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Revision as of 08:05, 31 July 2014

Billmckern (talk) 18:38, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

DYK for Jedediah Hyde Baxter

On 13 August 2013, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Jedediah Hyde Baxter, which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that when U.S. President James A. Garfield was assassinated in 1881, his personal physician was out of town and unavailable to treat his gunshot wound? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Jedediah Hyde Baxter. You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check) and it will be added to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Alex Shih 12:47, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Good job on all the pictures for New York congressional district members. Keep up the good work! Jamo58 (talk) 00:11, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Barnstar of Diligence
	Truly impressed with all the pictures you are uploading! Keep it up!!!! Jamo58 (talk) 23:36, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

DYK for Herbert Thomas Johnson

On 6 January 2014, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Herbert Thomas Johnson, which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that Herbert Thomas Johnson's grave is near that of William H. Gilmore, one of Johnson's predecessors as adjutant general of the Vermont National Guard? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Herbert Thomas Johnson. You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check) and it will be added to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Nyttend (talk) 16:02, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Edward H. Ripley

Would it be all right with you if I nominated your article of Edward H. Ripley at Did you know? — Maile (talk) 01:21, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

By all means, feel free.

Billmckern (talk) 01:22, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Request for comment

There is a discussion at Talk:List of United States congressional districts related to style of new district-level maps for the post-2013 United States congressional districts. Your input would be appreciated. Thank you. --7partparadigm 02:24, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

DYK for Edward H. Ripley

On 13 February 2014, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Edward H. Ripley, which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that Edward Ripley (pictured) warned Abraham Lincoln about an assassination plot against him the week before he was killed? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Edward H. Ripley. You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check) and it will be added to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

The DYK project (nominate) 16:02, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Wow. Did you check the Page view stats for this being on today's front page? Impressive. — Maile (talk) 01:22, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Those stats are impressive. I noticed that several people jumped in and made edits to the Edward H. Ripley page, too -- some of which were quickly reversed.

Billmckern (talk) 01:27, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, alien abductions and other fun stuff. They really ought to protect these articles while they're on the main page. — Maile (talk) 01:33, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	For your work on expanding Kenneth J. Gray. Great job! Connormah (talk) 21:27, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Refs

Would you kindly learn to use the citation templates properly? The way you currently are doing refs on the John Walsh article makes twice as much work for people because we first have to remove your partial formatting, then we have to either insert the template manually or run reflinks with double-checking. (Click the "cite" link in the editing box to get the templates.) Thanks Montanabw 02:51, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Montanabw: Fair point. There are a couple of other formatting items I've been meaning to get more knowledgeable on, but haven't followed up yet. I'll work on that.

Billmckern (talk) 10:49, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Montanabw's edits

May I request your review of Montanabw's edits to the discussion of the plagiarism allegations in John Walsh (U.S. politician), please? You may not like everything I wrote, but you've given me no reason not to trust your opinion and your good judgment. I don't think there's anything he made better. I think he did exactly what I expected he might do, which was to do everything possible to muddle, revert and bury the issue as best he could. He didn't even leave the source citations for the DoD oversight of the academic review, the fact that all 6 of Walsh's conclusions were plagiarized or the quote from the provost who'd done the initial review. The second part of "Walsh said that he was being treated for PTSD at the time. but stated, "I don't want to blame my mistake on PTSD, but I do want to say it may have been a factor"." isn't even a sentence. And for all agreement I thought we had that all the material should be in one place, he split it into education and campaign! Unbelievable. I know if I do anything, he'll just edit war and I simply refuse to dragged in. If no one is willing to weigh in, I have to walk away. Can you help, please? Msnicki (talk) 07:34, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Msnicki (talk): I got involved because one contributor wanted to add redundant sentences that didn't improve the article, so I undid his edits.

For what it's worth, I have a couple of suggestions. You wrote "He believed his record was defined by his service." I think "He stated that he believed..." or "In addition, he stated that...", or words to that effect would be more precise. We don't know what he believes -- only he does. But we do know what he said he believed.

You wrote "The normal penalty for plagiarism is..." I have some experience with military academics, though not at the War College. Without knowing the War College policy for sure, I presume that whether there is a penalty and if so how severe is handled case-by-case and depends on several factors, including the extent, whether the plagiarism was intentional, and whether it was self-reported. If I'm right, something minor that was unintentional or self-reported might result in points off the grade, or an instructor having the student revise and resubmit the work. Something major AND intentional could result in dismissal from the course or revocation of the certificate of completion and degree. I think something along the lines of "Penalties for plagiarism could include rescinding the degree of a student who has graduated..." would probably be closer to the mark.

You wrote "The review board will send its findings to the Army’s inspector general’s office. As of July 29, 2014, it is unclear which entity will determine sanctions." I think it's also unclear whether there will be any sanctions. I might phrase this sentence this way: "As of July 29, 2014, it is unclear which entity will determine whether there will be sanctions, and if so what they will be."

Those are my suggestions for your additions. I've wondered whether the plagiarism allegation belongs in the early life and education section. At one point I had created a separate section for the plagiarism allegation, and had placed a link to it after the sentences about Walsh's War College graduation within the early life and education section. I liked that configuration, but apparently it hasn't taken hold with other contributors. I'm not too concerned about that, though. As I've mentioned, my real concern was that wherever in the page the plagiarism story was mentioned, once was enough. It didn't need to appear on the page in three different places. I hope this helps.

