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Covid-19 Affects Section

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The information is the summary of the Covid-19 response in a small borough in rural America. I feel like not only the press, but also a lot of other sources missed the aspect of how small towns were affected by this. If Wikipedia is a place for knowledge about a topic to be archived, then why would we discard a knowledge that may be useful? In fact there are several articles written specifically talking about the Covid-19 responses of cities and towns across the world. Your comment said, "Wikipedia isn't a place to post COVID19 status history" when in fact Wikipedia houses articles outlining just that. For example, COVID-19 pandemic in New York City The unfortunate thing is that now everyone who is involved in the article, whose content is deleted, has wasted their time, as the edits can not be undone easily. The information here will be paramount to future generations, when they look back and ask, what did Covid-19 America look like.


Discussion about the sections above

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It would be beneficial for any editors who disagree to use this talk page to discuss the merit of the sections rather than unilaterally making decisions. This is a community of people who care, so lets work together and compromise rather than saying who and what should be allowed in articles, instead of just deleting one persons work due to one persons opinion.

Zackmanb67 (talk) 03:21, 1 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Zackmanb67: Re-adding sections that were deleted with explanations (mainly, undue weight, lack of adequate sourcing, and unnecessary detail) should only be done after gaining consensus with other editors. Doing otherwise is edit warring. SounderBruce 07:18, 1 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@SounderBruce: I am the only one who has offered policy argument and actual evidence to back up the points im making. None of the edits made gave any reason based in Wikipedia policy, or came to the talk page as per Wikipedia policy to back up there arguments. I am more than happy to discuss with anyone the validity of an article, as long as they follow the rules which Wikipedia has out in place. To quote your reference to undue weight, "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." If your argument is that, then lets discuss that, and if you think there is another viewpoint that isn't represented then please tell me. In regard to edit warring. I have the right to discuss any changes I don't agree with in the talk page which I have done. In addition, What has occurred could also be considered WP:Wikibullying as "Wikihounding is the singling out of one or more editors, and joining discussions on multiple pages or topics they may edit or multiple debates where they contribute, to repeatedly confront or inhibit their work. This is with an apparent aim of creating irritation, annoyance or distress to the other editor. Wikihounding usually involves following the target from place to place on Wikipedia." Only my edits and pages have been accused of being a problem, and only after I created a new article. Thanks and I look forward to discussing further. Zackmanb67 (talk) 13:30, 1 May 2021 (UTC)zackmanb67[reply]
@Zackmanb67: Once again, it is not only you and your edits that are considered problems. Removing self-promoting articles and additions to articles is extremely routine and isn't particularly aimed at causing you distress. W. Tell DCCXLVI converse | fings wot i hav dun 16:57, 1 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI: Thank you for your input in regard to the other article, however I don't believe that in regard to this one you have looked at the edit history. I have been editing this page for 2 years, meticulously adding factual information which we have historical record for. Most of them don't even have anything to do with me. When you look at the times and dates of the edits in question, they correspond exactly to those same people in the discussions about the other article. For two years this article has been fine, and has been used and viewed by not only school groups, but local historians, local groups, and the list goes on. People loved seeing the different mayors and the seal, which prior to 2015 had never been seen before as only then was it digitized. The problem here is, that a Wikipedia group has deemed this information to be useless without knowing exactly how important it is. In regard to the wikibullying, I was followed from one article to another, and only my edits were deleted, that's plain to see and can be viewed by anyone in the edits history. Im not trying to editwar here, what im trying to do is show that even though some people have no idea what this article means to people, it does matter. I would also appreciate you removing the tagged page, "fings wot i hav dun," as that is incredibly uncivil. Not only that, but touches on offending other groups of people. It may be amusing to make fun of other Wikipedia editors, but that is a blatant example of wikibullying. I would love to hear your thoughts on each of those sections, as yes I am new to this. But I will not be steamrolled or bullied out of maintaining my towns history. Thanks Zackmanb67 (talk) 17:26, 1 May 2021 (UTC)zackmanb67[reply]
Zackmanb67, while it's admirable to write about your town's history, it must be done while conforming to the long-standing guidelines we have on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a directory, nor is it meant to cover every detail of a place's history and culture, so I would recommend moving information about the seal, COVID response, Key to the City, and other minor details to a self-hosted wiki or another website. The WP:USCITIES guidelines should be used as guidance for what is typically expected in articles about larger cities, and we scale down from there.
