If I left you a message on your talk page: please answer on your talk page, and drop me a brief note here to let me know you have done so. (You may do this by posting {{Talkback|your username}} on this page, or by writing your own note.) (I make only limited use of watchlisting, because I have found otherwise I am unable to keep it under control, and soon build up such a huge watchlist that it is unworkable.) If you leave me a message here: I will answer here, unless you request otherwise, or I think there are particular reasons to do otherwise, and usually I will notify you on your talk page. Please add new sections to the bottom of this page, and new messages to the bottoms of their sections. New messages at the top of the page may be overlooked. Clicking here will open a new section at the bottom of the page for a new message. After a section has not been edited for a week it is automatically moved to the latest archive. Links to those archives are given below. However, I reserve the right to delete vandalism, trolling or other unconstructive edits without archiving them.

Archives

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80 81, 82, 83, 84

This page has archives. Sections older than 7 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 4 sections are present.

Hello, JBW. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Hi, the company page Point Inside was deleted in 2013 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Inside We weren't aware of any bans or blocks on the page, and would like it to be restored. Please let me know how I can help. Crystal pointinside (talk) 00:13, 28 January 2014 (UTC)Crystal[reply]

I don't have much connection with this. As far as I know, my only connection is that I removed a redirect which was left after another editor had moved the page from one place to another. However, I see that the administrator who deleted it has since retired from Wikipedia, so I will look into the relevant history for you, and let you know what my conclusions are. Unfortunately, I don't have time to deal with it properly now, but I will try to get onto it soon. If I haven't got back to you within 24 hours, please do feel more than welcome to remind me, in case I have forgotten about it. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:55, 28 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks so much for checking into it. You help is appreciated.50.78.44.229 (talk) 18:56, 29 January 2014 (UTC)Crystal[reply]

Just checking in-have you had time to take a further look? Crystal pointinside (talk) 18:05, 3 February 2014 (UTC)Crystal[reply]

My apologies, Crystal pointinside. For personal and family reasons, I have recently had less time available for Wikipedia than usual, and I'm afraid this is one of the things that have been left. I will make a note of it, and try to catch up as soon as possible. JamesBWatson (talk) 10:02, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, yet again my apologies for taking so long to get round to dealing with this. However, here at last are my observations, now that I have looked into the history of the case.

1. The article was created by an editor employed by a business that has a long history of deliberately editing contrary to Wikipedia policies. That business has gone to considerable lengths to try to hide the nature of what they are doing, using numerous dishonest methods to try to evade detection. They have blatantly lied to Wikipedia about what they have been doing.
2. The business has also lied to its "clients", whom they have sometimes duped into paying for services which the business knows full well they are in no position to undertake to provide.
3. The company has been banned from editing Wikipedia.
4. Wikipedia policy is that pages created by banned users can be summarily deleted. There has been much debate over this policy, with some editors taking the line that if an article is acceptable in other respects, there is no justification for deleting it purely on the basis of who created it. However, the consensus is that, in a case such as this one, that consideration is outweighed by the fact that if the company knows that it can get away with persistently defying the ban, and that articles it creates will remain in place, then there will be no incentive for them to stop.
5. In this particular case, however, the article was not "acceptable in other respects", as there were other problems which would, in my view, have been sufficient grounds for deletion anyway, no matter who had created it. Principal among these problems was the fact that the article was blatantly promotional. It read not like an impartial encyclopaedia article, but rather like something put out by an agent paid to promote the company. Wikipedia is not a medium for advertising or promotion of any sort, and using Wikipedia for the purpose of promotion is a breach of Wikipedia's policy.
6. I have checked the references cited in the article. They were a classic case of a well-known technique used by professional spammers who are well enough aware of Wikipedia's standards to know that the article they are writing is unlikely to meet Wikipedia's inclusion standards, and who seek to give the misleading impression that it does. This technique, described at Wikipedia:Bombardment, consists of posting large numbers of "references", in the hope that nobody will examine them all, and realise that they do not demonstrate that the subject of the article meets Wikipedia's notability guidelines. In this article, a very large proportion of the references are dead links, links to pages that don't even mention "Point Inside", or pages that barely mention it. Others include promotional sites, brief reviews, and other pages with little value in establishing notability. If the subject does not meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines, then any article about it is likely to be deleted, no matter who writes it or how it is written.
7. I gather that you work for the company. If so, Wikipedia's conflict of interest guideline strongly discourage you from any involvement in producing an article about the company, as a Wikipedia article should be written from a neutral, third party, point of view. If, as seems likely, your company paid in good faith for an article to be written, unaware that the company you paid knew probably full well that the article was, for various reasons, unlikely to survive, then I fully sympathise with you. However, if it is any consolation to you, the article survived for over four months, while I have known many other similar articles that have not survived for a day. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:47, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, JBW. You have new messages at Pburka's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Hello, JBW. You have new messages at Pburka's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

There have been a couple of reverts. Extend PC time? --George Ho (talk) 07:50, 2 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Forgetting something? --George Ho (talk) 03:12, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