Billmckern (talk) 11:10, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

You're criticizing what Montanabw did, not what I wrote! I did not make the mistakes that you're picking out. Again, this is why I'm so upset with his edits of my material. He changed it and did not make it better. To your points, here's what I wrote, before Montanabw screwed it up:

1. CBS News reported that Walsh stated, "I admit that I made a mistake", but that he believed his record was defined by his service in the National Guard, "not by few citations that were unintentionally left out of a term paper".
2. Betros stated that the normal sanction for plagiarism is rescinding the former student's degree and grinding his name from a plaque of the graduating class.
3. A Pentagon spokesman said the decision on whether punishment is warranted will be made by the commandant of the War College but Provost Betros said he understood the decision would be made by the Pentagon.

Can you take another look, please. Again, this is MY edit and this was HIS. All the mistakes you cite are things I totally agree are in fact mistakes. But they're HIS mistakes, not mine! Msnicki (talk) 13:14, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Msnicki (talk): I agree with you on 1 and 2. On number 3, I like my suggestion better, but that's more style than substance. Overall, I like your suggestions. They're more precise without providing more detail than is required.

Billmckern (talk) 13:20, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for taking another look. In what I wrote, I had a citation for each and every sentence. I tried really hard to make sure that each sentence could be matched up precisely (yes, thank you for that choice of word) against the source. This is why it took me all day yesterday to research and write three paragraphs. (In RL, I'm semiretired in a second career as an academic.) Montanabw just hacked it to death. For someone complaining about WP:SYNTH, you have to wonder if he ever read that section of the guidelines. I would really appreciate if you could say something or, even better, roll back his changes. From there, if you see ways to make improvements, go for it. I am a reasonable person and very, very, very open to genuine improvements (or even just stylistic changes) as long as they follow the sources. But if I do anything without some other visible support, it's obvious his response will be to edit war and I just refuse to go there. Msnicki (talk) 13:43, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

"Um, Msnicki, your " matched up precisely" is also known as "close paraphrasing to the source" otherwise known as PLAGIARISM. Like I pointed out to you repeatedly, I happen to have a LOT more experience editing[REDACTED] than you do. List your GA, FA and DYK articles, please, (and how many articles have YOU contributed to that have been TFA? I have nine) or else just deal with the reality that your precious prose isn't particularly precious to anyone else. I'm not saying my edits were perfect, but you really don't "get" WP:UNDUE or WP:SYNTH. I'm going to call on some Brits to give that article a truly neutral eye. And you need to lay off your personal attacks. Montanabw 16:00, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

You're simply wrong. It is not plagiarism to "closely paraphrase" a sentence if the source is properly cited. It would be plagiarism if I didn't cite. It would be an improper citation if cited my source but either used their exact wording without quote marks or if I cited my source, paraphrasing it but then used quotes around something that wasn't actually a direct quote. You're welcome to all your puffing about what you've done here on WP. And who knows what, if anything, you've ever done in RL. I don't for a moment believe you are solely responsible for all the content in any GA, though you're certainly welcome to prove me wrong; I just don't think you can. I think you're taking improper credit for others' work right there. Your writing and editing skills are simply not that good and your hacking of my contribution (see above) proves it. Not everything you write is even in complete sentences!

In RL, I'm an academic at a state university and I deal with plagiarism as part of the job. Just yesterday I was interrupted in my work on the Walsh article to spend a 1/2 hour on the phone with our conduct officer over an incident in a class I taught last quarter. I have to know this stuff and I do.

You've got an inflated opinion of yourself and you underestimate others' credentials. Msnicki (talk) 16:31, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

You are incorrect when it comes to Misplaced Pages. Read Misplaced Pages:Close paraphrasing. Also remember On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog. You are out of line making mean-spirited attacks about anyone's real life (read WP:OUTING while you're at it) I have no interest trading RL resumes with you, but I too have perfectly fine academic credentials with advanced degrees and yes, I have graded college term papers. As for my on-wiki work, of course no one is 100% responsible for any article on wikipedia, and I freely acknowledge my collaborators But if you insist I prove myself, I do invite you to check out a small sample of my contributions to FAs such as Homer Davenport (a partially political article), WIlliam Robinson Brown (corporate officer and horse breeder), Mucho Macho Man (a race horse), GAs such as Bazy Tankersley (a horse breeder and former newspaper editor), Sheila Varian (another horse breeder - and a BLP), etc. I am currently taking "my" GA-class California Chrome to FAC. If you care, you are certainly welcome to use this tool to review any of the other FA and GA class articles I've worked on. The few where I was not the #1 or #2 contributor were those where I contributed substantial subsections, or provided many hours of copyediting, mentoring, fact-checking, research, and so on. I also have over 60,000 edits here in general and yes, I do know what I am talking about. I did not claim Walsh was copperplate prose, only that your edits were also problematic, too wordy, redundant and unencyclopedic. Montanabw 08:05, 31 July 2014 (UTC)