User talk:TheEditrix2/1

I'm here to help. If you don't like my help, complain about me to an administrator. I'll delete, unread, any additions to my talk pages. (And will likely move any useful comments that post here -- despite my cranky warning -- to the Talk page of the relevant article.)

A better use of your energy[edit]

By the way, if you have the wherewithal to complain about my serious edits, spend your time instead editing these, the worst-written articles on Wikipedia:

Plant articles[edit]

Your cut-n-pasted edits are disruptive and against our conventions. I've blocked you for a short period so we can talk about it; if you don't want to discuss, then longer blocks are possible. Stan (talk) 20:09, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't do "cut-n-paste" edits, and "our conventions" is not a convention in WP. If you can't be specific, remove the block. And assume good faith. --TheEditrix2 20:12, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

[1] is a totally obvious cut-n-paste, and it's just one of many. Plus you didn't fix any of the redirects, so you made a mess of the links overall. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (flora) is the relevant convention. Stan (talk) 20:33, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're complaining about redirects? Redirects are not "cut-n-paste edits". The "convention" in play here is the convention Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names). Worth a read. The Flora convention applies only in specific cases of conflicting names. This is the general case. Or is there some superior "don't cut-n-paste when you can manually retype" prohibition with which I am unfamiliar? TheEditrix2 22:01, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, not complaining about redirects. What you've been doing is copying the content of an article at the scientific name (e.g. Prunus mexicana), turning that page into a redirect for the common name, and then pasting the information from the scientific name article into a common name article (e.g. Mexican plum). This is not simply making redirects, it's removing article content from its edit history. For legal reasons under the GFDL license, Wikipedia must maintain a proper edit history of all contributions to the content of its articles. By copying the content and pasting it elsewhere, you're making it harder to find that information. Further, WP:NC (flora) is quite clear. Additionally, it is common curtosy to suggest a page move first. If there is consensus, then use the move tab at the top of the page. For help, see Help:MOVE. --Rkitko ^(talk) 22:16, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I concur. I bumped into a similar problem at Prunus mexicana. TheEditrix2, please do not cut and paste articles. It takes a lot of time and effort to fix. Please consider making constructive contributions. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 21:46, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mexican plum is the common name, and the name under which the vast majority of users would conduct a search. It's the name that should appear under the category Plums, per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names). Please revert the change. TheEditrix2 22:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Kindly reread WP:NC (flora). It is a specific convention dealing with all plant taxa. This convention takes precedent because it has gained support of the community. --Rkitko ^(talk) 22:20, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Who is gonna mass-fix this mess now? Please discuss page movement before doing so next time. Also, if you do move a page, do it properly with the talk page.--Svetovid (talk) 21:51, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a "mess." It's now in compliance with WP conventions. And the hostility is unnecessary. TheEditrix2 22:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going through the contributions and rolling back the cut and paste moves. --Rkitko ^(talk) 22:16, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Uninvolved view[edit]

I've taken a look into this situation as an uninvolved admin, and my thoughts are as follows:

TheEditrix2 (talk · contribs) is most definitely not a vandal, and I am extremely saddened that she has been treated as such. She is overall a very good editor who has been on Wikipedia for years, with thousands of edits. Few people seem to know of her, because she often does wikignome work, categorizing articles and doing many other kinds of rapid-fire changes. We need editors like her.

In this particular case, there appears to have been a miscommunication. TheEditrix2 identified some plant articles which appeared to her to be misnamed, and proceeded in her usual fashion to do rapid-fire fixes. However, what she didn't know was that the guidelines for plant articles, are different than they are for other areas of Wikipedia. I had the same confusion as she did when I started looking into this, "Why are we putting plant articles at Latin names instead of common names?" Then I dug in and looked at the naming conventions for plants at WP:NC(flora), and saw that it's indeed different. I don't agree with it, but if that's the current consensus, I'll support it.