My apologies, George. For personal and family reasons, I have recently had less time available for Wikipedia than usual, and I'm afraid this is one of the things that have been left. However, I have now reinstated PC for a year, and I have also semi-protected for a shorter time. The trouble with PC in a case like this is that very often the troublesome editing still goes on, and although PC successfully does the job of preventing the damage being seen by un-logged-in editors, it takes just as much work on the part of other editors to keep rejecting changes as it would to keep reverting. JamesBWatson (talk) 10:14, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

User:122.58.208.58 came back after the block you issued and is now repeating the same edits as before, blanking references, inserting external links, at International Fellowship of Christian Assemblies, List of Christian Denominations, Fellowship of Christian Assemblies, etc. I rolled back their edits on one page, but I hesitate to get rid of all their edits, as they are very subtle: basically, they're trying to mislead readers by confusing similarly named religious organizations, right? If the IP is causing trouble, I would be obliged if you would re-block. Thanks, Altamel (talk) 00:24, 4 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for calling my attention to this, Altamel. The editor is certainly disruptive, but I am not sure that it is deliberate. I haven't seen anything that looks to me like deliberately "trying to mislead readers", but on the other hand I have not looked at every one of the editor's 423 edits, so I may have missed something relevant. If you know of examples which give good reason for believing that, then please let me know.

Overall, this looks to me like a good faith editor who does not understand a lot of things about how Wikipedia works, and doesn't learn because he or she makes no attempt at all to communicate with other editors, or to take note of what they say. I have posted a fairly long message at User talk:122.58.208.58, trying to explain what the problems are, and suggesting a way forward. I prefer not to block for a significant time, in view of my impression that he or she is editing in good faith. However, two short blocks have not prompted the editor to change his or her ways. The longest block so far has been 31 hours, and there are very frequent gaps in the editing history of several days, some of them lasting for a couple of weeks or more. It is therefore entirely possible that the editor did not try to edit during the blocks, and never reads his/her talk page (certainly he/she never edits there). If that is so, then he/she may not even know that he/she has ever been blocked. In that case, the only way to make any contact with the editor will be to impose a much longer block. What I propose is to leave things as they are for now, and see whether the message I posted leads to any changes. If not, good faith or no, a longer block will be necessary. Please do contact me again if you see more of the same problems. JamesBWatson (talk) 11:27, 4 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think you made a good call here. It is exactly because of the ambiguity of these edits that I decided not to take this straight to AIV or something similar, since I knew you probably had more experiences distinguishing which editors are good faith or not. What I meant by "trying to mislead readers" was this edit [1], which added an external link to a similarly named, but completely separate organization. However, on further examination of this IP's edits, it seems to me that this was more of an isolated incident and might have just been a genuine mistake. There are edits like this one [2] that aren't bad faith. Thanks for posting a detailed message to the IP's talk page: I hope they get the message, and for now, it's probably best to leave things as they are. Altamel (talk) 23:16, 6 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, JBW. You have new messages at Talk:Glary_Utilities.
Message added Enquire (talk) 06:33, 6 February 2014 (UTC)). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.[reply]

Mr. Watson,

Please remove your comment on copyright infringement from the deleted page B.E. Scully. The author is threatening a lawsuit as it comes up a Yahoo search and looks like the it's accusation of coyright infringement against the author. Thank you.

Editorqueen (talk) 09:09, 6 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have moved Talk:Glary_Utilities to User:Enquire/Glary Utilities (talk). davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 20:11, 6 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed that the destination was a content page, not actually a talk page. So, I moved it, so I thought, to a sandbox talk page. It is now a talk page proper, but in the Wikipedia mainspace. I tried to move it directly to my sandbox "Glary Utilities" talk page, but experienced the same confusing (and unhelpful) error message. So, now its an actual talk page (good), but in the mainspace (bad).  :(

Enquire (talk) 02:15, 7 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I recruited help from User:Nick to get it where it should be ... now here: User_talk:Enquire/sandbox/Glary_Utilities

Enquire (talk) 02:44, 7 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Re: This edit in which you said

However, for future reference, in case you ever find yourself in a situation which is similar but not identical, if the last version of the article had been purged of the original copyright-infringing content, it is very unlikely that it would have been possible to restore that last version, because it would almost certainly have contained contributions from a number of editors, and without keeping the history of their individual edits, there would have been no record of who wrote what, which is required by Wikipedia's copyright licensing terms.

I think restoring all edits and revision-deleting all but the "clean" edit(s) would meet Wikipedia's legal obligations. The question in any particular situation is whether it would be better to do this than to WP:STARTOVER. The answer may very well be "no, starting over is better." As a matter of practice though, I've been told that existing articles in which long-ago edits are "polluted" and which "good" edits were made prior to the copyright-violating material being excised, neither deletion nor revision-deletion is used - the entire edit history, copyright violation and all - is left intact so that the attribution is "cleaner." davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 18:12, 6 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Three points.

