User talk:Dchandler735
May 2015
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Hello, I'm NeilN. I wanted to let you know that I undid one or more of your recent contributions to Human trafficking because they appeared to be promotional. Advertising and using Wikipedia as a "soapbox" are against Wikipedia policy and not permitted. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about Wikipedia. Thank you. NeilN talk to me 04:30, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
Please do not add or change content, as you did at Human trafficking, without citing a reliable source. Please review the guidelines at Wikipedia:Citing sources and take this opportunity to add references to the article. Thank you. NeilN talk to me 04:56, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
Please read
[edit]Please stop adding your comments to random articles. This is an encyclopedia and not the place to add your personal observations. --NeilN talk to me 04:59, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
A welcome message
[edit]Clearly you have valuable inside knowledge of certain things. That, we are not questioning at all. In Wikipedia (WP), when we express our inside knowledge of things, unfortunately (and many would actually say 'fortunately') such information can only be included in Wikipedia when such knowledge is represented using "supporting proof" of whatever that knowledge may be, and references to that "proof" must be inserted at appropriate points within an edit. For example if Albert Einstein were alive, and if he came up with a new theory of relativity, but he had not yet published it anywhere, we wouldn't allow him to publish it first in Wikipedia. This would be no reflection at all on Albert Einstein's abilities, it is merely the way that WP works. It is a hard and fast rule that we must always stick to in order to make WP work. Otherwise WP could easily more closely resemble an online forum than an encyclopedia. Once Albert Einstein's new theory of relativity was published, then WP editors are free to quote from the publications that describe his theory, and so would Albert Einstein be technically allowed to edit WP by describing closely what the publications reported about his theory, but he still wouldn't be permitted to report on anything about his theory that hadn't yet been described in the publications. The reason I just said "technically" above, was because we have found that people with inside knowledge often find it difficult to be as "objective" as neutral folks who do not seem to have any vested interest in the subject matter. We do have rules that generally caution people with inside knowledge to be extremely careful not to inject their own opinions into Wikipedia as if it were fact, and often times the temptation for people with inside knowledge of a topic to do exactly that is overwhelming, and they will often find themselves "slipping" into injecting their own opinions on the topic while writing on such articles.
This is perhaps similar to the rule that doctors usually follow of never administering medical care to their next of kin. With doctors, they do ocassionally do this, but they have found that in such cases, because the doctor is too closely related to the patient, he will usually actually administer inferior medicine to his own family members. There is one other more subtle rule that we try to follow but which we seemingly often fail at. We always ask that our editors attempt to use an "absolutely neutral voice" when editing an article. Almost like you were a Martian who just arrived on Earth, and you were reporting back to your fellow Martians the customs, activities, and beliefs of Earthlings, never stating the editor's own personal opinions that any one thing is "bad" or "good", but just writing as neutrally as possible. A good editor is like a good research laboratory employee, and our readers get to be the Cheif Scientists of the lab. In a research laboratory, a good lab employee will only report data exactly as he/she finds it, and will never tamper with, skew, or make any major decisions about what the data means, the employee's only job is to provide accurate clean and easily interpreted data, before passing it onto the Cheif Scientist (our readership), who then gets to interpret the data himself. By the way, please take a little time and read through at least some of the links in the "boilerplate welcome message" below in the the next section. The information listed below is how we usually welcome folks here. Sorry that you weren't given this first.
- Welcome!
Hello, Dchandler735, and welcome to Wikipedia! This is one of the most popular websites in the world, and it's only through the contributions of editors like you. And Wikipedia is not just a collection of articles, it's an active community. The real fun here is contributing to Wikipedia, but don't feel hurt if some of your first few edits get removed, as there are some central guidelines you may not be familiar with.
- Some good advice: be bold in your editing, and use the talk pages to discuss with other editors. Be kind to others, because there's a lot you can learn from them, and there's lots they can help you with.
- There's lots of resources to help you become a great editor, from our basic introduction to our in-depth manual. But if you have any questions or problems, no matter what they are, leave me a message on my talk page. Or, you can just type
{{helpme}}on this page, and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. And if you haven't done so, tell us a bit about yourself on your very own dedicated user-page, a page just for you to tell the rest of the world (the Wikiworld that is) about you, a valued Wikipedia editor. Whenever you click on a user's name-link, you will open that user's own user-page where most established users use this page to tell the rest of us a little bit about themselves. Sometimes when you follow these links, you may find that other editors aren't all that bad after-all! If you need some help, visit the Teahouse Q&A board. Oh, and please sign your name on talk pages and votes by
typing ~~~~; our software automatically converts it to your username and the date.
- Glad you're here! Scott P. (talk) 15:51, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
I must say however that Neil was entirely correct in editing out your most recent edits. You may find that editing in WP requires quite a thick skin, unfortunately. Welcome and good luck in editing Wikipedia! Scott P. (talk) 15:51, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
Ten user contributions...
[edit]I am not 100% certain, but I am fairly certain that even though your edits were reversed, Wikipedia still recognizes your first five "good faith" edits as counting towards the 10 you need to be verified. So long as you continue to make good faith edits, and so long as you continue to work towards learning and following the basic policies in Wikipedia, you will soon reach a point where at least some of your edits are accepted, and eventually a point where a good portion are accepted without being reversed.
Neil has given you links to the policies that you mistakenly did not follow. If you carefully study those policies to the point where you think you properly understand them, you will find it easier and easier to avoid being reverted. What counts as "promotional" in Wiki-speak is not exactly the same thing as "promotional" in the rest of the world. After reading enough wiki policy, you'll be able to speak Wiki-speak, just like the rest of us. How exciting (not). As I'm sure you have heard, sanity is "knowing not to do the same thing twice and expecting different results." So long as your edits meet that definition, though they might still be reverted, nobody will truly hold your good faith edits against you in any real way. When your edits begin to be accepted, you should pat yourself on the back for the credit you will deserve.
I have been putting up with the sometimes rather frustrating editing process here for 11 years, and my edits are still reversed (reverted) occasionally, and when having the courage to jump into "controversial unsettled" topics, they are often reverted. You will find some folks here that do a great service to Wikipedia by patroling for policy compliance, but in order to suitably patrol the tens of thousands of edits per day people make to Wikipedia, sometimes it is difficult for editors like Neil to spend much time with any one person. For myself, having my edit reverted is never a pleasant experience, but throughout the overall process of editing here, I feel greatly enriched by what I have learned here, and by what I continue to learn here. Scott P. (talk) 20:19, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
A kitten for you!
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C'mon back!