:COI. They may well exaggerate accomplishments, minimize or omit failures, and generally judge a person's importance through rose-colored glasses.) This brings me to my next major concern, which is Billy's continued use of his own unpublished research, especially an apparently lengthy thesis about the history of a political party in Louisiana and Texas. As a source, this may be a last resort for certain material, if the person is indeed notable. I don't think a blanket ban is warranted. But as a main source, and particularly as a source for notability, it is fraught with problems, and Billy's use of it is effectively a type of self-promotion. This is another area where a small amount of moderation would do a great deal for Billy's esteem as an editor. --Dhartung | Talk 22:31, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Users certifying the basis for this dispute
{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}


 * Guy (Help!) 15:07, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
 * DGG (talk) 17:54, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
 * '''Iridescent 17:33, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Dhartung | Talk 22:32, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Other users who endorse this summary

 * Toddst1 20:15, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
 * With regret because it is never nice to criticise an obvious good faith contributor who has just gone too far. But the deleted contributions link tells its own story: too many of Billy Hathorn's articles are people who are of extremely marginal notability at best. Sam Blacketer 21:58, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
 * N b u r d e n (T) 07:34, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
 * JoshuaZ (talk) 05:22, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Response
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Outside view
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I say let the guy contribute his articles and give him a chance to back up his information with references. There are tons of articles on Wikipedia with no refernces at all that no one is ready to tar & feather into deletion. Now I will admit that perhaps Billy should slow down and reference each article properly before moving on to the next one. Sf46 (talk) 02:29, 21 January 2008 (UTC)


 * It's really not my place to say anything about Billy's character. I've recently joined Wiki, and I done so because of something Billy posted out-of-place on my hometown page: Castor. After I condensed and moved the information, I started surfing from local Wiki page-to-page and couldn't help but notice the same tacky manor in which Billy added random bits. In most the writing it sounded verbatim of an obituary. He often uses biased words like "prominent" very loosely. Going around from parishes-to-parishes, city-to-city, town-to-town organizing a mess he's making and knows he's making has gotten to be very frustrating. It's bad enough there isn't people in my state willing to contrib to and organize our articles, but having someone that puts articles everywhere--makes random topic names--is beyond frustrating. If it seemed as if he cared about the Louisiana Wiki's I wouldn't mind. But he clearly only cares about Politics and Obituaries and posting them in random places. Lastly I've noticed Billy is referencing some of his articles with links that do not work. I don't wish to be cruel, but a majority of Louisiana parishes and towns have his input on it--and his input isn't to Wiki-standards. Honestly, I don't understand how he's got away with his disrespect for this long. Mythical (talk) 09:02, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

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Discussion
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