1. The editor was asking for just the last version to be restored, possibly with an earlier version too, but without the history. That is what I was addressing, not the other scenarios that you mention.
2. Restoring all edits and revision-deleting all but the "clean" edit(s) would show that various people had edited, but would not show which bits of the content each had contributed. When I license my work to be freely copied subject to attribution, it is not sufficient attribution to say, "JamesBWatson did something or other to this article, but we are not telling you what."
3. I am well aware that copyright infringements are commonly left in article histories in the way that you describe. However, if a copyright owner chooses to take such a case to court, I don't for one moment believe that any judge will accept as a defence "Aah, but, you see, the public could not see the text that we copied unless they first clicked on a link labelled "history", so that doesn't count as publishing a copy of it." JamesBWatson (talk) 21:26, 6 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding #2, restoring all edits and revision-deleting clean edits: Prior to the introduction of revision-deletion, there were cases where a page would be deleted but the "last" edit either un-deleted or copied to a new page. The edit history of the now-deleted edits would wind up copy-and-pasted into the talk page of the now-existing article. This was deemed "legally sufficient." I think this was, in practice, very rare but it was allowed for. This was also back when we were using the CC 2.0 license, without the Gnu FDL. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 19:58, 7 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You should have received a ping but, just in case, you have been mentioned in this thread at ANI. - Sitush (talk) 09:45, 7 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

	The Anti-Vandalism Barnstar
	For reverting vandalism by block-evading editor (184.190.80.94, et. al.) Safety Cap (talk) 21:04, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. JamesBWatson (talk) 21:33, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. You have a new message at Safety Cap's talk page. Replied there. JamesBWatson (talk) 21:33, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Check section above at #Company Page Deleted. JamesBWatson (talk) 10:24, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Special:Contributions/Drinkreader Block evasion. JamesBWatson (talk) 21:33, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi James. You applied indefinite semiprotection to Longleat Safari Park in November 2011. I wonder if you consider that semipro is still needed; would you consider removing the protection to see if the vandalism resumes at previous levels? Thanks in advance for taking time to check this over. Blackberry Sorbet (talk • contribs) 11:15, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for pointing this out. The disruptive editor has not (so far as I know) been active for quite a while now, so I have lifted the protection. I will also look at other articles the same editor edited round about the same time, as there may well be others that are still protected and don't need to be. JamesBWatson (talk) 11:19, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers, many thanks for taking the time to do this! Blackberry Sorbet (talk • contribs) 11:47, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Given the brand-new news story about 6 lions being controversially culled in Longleat, it probably would've been wise to wait a couple of days for this. Ah well :) Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 12:53, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. As the policy clearly states, "Semi-protection should not be used as a preemptive measure against vandalism that has not yet occurred." An article that has a raised profile because of a news spike is just as likely to attract well-intentioned, new editors and constructive edits as it is to attract vandals and unconstructive edits. Blackberry Sorbet (talk • contribs) 13:09, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely. The semi-protection was put there specifically to deal with one highly disruptive editor. Now that that editor does not appear to be around any more, it would not be justifiable to keep the protection just in case other problems may arise. We can and should deal with such problems if and when they occur. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:15, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, JBW. You have new messages at J Mo 101's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Answered there. JamesBWatson (talk) 08:58, 11 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hello James it seems that the article about Albania is being vandalized by the same user operating at least 2 different accounts ( 1 ip unregistered account , and 1 registered account ) both from the same country .

1) First unethical and mal intended edit that they did was to put in the lead paragraph that albania is the poorest country in europe , bringing a source from a BBC article , when in fact the exact phrase from the source was saying > Albania remains one of the poorest countries in Europe outside the former Soviet Union < , meaning that many ex soviet union countries are poorer than albania , and not only them but even some NON ex soviet countries .

My objection was simple , that even if inaccurate , i politely asked them to moove it to the Economy section , in the article about albania , where it would be relevant. I presented them also with Eurostat , IMF , WORLBANK references where it was clearly demonstrated that this was not true .

2) Second edit by the same users , is changing the source of the ministry of economics of albania , so that to have a lower GDP per capita. The difference is simply because of the population . The actual population for albania today is 2.831 , and not 3,4 milion that IMF uses to calculate the gdp per capita , as demonstrated by INSTAT ( the national statistics insitute of albania with the 2011 population census ) , thus the ministry of economics of albania has a higher gdp per capita ( Gdp per capita is calculated by dividing Gdp with the population ) .

I would find it logical that the official economics ministry of a country , knows better its economy than a national insitute !!!!! And the explanation is preety simple ( the population difference , from the migration and other demographic issues for these past 20 years ) . This is also supported by the Worlbank statistics !

Please do check these 2 sockpuppet ( user with an ip 77.49.58.129 , and user Astarti34 accounts because they are way beyond limit , vandalizing an article of a country that they dont like with a nationalistic objective , which only god knows why ! They ( or maybe should i say the same person operating multiple accounts ) have made over 20 reverts in a single day for the same matter !!!

Also please do check the talk page for the article of Albania .

Best regards , John — Preceding unsigned comment added by Malbin210 (talk • contribs) 23:59, 11 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi JBW. Just an FYI: I noticed this edit warring yesterday while doing vandalism patrol and reported it to WP:AN/EW today (wasn't aware of the extent of it yesterday and didn't have time anyway). FWIW, as noted on the talk page, the article is subject to ArbComm general sanctions. Cheers.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 01:29, 12 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]