User talk:Willietell

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ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

Hello, Willietell. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

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If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

RC Patrol-related Proposals in the 2016 Community Wishlist Survey

Greetings Recent Changes Patrollers!

This is a one-time-only message to inform you about technical proposals related to Recent Changes Patrol in the 2016 Community Wishlist Survey that I think you may be interested in reviewing and perhaps even voting for:

Further, there are more than 20 proposals related to Watchlists in general that you may be interested in reviewing. (and over 260 proposals in all, across many aspects of wikis)

Thank you for your consideration. Please note that voting for proposals continues through December 12, 2016.

Note: You received this message because you have transcluded {{User wikipedia/RC Patrol}} (user box) on your user page. Since this message is "one-time-only" there is no opt out for future mailings.

Best regards, Stevietheman — Delivered: 01:11, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello

As you know, collaboratively working on building an encyclopedia is an ever-learning process, for both of us. I recently have read more throughly Wikipedia practices and guidelines, as well as some Noticeboard archives to better understand the processes. I have noticed that as per WP:ASPERSIONS, pointing to misbehavior without citing specific links, or using public talk pages to do so rather than concerned user pages, ARB or ANI, is discouraged, as it may be perceived as a personal attack. Although I could have also provided direct links as evidence to support my claims, it also appears that rehashing old misbehevior examples, with linked examples or not, may be considered uncivil and is therefore discouraged. Another editor also pointed out that I was rehashing old material. I hence want to present my apologies for having done so recently, and will use your user page in the future to contact you for such matters, which is the proper avenue.

That said, I still strongly encourage you to open and/or participate to talk pages discussions for content matters, which was the most important message in my rant. I will finish with comments about WP:NPOV and WP:RS. It is very important to understand that "Wikipedia's voice" is encyclopedic, which implies discussing topics from a third party point of view. Here is a humorous example :). But by extension, Wikipedia's WP:NPOV rule is not necessarily neutral in the sense that all possible point of views must have equal weight, it must report in a third party voice what notable WP:RS say. It also may happen that the best reliable sources of information to our disposition may appear "worldy" to a Jehovah's Witness.

Wikipedia cannot, in its own tone, claim to the world as facts, beliefs which are not necessarily commonly established knowledge. It is fine to have an article about a notable organization which also describes their notable beliefs, practices, and even controversy, if they're world-notable. We could say that the Jehovah's Witnesses article represents what the general public or notable experts know about the religion and that it could never have the tone, or present the unique position, of an article from the Watch Tower itself. It would also be inadequate to present beliefs of the religion as historical or scientific knowledge. On scientific topics, you will notice that Wikipedia's voice can make direct claims to common knowledge for which there is scientific consensus, without always needing to attribute claims, but they must still be sourced, and be free of original research, they can only represent the view of qualified, notable experts. Some could call this a double standard, but the reason is that those statements represent the best explanations we currently have to explain the evidence in those fields.

Here is an exemple [1] of a POV sentence, in Wikipedia's tone, corrected to an NPOV one (I am not suggesting that this POV example is one of your own edits). And here is why: Wikipedia cannot claim that those events actually occurred, then were recorded, although an article like Historicity of the Bible could discuss this topic. Why? Partly because there is great discrepency between the style and motives of Gospels and historic records, claims of incredible supernatural events which would also require incredible evidence which we do not have. But it's still not to us to decide this; on the other hand, this is an important, WP:NOTABLE miracle for Christians, enough to deserve an article, and this article still clearly mentions the source, and specifies, "according to the Gospel, [...]". Still, the article would be even better if it used a notable theological source discussing the topic, instead of only relying on the primary text of the Gospel.

Here is a last example [2] of long-term POV (or possibly WP:Advertising in this case) which has recently been noticed and removed by another editor, on the Tenczynek article. Why was this change appropriate? Reason: Is this village large enough, or notably unique enough to require a particular demographics section, other than Poland#Demographics, Poland#Religion and even Religion in Poland which we already have? Actually, it also lists a company name, which probably has the same issue, although it's harder to immediately verify if it's warranted; but as you can see, it is obviously suspect. One may even question if the village is notable enough to have an article, but I'm not the one who could determine without doing some research on Poland. We even have WP:DIRECTORY such that Wikipedia doesn't include tons of large directories full of non-notable items (and links to unexisting articles, or to small stub articles on items not notable enough to even exist). Finally, we all have to deal with the WP:COI issues, and this does not make us enemies. But I suggest, although I'm by no means Wikipedia's official voice, that Wikipedia itself also has its own bias: verifiable knowledge.

It's possible that you already know all of this, in which case my text may seem like a boring and useless sermon. But I'll assume otherwise and hope a better understanding is possible in the future. Have a good day, 76.10.128.192 (talk) 06:26, 15 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]