User talk:Billhector

Adding external links

Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, one or more of the external links you added to the page Anita Shreve do not comply with our guidelines for external links and have been removed. Wikipedia is not a collection of links; nor should it be used for advertising or promotion. Since Wikipedia uses nofollow tags, external links do not alter search engine rankings. If you feel the link should be added to the article, please discuss it on the article's talk page before reinserting it. Please take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you.--ShelfSkewed Talk 19:30, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Lily Cade

I stumbled across your sandbox User:Billhector/sandbox. You might want to use your material to improve the page Draft:Lily Cade. – Fayenatic London 08:03, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

AfC notification: Draft:Hilda L. Stone has a new comment

I've left a comment on your Articles for Creation submission, which can be viewed at Draft:Hilda L. Stone. Thanks! —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 21:21, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

Unsolicited advice

Hello, @Billhector. I noticed your comment on User talk:pythoncoder, and I'd like to provide some advice if I may.

First off, I'd like to thank you for following Wikipedia's principle of WP:being bold! If you see something on Wikipedia that needs changing, like a simple typo, we encourage editors to be bold and change it. The same goes for making articles. However:

Many Wikipedia editors do start off by trying to write articles, and that quickly leads to them being bogged down into the depths of all of Wikipedia's guidelines. Wikipedia, like any decades-old project with millions of active users, has a gauntlet of rules and regulations that are next to impossible for any one person to keep track of. I've been regularly active on Wikipedia for only 1 year and I even review and accept new pages, and I still can't claim I understand them all. We don't expect that new editors will understand them all, but we do expect them to be able to discuss issues cordially and come to agreement. It's a very similar process to peer review in that sense.

For you, I would encourage you to start by looking for small areas to improve on existing articles. Maybe you can try writing a brief paragraph about Hilda L. Stone on the Prohibiton article or the Bootlegging article. Your edit may not stay as it is, but chances are it won't be removed. If it is removed, I would suggest you try engaging in a discussion on the article talk page, performing the "discuss" of the WP:Bold, revert, discuss cycle. This can help you gain an understanding of why your edit was reverted and help to improve Wikipedia, so you and other editors can continue to improve Wikipedia with new information.

Thanks for reading, and happy editing! Seriously though, I do hope you stay. guninvalid (talk) 07:48, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Please also be mindful of our policy against personal attacks. I know getting a draft declined can be frustrating, but please do not take that frustration out on your fellow volunteers. Toadspike [Talk] 21:29, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

@Toadspike Totally agree, but I am being trolled by the user @Guninvalid. He is spouting off about policies and guidelines that he clearly knows nothing about. These guidelines are in plain English and aren't challenging to understand.

Is this person an editor? He put this on his user page: "Im [sic] a dumbass". I saw that and didn't know what to think.

What is the point of this unfounded sniping? Is it for me to get so disgusted that I delete the article myself?

The article hasn't been declined! In fact, I had a great comment today and corrected. I have no problem with making edits based on knowledgeable remarks from people who have obviously read the article. Thus far, only one person has clearly read the article. The first comment was from an "editor" who accused me of creating "AI slop" (without actually asking me any questions first).

In fact, I have too many things happening in my life. You guys can have your Wikipedia. I'm sorry that I spent 4 days trying to do something good. Turns out it wasn't worth it. Wikipedia's horrible reputation is well earned. How do I permanently delete the article that I wrote, and then how do I delete my account (that I've had since 2007)? Billhector (talk) 01:05, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

@Billhector, your account cannot be deleted, however you can request a courtesy vanishing. As for deleting your draft, please see WP:CSD and WP:U1. Thanks! 11WB (talk) 01:11, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

You could also read Help:Delete account to learn why complete deletion is not possible. 11WB (talk) 01:13, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

AfC notification: Draft:Hilda L. Stone has a new comment

I've left a comment on your Articles for Creation submission, which can be viewed at Draft:Hilda L. Stone. Thanks! -- Reconrabbit 21:21, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

Thank you. I made the correction. Much appreciated. Billhector (talk) 01:06, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: Hilda L. Stone has been accepted

Hilda L. Stone, which you submitted to Articles for creation, has been created.

