User talk:DublinDilettante

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Contents 1 Ronnie Whelan Snr 2 Arthur Conan Doyle 3 Newbridge, County Kildare 4 David Tennant 5 WikiProject Irish Football 6 Examples of meta-references 7 Invitation 8 Snopes 9 Referencing

[edit] Ronnie Whelan Snr

Great work on that page. I'll add to the Pats bit when I get a chance. Glad to see I'm not the only one trying to fill the Irish football blanks here. Dodge 11:01, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Arthur Conan Doyle

Sorry, didn't see the source -- I just looked at the article (which has not a word about his cricket career). I reverted to your version, but you might want to add a sentence to the article to clarify that. Thanks, NawlinWiki 16:12, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Newbridge, County Kildare

Mia culpa! Would you please accept my most profuse, sincere and humble apology.

I mis-read the edit and thought that you had added the comment.

Sorry!

LittleOldMe 14:49, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] David Tennant

Regarding your removal of Tennant from the list of notable supporters on the Derry City FC page; he attended the Brandywell for a game in the past year to offer his support as his grandfather, Archie McLeod, played for the club in by-gone days. I have also seen a photograph of him sporting a Derry City scarf. I'm sure that qualifies as supporting the club in some way or another, if even just financially in a minor way.

As the League of Ireland is an interest of yours, I've been wondering what exactly the league 'split' during the 1992/93 season entailed. I'm too young to remember, but possibly you'd know?

Also, funnily enough, I created a Roddy Collins page just last week.

Cheers.--Johnfullerton 01:36, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Irish Football

I'm just alerting your attention to the new WikiProject on Irish football as you may be interested in taking part. Danny Invincible^Talk|Edits 01:43, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Examples of meta-references

Come, let's get some real references in--any librarian can help you find them. See what you can do. Let's save the article--argument alone will not do it. This may be easier to save than the others--it's a little more restrictive a list.DGG (talk) 04:47, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Invitation

Hello there

I see you are interested in the Life On Mars Television Series, as I am.

At the moment I have A Life On Mars Wikiproject currently up for approval by the Wikiproject Approval Council. As you are interested in Life On Mars I was wondering if you would be interested in adding your name and joining. If you are interested you can find it on Wikipedia: WikiProject Council/Proposals its right at the very bottom you cant miss it as its titled ‘Wikipedia: Wikiproject Life on Mars (Television Series)’. And after your name is added to Wikiproject propsals please add it to the main page Wikipedia:Wikiproject Life On Mars

If you are interested by all means feel free to join

Regards

Police,Mad,Jack —Preceding comment was added at 20:15, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Snopes

Thanks for your Snopes edit, but it's not up to Wikipedia editors to decide whether or not something is "politically partisan" (even if it seems obvious), as this is original research. We should instead quote a reliable source that calls them out on it. --McGeddon (talk) 19:04, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Referencing

Hi

Your contributions list shows that you have been mass-undoing my edits to a whole series of articles relating to Dublin.

Some of the edits which you have undone have have removed cleanup tags such as {{primarysources}}, or {{unreferenced}}, both of which I have added where appropriate to articles to articles which I have assesed for WikiProject Ireland. Those tags indicate that an article needs to be improved to meet wikipedia's quality standards — see in particular WP:V and WP:RS. Please do not remove such tag until references have been added to sources independent of the subject.

Some of your edits (such as this one) have also removed valid biographical categories.

I will now restore all my edits which you have undone. Please help wikipedia by improving articles and adding sources where you can rather than removing valid categories and removing tags to indicate needed improvements.

Thank you. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:13, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I would politely request that you refrain from reverting the damage I have undone to your edits to articles concerning Irish football. I think your stance on the notability of the Leinster Senior League article confirmed that, with respect, you have little expertise in this field and should refrain from casting aspersions (for such is the effect) on the work of editors who do. One of your edits demanded a citation for an article which stated nothing other than a player's name, club, and date of birth - these are matters of public record, one might as well tack a citation notice on an article proclaiming "A" the first letter in the alphabet.

You'll note that, unlike cricket biographies which benefit from a comprehensive statistical archive, no sources beyond those which would be considered "primary" are available in support of many footballers' biographies. You'll also note that I didn't revert edits which I considered warranted (such as where subjective statements were apparent.) I apologise for accidentally reverting at least one valuable edit, I did my best to avoid this but the task of manually undoing what, frankly, amounted to a mass campaign of script-based vandalism was onerous and laborious; but I think the net effect was beneficial to the encyclopaedia. Once again, I would appeal to you to refrain from mass editing articles on this subject and necessitating further intervention. Thanks. DublinDilettante (talk) 18:13, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to be blunt, but I think you misunderstand the issues here.

This is nothing to do with football or cricket or any other subject; it is to do with one of wikipedia's core policies, that of verifiability. Upholding verifiability is not a matter of "casting aspersions" as you put; it is asking editors to comply with one of the encyclopedia's core content policies. The fact you describe as "vandalism" and "damage" the application of an {{unreferenced}} tag to an article which has no sources suggests that you urgently need to read both Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Vandalism.