In TheEditrix2's case, the articles looked like they violated the other guideline that she was aware of, WP:COMMONNAME, and so she tried to fix things by moving them. However, page-moving has not been part of her prior wiki-experience, so she made a natural "new editor" mistake, she was bold and made copy/paste moves. Go ahead and look at her logs, she has never made a page move, in her years on Wikipedia.[2] For what it's worth, she appears to have been trying to be even more useful to Wikipedia, by trying something new!

However, when other editors at WikiProject Plants saw what she was doing, the alarm was raised,[3] and within the hour, TheEditrix2 was blocked.[4] But no one took the time to even place a simple courtesy note on TheEditrix2's talkpage.

Rather than blocking her, or immediately complaining at the WikiProject, better would have been if someone put a polite note on TheEditrix2's talkpage, like, "Hey, could you hold off on the moves, there's a special guideline there you need to be aware of." See WP:BLOCK#Education and warnings. If TheEditrix2 continued with rapid-fire moves at that point (which would have been obvious within minutes of placing the note, as to whether she stopped or not), a brief 15-minute block might have been appropriate just to get her attention. But she still should have been given the opportunity to stop on her own.

Also, rather than assuming that her copy/paste moves were a deliberate attempt at disruption, it would have been better if someone remembered WP:BITE, and actually explained to her how to do a page move (see WP:MOVE)

I am also concerned with some of the other above comments on her talkpage, which make assumptions that she's some kind of vandal. Like, "Please consider making constructive contributions." TheEditrix2 isn't a vandal! She's a longterm, extremely productive editor, though she did make a natural good faith mistake today.

Now, I do agree that something that may have exacerbated the situation, is TheEditrix2's userpage. TheEditrix2, to be honest, it looks like the kind of page that a vandal or other disruptive editor might make,[5] so if an editor reacting to you was moving fast, they might have glanced at your page, jumped to the conclusion, "Ah, this is a vandal account", and then proceeded straight to a block. TheEditrix2, you know, and I know, that your userpage (and the note at the top of your talkpage) have been there since 2006, but I strongly recommend that you change them, to avoid future problems. Better would be to have something like, "Hi, I'm TheEditrix2, I've been editing since 2006, I like working on (topics)", and maybe include some language boxes.

To the folks from WikiProject Plants, please remember that your guideline is contrary to what most of the rest of Wikipedia uses. You should give the benefit of the doubt to editors who disagree with it. Also remember that Consensus may change, and that if many editors are disagreeing with that guideline, you may not have the consensus for it that you think you do.

TheEditrix2, when all this blows over, I do hope you will continue with your work. Your contributions have been valuable, and we need editors like you in the project.