Accusing other editors of bullying for pointing out policy violations and rolling back changes that were made without proper citations is not acceptable. Editors are free to notice other policy violations related to the original article and seek to correct them; this is not hounding, but merely the natural flow of maintenance work on Wikipedia. SounderBruce 19:24, 1 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@SounderBruce: It is clear that there are a number of editors who came from one article to this one miraculously at the same time that they were involved in another article involving my edits, who then just happened to do "maintenance work" on just my edits. Also the edits made by me were always a problem but nobody noticed the problem. Even after other editors not involved in this fiasco helped to make the article better by updating information. In addition this article is being monitored by WikiProject Pennsylvania who in two years never found an issue with the edits anyone made. If this sounds better to you then we'll agree to disagree, because clearly Wikipedia is not conducive to small editors who care about their community and wish that members of that community have access to information in a common area. So all that being said, I will remove any edits I've made because those are the only ones that seem to be a problem. The only thing I would ask is that any editor who also thinks that all my edits are wrong would give me a week or so to get them removed. As I stated, this information has never before been compiled for my community in such an easily accessible space. So I will have to discuss with my fellow councilors to figure out what we are going to do with it so its not lost. I also started working with another Wikipedia editor, one I might add that didn't start off with me by making accusations of my wrongdoing, but rather is going to help by showing and teaching. Hopefully they will help me fix some problems I haven't been able to before such as adding accurate images, etc. Once that is all done, and I have cleared the information deemed useless, the article will no longer be edited by anyone associated with the Houtzdale Borough, and will therefore lie dormant like it did prior to 2019. Hopefully someone polices it for inaccuracy. Clearly Wikipedia is not the location for useful local information or small editors as they get pushed out by simply being told they are always wrong. It must be better to add tags to pages like "fings wot i hav dun" than have discussion culminating in agreement as Wikipedia's de-escalation guidelines direct. Also I will no longer be using my Wikipedia account to edit because its been made painfully clear that I have no business being here. You win, I hope its worth it. Thank you and God bless. Zackmanb67 (talk) 02:09, 2 May 2021 (UTC)zackmanb67[reply]
@Zackmanb67: You seem to not understand what "fings wot I hav dun" is. Click on it and you will be taken to a page which shows my contributions to the encyclopaedia - that is, things what I have done. That I choose to use a humorous, deliberate misspelling of the term, parodying a heavy British accent (guess where I got it from? from the page of a British author parodying a British accent), is none of your business.
Coming to your complaint about how your edits on Houtzdale are being questioned, please do not think that you are specially targeted in any way in this regard either. It is common practice on Wikipedia to examine all contributions made by a user found to be problematic - you, having created an egregiously autobiographical article, fit that bill. It is trivially easy to see a single user's contributions; yours, for instance, can be seen here by everyone. Therefore your edits on Houtzdale were also questioned, as you had inserted mentions of yourself there too, and because Facebook is unreliable as a source, among other things.
Pleading for more time to remove the edits won't cut it. You can still access page history, and you can still see how the Houtzdale page was before your, ah, 'hounding'. You can still use sites such as the Wayback Machine to save your autobiography Zachary Bloom before it is deleted.
A PROD tag is not an "accusation of wrongdoing" hurled at you. It is an assessment of the worthiness of an article. The article does not 'belong' to you or to any specific editor, no matter how much of it you wrote, so I fail to see how tagging an article for proposed deletion is an attack on you.
As for your statement "clearly Wikipedia is not conducive to small editors", perhaps you should pause and think about it twice. I absolutely qualify as a small editor; the vast number of my edits are either doing menial spelling and formatting corrections or reverting vandalism, and the only two articles that I took to review and are rated as Good Articles are those of arcane Bhutanese people that virtually no one reads; however, when my wrongdoings anywhere are pointed out, I don't feel attacked for being a small editor - I examine my mistakes instead, and read the guidelines - not one or two selectively, but all of them - and then discuss. User:Sennecaster is another example of a very new user doing largely niche (but important) backend tasks, who has managed to be very useful. If there is indeed "factual information which [you] have historical record for", and that information is notable (see SounderBruce's message about what is notable and what isn't), then add that information, with proper citations and neutral, encyclopaedic language, to the article. You are encouraged to add more and more sources as you find them, and if you're unsure how to add what they say to the article, you can leave them here on the talk page.
About your last sentence... I don't know how to address it other than link you to this essay. It is written in sharp language, but you will find its message useful. Regards, W. Tell DCCXLVI converse | fings wot i hav dun 06:22, 2 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Zackmanb67: I'm sorry that you feel the need to leave the project due to this experience, but these long-standing policies have been in place for good reasons, mostly to keep information verifiable and manageable. No one is able to actively monitor the tens of thousands of articles of U.S. cities we have, and I was only alerted to this from a discussion at WT:CITIES. A lack of pushback does not necessarily mean endorsement.
Wikipedia can be a place where information about local communities can thrive, as my own work in my own area has shown. Small towns like Darrington, Washington have comprehensive articles that were written in line with site policies through the use of reliable sources and including only what is pertinent and easy to maintain. I suggest you look at other good articles on cities to get a good handle on how they should look.
