User talk:Mervyn Emrys

Welcome!

Hello, Mervyn Emrys, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

• The five pillars of Wikipedia
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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! 10:10, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Law

Don't you see your damn book you are so fond of is already cited in "References"! Stop re-adding it in "Further Reading"! Some common sense at last!--Yannismarou (talk) 06:55, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Analysis

Mervyn Emrys, hi, I've been looking into the situation with Yannismarou to try and figure out where things went wrong. I'd like to start with an apology to you, since it appears you got the short end of the stick on this one. I hope you'll allow me to try and explain what happened, and that you'll be willing to give Wikipedia another chance!

I'm going to be making a few assumptions here, so if I get anything wrong, please don't hesitate to let me know... Basically, as regards the Law article, what appears to have happened is that since mid-September, you have been attempting to add some information,[1] and a relevant source.[2] Then you'd check the article a few hours or days later, see that the information and/or source had inexplicably disappeared, and so you helpfully added them back.[3] This continued for quite awhile, as you kept trying to add the source, [4][5] or the paragraph.[6][7][8][9]

Things were quiet for a couple weeks, then you tried to add the source again a couple days ago,[10] and Yannismarou blew up at you.[11] You replied to him in a similar tone,[12] and then started a thread at ANI, the admin noticeboard,[13] Wikipedia:ANI#Uncivil comments discourage participation.

What you may have been unaware of, is that each time you were adding the information, Yannismarou was removing it shortly afterwards. He was probably unaware that you were a professional, as he was also clearing out a lot of vandalism from anonymous editors at the same time. Also, since you didn't have a userpage, your name showed up as a "redlink" in his watchlist, which may have also led to some perception on his part that you were just another one of the vandals targeting the article.

Another probably-unknown-to-you point of stress, is that the Law article, previously identified as one of Wikipedia's best articles since early 2007, and one that has even been featured on the Wikipedia mainpage, was currently under review as to whether or not it should be allowed to maintain its coveted "Featured" status. So a full out review has been going on, at Wikipedia:Featured article review/Law, since mid-August. These reviews can be very stressful to the key editors on an article (such as Yannismarou), as their work can be mercilessly shredded and critiqued by other editors. This also probably had something to do with his impatience. From his point of view (this is my guess), he was fighting a multi-front war, trying both to keep the vandals and POV pushers out of the article, and also trying to satisfy the FA reviewers. In the case of your own edits, he kept seeing some redlinked editor he didn't know, add a book to "Further reading", when the book didn't need to be listed there, as it was already in "References". So he'd remove it. Then you, unaware as to why the information had been removed, kept re-adding it. He kept removing it, you kept re-adding it, and round the cycle went. He was also probably nervous that one of the FA reviewers would see the unneeded listing there, and that they'd add it to their critiques: "Unneeded book listed in Further Reading", so he was trying to avoid that, and it was stressful to him that he had to keep a close eye on the article and keep removing something that in his view didn't need to be there. What Yannismarou should have done somewhere along the line was to recognize that you were acting in good faith, notice that you were a new user, and he should have posted a brief note on your talkpage explaining the problem, which would have saved both your time and his. He could have also invited you to participate in a discussion at Talk:Law (which you can get to on any article by clicking on the "discussion" tab). However, he chose not to do those things. As for why, I can't really say, except that he may have just been overwhelmed with everything else going on.

In case you're wondering how I figured all this out, here were my sources of information:

• At your talkpage, in the lefthand "toolbox" menu, I clicked on "User contributions". This shows me every single thing you've ever done on Wikipedia. This "contrib list" can be checked at any time, for any user. Since I am an administrator, I do this routinely, multiple times per day, so can quickly spot patterns that tell me how experienced a particular user is, where they spend their time, and what kind of edits that they are making. Your list, though still fairly short, looks extremely good! It's a refreshing change from the lists of vandalistic edits that I often have to wade through.  :)
• At the Law article, I clicked on the "History" tab at the top of the page, which showed me every edit that's ever been performed on the article. Using my browser's "Search" function (in Firefox that's Ctrl-F), I searched on the name "Mervyn", and also clicked the "Highlight all" button at the bottom of the browser to make each occurrence easy to find.
• Also at your talkpage, I clicked on the "history" tab, to see all the posts that had ever been placed at your page, to see who has been talking to you (if anyone).

