Talk:Skoal Pacific Bell

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Topic Cleanup and Expansion[edit]

I'd like to cleanup up topic. First of all, the bull's name is unclear. The topic title has "skoals" with an s at the end. The ProRodeo Hall of Fame does not have an s at end of the name of Skoal. I have looked all around the web and have seen it spelt both ways. So I am going to bring in the big guns and contact someone in the industry to find out which is right. It's entirely possible that the company Skoal sponsored the bull and it's possessive. Just like last year's PBR World Champion SweetPro's Long John, for example. The second issue is finding good source sites. There really don't seem to be any. The bull bucked back in the 1980's. Websites and articles start to disappear or be archived as time goes on. The only two really good ones are the two already cited. The hall of fame and the probullstats. Yes, this bull is definitely a big notable. Considering only 7 bulls have been inducted into the hall since it was created by the PRCA in 1979. And they make it quite clear on their website that the only the very extremely notable are inducted. So, to considerable the "rules" here, what outweighs in this case, is the notability of the bull outweighed by not enough citations or vice versa? Lastly, I am aware of the admin discussion & read it regarding the original creator of this topic, who won't respond. Dawnleelynn (talk) 22:09, 28 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

My take is that the article should be named per the most common name ( see WP:COMMONNAME ). We had a similar issue with the horse Totilas, who was, for a time, shown as "Moorland's Totilas." Here though, I suspect it is named the way it is because Pacific Bell is taken. We might want to move it to Pacific Bell (bull) or something similar. If you don't have enough edits to be able to move an article to a new name, let me know and I can do it. Montanabw(talk) 07:15, 2 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That's another consideration. My question was should it be Skoal's Pacific Bell or Skoal Pacific Bell as shown in hall of fame? And you bring up another question, should we leave out the Skoal/Skoals part altogether and just leave the topic as Pacific Bell? The horse started out as Pacific Bell and the Skoal(s) was added later. This is good information to chew on and I appreciate your feedback. I will chew on this. Thanks! Dawnleelynn (talk) 15:25, 2 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Shoot me the url of the best sources for his name while in competition. I definitely question the validity of these commercial names for animals... Montanabw(talk) 09:20, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Montanabw (talk · contribs) While it's true that Pacific Bell is taken as the name of the telephone company, it's also true that the bull name Skoal Pacific Bell is the title of the bull as recognized by the ProRodeo Hall of Fame. However, in my search over the last few weeks, I also found a PBR article on the death of the bull's owner that refers to the bull as Pacific Bell. So here is the list of the sources I have searched out in the last week trying to found content to add to the article and also to give it more citations.

Pacific Bell


Skoal Pacific Bell



Skoal's Pacific Bell


Montanabw (talk · contribs)

I found this official video on the bull from the PRCA. It shows a Bull of the Year belt buckle for the bull that says "Skoal Pacific Bell" as well as narration that talks about the bull under that name. It definitely clears up the question of whether the name should be pluralized - not pluralized as per the PRCA and the Hall of Fame. There is more, but it is just something you should probably watch. It's not very long. It should help clear things up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQkcHhltmAg Dawnleelynn (talk) 21:44, 6 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Montanabw (talk · contribs) Ok, I just finished a major expansion and edit of this article. Lots of new content. Everything has citations now so I removed the citations needed template. Found some new sources that I added citations to the article. Wish I could have found more for this extremely notable bull. But it is an old school bull. I will keep it in my bookmark folders so that I can search for additional information or if I find contacts I can ask about him. His owner just died in 2013, so it would have to be other contacts. So, the next step would be peer review and then ask for a review to get the class changed...? Would it not qualify for at least 1 better than a start-class now? Ball in your court, no pressure. And if you want me to ask other sources or something, just say so. No worries. It's just that you and WAF are the only ones I know so far. Dawnleelynn (talk) 21:30, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Nice work! I think it is just plain fun that you are doing articles on these bulls! I made some changes, mostly formatting but also a little rephrasing; encyclopedic tone has to be kind of neutral and avoid excessive adjectives. ( also be very, very careful not to closely paraphrase the sources cited -- always wise to run the {https://tools.wmflabs.org/copyvios/ Earwig tool]] to be sure you are OK. You can assess and reassess your own articles, so long as you are fair and objective about it (I usually rank anything I create as "low" importance and generally won't rank something B class unless I think it's almost ready for a GA run. To get a sense of what an animal "biography" needs for GA-class, take a look at some of the Quarter Horse articles such as Garrett's Miss Pawhuska. Montanabw(talk) 17:25, 16 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Montanabw (talk · contribs) I've been online doing some other stuff when I saw the email about changes to this article. I love what you did with it! I know I still struggle with two things. 1. Getting a good handle on rephrasing as you mentioned; forgot to earwig this one? 2. Not being bold enough to change the existing structure and content already in the article when I'm expanding or adding content. I was working on Chicken on a Chain last night in my sandbox. It's really a struggle, cause guess what? Same editor set up the same structure with the separate sections and little content per each. And I did find someone wrote content in there as if it was their own but they actually took it from PBR bull riders' quotes in a PBR article. And the article is in the external links section. And also I will change the external links in the other bull articles to bullets instead of numbered. I'm glad you are happy I'm doing these bull articles; it is fun most of the time. I have the missing citation so I will add that. One thing I have in my favor is that I always keep improving in a task I keep repeating. Dawnleelynn (talk) 17:57, 16 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Montanabw (talk · contribs) I just popped in to add the missing citation. Saw a few tiny things to copy edit, they are obvious. Also added red links for Red Rock and Challenge of the Champions since those are almost done. Just moved the PBR spelled out to the first mention. Pluralized bullfighters, stuff like that. Your edit also gave the article some good balance which was bothering me the other day but I couldn't get a handle on fixing it. I really had too much meat in two sentences which you broke out nicely. Too many bulls in one sentence and too many bullfighters in another sentence! LOL! Yes, I did not run earwig on this. So I might do that yet. Also I was thinking while I was out in the real world for the 6 hours so busy, an unusually busy day for once, that we needed to get the word bull riding into the topics, so that people who read these and don't know the rules and the terms have a way to find out. And then I just noticed now that you did that in here, good stuff. How do they know what I mean if I say so and so has 70 outs? Right.... haha. I have learned well from your edit today. And how do you type that symbol you substituted for the plus sign? Thanks again :) Merry Christmas for now ... Dawnleelynn (talk) 04:15, 17 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Dawnleelynn Whenever you see a blatent copy and paste (or an almost-copy and paste) that is a WP:COPYVIO nd you can immediately dive in and rewrite it; if it's a total copy, then even blanking and starting over is appropriate, we have very strong rules about plagiarizing and copyright violations. Second, when the writing is really bad, it's also OK to dive in and fix it -- the tone you take kind of depends on who the other editor is (an innocent grade school kid vs a hardcore troll and the entire range between the two), but generally being bold applies. Basically, some people might get mad or sad if you change their work, but usually the good folks will settle down if you offer to discuss at the talkpage. If they don't engage, then, oh well, their problem. If they do engage, there generally are three basic types: 1) the basically nice person once you sooth hurt feelings, 2) the completely clueless person who will just go on and on in an endless fashion and gets nowhere, and 3) the not-so-nice person. We have a good essay on the latter two types: WP:DFTT. Hope that helps! Montanabw(talk) 06:35, 20 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