Please feel free to return to editing once you've read through the policies we have linked and with proper COI disclosures next time. SounderBruce 06:53, 2 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@SounderBruce: Thank you for your response, however it is a little too late. I completely agree that looking at other good articles is a way to go, however that wasn't suggested until now. I came to the talk page to try and start discussion so I could learn not only as an editor, but also to make this article better. Instead I was made to feel unwelcome. Only one editor out of the 4 or 5 had, after doing an edit to the page, been conducive to helping me understand and in the process helped me to better the article. Hence the picture change in the infobox. However, the others choose to talk to me like im a child, or suggest I go look at articles that are even more hurtful. Wikiguidelines as far as editwarring go, clearly state that disengaging is a way of coming to a meaningful compromise. But in this instance even following that advice has been used against me by suggesting im "rage-quitting." when to the contrary im following the same advice that you suggested by adding a warning to my page about edit warring. Also nobody took the time to say hey," if you have a source that's only on paper or that is an old historical document, do this." Instead my edits were deleted with small blurbs about why I was wrong. Overall why would anyone want to come back to this type of environment. Unfortunately there are editors like the one with the long comment above you who choose to just keep telling me how im wrong. I for the sake of de-escalating the situation will not respond to any of his comments. In regard to disclosing the COI, I thought I had done that through my own personal talk page, which is on me, as I did not read the policy in regard to the COI. However, I still had a note somewhere that I was a councilor, it wasn't like I came in here completely unannounced. I made an editor account for the sole purpose of editing Houtzdale's article to try and help it along. The Editor who has been helping me has told me that part of a COI is being paid by a company or organization to make edits. It should be noted that I am not paid and never have been. Members of Houtzdale's Council are all volunteer, and we choose to try to make our community better for free. I think that something got misconstrued here as if I was looking for fame and fortune by creating an article about myself. To the contrary if I wanted fame and fortune I wouldn't be spending my own time trying to archive history for a small town in Pennsylvania for no pay. Also a Wikipedia article doesn't make you famous, nor would it have done anything for me personally. For instance in a job interview, they would look at my resume, not a Wikipedia page. As I noted on the discussion page I honestly thought that the policy was being followed, as regional significance to people in my area means being on the news or being talked about in the state legislature. I know that most of this doesn't apply to your comments. I also clicked something when I created the article that had me say I was close to the subject of the article. Unfortunately I wont be trying that again because this has been terrible. Im telling you this in the hopes that if an occurrence like this should happen in the future and see your involvement, that you might take the time to explain things more clearly and easily for someone who only edits a single page in good faith. I do want to thank you as I did in the discussion page for taking the democratic approach of beginning a conversation, which allowed for me to learn and ultimately see my own faults. That's what I wanted here as well, but instead I was met with blanket deletes of information which I and several others worked hard compiling. I would ask, as I didn't know you could go so far back in the edit history, that you make the necessary changes to this article. I can always go back and look now that I know you can see things as they were many edits ago. Again I feel I must reiterate, any edits I made to Houtzdale's page over the last year and a half were never meant to make me famous, instead they were meant to better my communities accessibility to information. Zackmanb67 (talk) 07:53, 2 May 2021 (UTC)Zackmanb67[reply]
Hello Zackmanb67 (talk · contribs) I just come here randomly when I am sorting out my talk page for archival. The decision to leave is up to you, and I am sorry to hear that, but Wikipedia have clear guidelines to be followed, especially for consensus. For instance, regarding the "Seal" section, I agreed that it should not stand as its own section, as it is not notable enough. There are lots of things that can still be improved on the article, for instance its histories, its pictures (I see some of Houtzdale pictures on Wikipedia Commons but I don't know if it's there or not), its arts events, economy, healthcare, notable people, and more. Complete guidelines can be seen at WP:USCITIES and I see there are still lots of opportunities for improvement for the article.
@Zackmanb67:, I do feel that you can still contribute more for the city and for Wikipedia. Hopefully you will reconsider, and continue to be part of the community. If you have questions, please do ask! I would gladly answer! SunDawn (talk) 03:55, 11 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Important Tips Before Editing This Article

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Please review the following:

  1. Please follow the Wikipedia USCITY guideline for layout and content.
  2. Please document your source by citing a reference to prove your text is verifiable.
  3. Please add text that has a neutral point of view instead of sounding like an advertisement.
  4. Please ensure a person meets Wikipedia Notability requirements before adding to the "Notable People" section.
  5. Please read the "Editing, Creating, and Maintaining Articles" chapter from the book Wikipedia : The Missing Manual, ISBN 9780596515164.

• Sbmeirow • Talk • 18:43, 4 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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