User talk:Mikemorrell49

Your submission at Articles for creation: BredaPhoto (November 3)

Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by Theroadislong was:  The comment the reviewer left was: Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit when they have been resolved.

• If you would like to continue working on the submission, go to Draft:BredaPhoto and click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window.
• If you need any assistance, you can ask for help at the Articles for creation help desk or on the reviewer's talk page.
• You can also use Wikipedia's real-time chat help from experienced editors.

Theroadislong (talk) 14:37, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Hello! Mikemorrell49, I noticed your article was declined at Articles for Creation, and that can be disappointing. If you are wondering why your article submission was declined, please post a question at the Articles for creation help desk. If you have any other questions about your editing experience, we'd love to help you at the Teahouse, a friendly space on Wikipedia where experienced editors lend a hand to help new editors like yourself! See you there! Theroadislong (talk) 14:37, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Mikemorrell49, I took a look at your BredaPhoto article an NlWiki via Google Translate. It looks like you solved the problem of Speedy Delete G11: Unambiguous advertising or promotion. I didn't closely examine the sources you cited, but it looks like some of them are newspapers or similar Reliable Sources. An international festival which was attended by 80,000 people last year, and which has run ~bi-yearly for 14 years, is almost surely Notable. EnWiki likes sources in English because they're more helpful to English-readers, but foreign language sources are absolutely acceptable. The initial draft submission apparently didn't include sufficient references to show that it was Notable, and the deletion reason was the promotional writing.

If you want to try again you could start a new draft, or you could ask Ad Orientem to undelete the original Draft:BredaPhoto for improvement. I would suggest adding references to the second paragraph. Alsee (talk) 07:02, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Teahouse talkback: you've got messages!

Hello, Mikemorrell49. Your question has been answered at the Teahouse Q&A board. Feel free to reply there!
Please note that all old questions are archived after 2-3 days of inactivity. Message added by David Biddulph (talk) 17:52, 6 November 2017 (UTC). (You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{teahouse talkback}} template).

Your Teahouse help

Wikipedia - a welcome cuppa

Hi, I just wanted to say how nice it was to see your reply at the Teahouse today. It's great to have someone so admittedly new to Wikipedia offering their support to another editor who is struggling. It's a brave thing to do and much appreciated, I'm sure. I suspect your Wikipedia journey is going to be very much like my own - it becomes more and more rewarding the deeper your involvement goes. (6 years later and I'm still learning so much). I hope you stick around, so here' a welcome cup of tea for you. With very best wishes and regards from the UK, c (talk) 22:48, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

Hi Nick, Alsee kindly pointed out that you may not have been notified of my initial response to your kind words. Just so that you know that I'm not intentionally unresponsive, I'm notifying you again. Thank you for your kind comments - and the cup of tea :). I started out at Wikipedia for all the wrong reasons (self-interest in publishing a page) and with no clue about it's mission or standards so it's been - and still is - a steep learning curve. I well understand any new editor's 'cry for help'. I've made similar cries too and still do on occasion. I think it's worthwhile that in addition to experienced editors, newbies share their experience and help each other out too. From your user page, I see you have an impressive list of contributions and that you've curated some excellent Wikipedia resources (tools, tips, guidelines). I've added your user page to my watchlist so that I can easily find it and come back to it for reference. Mikemorrell49 (talk) 10:37, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

Mike, you probably don't know about ping/notification/mention yet. People (usually) don't watch your talk page for replies, so there's a good chance Nick didn't see what you wrote. If you mention someone in a certain way, it sends them a notification. We often call that a ping. What you can do is include a link to someone's [[user:NAME]] or a link to their [[user_talk:NAME]] in your message. You have to include the link and sign ~~~~ in the same edit. Adding a link or signature in a separate edit does not work. I usually find it convenient to copy-paste the link from their signature. For example I would copy-paste [[User:Mikemorrell49|Mikemorrell49]] to mention you.