On the † symbol and others, I use the "edit source" tab rather than the visual editor (VE) interface (I'm an old-timer, visual editor is newfangled...) when that window opens, there is a pull-down "insert" menu at the bottom that has all sorts of things...symbols, wiki markup to insert, IPA symbols, foreign language characters ( like β or ç of é or ö, etc...) and all kinds of other fun toys. VE might have a way to do that too, may have to ask WAF -- I think she uses VE to edit... Montanabw(talk) 06:35, 20 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Montanabw (talk · contribs) Thanks for the information! I actually saw text in this topic before I changed it that looked to be copied from the ProRodeo Hall of Fame topic for this bull's entry as well. Same person as Chicken. No has commented or challenged on Pacific Bell so far. But all of your points are well taken indeed. About copyright and about people who will feel ownership or stewardship as mentioned on my talk page.
Regarding the editor, I started using the "edit source" from the beginning. Did even know about the VE at first. I'm a tech writer who has worked mostly in software development companies. Have done my share of coding, HTML, XML, and scripting... so I like to be right in there. But a couple weeks ago, I realized the VE could be handy at the very end when I just want to a light copy edit of the text and don't want have to see all the <ref> codes. But I'll have no problem finding the symbol now that I know it's inside the source editor. That's where I use the cite web template too. Love it. Thanks! Oh, I can only find one picture for Bell if we want to one in here. It's all over the place on the Internet. Dawnleelynn (talk) 17:31, 20 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
If the animal is deceased, you can do a "fair use" upload local on Wikipedia, with a complete fair use rationale (see, e.g. what I did on the images used in articles such as Midnight Sun or Secretariat. The templates are a bit of a b=pain (sometimes you have to tweak them after using the upload wizard -- but if you do, just copy and paste from a similar image and just change the parameters to fit your use). It's a little complicated but not too hard, if you ping me, I can double-check your upload and fix any errors. Montanabw(talk) 23:37, 21 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Montanabw (talk · contribs) Ok, file uploaded.... here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Skoal_Pacific_Bell_Bucking_Bull.jpg It looks good to me. Take a quick glance and if all is good, I will add it to the article. It gave me the code to do so and put it on the right. Yay! Dawnleelynn (talk) 20:49, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Montanabw (talk · contribs) Oh I see what you mean now. I added the image to the topic. And there's space at the top. I tried to fool around with it and looked at the topics you mentioned as well. But not getting anywhere in changing it. Tried adding the 300px to it and it got larger but the space at the top was still there. Might take a look later... time for a break from the Internet. Dawnleelynn (talk) 17:48, 23 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Forgot to add: The expansion and cleanup of this is complete until such time as I locate additional sources. A photograph was the last to do item and one has been added. dawnleelynn(talk) 16:47, 31 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Content pulled from article[edit]

I pulled the following content from the article due to no source. I searched the Internet and newspapers.com. I am keeping it here so I can try to find sources for it in the future:

"Pacific Bell also bucked in the Bull Riders Only (BRO) series during the last few years of his life, with Buddy Gulden’s successful 81 point ride on him during the championship round of the 1993 BRO World Finals in Long Beach, California possibly being his final professional out."

dawnleelynn(talk) 17:13, 8 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]