Anyway, I hope that this helps explain things a bit. I still can't say for sure why Yannismarou acted as he did, though I can assure you that he's not always like this, and that he's done a lot of wonderful work on Wikipedia in the past. He just seems to be more stressed than usual right now.

Based on what I've seen in your contribution history, you're definitely the kind of editor we want to have on Wikipedia, and again, I am very sorry that we seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot. Please, I hope that you'll give us another chance, as we'd really like you to stay.  :)

If I can answer any other questions, please don't hesitate to ask, --Elonka 23:03, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Dispute Resolution Process

Hi, just a quick note. The first real step in dispute resolution regarding civility is to try and iron things out directly between editors on their talk pages. As we cannot see "body language" in the typed word, there are often possibilities of misinterpreting what has been typed. If you cannot resolve your differences, it is then best to go to Wikiquette Alerts, where non-involved editors can look at both sides and hopefully say either "this looks like a problem", "this seems to be an misinterpretation", or even "I wouldn't go anywhere further with this" and either make suggestions, or at least help mediate. If WQA cannot assist, your next step might be WP:ANI, which is asking for direct intervention. Unfortunately, you seem to have missed the first 2 steps, and went directly to ANI - you can see that the results of the ANI that you filed have been rather negative on the Wikipedia project as a whole. Please try to assume good faith and work together to solve issues, rather than going right to "the police". BMW(drive) 11:41, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I think it's a bit of an overstatement to say that Mervyn Emrys's actions were "negative on the Wikipedia project as a whole". And, he did go to Yannismarou's talkpage. Personally, I think Mervyn's choice to go to ANI so quickly was perhaps a bit hasty, but also fairly effective. He presented his concerns concisely and understandably, and garnered the attention of other uninvolved individuals who have been helping to look at the dispute. Granted, it might have been better to spend more time first trying to communicate directly with Yannismarou, as well as going to the article talkpage to try and ask, "Hey, what's going on here, why do my edits keep being deleted?" But considering that Mervyn is a fairly new editor, I think his actions were reasonable. --Elonka 13:43, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Did you see the message he left on Yannis' talk page? It was anything but civil. Instead of "who the hell do you think you are," try leaving something civil like "Why do you keep reverting my edits?" This guy is a self-proclaimed professor, he should have known more than better. 207.80.142.5 (talk) 18:17, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I am in agreement that the tone could have been better, per WP:CIVIL, but I find it difficult to criticize Mervyn Emrys for incivility, when he was a new user who was simply responding in kind to the first message that he had ever received from another Wikipedian.[14] A message from an administrator, I might add. --Elonka 20:01, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Shouldn't he have assumed good faith in the admin instead of responding with such a hostile tone? For a college professor, he was awfully immature. Hell, I'm not even in college, and I don't think I would have responded like that. Suigetsu

Coal mining

Hi Mervyn Emrys, I was looking at the new admin noticeboard thread,[15] and saw there might be some confusion on something, so I thought I'd pop over to help clear things up... You seem to think that Mathsci deleted some text that you'd added to the Coal mining article. However, I checked the page history, and to my knowledge, Mathsci has never edited that article.[16] However, some information was removed, by me -- not because I disagreed with it, but because I was moving things around per the Wikipedia Manual of Style. For example, see summary style. What I noticed, was that there was some duplicated text which had been placed at both the Coal mining article and the Environmental effects of coal article. So, per our style guide, our preferred way of handling this is to keep the detailed information at the sub article (environmental effects), and then just include a few sentences which summarize it at the main article (coal mining), along with a link which directs readers to the detailed article. That's why at Coal mining#Environmental impacts, there is a link at the top of the section to the "main article". I also reworked the Environmental effects of coal article. Again, I didn't delete anything, but I did move some things around and add some section headers.[17] If you would like to further edit the article, please feel free! I hope that helps clear things up, --Elonka 20:21, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that helps. I like especially what you did on the Environmental Effects page. But doesn't leave much on the Coal Mining page. Slim pickins there.Mervyn Emrys (talk) 20:26, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, feel free to further expand it. Two or three more paragraphs in that section probably couldn't hurt. The trick is to make the section on the "master" page, give a brief summary of what's on the "sub" page, without out and out duplicating it. There's more info at WP:SUMMARY. BTW, you were definitely right on the US Government public domain stuff. Mathsci is an academic in Europe, so he was probably unaware. His behavior towards you was definitely inappropriate, and his account access to Wikipedia has been blocked for the next several days.[18] If you'd like, I can also go into the archives and delete any messages that he made which might have violated your privacy. Or, I can just leave things alone, whatever you're more comfortable with. Do you have a preference? --Elonka 20:33, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

