This user may have left Wikipedia. Searcher 1990 has not edited Wikipedia since December 2011. As a result, any requests made here may not receive a response. If you are seeking assistance, you may need to approach someone else.
Please sign your messages on talk pages with four tildes (~~~~). This will automatically insert your "signature" (your username and a date stamp). The button, on the tool bar above Wikipedia's text editing window, also does this.
If you would like to play around with your new Wiki skills the Sandbox is for you.
Hello. Your account has been granted the "reviewer" userright, allowing you to review other users' edits on certain flagged pages. Pending changes, also known as flagged protection, is currently undergoing a two-month trial scheduled to end 15 August 2010.
Reviewers can review edits made by users who are not autoconfirmed to articles placed under pending changes. Pending changes is applied to only a small number of articles, similarly to how semi-protection is applied but in a more controlled way for the trial. The list of articles with pending changes awaiting review is located at Special:OldReviewedPages.
When reviewing, edits should be accepted if they are not obvious vandalism or BLP violations, and not clearly problematic in light of the reason given for protection (see Wikipedia:Reviewing process). More detailed documentation and guidelines can be found here.
I am a Wikipedian, who is studying the phenomenon on Wikipedia. I need your help to conduct my research on about understanding "Motivation of Wikipedia contributors." I would like to invite you to Main Study. Please give me your valuable time, which estimates about 20 minutes. I chose you as a English Wikipedia user who made edits recently through the RecentChange page. Refer to the first page in the online survey form for more information on the study and me.cooldenny (talk) 02:12, 24 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Lack of edit summaries
Please add an edit summary to any non-trivial change you make in articles. Lack of an edit summary negates the usefulness of a watchlist.
That's certainly odd. The block went through at 18:57, October 16, 2011, and it is now past 21:40 a week later, so it should have been lifted. However, my email provider informs me that you sent your email three hours ago, which might've been a short while before the block expired. Have you tried editing since then? Try it now. Nightscream (talk) 01:44, 24 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Disambiguation link notification
Hi, this message is to let you know about disambiguation links you've recently created. A link to a disambiguation page is almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. For more information, see the FAQ or drop a line at the DPL WikiProject.
Many recent edits have been made by Searcher 1990 (talk | contribs), all without any references or citations. I have reverted many of the edits between the dates of 17 December 2011 – 20 December 2011, but there are quite a few more edits made previous my revision corrections, for which I imagine are also unreferenced &/or uncited. Upon further review of the edit history of Searcher 1990, it appears they continue to conduct a patter of behavior that is be disruptive & not in accordance with Wikipedia's manual of style (even after a history of punishment). Please assist with preventing such edits from continuing. Bullmoosebell (talk) 09:00, 20 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You have been blocked from editing for a period of 2 weeks for persistent addition of unsourced content, and ignoring over a year and a half of repeated warnings for this and other types of disruptive editing, the most recent violations being the following edits to Robert T. Henry, Freeman V. Horner, Paul B. Huff, and dozens of other reverted edits visible in your edit history. Once the block has expired, you are welcome to make useful contributions. If you would like to be unblocked, you may appeal this block by adding the text {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}, but you should read the guide to appealing blocks first.
Nightscream (talk) 05:58, December 20, 2011 (UTC)
This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who accepted the request.
I'm apologising for my recent editing behavior, because I should have known to reference the edits properly. If you would allow me to return to editing (or shorten my sentence), I will immediately put in all the proper references to my sources. If not, I shall accept the punishment given to me.
Accept reason:
The editor apologized for his behavior, and indicated that he would rectify the problem, which I understand to mean that he will no longer add unsourced material to articles. Nightscream (talk) 17:25, 20 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Searcher, I have two matters I need to talk to you about. First, regarding the following edits: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], you should know that punctuation goes before a citation, not after, according to WP:PAIC. It's a minor point, but I thought I'd let you know.
Second, it appears that you are again adding unsourced material to articles, with edits such as these: [7], [8], [9], [10].
Also, with this edit, you removed both a citation needed tag and a disambiguation tag needed, without any explanation or edit summary.
This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).
