User talk:BobSmithME
CS1 error on 2024 California Proposition 36
[edit]
Hello, I'm Qwerfjkl (bot). I have automatically detected that this edit performed by you, on the page 2024 California Proposition 36, may have introduced referencing errors. They are as follows:
- A missing title error. References show this error when they do not have a title. Please edit the article to add the appropriate title parameter to the reference. (Fix | Ask for help)
Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, Qwerfjkl (bot) (talk) 12:16, 3 October 2025 (UTC)
Welcome!
[edit]
Hello, BobSmithME, and welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Below are some pages you might find helpful. For a user-friendly interactive help forum, see the Wikipedia Teahouse.
- Introduction
- The five pillars of Wikipedia
- How to edit a page
- How to write a great article
- Simplified Manual of Style
- Your first article
- Discover what's going on in the Wikimedia community
- Feel free to make test edits in the sandbox
- and check out the Task Center, for ideas about what to work on.
I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, please see our help pages, and if you can't find what you are looking for there, please feel free to ask me on my talk page or place {{Help me}} on this page and someone will drop by to help. Again, welcome! QuicoleJR (talk) 19:48, 3 October 2025 (UTC)
Introduction to contentious topics
[edit]You have recently edited a page related to post-1992 politics of the United States and closely related people, a topic designated as contentious. This is a brief introduction to contentious topics and does not imply that there are any issues with your editing.
A special set of rules applies to certain topic areas, which are referred to as contentious topics. These are specially designated topics that tend to attract more persistent disruptive editing than the rest of the project and have been designated as contentious topics by the Arbitration Committee. When editing a contentious topic, Wikipedia's norms and policies are more strictly enforced, and Wikipedia administrators have an expanded level of powers and discretion in order to reduce disruption to the project.
Within contentious topics, editors should edit carefully and constructively, refrain from disrupting the encyclopedia, and:
- adhere to the purposes of Wikipedia;
- comply with all applicable policies and guidelines;
- follow editorial and behavioural best practices;
- comply with any page restrictions in force within the area of conflict; and
- refrain from gaming the system.
Editors are advised to err on the side of caution if unsure whether making a particular edit is consistent with these expectations. If you have any questions about contentious topics procedures, you may ask them at the arbitration clerks' noticeboard or you may learn more about this contentious topic here. You may also choose to note which contentious topics you know about by using the {{Ctopics/aware}} template.
Again, this does not mean that you did anything wrong, it's just a procedural message given to people who edit in this area. If you have any questions about anything, feel free to ask me. Thanks, QuicoleJR (talk) 19:50, 3 October 2025 (UTC)
A note on sourcing re 2025 California Proposition 50
[edit]Hello, @BobSmithME! I wanted to briefly reach out and explain to you that I reverted one of your edits to 2025 California Proposition 50. While these sources would typically be considered reliable in most cases, in this case, they are merely reporting on their own positions, making them primary sources. It would be preferable to include sources reporting on their endorsements, which would be secondary and therefore reliable according to Wikipedia policy. Thanks, and happy editing! guninvalid (talk) 09:05, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
- I've come here after seeing your (now reverted) edits in the page history -- what you're saying is categorically false. Sure it'd be "preferable" to include secondary sources, but why would one newspaper report on another newspapers endorsement? The endorsements listed by @BobSmithME are sourced in line with Wikipedia:Political endorsements, which states that "[l]ists of endorsements should only include endorsements which have been covered by reliable sources, which may include the organization's own website or official social media accounts." Aesurias (talk) 10:16, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
You have recently made edits related to the Arab–Israeli conflict. This is a standard message to inform you that the Arab–Israeli conflict is a designated contentious topic. Additionally, editors must be logged-in, have 500 edits and an account age of 30 days, and are not allowed to make more than 1 revert on the same page within 24 hours for pages within this topic. This message does not imply that there are any issues with your editing. For more information about the contentious topics system, please see Wikipedia:Contentious topics. 331dot (talk) 08:16, 18 October 2025 (UTC)
CS1 error on Barnstable County, Massachusetts
[edit]
Hello, I'm Qwerfjkl (bot). I have automatically detected that this edit performed by you, on the page Barnstable County, Massachusetts, may have introduced referencing errors. They are as follows:
- A missing title error. References show this error when they do not have a title. Please edit the article to add the appropriate title parameter to the reference. (Fix | Ask for help)
Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, Qwerfjkl (bot) (talk) 06:51, 22 October 2025 (UTC)
CS1 error on Presidency of Javier Milei
[edit]
Hello, I'm Qwerfjkl (bot). I have automatically detected that this edit performed by you, on the page Presidency of Javier Milei, may have introduced referencing errors. They are as follows:
- A bare URL and missing title error. References show this error when they do not have a title. Please edit the article to add the appropriate title parameter to the reference. (Fix | Ask for help)
Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, Qwerfjkl (bot) (talk) 06:07, 29 October 2025 (UTC)
Identical endorsements of Proposition 50
[edit]I understand that you're the editor who added the endorsements from all 11 newspapers to the 2025 California Proposition 50 article.
