User talk:Porpentine

Welcome!

Hello, Porpentine, 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:

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 and then place {{helpme}} before the question on your talk page. Again, welcome! --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 03:06, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

New users & Deletion debates

{{helpme}} Thank you so much for your welcome, Le Grand Roi. It is nice to get a welcoming gesture from someone on Wikipedia! I do actually have a question, or, more accurately, an issue that has been troubling me. I participated, as you probably know, in the vote/discussion that was taking place about the potential deletion of the Eve Carson page. Because I use Wikipedia so frequently, I had frequently wondered whether I should take the big step and make an edit, but had never encountered a situation in which my expertise seemed great enough to alter an article or opinion seemed strong enough to join in the discussion until this one. I also admit that I had heard that the Wikipedia editing community could be quite harsh to new users, and had some trepidations about that (although I hoped that it was untrue, or based on rather rare incidents). When I came back to see what decision had been made about the deletion, I found a prominent note in the discussion saying that my input should be ignored as mine was a single-purpose account. I was shocked and upset, to say the least, as no one in the academic community I work in has ever discounted my opinion so harshly and publicly for so little reason, and I had thought that Wikipedia was a considerably more idealistic and egalitarian community. So my question: what should I have done differently to avoid this rather insulting outcome? I wasn't aware that I had to make multiple edits on multiple topics so quickly after creating an account (which I only did a few days ago), and even if I had been, I would have felt uncomfortable working up edits I didn't really feel strongly about or have expertise in merely to justify myself as a "genuine" (as opposed to sock puppet -- which I most CERTAINLY am not) editor. Is it common Wikipedia policy to discount the opinions and contributions of new users (many of whom must, like me, be longtime members - as readers - of the Wikipedia community)? If so, I would strongly urge a change in policy or ethos, because I have now been transformed from a great champion of Wikipedia into a shocked and rebuffed first-time editor who may never edit again after this experience. I am very grateful, after this, to have received such a helpful and welcoming message, and would also be grateful for any advice you could give that would make me believe again in Wikipedia as an idealistic endeavor that is welcoming to new users like me.Porpentine (talk) 03:27, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Porpentine. First of all, I'm sorry to hear this has happened to you, and do apologize for it. The reasoning behind this is that we frequently have problems with users who, when they see a discussion not going their way, will create multiple accounts and use them to "sway the vote" to their desires. This has occurred in deletion debates such as what you participated in, in requests for adminship, and just in general content disputes. You saw a rather blatant example of this in the discussion - I'm quite sure User:Keepkeepkeep was a genuine single-purpose account, as that is a very odd name for someone to have who wasn't already involved somehow. Deliberately using accounts in this manner is disruptive and therefore strictly against policy, and users who are proven to be participating in such actions are generally blocked from editing indefinitely, which is partly why we take it so seriously.

Another part of this is that most new users who are here to contribute to the project don't immediately jump to deletion debates. The fact that your first edit was to an Articles for deletion page is very unusual. Editors who participate in those discussions were generally involved in the article as an editor, or are experienced editors who are fully aware of policies and how they relate to inclusion criteria, such as notability, neutrality, what Wikipedia is not, among many others. When we see a brand-new editor participate in these discussions, especially one that makes a motion to keep Article X, we do tend to wonder what the purpose of the account is.

Now, this isn't to say we treat all users this way, and in fact we do try to do just the opposite. We make an effort to assume good faith on the part of others whenever possible, and it's considered bad "Wikiquette" to "bite the newcomers." We have several programs set up to try and help coach newcomers in important policies and guidelines to get them started on the project, such as Adopt-a-User and the New contributor's help page, both of which I would highly recommend to you. I'm sure you'll find that most of the active editors on here are very friendly and willing to help out those in need.

Lastly, I want to assure you that this will in no way reflect poorly on your status as an editor. We all get off to rocky starts at times, but it's nothing to get hung up on. Again, I would recommend you take a look into the adopt-a-user program, which is an excellent way to get you started. If you have any more questions, feel free to let me know on my talk page, ask at the help desk or one of our other question boards, or simply put up another helpme template. I do hope you hang around and continue to edit for a while, but just to be on the safe side, you might want to avoid the deletion section for just a short while. ;-) I'm sure you'll make an excellent debater there in time, however! Happy editing! Hersfold

^(t/a/c) 04:17, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your speedy and very informative response, Hersfold. I want to make sure I understand you correctly: are there certain sections of Wikipedia (like deletion votes) in which it is considered inappropriate for new users to participate? If so, shouldn't that be clearly labeled at the top of discussion so that users like me don't feel stigmatized for the fact that they have an opinion as readers of Wikipedia about what should be included (although surely that opinion should be valuable as well as the long-time editors?)? I was led to the article by the fact that I have a distant connection to a very large community to whom the figure under discussion was very notable indeed, and was extremely surprised to see it nominated for deletion, so I thought (perhaps incorrectly?) that this was a good place to start my editing career. I had thought that deletion debates were increasingly a subject of interest to newcomers, who often feel a vested interest in maintaining a wikipedia that is as expansive in its bounds as possible. The source of my impression was this article in the New York Review of Books [1], which surely led many new users to join in deletion debates because of its sympathetic portrayal of that side of the debate. I am afraid that the knowledge that there are sections of wikipedia in which I, as a new editor, am not welcome (and the fact that there is no way I can see that I could have anticipated the suspicion I was greeted with when I tried to participate by presenting new points of view in a polite manner) makes me feel very reluctant to try my hand at editing again. On the other hand, I feel reluctant to confirm the suspicions that I was a mere single-purpose editor, so I feel caught between the rock of having had a very unpleasant first experience and the hard place of wanting to disprove the negative stereotypes that were applied to me.

Sorry for the long delay, I just got out of an exam. I'll answer your second questions first, since they were asked first.

There is a section on the AfD main page that addresses the problems of being a new contributor in a discussion, under "How to discuss an AfD": "Unregistered or new users are welcome to contribute to the discussion, but their recommendations may be discounted, especially if they seem to be made in bad faith (for example, if they misrepresent their reasons). Conversely, the opinions of logged in users whose accounts predate the article's AfD nomination are given more weight." I do admit it's not easy to find, but we do expect that people read instructions before participating, even though we know nobody actually does it. As for other areas that experienced editors are expected, there aren't any others that are immediately coming to mind - input from a wide range of editors is important in all of our discussions, and the only reason we get paranoid at Articles for Deletion is because of the way this has been abused in the past. However, please feel free to participate wherever you'd like. As I said, this in no way reflects poorly on your standing as an editor here - if you continue to edit, there will be no reason for anyone to make that sort of claim against you again.
The main objection was the newness of your account. Your argument, while it didn't completely relate to policy, was well reasoned and you did a good job in defending it. It was the fact that your first and only edits had been to that debate was what aroused suspicion.
Votes (or what we more properly call "not votes" or "!votes", since the decision is made on consensus and not simple voting) from new users are looked at just as critically no matter what the opinion is. We just happen to see a lot more sockpuppets voting to keep an article, because they're often created by the author of a page who doesn't understand policy and wants their page to be kept. We do get sockpuppets for all opinions, however, and occasionally a sockpuppet will be created for the sole purpose of advocating the opposite view of its creator, so that the creator's main account can throughly bash every point it makes to make their own argument stronger. Either way, it doesn't work very well.

I hope this helps to answer your questions. Let me know if you need more help. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 18:03, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]