Another tip is the Pipe Trick: [[User:Mikemorrell49|]] automatically becomes [[User:Mikemorrell49|Mikemorrell49]]. [[Draft:XYZ|]] will save as [[Draft:XYZ|XYZ]]. [[WP:COI|]] will save as [[WP:COI|COI]]. Ending with the | will copy the part after the colon, which displays more nicely than an unpiped link. And naturally you can use the pipe trick when mentioning someone (if you're not copy-pasting the link). Alsee (talk) 07:44, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Hi Alsee, my sincere thanks to you for helping me learn how to mention people in my responses so that they are notified of the response. I've not come across your clear explanation so far in the help files I've read. But there are of course very many. One of my interests is how new editors learn to become 'Wikimedians', how this 'learning process' works and perhaps could be improved. It gives me a great sense of community and support that you took the time and trouble to help me personally. Much appreciated! My thanks and kind regards, Mikemorrell49 (talk) 16:36, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Your ping worked. Regarding the process for new editors, you might want to take a look at WP:ACTRIAL. The "normal" process is that a brand new editor can just click edit on an empty page to start a new article. Those new articles are often on non-notable topics, and commonly have assorted other serious problems. The community struggles to review/clean-up/delete the new pages, and it's generally a very bad experience for a new editor when their first interaction is having their page deleted. A few years ago the community reached consensus for a trial to restrict new page creation to Auto-confirmed users. (An account gets autoconfirmed status after 10 edits + 4 days old.) The Foundation refused, because of the philosophy of Wikipedia being as open as possible, and because they feared it would diminish the inflow of new contributors. Recently the Foundation agreed to give it a try, and we're in the middle of a six month trial. I *think* you experienced it when you created the BredaPhoto draft. Currently, when a new user tries to create new article they go through a few pages of introductory information, then they can create the page in draft space. The Articles For Creation process reviews it for any issues that need to be fixed before (hopefully) promoting it to an article page. We're hoping that it cuts down our workload and improves the new user experience.

Thanks again, Alsee. I understand why and how some new editors go about creating new pages with too little info, the work this creates for the community and how some new editors get frustrated by the (valid) feedback they get. I ran into the auto-confirmed trial too and I initially tried to circumvent it by using an older account. It's good to hear that people are working to improve the standard process. Where I can help, I will. I'll refresh my memory on what info new editors get when they try to create/edit a new page.Mikemorrell49 (talk) 11:30, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

A minor point but you probably want to see this edit&summary. In case you've never heard of citogenesis, this XKCD helps illustrate why we consider unsourced to be better than Wikipedia-sourced. Chuckle. Alsee (talk) 18:15, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

No, I'd never heard of citogenesis but this is a very good point, Alsee! I'll bear it in mind.

Hi, Mikemorrell49. I'm afraid I missed your reply to me. Sorry about that. I appreciate your story, and found your subsequent conversation threads with Alsee very interesting indeed. In no way do I consider myself yet to be a fully competent Wikipedian, but I do wish I'd done what you have done and had started to share and help others much earlier on in my journey here. I think trying to be a good teacher at the help desks or on Talk Pages are great ways to learn, too. I am aware how jaded on can become when constantly fighting vandalism and intentional damage, and I do try (but probably don't always succeed) to consider how those making their first steps here must feel, and not to assume their damaging actions are intentional. You've clearly made that big leap to become a valuable contributor here in a very short time. Regards from the UK, Nick Moyes (talk) 00:55, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

New wikitext mode

I noticed you changed your preference to opt-in to the new wikitext mode. If you're happy with it, okey. Although there are some issues you may want to be aware of. EnWiki has a 90+% consensus against the new editor being rolled out as the default wikitext editor. There's a long backstory, but I'll skip to the current result. The WMF decided to build the new wikitext editor inside VisualEditor code. Result: The new wikitext editor is slower to load and preview, especially on large articles (it's slower for some people than others). The previews also have assorted inaccuracies, and the new editor suffers from other assorted problems and limitations of VisualEditor.

I suggest you go to the United States article, time how long it takes to load, add a space, and preview. (Note that the preview incorrectly shows a giant speaker in the infobox.) Then try turning off the new editor in beta-preferences and check how long it takes to load & preview the same article using the regular wikitext editor. Alsee (talk) 20:03, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, Alsee. I had clicked on the preference option without knowing what it was. I'd just assumed I'd see some extra options somewhere. Now that I've tried it out and seen what it adds (and doesn't) to the Visual/Source editors and the additional load time, I've disabled it. If I had the time (which I don't) it would have been interesting to read how the WF arrived at this solution and what input/feedback led them there. FYI: I'm also doing some real editing work and not just talking about it :) Mikemorrell49 (talk) 11:57, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

"it would have been interesting to read how the WF arrived at this solution and what input/feedback led them there". Chuckle. I had included some of that when drafting my last comment, but I deleted it to avoid a long rambling post.

First, I would compare "writing an encyclopedia for fun" to skydiving. It's an odd hobby which has zero appeal for the average person.

