User talk:Taostiger

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Greg Comlish (talk) 13:42, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

March 2008

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 Taos High School 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.  

Your edit here was reverted by an automated bot that attempts to remove unwanted links and spam from Wikipedia. If you were trying to insert a good link, please accept my creator's apologies, but note that the external link you added or changed is on my list of links to remove and probably shouldn't be included in Wikipedia.

The external links I reverted were matching the following regex rule(s): rule: '\bexample\.com' .

Please read Wikipedia's external links guideline for more information, and consult my list of frequently-reverted sites. For more information about me, see my FAQ page. Thanks! XLinkBot (talk) 05:38, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

The recent edit you made to Taos High School constitutes vandalism, and has been reverted. Please do not continue to vandalize pages; use the sandbox for testing. Thanks. Steve Crossin (talk) 05:46, 12 March 2008 (UTC))

• Hi there. It looks like you are having a little trouble getting started at Wikipedia. Firstly, you seem to have a conflict of intertest relating to some of the articles you are editing. Wikipedia is supposed to be fun and I hope it can be for you. If you read this it will explain the most important guidelines you need to understand to have an enjoyable experience here. If there is any way I can help out, drop me a line at my talk page. Thanks Beeblbrox (talk) 06:23, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

April 2008

In regards to this edit summary, please read WP:OWN. Thanks. AgnosticPreachersKid (talk) 19:02, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Hello. Please don't forget to provide an edit summary, which wasn't included with your recent edit to Taos High School. Thank you. Aleta ^Sing 05:01, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

You have already been asked to not remove the template until the article is sourced, please stop. Also, please stop adding the town profile into the article. This article is about a school, not the town. AgnosticPreachersKid (talk) 02:47, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Please refrain from making unconstructive edits to Wikipedia, as you did to Taos High School. Your edits appeared to constitute vandalism and have been reverted. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. Thank you. AgnosticPreachersKid (talk) 02:50, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Please stop. If you continue to vandalize Wikipedia, as you did to Taos High School, you will be blocked from editing. AgnosticPreachersKid (talk) 03:02, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Taos High School

Please stop revert warring at Taos High School. Instead, discuss your content dispute on the article talk page. Aleta ^Sing 03:18, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

This is friendly advice. You have reverted my edits twice and Mears man once. If you revert one more time, you will be blocked for violating WP:3RR. Please listen to what we are saying. Also, this comment was not necessary. AgnosticPreachersKid (talk) 03:49, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Group?

Are you a group of people editing under one username? Aleta ^Sing 04:19, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Administrators' noticeboard of incidents thread

FYI: I have opened a thread at WP:ANI#Taos High School. Aleta ^Sing 04:32, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Apologies

Hi,

Listen, I noticed the controversy surrounding the THS article and I just want to apologize for the way people have been acting. Yes, strictly speaking all edits are supposed to be verifiable. But I think its really upsetting that new users who are clearly making content contributions in good faith are being constantly harried with requests for citations about worthlessly obscure facts (eg who precisely was the principle back in 1917?) and zero effort is made to help them make a better article or find good sources. I don't know why your article became such a lightening rod for controversy and I really don't know why so many editors have to be such tight asses and drive away valuable contributors. Basically, there are a lot of aggrieved people in this world who just enjoy pushing people around through whatever pathetic and desperate measures they can and many found that wikipedia was an ideal place to do this.

Anyway, there's a lot on my plate but if you want I can help you properly cite your article, etc.

Yours Truly,

Greg Comlish (talk) 16:29, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Not Worth It

THANK YOU for the apology, it is sincerely appreciated. This was supposed to be a fun an positive experience to allow students to share and introduce Taos High School to the WP world. They certainly are not nor claim to be experts in WP protocol, nor am I. We spent time gathering information to contribute, yes which can definately be cited. BUT were never given the opportunity due to constant deletes with no positive reinforcement or offers of assistance. The "assistance" was to simply scold us for doing something wrong and referring us to canned explanations of our "sins".

The group would provide me with the information (THS history, athletics, community etc) and I'd usually enter the information in the evening to find it simply deleted the next day. This is not their nor my career, in what appears to be the life of many editors in this place. We contribute and participate in the community and don't sit around in front of our computers waiting to delete and dismiss other peoples information and opinions constantly.

We simply modeled our article after schools in our area of New Mexico, like Santa Fe HS and Los Alamos HS. There was never ever any intent to provide made up or inaccurate information. Obviously there was frustration based on the constant targeting of this article in an unproductive manner. And WE were accused of ownership issues???

This is NOT a place of inclusion or appreciation. It is an opportunity for opportunists like some of the editors to validate themselves and impose their "blocking" powers and who have nothing better to do than have their lives revolve around an article about a high school in New Mexico.

