User talk:LonelyBeacon

DYK nomination for 1971 Major League Baseball All-Star Game

I nominated your article 1971 Major League Baseball All-Star Game at Did You Know for inclusion on the Wikipedia main page. This is a fantastic article that people should know about, and I would like to encourage you to nominate your new article to DYK. Please feel free to contact me if I can help, and keep up the great work on school and other articles. Alansohn (talk) 00:28, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I've had some nice things said about my work in the past, but this ranks pretty much up at the top. Thank you for the words of kindness, and for the nom. LonelyBeacon (talk) 00:30, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

DYK

On 26 September, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article 1971 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Jordan ^Contribs 08:09, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Re: Naperville North

1

Yeah, I understand that you're not trying to be contentious. One thing was I didn't see where the NPOV thing was (even though I understand it's appearing to be written by a student). For one, it probably seems more libelous than it really is (all of the stuff is at least as crazy as it seems--the administration has blatantly violated laws and rules multiple times). But I understand where you are coming from. And one thing...what is your challenge ;) ? That's my two scents 02:00, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Working with schools as I do, I see that school administrations are hardly wearing halos as often as they think they are. Sometimes they are doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons. However, sometimes they have their reasons, even if they are not popular or obvious (I don't want you to think I'm taking sides here ... I wasn't there, and have no connection with NN). My challenge was simply on the basis that the wording seemed POV, and there was no citation to prove anything happened ... my experience with that (and please, this is not an accusation) is that these are usually people who are blowing things out of proportion ... that is, the event undoubtedly happened, and I certainly accept there was some incident. I would challenge that this incident was big enough to include in an article for international readers trying to learn more about the school.

On the flip side ..... if (strictly as an example), there were contentions that the school administration had routinely broken the law, trampled student civil rights, etc .... some of this moved to the courts, or were the written about in newspapers which documented this, then I would see including a section like "Legal action" or "Controversies". When editors get into extraordinary claims, it generally requires airtight sourcing to keep it in the article.

Like I said, this is how I am reading things, and I don't want you to think I am censoring anything. I do some work on Chicago area school articles, and while I don't doubt that this generated considerable controversy in the school, I just don't see how it would be a detail of short term interest.

Best of luck in editing ... for what its worth, while I work for another school in the suburbs (way north), NN is a school that gets one heck of a lot of respect ... if you are somehow connected, I tip my hat. LonelyBeacon (talk) 02:13, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks about the respect thing; I'm currently a senior, I graduate Wednesday. So on Thursday be expecting me in the notable alumni.

jk, but in regard to the Airband thing, you honestly have no idea how angry we've become. I was honestly trying to maintain as much NPOV in that section as possible; you should see some of the stuff I removed. It's too bad it's not really citable, because that really had to be one of the biggest times of turmoil for the school, especially with the Bill Ayers thing at the same time, if you heard about that, and everything else the administration has done in the past two years that doesn't happen at any other schools. But thanks for your concern about the article! And sorry if that was too message board-like. That's my two scents 17:37, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

2

I see what you mean. I won't restore it; I thought you just removed the whole section thinking it was all about alumni/current students. I think it was just a communication breakdown between you and me. I don't really know all of the guidelines, I just know the main ones and I know the gist of some of the smaller ones. I just go by the guidelines, etc. cited by other editors. I'm just not a very big fan of removing something uncited, but rather tagging it...I'm not sure why I (or anyone else) didn't tag that section; I know it hasn't really changed for a long time. But I'll try to find citations for some of that; I know they're out there I updated it with one yesterday and I have no idea why I didn't cite it. But thanks for the help! That's my two scents 17:37, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

First off, congratulations on graduating .... you're walking out of a great school, and I'm sure heading off to bigger and better things.

I have zero doubt about the anger over things going around. Not being there/having been there, I'm not 100% sure what happened beyond your description, but I have been present for similar problems at other school. No doubt there is a lot of anger in the air. It is just critical that any claims be cited and referenced. If the school administration is breaking the law, and there's some reference that even hinted at the problem, I would be hte first one on board to put it in. Wikipedia is absolutely not censored in that regard, nor should it be.