It should be pretty obvious that it's not notable to list all 11 when they re-use the exact same editorial.
The 11 endorsements were intitially removed, and you reverted.
You then twice removed footnotes noting the duplication of the editorials used to make the endorsemts: removal #1 removal #2.
I then put the 11 newspapers in a footnote, rather than listing them individually. You have reverted it twice: revert #1, revert #2
You ought to stop edit warring. While you could open a discussion about it in the talk page, my recommendation is to take a hint that you're highly unlikely to get your way since multiple editors have gone against you.
Frankly, I don't really understand why you think there is any value in listing 11 establishments using the same editorial without even noting that it's the same editorial. WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not a valid reason to do things your way. In fact, if you were to list the other articles where the same editorial is used in separate entries for endorsements, I will probably go and modfiy it to alert the reader that what is presented as different endorsements is really the same endorsement. Green Montanan (talk) 15:50, 3 November 2025 (UTC)
- I am following exactly what has been the standard on every page. WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS can be used as an excuse for quite literally anything, and as I have noted, we may as well remove news endorsements entirely as a category since over 80% of newspapers with a Wikipedia page are owned by around three companies. BobSmithME (talk) 13:13, 4 November 2025 (UTC)
- Actually, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is listed as an invalid reasoning to use (although it focuses on deletion discussions, it is valid in a broader sense).
- While I cannot speak for any other Wikipedian, in my opinion, listing every newspaper that used the exact same editorial to announce its endorsement w/o noting that the editorial is identical to other editorials runs afoul with WP:Independent sources. While the essay is about establishing notability for articles, I think the spirit of the essay applies to the notability of the endorsement. Note that we are still displaying the endorsements, but in a less prominent position (although a case could be made that in a long list, a listing in the footnote actually draws more attention than being listed within the long list).
- Bottom line: it's probably not worth your time pursuing this. You'd be better off focusing your attention on other things. Green Montanan (talk) 16:17, 4 November 2025 (UTC)
- Given these constant issues you're having can I suggest that you don't understand how standards or consenus work on wikipedia? That something is one way on page A is not a valid reason to make a change to page B on here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:06, 4 November 2025 (UTC)
- Clearly so. I can only imagine that when something receives zero pushback on any page for years and is suddenly changed, it is the motive (not negative or deliberately ill-willed) of the changing editor, not consensus. Unless every admin is very specific about which pages they pick and choose to monitor, it's hard to imagine that one page is suddenly a no-go when everything else receives zero mention. BobSmithME (talk) 05:15, 5 November 2025 (UTC)
November 2025
[edit]Hello, BobSmithME. I did want to address the edit summary you made for your previous edit blanking a warning. It is quite normal for another editor to place these warnings on other editors' talk pages, and there are even semi-automated tools for doing so, see WP:Twinkle. Any editor, including you, is allowed to place these sorts of edits on any other editors' talk page. You are of course still allowed to remove or disregard these warnings, or even place a disclaimer on your page that you will ignore and blank these types of warnings. But the next step after a general message is a specific warning, or even bringing in administrator intervention. And if you demonstrate a history of not listening to legitimate feedback, administrators will look at you much less kindly when determining whether to block you from the project. guninvalid (talk) 08:47, 26 November 2025 (UTC)
- I am allowed to edit blank on my own page. I strongly suggest you actually look at the edit war that is occurring, which is an editor with zero knowledge of editing protocols repeatedly violating procedure. If you would like to describe that as legitimate feedback, it would be a first by the standards of this site. BobSmithME (talk) 08:52, 26 November 2025 (UTC)
November 2025
[edit]Examples: (Personal attack removed)- You (Personal attack removed) snuck progressive in there - This itself is vandalism - I strongly suggest you refrain from editing when reading comprehension is involved - including blatantly false information - (Personal attack removed) - Cease vandalizing this
Literally four days straight with this. Des Vallee (talk) 09:38, 26 November 2025 (UTC)
- (Personal attack removed) You can't seem to understand that your concessions have been granted. All of your additions would have had to been rewritten anyways. In fact, a look at your edit history shows that significant numbers of your edits have been reverted for improper grammar usage.
