User talk:Dolby 25

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Hello, Dolby 25, 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:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on talk 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 {{help me}} before the question. Again, welcome! Pro66 (talk) 17:30, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Re: Ecclesfield Wikipedia page

Hi and welcome to Wikipedia. Let me start by assuring you that your stay here will not be happy or productive if you intend to try to get your way by threatening other editors. In this case your threats are empty threats as my work on the Ecclesfield page is only as an editor—I have not used any of the administrator tools on that page, so the "senior moderators" that you invented would not be in the least bit interested, even if they did exist. Putting aside your threats, I will extend you the courtesy that you did not extend to me and politely address the points you raise about your additions the Ecclesfield article.

You say that you did not include any unattributed trivia: The creators of Wikipedia chose to run the site through community consensus, and the editing community has come to the consensus that it is extremely important to the goals of Wikipedia that all information added to articles be verifiable with reliable sources (note, these links will take you to the Wikipedia pages where these policies are discussed). So by attribution I mean telling the reader where you got the information you posted from, which you did not do. There is code to help you with this, but, simply giving the source in parentheses would be fine—someone else can then format it for you later. With regard to trivia, the content that you added is in list form rather than being written as prose—each segment consists of one or two sentences forming an individual factiod; each factoid being apparently unrelated to those before and after, meaning that the article does not read in a coherent manner. It was an error on my part to call these factoids trivia, however new editors often add such lists of miscellaneous information to articles and they are generally referred to by more experienced editors as trivia sections (and sometimes even labelled as such).

You write about respect for other peoples contributions: I agree that showing respect for other peoples contributions is important, but in this case I think that the pot is calling the kettle black. The manner in which you added information to the article showed no respect for the content that was already in the article before you edited. You made no apparent effort to integrate your additions into the content that was already there, and indeed you have expressed your disdain for what was there before. For example you write about geography (distance from Sheffield, boundaries etc…) yet a geography section already existed; wouldn't it have been better to expand the geography section instead? In another factoid you talk about the history of the church, again this was already discussed in the history section, perhaps you could have expanded that section instead. I probably over reacted in completely reverting your edits, but the manner in which you added information came across to me as very arrogant, as if you viewed your own writing as so much better than anyone else's so it should all be at the beginning of the article without any regard for the rest of the article. In fact it left me questioning whether you had even read the rest of the article.

You equate 'flowery language' with journalism: I am not going to argue whether that is or is not the case, but Wikipedia is not a newspaper, it is an encyclopedia; as reference works the style of writing in encyclopedias is intentionally drier than that found elsewhere. Writing concisely and avoiding 'flowery' language makes it much easier for the reader to be able to find the pertinent information that they are looking for. I invite you to read some of Wikipedia's featured articles, these are those articles that have undergone a review process and are considered by Wikipedians to be amongst the best in Wikipedia, I do not think that you will find places described as "quaint villages" or retaining "olde world charm" anywhere in these articles, except in the cases where a named reliable source is being quoted directly. As you can see from the tag that another editor has placed on the article, the language that you used makes the article appear to readers as an advertisement for Ecclesfield, which leads the reader to question our impartiality. Wikipedia has a 'cousin' site called Wikitravel that is much better suited for this style of writing.

For now I have not removed your additions again, instead I invite you to read the UK wikipedians guidelines on how to write about settlements and then edit your contributions such that they integrate better into the structure of the Ecclesfield article and sources are cited as needed. —Jeremy (talk) 21:55, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

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Jeremy,

Thank you for your well thought-out, and rather detailed reply. Evidently you are incredibly keen on moderating the quality of Wikipedia articles, and invest much time into doing so. On one level, as a professional journalist and editor I have every sympathy with your desire for accuracy and protocol. May I say I commend your now-revised approach to dealing with this issue by engaging in discussion and dialogue with me. Although I don't agree with all your points -- and some things you say aren't accurate -- that's good of you. And I appreciate your clarifications. A few responses, initially:

Point 1: You say: Putting aside your threats, I will extend you the courtesy that you did not extend to me and politely address the points you raise.. Forgive me if I find that rather ironic; may I remind you, you began this exchange by abruptly deleting the entirety of my page contributions without so much as a question -- and then made condescending comments about my personal writing style. That is hardly politeness. Nevertheless, thank you for conceding your response was 'over the top'. I quite agree. I am glad you took up my invitation to discuss this.

Point 2: Subsection editing: Let me make it absolutely clear at the outset - the reason for me not hacking into the pre-existing sub-headed sections of the page was motivated by precisely the opposite of arrogance. Again -- that's quite a reactive assumption to make. It was, in fact, because as a new Wikipedia user, I wanted to honour the work set out under headings by the previous contributor(s). I didn't want to change their work unduly. If indeed integrating new copy or amending existing copy in the subsections is the correct protocol here, that is absolutely fine with me, and, in fact, preferential. As an aside, the geography comments you highlighted as misplaced, were actually from the original page summary section, and I left them in the same place I found them.

Point 3. Summary section and writing style: I believe my amendments to the introductory summary were indeed an overall improvement on the pre-exiting two sentence 'factoid', as you phrase it. If I didn't, I wouldn't have made the changes. Perhaps we have slightly different priorities in what data we believe should be included or not? The local Conservation Society seemed to appreciate the updates I made.

Thank you for explaining the terminology about ‘trivia’, and clarifying what you were implying more clearly. I think your comments about my text not reading as prose is a little inaccurate. It is simply the case that I have not used relevant sub-headings. That's nothing to do with ‘prose’ or the ‘coherence’ of my writing. It is simply an oversight in page organisation because of my status as as new 'Wikipedian'. Again, I will happily amend this and attend to subheadings.

Point 4. Verification and sourcing: I of course will adhere to this direction, thanks for pointing out the site protocol. I will endeavor to refresh my copy, and update it with appropriate references and verifications as set out in the guidelines, asap. That's not a problem. I appreciated your kindness is supplying the relevant page links and websites to explain how this can be done. Very helpful - and much more constructive than simply deleting my contributions.

Point 5. I do note your point about narrative style differences -- and how an encyclopedia is not a newspaper. That goes without saying. Of course there needs to be precision and impartiality in the information we include for the reasons you gave. However, I would only say that - within the constraints of Wikipedia's verification policies -- we also need not be afraid of using the occasional adjective in our copy.

I don't presume the page needs to read like a travel brochure. Again, a massive exaggeration. I certainly have better forums to display my writing abilities in -- but I would simply draw your attention back to the Conservation Society's feedback. The correspondent said they 'enjoyed' reading the new page's update. I'd offer that, enjoyment in reading a Wikipedia article is no bad thing. And while adhering to the editorial values of factuality and conciseness, the reliability of data and the 'readability' of it need not be mutually exclusive.

In my opinion, the article previously read not only dryly - your own choice of phrase. It was utterly colourless and read less like a factual, interesting encyclopaedia article, and more like the instructions to an engineering manual -- totally devoid of any sense of culture, people, place or identity.

I do hope hereafter our association can be more amicable. In collaborative online communities, I find we all have strengths and weaknesses to bring to the table -- but if we all work together for the common good, while communicating well, there needn’t be any competition or hostility between us. We could even learn something from one another!

With kind regards, and thanks again.