HOMEPAGE
Aditya Kabir (talk · contribs · count · logs · page moves · block log)
The Bangladesh Project
Useful resources | Awards | Failure | Contributions | Monkey's Nest
Sandbox 01 | Sandbox 02 | Sandbox 03 | Sandbox 04 | My userspace | My gallery
Make Love | Take Note | The Zoo | Mini Wikiproject | Micro Wikiproject | Mini-Wiki
WP1 • WP5 • WP10 • WP100
Check your contributions | Check your contributions again | Check everybody's contributions
|
It's fairly simple.
Good research is the most vital component of an article
But, no original research, please. Original research includes editors' personal views, political opinions, and any personal analysis or synthesis of published material that appears to advance a position the editor may hold. That is, any facts, opinions, interpretations, definitions, and arguments published by Wikipedia must already have been published by a reliable publication in relation to the topic of the article. See this example for more details.
(See: WP:NOR)
And, yes, it's okay to use your brain. Be bold. Take the right step. Just take care that the step is really right.
(See: WP:BOLD)
Let the facts speak for themselves
Be careful not to err too far on the side of not upsetting editors by leaving unsourced information in articles for too long, or at all in the case of information about living people. Jimmy Wales has said of this: "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons."
(See: WP:VERIFY)
When the notability of your article is challenged, don't sit pretty like a duck. Go for the Heymann Standard. Improve the article beyond doubt.
(See: WP:NN)
Substantiating statements that may look biased
Think ahead. Try to imagine whether or not people might doubt what you wrote, or need more information about it. Supporting what is written by referring to clear and reliable sources will add credibility to your contribution.
(See: WP:CITE)
|
The Neutrality Project • The Notability Project
Editor assistance
|
Imagine you're a vegan. Or maybe you are a vegan, in which case you don't have to imagine it. Now imagine you hear about an event coming up in your area billed as The Vegan Potluck Dinner Anyone Can Contribute To. You make up a batch of your favorite couscous salad recipe and go to the dinner.
When you walk in, the first thing you notice on the table is a large platter of fried chicken. You say to the host, "I thought this was a vegan potluck?"
The host answers, "Well, it is, but everyone has agreed to allow some animal-based foods under certain restricted circumstances."
"Under certain restricted circumstances? Like what? Why is there fried chicken here?" you ask.
"Well, even though there are many good meat analogues available, for things like hamburgers and sausages, there's no meat analogue for fried chicken. It's simply not replaceable with a vegan equivalent," the host replies.
You pick up a bowl, walk resolutely past the chicken, and help yourself to some minestrone. You proclaim it delicious, and the person who made it says, "Thanks! I made it with beef stock, but there's so little meat in there you hardly notice it, do you?"
You quickly put down the minestrone, pick up a plate, and take some corn on the cob. You bite in and discover that it has been coated not with margarine but with real butter. You turn to the host in disbelief and say, "This isn't so little that I don't notice, I noticed instantly! And you can't say butter isn't replaceable with margarine. Why does this corn have butter on it?"
And the host replies, "Well, some people just feel butter is higher-quality than margarine."
So you put down the corn, pick up a clean plate, and head for the desserts. There you see a large chocolate cake. You take a piece, bite into it, and are delighted! You ask the person who made it how he got it so light and fluffy. "I've never managed to get a cake this texture using tofu and soy milk."
"Well, I used eggs and cow's milk. You said yourself, you just can't get the right consistency with vegan ingredients. Besides, don't be so paranoid – eating meat and other animal products isn't illegal; no one is going to sue us!"
As you stand there sputtering in disbelief, the host says, "I know how you feel, but you have to understand: We have two goals at this vegan dinner: to be vegan, and to be a dinner. And those goals sometimes conflict with each other, so we have to find a middle ground between them. Of course we prefer vegan dishes whenever they're practical – did you try the couscous salad someone brought? – but surely you concede it isn't possible to have a really high-quality dinner without any animal products at all."
Finally in exasperation you cry, "What on earth is the matter with you people? What does fear of getting sued have to do with anything? And where did you get the idea that a meal's being vegan is conflict with its being a high-quality dinner? And if you were going to have animal-based foods here, why the hell did you advertise it as a vegan potluck dinner? Vegan means no animal products of any kind! Ever!"
There is a stunned silence for a moment. Then you hear a few people call you an "extremist". One person calls you a "wacko".
|
AskWiki | WikiSeek | WikiRage | WikiScanner | WikiLab | WikiDashboard | WikiSense
Veropediae | WikiInfo | Conservapedia | Citizendium
Prop-up | Wikiality | WikiWikiWeb | Top ref links | Deletionpedia
|
Some time ago, I discovered a link at a user page to a certain website caught my attention. The sharp criticism of Wikipedia that I saw at that webpage didn't surprise me in the least; we are all rather used to the rants against our project and our community that seem to flourish in the web these days. However, there was a particular phrase that caught my attention immediately, and while I really didn't care much about the other accusations, incredibly enough, this one was actually able to hurt me: Wikipedia is not a place for happy people.
No matter how much I try to push this idea out of my mind, every now and then, I find myself thinking about it. Sometimes I gain enough trust in ourselves to push it far to the bottom of my mind. Other moments, like now, I simply can't. While we're all human, and may (and do) give in to anger, bad mood and hurting speech from time to time, I can hardly think that the reason why we all ended up editing this encyclopedia was to unleash our frustration unto others. And if somebody did, well... the choice of a place to do such thing is odd, to say the least.