- Also, literally none of what you just wrote would border on personal attacks. (Personal attack removed)BobSmithME (talk) 09:42, 26 November 2025 (UTC)
ANI
[edit]
There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Des Vallee (talk) 10:09, 26 November 2025 (UTC)
- Appreciate the heads up! BobSmithME (talk) 10:09, 26 November 2025 (UTC)
November 2025
[edit]
{{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}. Star Mississippi 16:46, 26 November 2025 (UTC)Happy New Year, BobSmithME!
[edit]

BobSmithME,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia.
Volten001 ☎ 03:51, 3 January 2026 (UTC)
Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year fireworks}} to user talk pages.
Volten001 ☎ 03:51, 3 January 2026 (UTC)
Recent edit reversion
[edit]In this edit here, I reverted some information that appears to be a violation of our copyright policy.
I provided a brief summary of the problem in the edit summary, which should be visible just below my name. You can also click on the "view history" tab in the article to see the recent history of the article. This should be an edit with my name, and a parenthetical comment explaining why your edit was reverted. If that information is not sufficient to explain the situation, please ask.
I do occasionally make mistakes. We get hundreds of reports of potential copyright violations every week, and sometimes there are false positives, for a variety of reasons. (Perhaps the material was moved from another Wikipedia article, or the material was properly licensed but the license information was not obvious, or the material is in the public domain but I didn't realize it was public domain, and there can be other situations generating a report to our Copy Patrol tool that turn out not to be actual copyright violations.) If you think my edit was mistaken, please politely let me know and I will investigate. S Philbrick(Talk) 15:19, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
Iran Strike on Girls School
[edit]outside user here, it appears to me your edit warring over the iran strike, and have yet to try and open a discussion channel. i am now the third person against your standpoint, with nobody (i can tell) in support. the goal of adding it is because, although unsure if true, is because it is still important and deserves regard. id believe youd have to be in violation of some policy at this point, but am not experienced enough to tell you. find some consensus against before deleting again, please. ~2026-13237-92 (talk) 22:37, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- Cool. Reporting to sockpuppet investigation. BobSmithME (talk) 22:39, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- thats fine, im a different user lmao, could you maybe discuss with me? ~2026-13237-92 (talk) 22:42, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- You're a different user that hasn't started editing before today and somehow immediately found your way to the history of a current event section, reverted a change, and then magically had the time to state that "it's three against one" despite there not being any active talk page discussion on either my talk page or the article. You should be more sparing with your temp accounts. BobSmithME (talk) 22:45, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- 2026-13237-92 here, not a sockpuppet and couldnt be bothered to login. assume good intentions for one, but still have yet to hear any real discussion from you against my original claim, and its getting on my nerves. new to wikipedia so dont know how admin stuff works, but id love to grab one if you dont actually discuss with me. it is my opinion the topic deserves regard as an alleged attack and that it is completely in line with previous standards, even today, with alleged news coming from the israeli side about ali khameni's death not being countered before reports became widespread, which still lack confirmation. NotA5hia (talk) 22:50, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- Would you care to explain being the third person against my standpoint? Who is the second? And the first was just blocked for gross violations of personal attack, so I don't think that one really counts. BobSmithME (talk) 22:57, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- ~2026-12134-41, althought not saying i doubt this is alexsuny or whatever. stop beating around the bush though, you have yet to discuss actual reasons against* reinstatement. *originally for, miswrote NotA5hia (talk) 23:00, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- If you really are not Alexysun, my apologies. That being said, it's very odd that two editors, both teenagers, both with nearly identical writing styles, both using temp accounts, appear at the exact same time. Except one editor, which has only 25 edits total and would have had no way to know exactly what was going on unless