User:Maproom/rants

Some Rants

Citation needed

Early in my days as an editor, I made a contribution to an article and someone added a "Citation needed" tag. I thought "fair enough, I'd better provide some evidence", found some, and gave a citation. But the tag stayed there. I thought "I wonder what the problem is, isn't my citation good enough?" It did not occur to me at the time that the tag had been put there by a drive-by editor who felt no responsibility for his criticism, and had therefore not added the article to his watchlist.

I used to think that tags meant "that statement sounds doubtful, can you provide evidence for it?". But I have come to realise that most are placed by irresponsible drive-by editors, who have no understanding of the subject, nor of elementary physics, resulting in things like "pissing into the wind is inadvisable." Such editors do nothing to improve Wikipedia by sprinkling tags everywhere like confetti.. So I now feel no compunctions in clearing away some of the unwanted confetti.

I hope you're okay with responses on this page!

Very well said. Personally, when I read the "Be bold in updating articles" article and took it to heart, I felt that included "Be bold in removing unnecessary citeneeded tags."

--Ben Culture (talk) 00:12, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Another thought: In my earlier days as an editor, I assumed, like you, that people would only bring out the citeneeded tag if the uncited statement was worth quibbling over. But there are some people who really will tag any statement they can, just to say, "You made a statement for which you could have cited a source." There are some who will remove any statement they can, on the same grounds. And some of them are admins!

--Ben Culture (talk) 05:09, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Admins

I find Wikipedia a good place to work. I can make contributions which will last (unlike almost all the stuff I was paid for during my career as a "software engineer"), and will probably even be improved upon by others. True, there are some vandals, and some trolls. But I have never found it a problem dealing with their "contributions", and otherwise avoiding them. Most of the people I converse with here are intelligent, educated, and co-operative, and it is a pleasure to discuss things with them.

Admins, however, are another matter. They are bad news. They have power, so it can be difficult to avoid them, though I do my best. (I except the two admins I know in "real life", I have never found either of them a problem.)

Here is an example. I had made several contributions to a certain article, and put it on my watch list. One day an admin posted to its talk page listing things would have to change for it to be assigned "Good Article" status. Some of these he could have changed himself, more easily than specifying them on the talk page. Others were indicated in his list by pink and green blobs, which meant nothing to me.

I found this a bit scary, and did not dare touch the article. Indeed edits by other editors (except two, one of them a bot) also ceased. Two weeks later the admin returned, for some reason using a fake username, and demanded more changes. None were made. After one more week, he returned again with his fake username, complained that no-one had jumped to attention and obeyed his orders, and stomped off in a huff.

I am not here to take orders from a tinpot hitler. I have stopped contributing to that article, and have removed it from my watchlist.

Of course it it possible that some of the ordinary decent users I have co-operated with are in fact admins. If so, I thank them for their wisdom in not revealing it.

I now realise that Orange Mike must be an admin – I have nothing but praise for his work. And the same for Yunshui.

Copyright, and the Special Upload Wizard

This rant is over at Wikimedia Commons.