Wikipedia:Editor review/Mr.Z-man

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[edit] Mr.Z-man

Mr.Z-man (talk • contribs) I've been planning to do this for a while. I mainly want to see how helpful other users find my editing job to be (if that makes any sense). I have been registered for around a year, but only became very active this past January. Since then, I have started a few articles, made some templates, and joined in XfD discussions. I am now beginning to get involved in policy discussions here, here, and until recently here. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 03:46, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Reviews

I reviewed your user page, talk page, and some of your edits. I found that you are an asset to the project in many different ways. You participate in discussions at the village pump, you answer questions at the help desk, you report vandalism to AIV, and you evaluate submissions at Articles for Creation. A lot of your work involves helping with inexperienced users, so the rule of Assume Good Faith should always guide your interactions with them.

I noticed that you requested admin coaching, which indicates to me that you wish to become an administrator someday. (Join the club!) You need to spend more time, building your credentials and starting new articles and templates, before you can expect to get the 75% support at WP:RFA. I would support you right now, but the fact is that standards are very high there, and you need to be prepared. You can compare it to the declined FA nomination for "Geography Cup." At the same time, you can consider listing the article at WP:GA, and/or fixing whatever deficiencies were cited. The other thing I would advise is to spend a little more time with XFDs, such as AFD and TFD. You closed a speedy keep, but didn't do it correctly, according to your talk page (I've made the same mistake). A little more experience will cure that, and will reinforce the inclusion criteria you learned on the notability discussions and in AFC.

You may be interested to know that an elaborate proposal was drafted regarding speedy deletion of unsourced articles. Look for it in centralized discussions. It hasn't gained consensus, but it shows that others recognize the problem that you cited in the supplementary section of your answers. I wish you good luck. YechielMan 01:31, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. Also, in response to your comment on my talk page, its a little too late for that (I've already got about 40 edits to the discussion around Jimbo's credential proposal). I did list Geography Cup at GA and I'm already working on another potential FA candidate. I just recently got involved with AFC, as a way to help contribute more to the enyclopedic aspect. Again, thank you for your thoughts. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 01:41, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Comments

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Questions

1. Of your contributions to Wikipedia, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?

   I am quite happy with the Geography Cup article. I am the original author and main contributor. It is the first article I have taken past stub status. I nominated it for FAC here. It is last in the candidates list and will probably be denied soon due to no consensus, but I am happy that it was even able to get some support. I also am pleased with the Template:Infobox Non-profit. I got the idea from Requested Templates. It started as a copy of Infobox:Company with some parameters changed for non-profits, but it has since taken on a life of its own. It is now in use on some important articles.

2. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or do you feel other users have caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?

   Of course there have been some, but nothing major. I was involved in a minor dispute over the Nepassa article see log. One user made the article, I tagged it for speedy, it was deleted. The same user reposted it with a lot more information. Another user tagged it, but the author contested it and I was dragged back in. The author claimed it was a real religion, but with no sources, it was deleted after a quick AfD. I was also involved in the recent Timothy Noah AfD. I have recently joined the Mediation Cabal, but have not mediated any disputes yet. I try to deal with tension by countering it with lighter material. A good example of this is this.

3. You removed a link that I placed here: Toby Crabel. The link shows Toby Crabel's price patterns in action being used by traders in day to day trading. It shows the current values for the trading day and links to how those price patterns are calculated. This sort of information is normally useful to people researching these price patterns by providing real world examples of their calculation and use.

   I reverted it because it looked like spam. Toby's name was not in the url and you did not leave an edit summary saying why it should be there. After reviewing it further, I'll put it back in. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 20:06, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

   I apologise for not entering an edit summary - I will do this in the future - thanks for your help and guidelines in making entries/edits.

4. In what way do you feel that Wikipedia is the most lacking? The Transhumanist   05:33, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

   Wikipedia is most lacking in a way to enforce WP:ATT. We say "Encyclopedic content must be attributable to a reliable source" in the edit window, but there is really no way to enforce this (as of yet). Information that is obviously wrong (George Washington died in 1947) is deleted right away, but everything else usually stays. People don't want to just remove it as that could cause a content dispute (if the info is correct) and we can't just remove all unsourced information. I'm not really sure how many articles are in Category:All articles lacking sources, but its alphabetical table of contents has a scroll bar. Finding sources for almost every article will take a lot of work but Wikipedia would seem a lot more credible if it were done. Unfortunately, I can't really think of a way to "enforce" ATT, as this would really mean checking every edit for a source, which means that for each editor adding info, we would have to have one checking it.Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 18:11, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

5. What needs to be done about it? And how would you go about bring the resources to bear to fix it? The Transhumanist   05:33, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

   As I said above, there is really little that we can do besides marking things as "unsourced." I thought about proposing a new CSD criteria to allow new articles without sources to be speedily deleted but decided agianst proposing it as it would have a tendency to be misconstrued and abused in other situations and also beacuse it would seem more bitey than the other CSD criteria. And also, to be honest, I would rather have 1.6 million articles where only 600,000 have sources than have only 600,000 articles where they all have sources.Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 18:11, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

6. What do you think Wikipedia will be like in 5 years time? The Transhumanist   05:33, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

   5 years from now, I see 3 possible futures for Wikipedia (arranged in order from most to least likely):

   1. It could be exactly as it is now with a few minor changes. We would have 2.5 to 3 million articles and some policies would be slightly different. We would still be a a massive font of knowledge but not a true encyclopedia.
   2. We become a true encyclopedia. Someone manages to come up with a compromise between "everyone can edit" and "all information must be attributable to a reliable source", possibly somthing like the "stable/live versions" and Wikipedia become the best research tool ever.
   3. Something goes horribly wrong. Vandals outnumber good editors, a bad policy change or a major scandal drives away the editors in droves, a lawsuit cripples the Foundation, or (gasp!) something better comes along and Wikipedia becomes a wasteland of vandalism. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 18:11, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

7. I noticed that you gave a very nice practical example to an enquiry at the credential verification talk page. Are you an expert, or planning to become one, on Wikipedia policies and guidelines? What proportion of your editing activities would you devote to policy matters? Thanks. Dr.K. 02:52, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

   I wouldn't say I'm an expert (I happened to go to the Deletion Process page earler that day). I do spend a lot of time at WP:HD, WP:VPR, and WP:VPP though, so I learn a lot there. I also participate in AFD's, so I'm quite familiar with some core policies and guidelines (WP:N, WP:ATT, WP:NOT) as they come up often in deletion discussions. Every contributor should have some knowledge of core content policy like NPOV and ATT. Editors who participate in policy/guideline related discussions and deletion discussions should have quite a bit more knowledge. As for how much time should be devoted to policy matters, we are trying to create an encyclopedia here, content is first and foremost, I would say maybe 10-20% would be ideal. I may spend a little more, I've been trying to cut back and spend more time working on articles. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 19:11, 25 March 2007 (UTC)