I also tend to tag vs. outright delete .... except for two situations, both of which (IMO) were in play here. One is that while this is undeniably a big deal right now, there is the long term importance .... think of it this way: this is an encyclopedia article; would this be considered a defining moment in school history, if everyone were reading this 20 years from now. My experience with schools says that incidents like this can be very big at the time, but they tend to blow over, and by next year, very few people remember it ..... in five years no one remembers it. I know that's easy for me to say as an outsider, but this is my experience (this is where I was bringing in WP:NOTNEWS. The second issue: anytime anyone brings in hints of legal impropriety, there needs to be extra special care. Without an outside source, it reads like gossip, heresay, or opinion (even if it is real and true). There's just no way for anyone else outside the situation to discern truth from gossip. Given that threshold, I opted to delete vs. tag (for what its worth, before I deleted, I did do some searches for the incident, looking for local newspaper accounts, but found none ... another thing I will try and do before deletion).

Thanks for being understanding, and my apologies if I wasn't clear enough. Sorry your senior year ends with a bit of a bum event like this, but (trust me on this) things will get much better soon! Congrats! LonelyBeacon (talk) 18:34, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

License tagging for File:GBNHScrest.png

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Hinsdale Central

Hi! You seem to be editing the Hinsdale Central High School page a lot. Just out of curiosity, do you just enjoy patrolling high school pages or are/were you a student at Hinsdale Central? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Netalarm (talk • contribs) 04:57, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Hello Netalarm,

I have no connection to Hinsdale Central, though I am familiar with the schools in and around suburban Chicago. Among the other school articles I have worked on: Joliet Catholic Academy, Chicago Vocational Career Academy, Maine East High School, Hillcrest High School (Country Club Hills), De La Salle Institute, Evanston Township High School, St. Viator High School, Benet Academy, Carmel High School (Mundelein, Illinois) ..... among others. For some reason which I have no memory of, I did some edits on HC some time ago, and mentally noted that the extensive list of athletic accomplishments was taking up a lot of room, though I had no wish to delete any of them. Some time recently, I learned how to make a collapsable table, and realized that is what the article needed. When I put the table in, I decided to do some other cleaning up as well.

About all I knew about HC before editing the article is that it was a bog school, a good school, and that except for New Trier, its about the best sports school in Illinois. LonelyBeacon (talk) 05:19, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

Hello, LonelyBeacon. You have new messages at Tide rolls's talk page.
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License tagging for File:StFrancisDeSalesChicagoSeal.png

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Oyster bay

Hi LonelyBeacon -- Hi thanks for saving me some explanation. I was just going to come back to the Oyster Bay High School article to look you up, as that is the one out of about 20 Oyster Bay articles where an IP editor had made changes that I felt needed to be undone, where a subsequent editor's change also got reverted by my action. I was deciding whether i should reimplement your edit or if i could just notify you so that you could restore your edit if you wish. Since I know nothing about the notability of these alumni, I would prefer if you would make the edit, if you don't mind. Sorry for causing some extra work for you. Thanks! doncram (talk) 17:52, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Roger that, Doncram. I could tell, only once I got to your Talk Page, that it seems you have been having issues with IP people swooping in and having their way. I was finally able to find a weak (but still reliable) source for Thomas Pynchon (who is a highly notable author). I could not find a reliable source for the other. I do wish you best of luck on holding off the IP folks, and thanks for the clear message on what was going on. LonelyBeacon (talk) 19:28, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

re: User:Niccos

Thanks for the heads up. I don't have a huge problem with him personally, and I'm hoping he's willing to talk it out in talk, but we'll see. --Mosmof (talk) 01:00, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I hope it works out too. I had been watching this develop, and would not have likely gotten involved except he already had four warnings this month against him prior to this .... so, I thought someone needed to step in and calm this editor down. LonelyBeacon (talk) 02:06, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi there - thanks for the message about this editor. I'm happy to help and explain my reasoning.