The WMF had data showing that the vast majority of people who try clicking the EDIT button quit without editing. Then WMF did some research. They grabbed a bunch of random people who had never edited before, and asked them to try editing. One of the primary responses was it was scarey and confusing. The WMF decided wikitext was the problem. They decided that if they could get rid of wikitext then huge numbers of "regular people" would show up and start contributing. The vision was that VisualEditor would be the editing interface, and talk pages would be replaced with more conventional forum-type message boards.

• Tangent: You used the forum-type message board here. The original name was Flow, and that's still what everyone calls it. However the WMF recently renamed it to "Structured discussions". Flow was designed to be a chat-board, neglecting the fact that talk page are a wiki workplace. One of Flow's most notable problems is that it does not have proper wikitext support. Just before the Flow prototype was built, the community screamed that it could *never* be deployed without proper wikitext support. The WMF ignored us. In fact the lead developer stated "I would dearly love to kill off wikitext". Flow is entirely built around the Visual engine. Flow renders some wikitext incorrectly - but it's far worse than that. When you save or preview, Flow has an invisible gremlin that rewrites your wikitext markup. Usually it's rewritten in a way that renders the same, but in some cases it can utterly destroy what you entered. Flow's wikitext-simulator is such an unholy-hack that it manages to break the simple revert button. Reverting an edit can literally damage the original content. The WMF ran a wildly-biased survey on Flow. The WMF sent a massive number of survey-invitations to everyone who had actively opted-in for Flow on their own user_talk, and the WMF posted a small number of survey invitations for general participation. (The community has a Canvassing policy declaring the illegitimacy of results obtained from selective-invitation of one side.) Even after the WMF stacked the survey as hard as possible with Flow-enthusiasts, they still only got 38% who preferred Flow over talk pages. Flow has been completely uninstalled from EnWiki, uninstalled from MetaWiki, and there is an in-progress consensus to uninstall it from CommonsWiki.

The WMF invested huge time and resourced building VisualEditor, and they invested a lot building Flow. After all of that time and all that work, the WMF culture developed an almost religious-like faith that Visual-everything would making editing easier and that it would bringing in new users. However the WMF did a controlled study. For two weeks half of new users were given the wikitext editor, and half were given links for both wikitext and Visual. The Visual group had exactly zero% increase in users making a first edit, zero% increase in new-user retention, zero% increase in total contributions. Editing in Visual was on average 4 times slower. The WMF declared those results as "positive", and since then they have ignored the data. In fact staff tend to get unpleasantly-defensive if you try to point their own research results. They tend to dig-in on denialism. They're sure that the research data is wrong because.... umm... because... because that study was a while ago and we don't have newer data.... and obviously Visual is totally awesome for new users.

I would make a comparison: Skydiving planes typically have bare benches, or skydivers just sit on the floor. The WMF decided to installing the latest first-class airline seats on a skydiving plane, expecting more people swarm in and start skydiving. Then the skydivers complain the fancy seats *get in the way* when you're wearing a parachute, and the fancy-seats get in the way when everyone is trying to move around the plane and jump out. The WMF thinks the established skydiving community is irrationally "change averse".

The community has resisted the WMF's efforts to shove out Visual as the default. This is interfering with their plan is to redesign the entire wiki around the Visual model. So naturally the WMF decided to build a new wikitext editor inside VisualEditor. That would force wikitext editors to work via Visual's software model, helping them switch the wiki software to center on the Visual engine. How do you fix broken Visual-previews, when the bugs are too hard to fix? Convert the wiki so that articles display using the Visual engine! *MAGIC* Visual previews won't be broken anymore! The WMF is making trade-offs that actively undermine wikitext work.

A large percentage of the strain between the community and the WMF is either directly or indirectly related to their vision of moving away from wikitext. The WMF believes they are working to serve the huge flood of new contributors who will magically appear when everythign is Visual... even if it means neglecting or battling existing editors. The WMF has diverted huge resources to these projects, starving work on things that the community does want and need. The WMF has been neglecting core wikitext systems. Ever since the WMF started building the Visual editor they have provided minimal support for wikitext and the wikitext-editor. There are problems with diffs we want fixed, but naturally the WMF is chasing Visual-butterflies instead. They'd rather build "Visual diffs". In some cases they are actively resistant to improving wikitext systems. They don't want to improve talk pages because (A) improved talk pages diminishes their sales-pitch for Flow, and (B) they consider talk pages a "legacy system", and they assume any work on talk pages would be wasted once they manage to push out a replacement. Alsee (talk) 18:55, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Interesting background info, Alsee,thanks for sharing this. I don't know how the new user trial was carried out and two weeks seems rather short. Just based on my personal experience at and outside of WP, I personally share the WMF's Vision that ever better 'visual editing' facilities is the way to go for the future. I don't really see any other option if the community is to become more diverse and sustainable in the long term. So I understand why the WMF is investing so heavily in it.