You make my point very well when you "One of your edits demanded a citation for an article which stated nothing other than a player's name, club, and date of birth". It's quite true that the article on Paul Byrne contained only those few facts ... but the point is that a source is needed per WP:V, and if it is (as you claim) "a matter of public record", then please improve the article by explaining where on the public record the information has been sourced from. If there is no evidence that the player existed, then the article should be deleted; but if there is evidence, then the references should be included. If you seriously believe that you were right to remove the {{unreferenced}} tag, and that my application of the tag was vandalism, then please report it at WP:AIV.

Here are some of the edits in which you removed referencing tags:

• Micheal Dempsey (footballer), an article which has only one reference on a minor point, and that ref is to a undated football match programme. Yet you removed the {{refimprove}} tag. Sorry, but if you think that a match programme is a reliable source then please read WP:RS; and note that there are no references to any of the other points in the article, such as when he was born. Where did this information come from? References are needed to establish that, so a {{refimprove}} tag is needed.
• Michael Keane, a completely unreferenced article from which you removed the {{unreferenced}} tag
• Keith Foy, also wholly unreferenced, yet you removed the {{unreferenced}} tag
• John Byrne (Irish_football) from which you removed categories and a stub tag. Do you think the categories were inaccurate? Do you think the article is not a stub?
• Eddie Gormley, a 500-word article removed a {{primarysources}} tag. The article is almost largely unreferenced, yet it claims that Gormley is currently manager of a club which plays in the Eircom Premier Division. Are you seriously claiming that there is no coverage of him other than in primary sources? That the manager of premier division club has never been written up in the sports columns of the newspapers?
• Dave Tilson, who the article claims scored the only goal at the 1992 FAI cup final ... yet your removed the {{primarysources}} tag. Are you seriously claiming that someone who scored the only goal at a cup final received no newspaper coverage at all?

I could list another dozen or so in the same vein, but I think those examples make the point clear.

As to the rest of the {{primarysources}} tags, you say that there is no "comprehensive statistical archive". That may well be the case, but a "comprehensive statistical archive" is not the only possible source. Such online statistical archives are very easy to use, but there are also books and newspapers — the papers usually provide comprehensive coverage of the higher divisions in any league. If you don't have the energy or inclination to go to the library and scour the archives, that's fine ... but even if no such source exists, it doesn't alter the fact that the articles concerned are still not adequately referenced.

I have no objections at all to a cleanup tag being removed if it has been applied in error, but unfortunately you seem to think that any tag indicating a lack of sources is inherently not just an error but an act of vandalism. Please read the relevant policies (WP:RS, WP:V and WP:NOR) and try understand what these tags are for: they are an invitation to editors to improve an article so that it meets wikipedia's core policies for inclusion. You may not like the intrusiveness of the tags, but removing them is simply shooting the messenger rather than fixing the problem.

Your contributions list shows that in the last month you have made about ten edits to wikipedia, but dozens in which you have removed cleanup tags. You don't have to contribute to wikipedia if you don't want to, but please stop disrupting efforts the efforts of others to identify articles in need of improvement.

Meanwhile, I will continue to assess articles, and regardless of whether they relate to football, hurling, astronomy, poetry, politics, agriculture or whatever ... and I will continue to tag articles which lack proper sources per WP:V. I have tagged thousands of such articles in the last few months' assessment drive, and you are the only editor to take it as some sort of insult, let alone to try to cast it as "vandalism". --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:20, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your lengthy and punctilious response. It is obvious that I'm urinating into a hurricane if I expect any common sense to be applied to this situation. As my admittedly paltry contributions have been declared worthless by so eminent a personage, I won't bother making any more. I would, however, like to continue to use Wikipedia (if that's okay) so please refrain from deleting the entire encyclopaedia in my absence. And if someday you come to the realisation that the dissemination of information to the previously unreachable masses is more valuable than adherence to the strictest interpretation of arbitrary rules, so much the better. Cheerio. DublinDilettante (talk) 20:59, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Applying commonsense would lead to you to a very simple conclusion: anyone who has the energy and the resources to add references to articles, or otherwise improve, is welcome to do so. If you don't want to do that, then that's fine too; the problem is purely that you somehow decided that the core wikipedia policy of verifiablity is a set of "arbitrary rules", and that you have confused a request for references with a proposal to delete ... and then decided that it amounted to vandalism.

Wikipedia is not just about dissemination of information; it's about the dissemination of verifiable information. I'm sorry that this offends you, but you have created new articles yourself, so you should be aware that at the top of the edit screen for new articles, it says clearly

As you create the article, provide references to reliable published sources. Without references, the article may be deleted.

It's a pity that you prefer to leave articles unreferenced, and hence liable for deletion, than to see requests to improve them. It's a pity that you choose to read a request to stop impeding article improvement as meaning that your "contributions have been declared worthless". My objection is solely to your mass undoing of edits which took me a long time to do. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:23, 15 May 2008 (UTC)