they were constantly reading the history section of a current events infobox, appears mere minutes after Alexysun is banned. Understand my skepticism. BobSmithME (talk) 23:10, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- id be skeptical too i dont blame you, but i have been watching the current events since i woke up and history since i saw the strike get deleted the first time. still no discussion tho... is your strategy to make me give up though bc its working. i dont wanna be sitting here keyboard warring about bullshit that isnt whether this strike should or shouldnt be reported on. NotA5hia (talk) 23:14, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- My standpoint was made abundantly clear if you were reading the sections. Iran has a wild history of lying. Your Khamenei comparison doesn't hold water since last time something like this happened, Israel ended up getting proven correct by RSs (even if it took years to verify like with some of the Hamas leaders). At the time that the strikes were reported, not even Iran was claiming that anybody had struck near the area. So who struck it? When? What were the accurate casualty counts? Why would one specific school very far from the rest of the targets get blown to bits for no reason? Who verified it aside from IRGC media? You don't have an answer to any of those questions, which is kind of how news works. So why put it in? BobSmithME (talk) 23:18, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- im seeing my personal biases right now, my reply why it should be put in being that it is indicative to israel's lack of regard to civilian population. didnt know about it being significantly further from other targets (id love to look at a source, not that i dont trust you), which to me is totalitarian that this story doesn't have proper merit without outside confirmation. i agree with not including this, unless a better source comes out.
- woulda been easier if a discussion was started earlier, but i get being hot coming off from the other guy, wish you the best. NotA5hia (talk) 23:33, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- My standpoint was made abundantly clear if you were reading the sections. Iran has a wild history of lying. Your Khamenei comparison doesn't hold water since last time something like this happened, Israel ended up getting proven correct by RSs (even if it took years to verify like with some of the Hamas leaders). At the time that the strikes were reported, not even Iran was claiming that anybody had struck near the area. So who struck it? When? What were the accurate casualty counts? Why would one specific school very far from the rest of the targets get blown to bits for no reason? Who verified it aside from IRGC media? You don't have an answer to any of those questions, which is kind of how news works. So why put it in? BobSmithME (talk) 23:18, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- Hi Bob, sorry for getting in the middle of that earlier. I promise I'm not connected to anyone else here, nor am I a teenager. I know that it's impossible to completely prove it because this is the internet, but if you really want to, you can have an admin check the ip addresses. I have followed the current events page since before I started editing, and I've especially been checking it very frequently today. At some point, I happened to notice that one of the entries had disappeared, so I restored it. Personally, I do believe that that the school could have been plausibly hit because it does happen to be near an IRGC base. However, time will tell once the fog of war lifts. ~2026-12134-41 (talk) 00:51, 1 March 2026 (UTC)
- id be skeptical too i dont blame you, but i have been watching the current events since i woke up and history since i saw the strike get deleted the first time. still no discussion tho... is your strategy to make me give up though bc its working. i dont wanna be sitting here keyboard warring about bullshit that isnt whether this strike should or shouldnt be reported on. NotA5hia (talk) 23:14, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- If you really are not Alexysun, my apologies. That being said, it's very odd that two editors, both teenagers, both with nearly identical writing styles, both using temp accounts, appear at the exact same time. Except one editor, which has only 25 edits total and would have had no way to know exactly what was going on unless they were constantly reading the history section of a current events infobox, appears mere minutes after Alexysun is banned. Understand my skepticism. BobSmithME (talk) 23:10, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- ~2026-12134-41, althought not saying i doubt this is alexsuny or whatever. stop beating around the bush though, you have yet to discuss actual reasons against* reinstatement. *originally for, miswrote NotA5hia (talk) 