Talk:Bruce E. Johansen

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Extended comment from E.N.Stanway re notability[edit]

Extended comment

Willful ignorance of notability by User:randykitty

From E.N.Stanway (talk): I created this article on 23 February 2014. Work on the article has been stalled by repeated tagging by User:randykitty, who has repeatedly insisted that Professor Johansen lacks the requisite notability for an article, among other complaints. He has been informed of a reason (one of the reasons) that notability has been attained, in the form of comments in the article source, on three separate occasions. In each instance, he has deleted the comment from the source while replacing his tags, which would indicate quite clearly that he has read the comment. This seems to indicate that User:randykitty is well aware that his complaints have no merit, and that he is using the allegations as a means of harassment, along with many similar invalid complaints against other articles. At no time did he ever provide any explanation here on the article talk page. Complaints made in this article, in the form of maintenanace tags, are similar to complaints made at the Paul Chaat Smith article where, out of a dozen tags which he placed, no complaint was ever found to be justified. Other articles which I have created have received similar complaints, none of which has ever been justified. No other editor has ever made any complaint in the form of a maintenance tag on any article which I have created. The fact that he would find so many supposed complaints against all the articles which I have created during the last year seems to show that he has intentionally targeted me through my "user contribution" page. The quickness with which he reverts might lead one to suspect that he has my "user contribution" page on his watch list as a means of harassment. User:randykitty has placed maintenance tags about 85 different times on articles which I created during about 40 "edits" without ever adding a single sentence in any of the articles or any of the article talk pages. This is a summary of edits to this article which involve notability:

notability dispute edit summary
edit #00 - 17:24-23feb - E.N.Stanway - start article
edit #18 - 15:59-27feb - Randykitty - add template: laundry section
edit #19 - 16:01-27feb - Randykitty - add template: multiple issues
edit #21 - 13:15-28feb - E.N.Stanway - 1st notice of notability
edit #22 - 13:26-28feb - Randykitty - remove notice of notability, replace tags
edit #23 - 14:01-01mar - E.N.Stanway - 2nd notice of notability
edit #26 - 13:13-03mar - Randykitty - remove notice of notability, replace tags
edit #34 - 03:25-10mar - E.N.Stanway - 3rd notice of notability
edit #36 - 14:14-10mar - Randykitty - remove notice of notability, replace tags

The assistance of other editors is now needed to untangle the question of whether Professor meets the notability requirements of wikipedia, and explain how it is that there was ever any dispute about the question. This is the notice of notability which has been deleted from the article source three times:

"notability for this article accrues from WP Academic Criteria #5"

Academic criteria, of course, is defined in the wikipedia documentation at Wikipedia:Notability (academics)#Criteria. Professor Johansen definitely meets academic notability criteria #1 as well, as those familiar with the subject will recognize, and possibly other notability criteria. Criteria #5, however, is certainly the easiest to ascertain for anyone who is unfamiliar with the subject. We now have the unfortunate situation whereby User:randykitty has again and again demanded that I justify my work to his satisfaction, while making endless complaints, yet will not recognize the simple truth about the notability of Professor Johansen, despite having been informed of it repeatedly. It is hardly worthwhile to discuss any other issues if User:randykitty won't accept rational and truthful statements. It is a fundamental principle of logic that "the burden of proof rests with the affirmative". In keeping with this principle, wikipedia procedures insist that persons tagging an article provide an explanation on the article talk page:

If you are going to put a tag on an article that proclaims it as seriously faulty, you should leave an explanation on the talk page of that article...
Another important thing about the explanation: it needs to show to others that you actually read the specific article and you honestly believe it has the deficiency indicated by the tag, it shows that you're not just tagging on a whim. It also shows you did not just copy and paste from a similar explanation for a related article with the tag in question.

Wikipedia:Responsible tagging

Hence, we are faced with the inevitable suspicion that User:randykitty has raised issues while being fully aware that they have no merit, as indicated by his conduct, and solely as a means of harassment. As further evidence that none of his notions have merit, the article was read by other editors prior his involvement, as shown by the minor edits #08, #11, #14, & #15, yet at no time did any of those editors see any need to place any maintenance tag. Wikipedia documentation clearly describes over-tagging as "tag-bombing", as this quotation shows:

Tagging pages for problems

Placing too many tags on an article is 'tag-bombing', disruptive, or may be a violation...

—  Wikipedia:Tagging pages for problems

I have repeatedly removed maintenance tags from this article and other articles that have been tagged in this campaign of harassment. The privilege of removing tags has been bestowed by wikipedia policies, such as this statement:

Removing maintenance tags
Anyone who sees a tag, but does not see the purported problem with the article and does not see any detailed complaint on the talk page, may remove the tag.

