User talk:Guffydrawers

Constructive discussion very welcome

blue Party

Hallo.

Ich habe eine Frage zu dem von dir editierten Artikel. Warum löschst du meine Bearbeitung. Es ist eine vollständige Übersetzung des ORIGINALARTIKELS.

Es macht keinen Sinn einen englischen Artikel zu haben der nur ein Rudiment des Originals ist. Entweder man macht eine Kurzbeschreibung und einen Link zur Originalseite (welche dann auch im englischen lesbar gemacht werden kann) oder man macht gleich eine vollständige Übersetzung. Dein Artikel ist weder das eine noch das andere.

Gruß

S. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Schellhörnchen (talk • contribs) 07:36, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

The above is a question from a WP contributor, who wishes to know why I trimmed the article on English WP on The Blue Party (Germany), a minor, unsuccessful and short-lived German political party, rather than use a translation of the lengthy article on German WP.

I responded on the contributor's talk page, expressing my opinion on notability of the subject in an international context: enough for an article, but not for an exhaustive article. It seems that the article's subject was not reported by English language media, except for two short articles by German state broadcaster Deutsche Welle. The Blue Party received brief media attention in Germany in 2017-2019 as it was to be the political vehicle for Frauke Petry after she left the AfD. The Blue Party did not gain traction, received a miserable number of votes in the couple of local elections it fielded candidates for, and soon folded without leaving an appreciable mark on German politics at either local or national level. To my mind it does not merit an in-depth exposition on English Wikipedia. Regards Guffydrawers (talk) 08:11, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

My Answer: Hello. I think that there should be a German main article in the interests of uniformity. This can be translated into the language of the reader. I also think that an international reader can make a brief opinion from the summary at the beginning and go into more depth if necessary. I think you can trust people to be able to do that. A detailed German article and a reduced English version is an unnecessary redundancy, making the depth unnecessarily difficult for the interested reader when reading the shortened article in English. I think a German main article is completely sufficient. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Schellhörnchen (talk • contribs) 09:36, 1 September 2021‎ (UTC)

People looking subjects up in Wikipedia have a wide range of needs. Some want a short summary, some want depth. Some already understand much of the background, some don't. An article on German Wikipedia is not necessarily written to ensure that a reader in any other part of the world grasps it in its entirity. The authors are prone to assuming familiarity with events, culture and concepts that people outside that linguistic sphere may not have. Wikipedia exists to serve readers with a range of different needs and backgrounds, not merely as a temple to definitive knowledge.

I disagree with "a reduced English version is an unnecessary redundancy". Consider the German WP article Happy Days; it is a lot shorter and less detailed than Happy Days on English Wikipedia. This does not make the German entry redundant and it would not be popular if you removed articles from German WP and redirected the users to a definitive English article. The German article is shorter because the TV series was hardly screened in German-speaking countries, whereas in many English-speaking countries it was shown again and again for decades. The likelihood is that a German-speaking reader would appreciate a short overview of the subject in her/his first language rather than an in-depth guide in another language or via a shonky machine translation. The profession of translator is far from obsolete as free online translation services are still very poor compared to a human versed in the subject matter and language pairs. For example, these two sentences are from the German article Die blaue Partei via Google Translate. To me they are as clear as mud:

"More people should be activated again for the events and developments in the country and connected to democratic design options."

"participating citizens were also able to get on the corresponding state lists of the state associations in order to represent the elaborated programs in the sense of the citizens' forum in the event of an election success"

The original German may be a lot clearer, but the point of the English WP article is to impart knowledge in a comprehensible form to those who don't have German as their first language. The length of the article should be proportionate to the notability of its subject for the target audience.

Regards Guffydrawers (talk) 09:53, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

A sharp distinction

In my view, and I hope in the minds of all Wikipedians, is a sharp distinction between two kinds of action with respect to neutrality.

One is to arrive with a point of view, to champion it by finding materials to support it, and to suppress materials that oppose it. That is partisanship, and any editor who continues in that way deserves to be blocked. A mild form of that would be to arrive at an article, see one's favourite point of view, and champion it by splashing it over the article's lead to the exclusion of other points of view. That is poor editing.

The other is to document the positions of scholars on all sides, and perhaps journalists and other authors on a topic, from reliable sources, and then to summarize the situation clearly in the lead section, however much some parties may find that uncomfortable. That is not taking sides: or if it is, it is the side of verifiable evidence against partisanship, fake news, and all forms of those things such as political extremism and religious nationalism. It is the duty of Wikipedia editors to be on that "side". Anything less is basically bowing to the loudest voices, which means caving in to falsehood. We should not be afraid to stand up and say things as they are. We can get if need be get pages protected temporarily, or if the trouble continues, we can get the troublemakers permanently blocked and the pages permanently protected. Without clear statement of how things are, Wikipedia is compromised. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:04, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Very good points and very well put. It the particular case of Chicken tikka masala I'm inclined to believe it's wise to let the reader decide which origin story they regard as most likely as the sources are quite different and the assertions not necessarily derived from hard evidence. If consensus is to state prominently which version is better proven then I bow to that. I'm just concerned that it may inflame passions unnecessarily. The body is where the origin stories are laid out and supported with citations, so we're not concealing anything, just asking the reader to read the article rather than explode when skimming the lead paragraph. I mean well! Best regards Guffydrawers (talk) 16:32, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

CS1 error on C. J. Henderson (American football)

Hello, I'm Qwerfjkl (bot). I have automatically detected that this edit performed by you, on the page C. J. Henderson (American football), may have introduced referencing errors. They are as follows:

• A "bare URL and missing title" error. References show this error when they do not have a title. Please edit the article to add the appropriate title parameter to the reference. (Fix | Ask for help)

Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, Qwerfjkl (bot) (talk) 15:49, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

The error was actually introduced by an IP user on 24 October, who deleted parts of an existing ref. I have now fixed it completely. Guffydrawers (talk)