User talk:Donpelon

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Hello Donpelon! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. If you decide that you need help, check out Getting Help below, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking or using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. Happy editing! Keesiewonder 11:04, 10 January 2007 (UTC) Getting started Wikipedia tutorial • The five pillars of Wikipedia How to: edit a page • upload an image Getting help Frequently asked questions Where to ask questions or make comments Request administrator attention Policies and guidelines Neutral point of view • Reliable sources Verifiability • Citing sources • No original research What Wikipedia is not • Biographies of living persons Manual of Style • Three-revert rule • Sock puppetry Copyrights • Fair use • Image use policy External links • Spam • Vandalism Deletion policy • Conflict of interest • Notability The community Build consensus • Resolving disputes Assume good faith • Civility • Etiquette No personal attacks • No legal threats Community Portal • Village pump Signpost • IRC channels • Mailing lists Things to do Be bold in editing • Help develop an article Pages needing attention • Peer review Join a WikiProject • Translating articles Cleaning up: General • Spam • Vandalism Miscellaneous Categories • Disambiguity • Stubs User pages • Talk pages Useful templates • Tools • User scripts

Thanks for your input at the discussion regarding the Olde English Bulldogge. I am doing what I can; I trust you noticed that. I too find it very discouraging that it appears a lot of people go off of their own opinion, their own (limited) experience and their own extraordinarily weak research when forming their perspective on issues such as this one.

The only reason I have a Wikipedia membership is I took my first class towards a master's degree, where I learned that academic writing was very important at the master's level and scholarly resources are the foundation to academic writing. This instructor explicitly said 'do not use Wikipedia as a citation in anything you submit to me.' When took my second class (molecular biology), classmates referred to Wikipedia ad nauseum - left and right, copy and paste, in some cases looking as little as possible, it appeared, to the breadth of scholarly journals we had at our fingertips. And the instructor didn't really put a stop to it. Great! People pursuing a master's degree using Wikipedia as their primary source. So, since I wasn't going to change the masses by making all my peers dislike me because I didn't like their resource, I tried to turn it around and do some editing on WP to try to bring more scholarly research and discussion to their articles. There's a lot of great research here already. And, there's a lot of garbage (in my opinion).

As you and I both know, Wikipedia is not a scholarly (peer reviewed, in the true sense of the term) resource. That's ok ... as long as a wide variety of people collaborate on the articles ... at least that's what I'm holding out for. So, input like yours and mine, I hope, will lift this article out of AfD status as a keep.

My own "experience" with this breed is an excellent case in point. I have never lived with a bulldog of any kind. I've probably only met a couple, maybe pet one or two. They're just not my kind of dog, which I can separate from the content of the article. When I first saw the name of the breed, Olde English Bulldogge, I said to myself, 'you've got to be kidding!' It looked totally made up to me. But, I read the WP article, unfortunately found all kinds of other bulldog articles on WP (if you could help me with this mess I'd greatly appreciate it), read the AfD, glanced at Google ... and then looked elsewhere for my information. You see what I found worth posting in the AfD discussion. It's really not that hard to get the 'right' answer ... if a person is willing to read, understand, think, reflect, slow down, remember that they might not know everything about everything, etc. i.e. if they don't maintain their own POV even when sound research is presented. Ugh!

I expect this article will be kept. More times than not, I have found the admins to be reasonable. If it is deleted, it can be presented to deletion review folks. May I suggest if you have some time today (I don't) that you pass through the article and edit anything you can for style, grammar, etc. Just to make the article look a bit better. I would do it but cannot quite say I have the time. Thanks for reading this ... may our paths cross again. Kind Regards, Keesiewonder 11:04, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Old English Bulldog

Hello Donpelon,

I read your statements at the Olde English Bulldogge vote. Would you mind chiming in at the talk page of the Old English Bulldog, there are editors there that do not believe this dog breed ever existed. The article does have four legitimate books as references and about four good external links. It seems to be the same small mentality as the last time ie. if someone hasn't heard of the article topic, it must not exist :) ....welcome to wikiality ! Headphonos 11:50, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

• FWIW, this thread is asking at its core, at least for the posts I personally have posted, for in-text citations ... from the references you probably (both) hold in your hand. Please assume good faith, Headphonos, and avoid implying that other editors are of small mentality. Donpelon, I look forward to the in-text citations. Thanks! Keesiewonder ^talk 12:22, 21 January 2007 (UTC)