I gave Niccos the 3RR warning that I did because I think what's going on is an edit war/dispute, not vandalism. S/he's using the talk page for discussion, and discussion is what we want, right? If this were mindless reversion, clicking the 'undo' button over and over again, with no effort to explain or discuss, I might be persuaded to block for vandalism. But this editor, I think, needs to learn about 3RR and the way things work around here. They took the time to learn how to insert a legitimate reference to ESPN with <ref> tags - that's the sign of someone who wants to contribute, even if it's not exactly the kind of ref or content we want. Someone I once coached back in the day started out in a similar fashion, and s/he is now a good contributor to the encyclopedia.

If Niccos continues to edit war today, after my warning, s/he should definitely be reported to AN3, but I don't think this is a vandal yet and I don't want to push him/her that direction. I'm a chronic AGFer, so my block hammer is really more of a Nerf bat. But I do sometimes trade it in for a ball-peen hammer. ;-) If you have more questions, don't hesitate to ask, and thanks again for the message! - KrakatoaKatie 03:39, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Not that you require my affirmation, but that sounds like sound reasoning. LonelyBeacon (talk) 03:51, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Please comment on political straw polls

The article Straw polls for the 2008 United States presidential election and its associated pages were deleted as of 9 Nov 2008, and the deletions are now being reviewed. Because of your prior involvement, please comment at Wikipedia:Deletion review#Straw polls for the 2008 United States presidential election. Thank you for your consideration! 20 involved editors are being notified. JJB 19:21, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Dan Sullivan

Feel free to re-nominate Dan Sullivan (Illinois politician) for deletion. There was never supposed to be an article at that title. The IP who added his name wrote "Dave Sullivan", [1], but I must have misread something or mistyped something and changed that to "Dan Sullivan" [2]. There was no article at Dan Sullivan (Illinois politician) at that point. That article was created by Knagel35 a few months later, but it seems like he was just trying to fill in a red link, and didn't actually know anything about the topic: [3]. Zagalejo^^^ 23:04, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Roger wilco .... I will go through the process. LonelyBeacon (talk) 02:20, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

answer

Listen man, why don't you change this page KF Partizani Tirana?This is totally wrong.This is HUGE shame for Wikipedia.You can call yourself encyclopedia?!LOL If you block me, you'll just confirm that you're useless.You MUST correct this page!And I'm not Vandal, you are, because you fetch and carry false information! —Preceding unsigned comment added by N.U.S.K.N.V.P. (talk • contribs) 22:59, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

That wasn't "direct personal attack" and you (editors) weren't doing your job...That's why I wrote that you're "useless".Why don't you answer me about this page KF Partizani Tirana?This is huge mistake and shame for Wikipedia.All facts are faulty and about FK Partizan from Belgrade! —Preceding unsigned comment added by N.U.S.K.N.V.P. (talk • contribs) 13:25, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

1. Calling someone "useless" is a personal attack. Name calling is not something condoned at this site, and that is something you need to be aware of.

2. I don't know enough about the subject of this article. What I can suggest, if you are concerned about the facts being faulty, is that you find some reliable sources to back your assertions, and edit the article with reliable sources properly cited. This is how edits are defended here. How do we know if what you are saying is any more "correct" than anyone else? Proper sourcing is what is needed.

As I noted on your talk page, what I was initially responding to was the incivility. No matter how correct you know your edits to be, and no matter how wrong you think another editor is, you absolutely do not have the right to call people names or describe them as you have. That is the policy of this website, and we are all required to follow it. You may be right about your edits, but the civility cannot be ignored. I do wish you the best of luck in editing. LonelyBeacon (talk) 14:01, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I didn't say that you're useless like person, but all editors because of wrong information...But forget it. I think if you enough about that subject, you should ask someone else of editors to correct that, because it is very big mistake. —Preceding unsigned comment added by N.U.S.K.N.V.P. (talk • contribs) 17:17, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

West Aurora High School and Wendell Minor continued

Would this here: http://www.sd129.org/alumni/awardhistory.asp be sufficient for proving that he is an alumnus of West Aurora High School? He is in the West Aurora High School Hall of Honor. If you scroll down to the 2006 Honorees, he is listed. And yes I did understand completely why you removed it. I looked into some other articles, and I believe the person who wrote that got confused because of what a Pulitzer Winner said about Wendell Minor. But regardless, he is definitely not a Pulitzer Winner.