23:00, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- Would you care to explain being the third person against my standpoint? Who is the second? And the first was just blocked for gross violations of personal attack, so I don't think that one really counts. BobSmithME (talk) 22:57, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- 2026-13237-92 here, not a sockpuppet and couldnt be bothered to login. assume good intentions for one, but still have yet to hear any real discussion from you against my original claim, and its getting on my nerves. new to wikipedia so dont know how admin stuff works, but id love to grab one if you dont actually discuss with me. it is my opinion the topic deserves regard as an alleged attack and that it is completely in line with previous standards, even today, with alleged news coming from the israeli side about ali khameni's death not being countered before reports became widespread, which still lack confirmation. NotA5hia (talk) 22:50, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- You're a different user that hasn't started editing before today and somehow immediately found your way to the history of a current event section, reverted a change, and then magically had the time to state that "it's three against one" despite there not being any active talk page discussion on either my talk page or the article. You should be more sparing with your temp accounts. BobSmithME (talk) 22:45, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- Hi, I'm just coming in to say that I'm also in support of this being added. Regardless of how trustworthy you think a national source is, they are nonetheless an official source. Removing a claim (which has included pictures, I should mention) simply because it's stated by Iran out of principle is not very neutral. I don't want to invoke WP:OTHER as a load-bearing argument but, bear in mind that we do include claims both russia and afghanistan have made about events within their own borders without needing the other country to completely agree to it. I would rather we add a misinformation claim that this happened than omit it entirely and risk the america-centric bias that comes from it (this bearing in mind that I think the odds of this being real are an easy 95-5%- this is incredibly out of character to lie about so extremely specifically for a country.) exoplanetaryscience (talk) 03:53, 1 March 2026 (UTC)
- Given the addition of new information overnight, I am inclined to agree with you. At the time I was removing information the page for the article was an absurd mess and there wasn't yet news relating to the navy base. I won't argue if you re-add it. BobSmithME (talk) 09:47, 1 March 2026 (UTC)
- thats fine, im a different user lmao, could you maybe discuss with me? ~2026-13237-92 (talk) 22:42, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
Suspected sockpuppet
[edit]With this edit you reverted an IP editor with the edit summary "Removing suspected sockpuppet". Has this been confirmed at WP:SPI? Thank you. Magnolia677 (talk) 22:49, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- if someone has access to ip's they can see that 2026-13237-92 and i are the same, so no it was not confirmed. NotA5hia (talk) 22:51, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- I am currently reporting right now. When it's in, you can check it out. BobSmithME (talk) 22:54, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- BobSmithME, have you read WP:SOCK? Was NotA5hia using the IP abusively? They basically told you above the IP belonged to them. While I don't approve of using multiple accounts, they certainly don't seem to have done this nefariously. Do you think a warning on their talk page would have been enough? Magnolia677 (talk) 23:00, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- Hi, I admit I reacted strongly but this is coming off a recent (unrelated) situation.
- If you read my recent post at sockpuppet you'll understand better. I don't think this user is a sock per se now that he has reported it, but it is weirdly coincidental. BobSmithME (talk) 23:04, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- A SPI report does not need to take 15 minutes or longer. Please do not simply threaten to report someone; you can simply report them. guninvalid (talk) 23:03, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- My first time. Just finished it. I was having a hard time figuring out the process. BobSmithME (talk) 23:04, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
- BobSmithME, have you read WP:SOCK? Was NotA5hia using the IP abusively? They basically told you above the IP belonged to them. While I don't approve of using multiple accounts, they certainly don't seem to have done this nefariously. Do you think a warning on their talk page would have been enough? Magnolia677 (talk) 23:00, 28 February 2026 (UTC)