GFDL

Hiya, just checking on your GFDL question. What this means, is that all information on Wikipedia is licensed under the GFDL license. In other words it doesn't belong to any particular editor, it belongs to the project. So once something is added to the project, if there's disagreement about whether or not it should be removed, it can't be removed unless there is a consensus among other editors to do so. Usually we have the opposite problem! Thousands of times a day, we have people add information that we don't want in the project, so we delete it on sight. But in the case of what you added, it's really good stuff, so we're going to hang onto it, heh. You (or any editor) are welcome to further copyedit it, move it around, condense, expand, etc., but just straight out deleting it is probably going to meet resistance, as you saw. We know good stuff when we see it.  :) Hope that helps explain, or for more information, you might want to read the page at WP:COPYRIGHT, --Elonka 21:14, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi!

Hi! I was just looking at your user page. I hope you won't leave Wikipedia! There are some strange and paradoxical things about how Wikipedia works, and to be honest I left Wikipedia myself at one point for a while in frustration at how some things work, but really it's a great project and can be very satisfying to contribute to once you get used to it. "The problem with Wikipedia is that it only works in practice. In theory, it can never work." (Zeroeth law of Wikipedia)

The conflict of interest policy says, "Using material you yourself have written or published is allowed within reason, but only if it is notable and conforms to the content policies. Excessive self-citation is strongly discouraged. When in doubt, defer to the community's opinion." So to some extent, one can cite one's own work, being careful to do so in an unbiassed manner. Another option is to post material to the talk page of an article with a suggestion that it be added to the article; then either add it to the article yourself if no-one opposes it for a period of time, or leave it to be added to the article by others if they consider it relevant etc. These methods can help if there are concerns about conflict of interest.

Wikipedia needs experts. I do hope you'll be willing to contribute. Feel free to post messages to my talk page, for example if you have any questions about how to do things on Wikipedia. Or just to say hi. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 21:16, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd just like to echo Coppertwig's sentiments; it's really great to have experts on Wikipedia, and I really think it's a real shame to get driven away by this. When I got started, I tried to edit within my own area of expertise (I hold a degree in linguistics), but got driven away by the frustration. But I came back, and I have really found the community atmosphere here appealing. While I can understand if you don't come straight back, I do hope you'll give it consideration in the future! —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 21:37, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

MathSci

ME, Wikipedia is full of misunderstandings between well-intentioned editors. Perhaps you are right that MathSci does not understand US copyright law, but his suggestion to consult with others is not an insult to you, it is a reasonable next step in reaching a resolution. I didn't see any evidence that he means you any harm. Aside from what you claim about US copyright law (I say "claim" because I do not know the law and have not spoken to a lawyer, do not take it personally, I would use the same language to mathSci or anyone else), Wikipedia has to bend over backwards to be sure it does not violate copyright or plagarize and i think matchSci was trying to be prudent. I also see evidence that he was trying to find a way to help ensure that content you consider relevant could be included in the article. One final thing: I didn't see anything that he wrote that is harmful to you but if YOU feel he did write anything that "outs" you (the reason he was blocked) you can go to a Wikipedia Bureaucrat and ask for someone with "oversight editing ability" to delete anything written about you that you believe violates our privacy policies ... I am not 100% sure but I believe that you do not have to go through a big ArbCom case or even AN/I if it is a clear violation of privacy. the point (in the case of oversight editing) is not to punish another editor but to protect your privacy and Wikipedia does have mechanisms for doing this. If you need help let me know and I would be glad to help you. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:12, 18 October 2008 (UTC)