—  Wikipedia:Tagging pages for problems

Now User:randykitty has informed me that I am to refrain from removing his graffiti, under penalty of blocking, and has even bestowed upon me a notices claiming that I have received the "last notice". If anyone can explain how this does constitute attempted bullying, disruptive editing, tag-bombing, inappropriate conduct, and so on, should please explain it here. E.N.Stanway (talk) 07:51, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]


Deletion of images without appropriate explanation

From E.N.Stanway (talk): Further evidence of harassment by User:randykitty is shown by the deletions of images from this article, again without any explanation, but merely vague banners. They can be viewed at User talk:E.N.Stanway. The first round of deletions occurred on 8 March in edits #29 through #31. The second round occurred on 12 March, after I had modified the associated description files, in edits #38 through #40. Each of the banners is identical except for the file name. The information contained in the banner is the only information which was conveyed to me regarding these deletions. Note the cute phrase "Thank you for uploading...", which, after being stated six times, was followed by the subsequent threat to have me blocked for uploading more images. One of these banners is reproduced here:


Thank you for uploading File:B.E.Johansen-2009book.jpg. However, there is a concern that the rationale provided for using this file on Wikipedia may not meet the criteria required by Wikipedia:Non-free content. This can be corrected by going to the file description page and adding or clarifying the reason why the file qualifies under this policy. Adding and completing one of the templates available from Wikipedia:Non-free use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your file is in compliance with Wikipedia policy. Please be aware that a non-free use rationale is not the same as an image copyright tag; descriptions for files used under the non-free content policy require both a copyright tag and a non-free use rationale.

If it is determined that the file does not qualify under the non-free content policy, it might be deleted by an administrator within a few days in accordance with our criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions, please ask them at the media copyright questions page. Thank you. Randykitty (talk) 13:29, 28 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]


Readers should note that the above statements do not to specify any particular problem, but merely states that "There is a concern...". It apparently states that this concern "can be corrected". This seems to be yet another fraud, because I most certainly did change the file description page after the first round of deletions, yet it was removed even faster the second time, which of course leads to the suspicion that any supposed deficiency in the paper work was merely another ruse as a means of harassment. I would expect that any complaint against improper paperwork would include not only a complete description of what problem there may be, but an explanation of what would be needed to correct the supposed problem. This message was put on my user talk page regarding images:


Please stop adding inappropriate images to Wikipedia. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing. Please familiarize yourself with Wikipedia's "fair use" policy. images uploaded without conforming to this policy constitute copyright violations and simply re-uploading such images after they have been deleted constitutes disruptive editing that may get you blocked from editing. Please consider that WP must take copyright issues very seriously. If you have questions in this area, please go to Wikipedia:Media copyright questions, there are several very helpful editors there that can help you or answer your questions. Thanks. Randykitty (talk) 14:08, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]


Readers can see two more similar threats to have me blocked at User talk:E.N.Stanway, which proclaim "last notice". The endless bogus complaints here in this article has been duplicated in other articles which I have created, indcluding Donald A. Grinde, Jr., Robert Allen Warrior, and The Great Sioux Nation (book), which seems to show a broad pattern of harassment. E.N.Stanway (talk) 07:51, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]


Outside opinion[edit]

The subject pretty clearly passes notability criteria for academics. He holds a named chair at a major research university. His books are widely cited with extensive library holdings. I have added some further references to independent sources. Instead of a simple listing of his publications, the article needs expansion with further biographical details and discussion of his key works referenced to reviews in peer-reviewed journals (I've added 2 reviews which would be useful for this). I think several of these maintenance tags added with no explanation or discussion on the talk page and which were verging on tag bombing could and should be removed. Voceditenore (talk) 12:09, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Voci, until you edited this page, notability was in doubt, there were no independent third party references, etc. How is this tag bombing? Now that the problems have been addressed, I have removed the tags. Final problem is the excessively long list of publications and the list of external links to "internet articles" (some of which are just emails). We usually list the three most relevant publications of an academic (in exceptional cases 5, in really extraordinarily rare cases more than that, such as for Einstein, for example). --Randykitty (talk) 12:27, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Well, even before I added the extra references, tagging with both {{BLP primary sources}} and {{third-party}} was excessive. The BLP PROD was also unnecessary. All that had to be done was move the faculty page to an inline cite. It was already there in the external links section. It may not have been enough to attest to notability on its own, but it wasn't true that the article had no sources. They were simply misplaced. Re the online articles. I had moved them en masse to the External links section because they didn't belong in a list of major publications. Now that they're in External links, I would be very much in favour of pruning this back to 2 amalgamated ones:
Voceditenore (talk) 13:07, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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