I did not make any major editing errors this time. All the info I added to the articles comes from their external links, or from other articles I linked to. I do apologize for forgetting edits summaries, and I will never be a perfect contributor (unless somebody teaches me), but I stand by my point.
Decline reason:
Procedural decline, as the editor has requested the closing of this account (see below). But in case of any change of mind, future requests after a break can certainly be made and should be considered in the light of the editor's obvious good faith -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:38, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.
Hi. It's way past my bedtime now and I'm really too tired, but I'll re-examine your latest edits in the morning and will expand on what I thought was wrong with them, and try to help towards an unblock (that is, if nobody else reviews your unblock request before then). But in short, the problem is that you were adding new material with no indication where it came from - it's not enough to just take information from sources being used for the article and expect people to guess that it came from one of the sources and guess which one, you need to add citations (<ref>....</ref>) so we know where it comes from. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 03:28, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
OK, here's an example. In this change, you added "Years of service 1943 - 1945". Where did you get that? I've checked the only two sources given, and while they both put his death at 1945, neither appears to mention 1943 as the year he entered service.
And in this one it's similar - I can't see those years of service mentioned in either of the sources used by the article. You also changed his rank to "Brigadier General", but the two sources used state "Major" and "Major General" - Major at the time of his Medal of Honour action, and Major General as the highest rank he reached.
In this change you added "In 1877, Paine was shot and killed by Claron A. Windus" - but again, I can't see any mention of that in the sources used.
It's entirely possible I've missed where the sources support the information you have added, so can you please explain where you got these snippets of information from? -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:24, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's still apparent to me that this user is blatantly and deliberately making edits without regard to the guidance and advice provided to this user (through their talk page), by way of apologies and denial of knowledge (that which has been provided on their talk page). Can we discuss reverting the edits by this user that led to them being blocked? Bullmoosebell (talk) 05:50, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, as I just said above, I'd rather wait and see what answers we get first, and if they are not satisfactory, I think we'll need to consider a blanket reversion of the changes - but let's give them a chance -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:39, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'll explain were I got this info; in the case of John F. Weston, I took that from the Arlington National Cemetery site (it's possible that one isn't linked yet), and I also linked it to the List of brigadier generals in the United States Regular Army before February 2, 1901, on wich he is listed. In the case of Adam Paine, I put a link to the Handbook of Texas Online site at Claron A. Windus' page (wich I did not make clear enough, I agree). In the case of Charles H. T. Collis, I personally created that article, but could not find any other sources that mention Rappahannock. In the case of John Wainwright (Medal of Honor), the serviceyears are already in the article, so I did not feel it was necessary. In the case of James E. Robinson Jr., this info came from a book, wich I didn't know how to link properly. If you do not consider my explanantions to be enough, you can inactivate this account, on the condition I'm notified beforehand. Anyway, Happy Holidays from Searcher_1990.
Hi. Thanks for the explanations. I have a busy afternoon now, but will be happy to come back later and look over those articles again (and, of course, anyone else is welcome to). But before I head off, I just want to make it clear that our aim here is not to "inactivate this account", but to help you improve your editing so we can unblock you (at least, that's what I'd most like to see happen) -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:22, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Whatever the details relating to particular edits, your previous unblock was lifted after you said "I should have known to reference the edits properly. If you would allow me to return to editing ... I will immediately put in all the proper references to my sources." How do you reconcile that with the fact that you have continued to make unsourced edits? JamesBWatson (talk) 13:58, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I should clarify i'm mildly autistic, but that it's no excuse. This was never a problem before, but I accept the responsibility, and would like to deactive this account, so I could make a fresh start once I'm more experienced in editing. But please don't undo my latest edits, I just wanted to help complete those articles, not vandalize them. I hope all of you can understand. Searcher_1990
Hi. Firstly, please be assured that nobody is accusing you of vandalism or of any bad faith - I'm quite sure your intentions are entirely honorable. (And I can sympathize with your mild autism - I have experience of it with some friends too). I'll come back to the fresh start later, but first I'd like to go through those articles again - not to criticize, but to try to help you understand and move forward.