This is why we will no longer participate in this article. It's unfortunate since there were many more things to be included. BUT, we will share our information in other ways and with those in our community where our work has been encouraged and has been treated as a valuable asset. --Taostiger (talk) 20:18, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's hard to contribute constructively here. Your basic newbie mistake was a simple one - if someone disagrees with one of your edits strongly enough to revert it, don't just put it back. See Wikipedia:Edit war. Also, although it sounds odd, we don't actually want people writing things from personal experience. We want to use sources instead. See Wikipedia:Verifiability. Friday (talk) 20:40, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

You mean if the WP "gods", I mean editors, disagree with you, YOU can't "put it back" but they can. God forgive if you disobey them. tsk tsk tsk But, if your personal information can be "cited" and with sources, it's OK, right? Your knowledge of WP "scripture" is validated.....BRAVO. --Taostiger (talk) 20:54, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I gave you a plain-English explanation, and linked you to a couple pages that explain more. This is about the best I know how to do. Honestly, your response makes it sound like you're more interested in arguing than learning what we do here. Friday (talk) 21:03, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Honestly, refer to the five paragraphs under "Not Worth It", pay special attention to the last paragraph, there's your answer. You chose to reply and self-validate your knowledge of WP commandments to me. There's no need for that any longer, the witchhunt is over, mission accomplished --Taostiger (talk) 21:12, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I realize this process has been frustrating for you, and for that I am sorry. Please realize that everyone involved wants the best possible article to be written. The disagreement lies in exactly how to attain that. Please do not abandon the project. Instead, talk to your students and explain the need for references. They got the information from somewhere - get them either to add their sources to the article, or provide them to you. I'll be glad to help you and any of them to format the source information to include in the article. Aleta ^Sing 23:29, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll second what Aleta has said, and add this. A new user coming to Wikipedia, especially one editing an article that is personally related to them, can be in for a serious culture shock. The expectations that many new users bring to WP about the policies or purpose of Wikipedia, or about what certain edits/templates/tags mean, are often very much at odds with reality. That is not the fault of the user: Wikipedia's policies and culture, while very defensible, are not necessarily intuitive. That's why experienced users are supposed to "not bite the newcomers." However, it is equally important for new users to try to understand the policies, to accept criticism (not necessarily to agree with it), and enter into discussions on talk pages.

As a high school teacher myself, I have been encouraged to use Wikipedia with my students in the kind of way that I think the group Taostiger was trying to do. What most people don't realize is how tricky that is. A group of high school students, while enthusiastic and personally knowledgeable about their school, is unlikely to be neutral, and unlikely to immediately understand or buy into the policies of Wikipedia. Considering that, I think this group has done a good job of expanding the article---but work needs to be done, and some contributions were inappropriate, and that was the point of the templates and tags added, and the paragraphs that were deleted.

Taostiger and User:Greg Comlish write of a perception of being singled out. Others have noted that such a perception comes out of the ad hoc way in which Wikipedia works...it just happens that a bunch of people have come to edit/comment at the same time, and that other articles, such as Santa Fe High School (New Mexico), hadn't gotten the same attention, even if they seriously need it. I know it can feel hostile, but that is not the intent. Also, Taostiger writes about the lack of positive help to make the article better. Positive help is what eventually should happen, and what has been offered by Aleta, for example. But the first step is for some editor to identify that something needs to be fixed---that is the purpose of the {{fact}} tags, for instance. One shouldn't expect a random editor without immediate access to the literature on Taos, New Mexico to be able to immediately fix the perceived problems. The tags are not an attack on the character of the person who added the material, they are just a note saying "let's improve this." -- Spireguy (talk) 03:54, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

April 2008

Aside all the Negitive Behavior, To Los Alamos and Taos Students i apologize for that mention of Your School in anyway i didnt mean to criticize or badmouth your school in anyway its just when someone makes my school look stupid over wikipedia it really gets me angry.

Instead of arguing and reaching no end..lets end it with a positive note. You edit the THS page and i will edit the EVHS page and instead we will work togeher to find facts and useful information. ... ThomasSalazar _Chat?! 11:13 MT, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Whoever has been doing this is WRONG! I go to EVHS, and it's hard enough being respected on the playing field by Taos, Los Alamos and Capital, they get along great with each other. U can see the comments above by LA students backing Taos. Statements like the ones above are not who we are but keep that stereotype of us alive and well. The dude Thomsalazar is probably not a student and it doesn't help the perception people have of Espanola with his comments towards the Taos Tiger. --EVjock (talk) 15:20, 14 April 2008 (UTC)