For me wikitext is comparable to HMTL. I really don't see any need for new Wikipedians to learn wikitext in this day and age. I'm sure that people who have already learned to use wikitext and feel comfortable with it are happy to keep using it. It's probably more flexible, you can do more with it and there are various wikitext templates and gadgets that help, if you hunt them down. I found this far from easy. And yes, new editors can learn wikitext by example and with good support from other editors like you. But it's probably no coincidence that my technical knowledge and skills are above average in the general population. I have some experience in configuring websites (Wordpress and other CMS's) so I'm not too phased by tech stuff that I don't understand yet. And I'm used to searching out what I need to know. These days, most people (other than IT-specialists/geeks) are used to using much easier markup tools. In programs like Word or in simple web content editors like Wordpress or on 'ready-made websites'. The user experience in these editors is designed to be easy. From one main editing bar, it's easy to find ready-made layout templates, styles and plugins. There's just one 'help' button. It's easy to import and position pictures, create tables, etc. The 'editing experience' is gradually becoming more intelligent and more interactive. Most editors have an option to 'show/edit the source' if users really need to (and if they can understand any of it) but most people never need to. So documentation software and web content management systems are designed to allow the user to focus on the content with easy to use tools for laying out the content.

As a new editor I've found the WP working environment (in general) to be 'quirky' and outdated in terms of user experience and integrated functionality compared with comparable web content management systems and collaborative working environments. I'm sure that many Wikipedians like 'quirky'. I don't. I too believe that things need to change if WP is to be sustainable and become more diverse. My impression (and it's no more than that) is that WP and the WPF seem to have a 'not invented here' culture. So the working environment seems to consist of a vast collection of gadgets and tools (including those for analytics and reporting) that were built and integrated by the community or the WCF themselves. WP tools seem to generate many lists. In general there are not many interactive tools (other than 'search') to find information based on user preferences, filters, etc. One of the main points I liked in the WCF's strategic direction 2017 was a greater willingness to partner with other organizations both in the wider 'knowledge/information eco-system'- excuse the phrase, I don't know a better one - and with other tech organizations.

I'm not under any illusion that 'visual editing' will bring about any sudden changes in the population of editors. But I do think that the more we can lower the 'entry barriers' (in terms of complexity, technical skills, guidelines, jargon, accessibility of 'help' information, etc.), the easier it will be in the future to recruit and retain new editors who are interested in contributing to the content but are averse to learning completely unfamiliar ways of working.

I like your skydiving metaphor but I think future Wikipedians shouldn't necessarily need to be skydivers. I don't see why editors at WP shouldn't enjoy the kind of user experience that they have at other comparable websites. The use of mobile devices is a steady trend and is likely to be critical in geographical areas where both WP penetration and technological maturity is low. To expand WP into these areas, easy mobile editing will become increasingly important. So although many people in the current (demographically skewed) community don't perhaps need ever better visual editing capabilities, future ones will IMHO. Long ago, part of my IT-degree courses was on the syntax and semantics of computer languages and compilers/interpreters. If Visual Editing is important, then it's also important that directly edited wikitext is interchangeable with that generated by (and interpreted) by the Visual Editor. In general, this shouldn't be a problem. But I can understand the WCF's policy not to extend wikitext capabilities beyond what the Visual Editor is capable of interpreting at any given time. So I can understand why development of the Visual Editor capabilities is 'leading'.

I respect the fact that everyone has different perspectives and opinions. Even though my experience at WP is limited, I just wanted to add mine. Regards, Mike

Mikemorrell49 (talk)

Belated thank you to your advice for my article Catherine (1963 Novel)

Hi Mikemorrell49, coming back to your answer at the Teahouse some days ago for my question: Who will help me with my article rated C link to my article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_(1963_novel)

