User talk:Nemo Null

Nemo Null, you are invited to the Teahouse!

Hi Nemo Null! Thanks for contributing to Wikipedia. Be our guest at the Teahouse! The Teahouse is a friendly space where new editors can ask questions about contributing to Wikipedia and get help from experienced editors like Worm That Turned (talk). Visit the Teahouse We hope to see you there! Delivered by HostBot on behalf of the Teahouse hosts 16:08, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

Friends "Cultural Impact"

Hi,

In your comments on the revision history of the Friends article, you reverted my changes of a repeated fact, where you said you failed to see how it was a repeat and to explain myself. I made these edits in good faith, and I shall assume that your request for an explanation was also made in good faith. WP:AGF

The statistic is already highlighted in the ratings section of the article, and so is repeated in the next section with the inclusion of that fact.

Furthermore, the "Cultural Impact" section deals with the cultural impact of Friends, whereas that fact arguably relates more to the impact of 9/11. If it is to be included in the Cultural Impact section, it should also not be at the end of that particular paragraph, where all the rest of the text is dealing with how Friends impacted upon the evolution of the English language.

Hope this helps explain my thinking. (BillyDee (talk) 11:17, 12 August 2019 (UTC))

@BillyDee: I did not revert multiple changes. I reverted one singular change; an apparent erroneous content removal of a unique and noteworthy fact.

I unquestionably questioned the correctness of the edit, not the editor nor the faith of its actions.

I questioned apparent erroneous content removal, not the moving of content from one section to another (which you performed after my revert, outside of this discussion). I asked for an explanation in the edit description if the content removal was insisted upon, which it wasn't (since my assessment, and revert, was correct).

You claimed that you "Erased repeated 9/11 fact", and even marked it as a minor edit (which signifies that the current and previous versions differ only superficially in a way that no editor would be expected to regard as disputable). After my revert you claim that the alleged "repeat" was "highlighted" here, even though you moved the content there 90 seconds after your message above. There obviously is no "repeat", and never was.

Instead of quietly taking responsibility for your error like a constructive editor, you come to my talk page, repeatedly claim prior existence of duplicate content as false pretense for your content removal, try to lecture me on "good faith", and then seconds later add the content to the article that your claimed already existed there. I'm at a loss of words.

Nemo Null (talk) 17:23, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

@Nemo Null: I have never accused you of reverting multiple edits - either in my post on your Talk Page or on the Friends article page, so I am not 100% sure where you have got that suggestion from?

The factoid that you mention is cited in the rankings table - and indeed they cite the same source - so it is a repeated fact, as people can see the 17% increase from one season to another in the table grid.

As I said in my previous post on your talk page - irrespective of whether or not we think it is a repeated fact (and I am happy to agree to disagree on this one), it does jar at the end of a sentence talking about how Friends impacted on the English language. This is why I have moved it from "Cultural Impact" to "Ratings". I have been open and transparent as to why I have done that in my editing summary notes. I have not tried to cover my tracks, as you seem to be implying from your response to my message.

I do not deny that it is an interesting fact. This is why I moved it to the "Ratings". It is now stated explicitly in text, as opposed to implicitly in the table, and the sentence is now in a more relevant part of the overall article.

In your editing notes, YOU asked ME to "explain myself" by removing it in the first place, which is why I ended up on your talk page, as that is the only forum Wikipedia provides for such dialogue. I have had my additions removed or amended on numerous occasions during my time editing Wikipedia. I always take feedback from other editors on board, but I do respond if I am asked a question or for clarification. On this occasion, I was asked a direct question by you and I have responded.

BillyDee (talk) 11:39, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

@BillyDee: You wrote: "you reverted my changes of a repeated fact" (emphasis mine). Changes and edits are evidently the same thing, as you read the following statement as such: "I did not revert multiple changes. I reverted one singular change; an apparent erroneous content removal of a unique and noteworthy fact.". Thus you did accused me of reverting multiple edits.

It is not a factoid. It's a noteworthy fact. A fact that wasn't "highlighted in the ratings section of the article" at the time of my revert, as you falsely claim. You added the highlighting of the fact here, after my revert, and after your first post here. Demanding that readers deduce a fact from unavailable information (more on this later), or demanding that they read all the cited sources in the article to find noteworthy facts, is not to "highlight" a fact.

To repeat an implicit fact as a stated fact, and to repeat a stated facts twice, is not the same thing. The necessary numbers (viewership and dates) may be available in the table, to guess the 9/11 fact, but there never was a repeated stated fact. If every stated fact where to be removed as duplicates of implicit information, then Wikipedia would be unreadable (to anyone spare Watson and its ilk).

However, not all the numerical information used as the basis for the stated 9/11 fact is available in the table. The claim is evidently not based solely on the season-over-season viewership increase. To quote the cited source:

Scott Sassa, the president of NBC West Coast, also acknowledged that Friends gained some special advantage from the hunger among Americans for shows they loved, especially those they could laugh at, in the wake of Sept. 11. Friends fans returned in legion. Ratings increased 17 percent over the previous season. By November, NBC executives were no longer talking about not having the money to pay for one more year of the series.

See, they noted the viewership increase long before the season ended, and thus based the stated fact on episode-over-episode viewership increase during September and October. A season-over-season viewship increase of 17 % could have happened due to an increase in quality (or something else) during the spring part of the season, but it wasn't since NBC noted the increase before November. As such, even your claim that the fact is available "implicitly in the table" is false. You can not deduce the causal relationship between 9/11 and the viewership increase without the necessary information, and that information is not available in the table.

Your argument of the fact being "implicitly in the table" is doubly false, as correlation does not imply causation. Scott Sassa thus likely have more information at hand then the ratings, to make such a bold statement about causation.

Again: I questioned apparent erroneous content removal, not the moving of content from one section to another. Which you have implied twice now.

I did not accuse you of denying that it is an interesting fact.

I did not ask YOU anything. I asked any editor reading the edit description. Asking for clarification it in such a way has served me well in the past. Pretty much always the edit was in error or lacked information for other editors to understand the edit, and the revert is either left in place or the editor performs the edit correctly (like in your case; you moved the stated fact instead of removing it).

What I wrote in my edit description was this: "I fail to see how this is a repeat. Please explain." I never asked you to "explain [yourself]". That is language that bear strong negative connotations not present in my original edit description. Don't put word in my mouth, with fake quotes.

I did not object to you writing on my talk page. I objected to the content of what you wrote. Constructive feedback is welcome, lies and baseless accusations are not. Stop it with the straw man arguments and the lies. It's not constructive. Either answer the actual arguments truthfully, or don't answer at all.

As a longtime IP editor, I registered an account in the hopes of escaping the attacks against such users. What a spectacular failure that was. They didn't stop, they just got personal.

Nemo Null (talk) 20:33, 15 August 2019 (UTC)