Since I joined Wikipedia a couple of months ago, I must tell that never, ever, I've felt diminished nor discriminated in any way by another user; yet I know that it is in my personality to choose dialogue and a friendly approach, and that's simply not the way we're all made - it's in our human nature to be different from each other, and that makes none of us any better than the other. However, I did see, and continue to witness almost everyday, the misjudgments, the unfairness, the elitism, the hurting irony that comes from the mouths of brilliant people towards their peers - or worse, against the newcomers who try in good faith to be heard. I have no intention to judge any members of our community - reprehensible as it is, fighting fire with fire is a natural human instinct, and nobody's free of sin. And that's where we all have the chance to make a small, yet decisive difference: Love - or in our case, Wikilove. Just a little bit of it can make a valuable contributor, a great person, a knowledgeable editor reconsider his/her decision of leaving for good after an edit war or a failed RfA. Just 30 seconds of translating that smile and that hug that you wish you could give in person into a simple edit, can make a big change... in the quality of our encyclopedia.
Just an hour ago, I received an email from somebody who basically told me to shove my attempt of cheering him up in a dark and moist place of my anatomy... on St. Valentine's day... the irony! I feel discouraged - how could I possibly feel otherwise? Wouldn't you? Wouldn't you simply want to dismiss any future attempts of sending a kind word, or a smile to someone who's obviously down? That's exactly how I feel now - but I won't do such a thing. I may be down, but I'm not dead - and my heart's alive and well, and I won't let it bleed for long. I do not take the Internet so seriously as to make me cry, so whatever this gentleman's intentions were, I'm sorry - he failed. But as long as I'm a member of Wikipedia, I will believe in Wikilove; and as long as my heart beats, I will continue to believe in Love. Now that, I do take seriously. And no member of our community, no matter how respected he is, will ever dissuade me... because I want to believe that Wikipedia can be a place for happy people. Sharon - Feb. 14, 2006
|
Internet Archive Wayback Machine | Copyscape | Online Conversion | Reference Generator | Table Generator
Page History Stats | Article contributors | Checklinks | Readability | ISBN checker
|
Why deletionism is a PR disaster
Notice that I usually find very weak arguments based on "looking good" (even if bella figura is inherently Italian). But these quotes give insight on how deletionism looks to the external world, for whose people who think that "deleting first, ask questions later" is a way to improve our image.
New York Review of Books: "a lot of good work—verifiable, informative, brain-leapingly strange—is being cast out of this paperless, infinitely expandable accordion folder by people who have a narrow, almost grade-schoolish notion of what sort of curiosity an online encyclopedia will be able to satisfy in the years to come...There are some people on Wikipedia now who are just bullies, who take pleasure in wrecking and mocking peoples' work"[1]
The Economist: "The behaviour of Wikipedia's self-appointed deletionist guardians, who excise anything that does not meet their standards, justifying their actions with a blizzard of acronyms, is now known as “wiki-lawyering”.[2]
The Guardian: "And then self-promoted leaf-pile guards appeared, doubters and deprecators who would look askance at your proffered handful and shake their heads, saying that your leaves were too crumpled or too slimy or too common, throwing them to the side."[3]
The Telegraph "The rise of the deletionists is threatening the hitherto peaceful growth of the world's most popular information source. It's on the discussion pages of articles nominated for deletion that anger creeps in. Policy documents are referred to only by abbreviations...the favourite of the deletionists WP:NOTE (notability)...The notability debate has spread across the discussions like a rash."[4]
PC Pro magazine: "For an example of the dark side running out of control, though, check out Wikipedia...It seems Wikipedia has completed the journey by arriving at an online equivalent of the midnight door-knock and the book bonfire"
Los Angeles Times"...if even a small number of useful articles are being deleted in the name of keeping Wikipedia clean, isn't that like allowing a few innocent men to hang in favor of a lower crime rate?...Wikipedia's community has become so rushed, so immediatist, that it is not willing to allow embryonic articles even a tiny modicum of time to incubate"[5]
The Telegraph:"Wikipedia should delete the deletionists"[6]
"Wikipedia: A Quantiative Analysis", PHD: "the Wikipedia community needs to rein in so-called deletionists -- editors who shoot first and ask questions later."[7] [...] | source= Ikip 00:57, 26 January 2010 (UTC) ([8])
|
Missing articles | Article Rescue | ICU | Trivia and Pop Culture | Systemic bias | Stub makers | Vital articles
User:Aditya Kabir travel guide from Wikitravel
Reach me by email (here)
| This is a Wikipedia user page.
This is not an encyclopedia article. If you find this page on any site other than Wikipedia, you are viewing a mirror site. Be aware that the page may be outdated and that the user to whom this page belongs may have no personal affiliation with any site other than Wikipedia itself. The original page is located at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Aditya_Kabir.
|
|
 |
| Licensing rights granted to Wikimedia Foundation |
| I grant non-exclusive permission for the Wikimedia Foundation Inc. to relicense my text contributions under any copyleft license that it chooses, provided it maintains the free and open spirit of the GFDL. This permission acknowledges that future licensing needs of the Wikimedia projects may need adapting in unforeseen fashions to facilitate other uses, formats, and locations. It is given for as long as this banner remains. |
|
|