And Stan Shebs, you're a long time administrator, I hope you will consider apologizing to TheEditrix2 for the block. She didn't deserve it. --El on ka 09:03, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I quote from the top of this very page - "I'll delete, unread, any additions to my talk pages." What options remain? I was seeing hundreds of rapidfire edits, cut-n-paste moves with no fixing of redirects and so forth, no end in sight. There's simply no excuse for someone with thousands of edits not to know about page moves, article history, multiple redirects, project standards, etc. Not only am I not apologetic, I'm troubled to find anyone defending the bad behavior. If you think I should be de-adminned over this, just say the word and I'll volunteer to step down, save the trouble of going through process; it's not a role I particularly enjoy. Stan (talk) 12:31, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To my mind, "I'll delete, unread, any additions to my talk pages." changes everything. I would have left a talk page note if not for that (and it probably would have been before the blocking if I'm correct about the timeline). Kingdon (talk) 12:45, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(Uninvolved view 2) This user should not have been blocked without warning and if she/he was still blocked I'd unblock them myself. I agree the user page notices are snarky and asking for trouble and I'd strongly advise TheEditrix2 to consider changing it to something else to avoid this happening again in future. However, a snarky userpage is no excuse for not trying to communicate with a good faith editor before blocking. If the user had been left a message explaining the naming convention and that cut and paste moves are a violation of the GFDL etc but then continued making these edits, I would have endorsed a block but a preemptive block on an editor with no prior block history, nearly two years on the project, and more than two thousand contributions (including 100 talk space edits, despite the claim not to read talk page comments) seems like a massive overreaction to me. I also have concerns about the way this user has been treated like a malicious vandal rather than a good faith editor who made a good faith mistake. If this is how we are going to treat good faith contributors we're not going to end up with anyone willing to work on the actual encyclopedia. Sarah 13:39, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Uninvolved view 3: Quoting from Wikipedia:Blocking policy, "1. Preventing imminent or continuing damage and disruption to Wikipedia." I believe what Stan did was appropriate under the circumstances, and if I were unknowingly making rapid edits that damaged Wikipedia, I'd want someone to block me first and ask questions later. Again from that page, "Blocks are used to prevent damage or disruption to Wikipedia, not to punish users." That appears to be exactly what Stan was doing.--Curtis Clark (talk) 14:00, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Curtis, you're a member of WikiProject Plants too, as is Stan Shebs, the blocking administrator. I wouldn't call your opinion "uninvolved", and I'm getting increasingly concerned about Stan Shebs' uninvolved status as well. What this block is increasingly looking like, is retaliation by a WikiProject against another editor who "broke their rules". Normally I'd see this type of behavior in nationalistic disputes, but I guess the world of botanists has its own (pardon the pun) "turf" battles! Seriously though, if there are other cases of WikiProject editors teaming up like this, the WikiProject is going to take some heat. --El on ka 14:15, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Elonka, I'm increasingly concerned about your intervention in this issue, since it appears you have a bone to pick with the project. Your defense of TheEditrix2 rings hollow when you are willing to ignore all the hard work put in by other editors on these articles. Just because a group of editors identifies with a project, that doesn't make them a cabal, and it's no reason to devalue their contributions.--Curtis Clark (talk) 14:47, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What happened to WP:AGF? Throwing out accusations of retaliation or teaming up (and ignoring Curtis's quote "Blocks are used to prevent damage or disruption to Wikipedia, not to punish users.") does not look like assuming good faith to me. Stan made a judgement call, and I'm not convinced that he was wrong in principle (as I said elsewhere I think he should have stated the nature of the problems more clearly upfront). Lavateraguy (talk) 14:51, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I have to wonder, too, about taking WikiProject Plants to task on the user page of someone who isn't even a member. I'll post no more here (in fact, I'm taking the page off my watchlist). Elonka, if you have anything more to say about the Project, say it on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Plants and if you have anything more to say about me, please say it on my user page.--Curtis Clark (talk) 15:12, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh geez, the block was for a couple hours, so I could a) figure out how much damage was being done (in retrospect, not so much), and b) get the attention of what appeared to be a truculent and uncommunicative editor (and imho the initial response to my note bears out my guess). It has nothing to do with the WikiProject, I saw it on my watchlist first. Ironically, those who've debated naming conventions may recall that my position was generally in favor of TheEditrix2's choices. So come down on me if you must, but leave the project alone. Stan (talk) 15:37, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, as the one who "raised the alarm" at WikiProject Plants, I am not affiliated with that project and I would have left a polite note on the user's page except for her note that such things would be deleted. I did check her contribs and didn't assume she was a vandal, though her spate of cut and paste moves was alarming. I had hoped the project members could provide an informed 2nd, 3rd and 4th opinion and I'm sorry if my warning indirectly caused this brouhaha. I'd suggest, however, that Editrix's note on the top of the page, rather than saving her time and trouble, which is a legitimate goal, has instead caused her more trouble, so she might want to rethink her attitude or at least not post it at the top of the page. Katr67 (talk) 18:00, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Berries[edit]

I also wanted to mention that your use of this category isn't exactly correct. For example, diff. Strawberries are not true berries in the botanical sense. It's inaccurate to say they are. --Rkitko ^(talk) 22:35, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]