Please excuse me that I have not thanked you yet for answering my request for help at the Teahouse some days ago. Just this once I was terribly busy with other things going on and I could not come back. I appreciate very much that you answered me and I have copied your suggestions and shall try to fix and change what is possible. I do admit that I get carried away once I start writing, I really thought I had to bring everything I knew because the first moderator said it was not enough. No no, I do not blame him, we only learn from mistakes. I am happy if that article will be considered useful, because the late author, deserves it. Were she still alive she would have been so delighted to see that now on the English Wikipedia is an article about her very first international Bestseller. She wrote 86 most successful books. It would be nice if you would have a look later on on that article of mine. I always appreciate good advices well meant. Have a lovely weekend and best to you. Laramie1960 (talk) 13:13, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Hi Laramie1960, you have no need to aplogolise. I've been away from WP doing other things too. But I do appreciate your 'thank you' and I'm glad my suggestions were helpful. I'm also glad to hear that you are willing to learn from 'mistakes'. But these are not really 'mistakes' at all. We all work with good intentions (at WP and elsewhere) based on what we know. 'Rejections' are just a form of 'feedback' that we need to know/learn more. I've only written one WP article and I found the 'learning process' difficult and often frustrating. The folks at WP do their best to make the learning process for new editors as gentle, effective and efficient as posssible. But the 'learning environment' is still far from ideal. The teahouse is a great friendly place to ask questions and get help. I will take a look at your article later on. I hope you stay at WP and I wish you the best in learning and publishing at WP! Mikemorrell49 (talk) 11:58, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Hi User talk:Mikemorrell49 It is true, the Teahouse is really a friendly place to ask questions and where we also get great and friendly help. I will stay around and will try my luck soon again with a new article I promise. Yet before that, I am still very concerned that my article will be as good as possible. There is still the REVIEWS section with this text:

This section is in a list format that may be better presented using prose. You can help by converting this section to prose, if appropriate. Editing help is available. (November 2017)

I know it is maybe not the best moment in the year to ask of you to have a look at my article, but I would appreciate it very much. Sending best wishes for the coming festive days, Laramie1960 (talk) 18:32, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

A Barnstar for You!

		The Excellent New Editor's Barnstar A new editor on the right path
		I am so impressed with your thoughtful contributions; willingness to learn some basics Wikipedia first, before diving in; and your positive attitude. Welcome!   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) 01:30, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

Teahouse talkback: you've got messages!

Hello, Mikemorrell49. Your question has been answered at the Teahouse Q&A board. Feel free to reply there!
Please note that all old questions are archived after 2-3 days of inactivity. Message added by Lightbluerain❄ (Talk💬 Contribs✏️) 12:46, 19 January 2022 (UTC). (You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{teahouse talkback}} template).

AfC notification: Draft:Obayomi Anthony Ayodele has a new comment

I've left a comment on your Articles for Creation submission, which can be viewed at Draft:Obayomi Anthony Ayodele. Thanks! Theroadislong (talk) 15:36, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: Obayomi Anthony Ayodele (January 20)

Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by Greenman was:  The comment the reviewer left was: Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit when they have been resolved.

• If you would like to continue working on the submission, go to Draft:Obayomi Anthony Ayodele and click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window.
• If you now believe the draft cannot meet Wikipedia's standards or do not wish to progress it further, you may request deletion. Please go to Draft:Obayomi Anthony Ayodele, click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window, add "{{Db-g7}}" at the top of the draft text and click the blue "publish changes" button to save this edit.
• If you do not make any further changes to your draft, in 6 months, it will be considered abandoned and may be deleted.
• If you need any assistance, or have experienced any untoward behavior associated with this submission, you can ask for help at the Articles for creation help desk, on the reviewer's talk page or use Wikipedia's real-time chat help from experienced editors.

Greenman (talk) 20:58, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Your thread has been archived

Hi Mikemorrell49! The thread you created at the Wikipedia:Teahouse, How do I include Wikidata in a Draft Wikipedia article?, has been archived because there was no discussion for a few days. You can still read the archived discussion. If you have follow-up questions, please . See also the help page about the archival process. The archival was done by Lowercase sigmabot III, and this notification was delivered by Muninnbot, both automated accounts. You can opt out of future notifications by placing {{bots|deny=Muninnbot}} on top of the current page (your user talk page). Muninnbot (talk) 19:01, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Concern regarding Draft:Obayomi Anthony Ayodele

Hello, Mikemorrell49. This is a bot-delivered message letting you know that Draft:Obayomi Anthony Ayodele, a page you created, has not been edited in at least 5 months. Drafts that have not been edited for six months may be deleted, so if you wish to retain the page, please edit it again or request that it be moved to your userspace.

If the page has already been deleted, you can request it be undeleted so you can continue working on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia. FireflyBot (talk) 19:02, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Your draft article, Draft:Obayomi Anthony Ayodele

Hello, Mikemorrell49. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "Obayomi Anthony Ayodele".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been deleted. If you plan on working on it further and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thanks for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 18:55, 10 September 2022 (UTC)