John F. Weston. You may have obtained the information from the Arlington National Cemetery site, but unless you actually include it as a citation, it can't be used as a source. The article has a link to the Arlington National Cemetery article, and from there I guess readers could look up the cemetery site and search for themselves, but that does not satisfy Wikipedia's policies - if you use a specific source, it must be cited in that actual article, as an inline citation as explained at WP:Citing sources. Also, a link to List of brigadier generals in the United States Regular Army before February 2, 1901 is not sufficient as a source for stating his rank in the article itself - that's just a list of people who, at some time in their career, attained that rank. Soldiers typically rise through many ranks, and you can't just pick one at random that he happened to hold at one time - I'm not sure what the guidelines are, but I'd expect a biography article to use the highest rank he attained. And again, it needs an inline source - a wikilinked article is not sufficient (because Wikipedia is itself not a reliable source).
Adam Paine. OK, you added an external link to the Claron A. Windus article, but as you appear to now appreciate, that is not sufficient as a source for other linked articles - the approach that "Another article that it links to has an external link that provides the information" is not sufficient. In fact, just adding it as an external link is not good enough even for the Claron A. Windus article itself - you need to include it as an inline citation, so that it appears in the References section, and not expect the reader to have to search the external links to see if the source is in there. To reiterate, in this case you needed to add the source, as an inline citation, to both articles that took information from it.
Charles H. T. Collis. The fact that you personally created that article means nothing - if something needs a citation, and you cannot find one, you must not simply remove the "citation needed" tag. You should leave it in the hope that someone else will be able to find one, and if that does not happen after a reasonable time, the unsourced content itself, not the tag, should be removed.
John Wainwright (Medal of Honor). Yes, you're right, the years of service are indeed included in the article, so you can have that one :-) But please note there are no inline references in that article, and it needs some.
Concerning your recent edits, what I'll try to do over the next dew days is have a look over them and see if I can find where the source for each is - if I can find it, I'll fix it up, but if I can't then I'll have no alternative but to revert it. I'll also fix up the Adam Paine and Claron A. Windus articles so you can see how they should have been done.
If you feel you need a break then a clean start, that's fine - WP:Clean start says you can. As for this account, you can just walk away from it. Alternatively, after you've had a break you might feel you are able to carry on from this one again - if so, just ask here for an unblock (and feel free to ping me on my Talk page) and we can see how things are going.
Thanks. I'm gonna have to read up on the editing guidelines. I could also provide you or others with info instead of making edits myself, if that is considered a better option. Until after New Year everyone. Searcher_1990
As for starting fresh, well, that's your call, but I would personally recommend---and this is just my personal opinion, not one directly relating to any policy or guideline---that part of learning the ropes is accepting your mistakes, and incorporating your early mistakes as a newbie into the process. I do not believe that sweeping it under the rug of a new username account is the answer, since looking back on one's early mistakes helps build one's character and in the future, may provide someone with perspective on both where they've been, and on newbies that you yourself may encounter as a future veteran. Moreover, we don't stop making mistakes once we're veterans. I myself have made one or two recently, and rather than blanking evidence of this from my talk page, I keep it (though I do archive past pages when they become too big, and I will revert things like vandalism or harassment from my tp), in order to maintain a sense of openness and transparency about both my successes and my failures. But that's just me.
So User:Brightgalrs, without once discussing it with anyone else, looking at the article histories, or bothering to read the talk pages (not to mention Wikipedia:Consensus) has suddenly shown up and made a massive 22,000 character addition to List of American Civil War Generals (Union) and a 307,000 character deletion from List of American Civil War Generals (Confederate), both of which (particularly the latter) drastically change the very nature of both articles. When asked why, the user insisted that her (?) way was "superior" and that she would allow for no discussion on this point from anyone. As another editor of the page, I'm turning to you and a few others to ask assistance in trying to reign in actions that frankly border on vandalism. While some of her changes are more than welcome (additions of photos of Union officers, for example), the wholesale elimination of notations that were being worked on and the changes is format, to say nothing of refusing to discuss it with anyone else - either before or after - are, in my opinion, invasive. May I ask for you to take a look and give your opinion on the matter? IcarusPhoenix (talk) 20:31, 29 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion will take place at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Top Ten (American TV program) until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.