Congratulations, and thank you for helping expand the scope of Wikipedia! We hope you will continue making quality contributions.

The article has been assessed as B-Class, which is recorded on its talk page. This is a fantastic rating for a new article, and places it among the top 4% of accepted submissions — major kudos to you! You may like to take a look at the grading scheme to see how you can improve the article. You may also consider nominating a fact from the article within the next 7 days to appear on the Main Page's "Did you know" section.

Since you have made at least 10 edits over more than four days, you can now create articles yourself without posting a request. However, you may continue submitting work to Articles for creation if you prefer.

If you have any questions, you are welcome to ask at the help desk. Once you have made at least 10 edits and had an account for at least four days, you will have the option to create articles yourself without posting a request to Articles for creation.

Thanks again, and happy editing!

-- Reconrabbit 01:33, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. Hilda Stone is a great story that should be told. That's all I ever wanted to do. No agenda.

Maybe I'll try to discover other women already on Wikipedia to fill out the category that I created, "Women in organized crime". Billhector (talk) 01:46, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Since "Women in organized crime" wasn't a valid category, I sorted it into the next closest thing I could find, Category:Female outlaws. Alongside Laura Upthegrove. -- Reconrabbit 01:50, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Awesome! Thanks very much for that. Yeah, an already existing category is better, I think. Billhector (talk) 02:00, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

@Reconrabbit I have a question about editing the Hilda Stone article and citing sources. I received indictments and court dockets from her cases directly from NARA, which are not published online. Anyone can request the documents as I did, but they are not readily available (unless they have or will post them now that I've asked).

The upshot of these documents is that, in some cases, Hilda's self-told story to the Boston American was verified; in others, there were slight changes to the dates; and in still others, new facts came to light.

I'm not sure what I should do about this situation. I have uploaded the cover sheets to the two indictments and included them with the article. Billhector (talk) 19:13, 16 December 2025 (UTC)

I see no issue with the use of documents obtained from NARA. If it has been published and exists somewhere in the world, it is a verifiable source. There are some who would object to the use of primary documents (summaries of court proceedings included) but I find that to be more of an issue with biographies of living people rather than the long-dead. -- Reconrabbit 19:42, 16 December 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. While creating this article, I've had people barking at me about "no primary sources," which isn't exactly the official Wikipedia guidance.

During my contact with NARA, the researcher said that mugshots from that time were pretty rare. If they did exist of Hilda, they might have been in Washington County, Vermont. However, after talking with the Washington County Sheriff's Office and the Vermont Historical Society, those documents are long gone due to a devastating flood in 1927 (the year after Hilda got out of jail). Billhector (talk) 20:05, 16 December 2025 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Awarded for excellent work rescuing Hilda L. Stone from obscurity! Littenberg (talk) 17:11, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

Thanks very much!

A little tidbit of information about the ongoing process of learning about Hilda (which is going to take longer than the original article) ...

I called the Washington County (VT) Sheriff's Office for information about her jail stay. The jail and sheriff's office were destroyed in the 1927 flood, the year after Hilda's incarceration, along with most, if not all, the records. There is a chance that a couple of Vermont historical societies might find some information about Hilda.

One cool bit of color that I learned from the admin assistant I talked to from the Washington County Sheriff's Office was that back then, the jail, sheriff's office, and a home for the sheriff and his family were all connected, which explains why the sheriff's 12-month-old daughter, Barbara McAilister, was in the jail. She wasn't visiting, she lived there!

I also contacted the National Archives (Boston). They have assigned someone to the case and will help me track down the case files and anything else they may have on Hilda that isn't available online.

The main thing I am looking for is a mugshot or any other image of Hilda. Billhector (talk) 17:33, 6 December 2025 (UTC)