User talk:Joehark

A tag has been placed on Havana (film), requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done because the article seems to be a biographical account about a person, group of people, or band, but it does not indicate how or why he/she/they is/are notable. If you can indicate why Havana (film) is really notable, I advise you to edit the article promptly, and also put a note on Talk:Havana (film). Any admin should check for such edits before deleting the article. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you have any questions about this. Please read our criteria for speedy deletion, particularly item 7 under Articles. You might also want to read our general biography criteria. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself. To contest the tagging and request that admins should wait a while for you to assert his/her/their notability, please affix the template {{hangon}} to the page, and then immediately add such an assertion. It is also a very good idea to add citations from reliable sources to ensure that your article will be verifiable. -- Polonium 01:09, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Joe, I noticed your comments at Talk:Havana (film). As you've hopefully noticed by now, I wrote a stubby article to replace the page you created. I apologize that I didn't notice that your version contained helpful information about the film. If you'd like to continue editing the article, please do so. You can find your version here and are welcome to integrate it into the current article (or even replace my work, though I wouldn't suggest that). Feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions about the article or about wikipedia itself. Cheers and happy editing! --Chaser (T) 03:04, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I have the feeling that I've entered a Kafkaesque environment where my posting of a true story about how the making of the film Havana affected its public reputation has been subjected to mysyterious and arbitrary processes by people who have no knowledge of the events recounted.

Your message speaks of not wanting your article edited, yet it is mine that has been marked for deletion in a manner that seems to violate the posted rules for deletion . . . and now I am given the responsibility somehow to restore my article using some methods that are totally opaque to me.

Except for a few minor typos whose correction was halted by the threatened deletion, even before I finished them, the article is well writtten and does not need anyone else's uninformed and pedantic embelishment. I am a widely published professional writer. When I want an editor, I'll ask for a professional who knows what he's doing and understands the limits and uses of his license.

For example, I note that somewhere it is proposed to mention that Havana is "a film" and that it was made in 1990. Speaking of "patent nonsense" that was cited as the reason for removing the article, that suggested edit itself fits the description of nonsense quite well. Saying that Havana is a film is redundant of the totality of the content of the article. This is not an article about the city of Havana. It's clearly not about a type of cigar. The article is about the film and nothing else and editing an article about the film to say it's a film is nonsense of the shiniest patent.

Saying it was made in 1990 is an incomplete and even inaccurate detail irrelevant to the story and redundant of the filmography on previous pages. I say incomplete because if you are going to add that factoid, you may as well write in every single credit right down to Best Boy and Hairdresser. It's inaccurate because while principal shooting began when I say it was, it was not completed until the spring of the folllowing year.

So, to make myself clear, unless the article violates some specific rule, leave it alone. I'm deliberately not saying "please leave it alone" because I don't feel too polite to someone who has no knowledge of the subject messing around with my eyewitness work. If that's not OK, take down the whole article and the hell with it.

If you can't find a valid excuse to fool around with it, put it back and leave it alone.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Joehark (talk • contribs)

Joe, I'm sorry that my edits offended you. I really didn't mean to destroy your work, but I also felt that if you knew so much about the film, I should just leave it to you to work on integrating the two into a good article. In any case, let's see if we can't start over. I don't own the article, and if you want to edit it mercilessly, go ahead. If you want to work with me to edit it together, I'm happy to do that, too. Finally, if you need help to learn wikipedia's byzantine structure of policies and culture, I'd be happy to answer questions or even mentor you through. --Chaser (T) 09:03, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Also, I think I should clear up a misconception. I didn't tag the article for deletion. I did remove the tag, though. --Chaser (T) 09:06, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Joe, if you look at Havana (film) now, you'll see that I reinserted your contribution into the article to make it easier to edit. In any case, I think I need to explain what people mean on wikipedia when they say "edit". As you can see in Wikipedia:Introduction, "editing" here means any contribution to any page, and it is done collaboratively. When I said edit, I didn't mean Copy editing, which is apparently how you are using the word. As to why Havana is labelled a film, I'm not sure what you mean. The article is titled "Havana (film)" so that it can be distinguished from the dozen or so other Havana's that wikipedia has articles about, as you can see at Havana (disambiguation). I don't know what else I can do to help clear this up. I'm frustrated about the whole situation. I hope you'll forgive me and continue to contribute to wikipedia. Sincerely yours, Chaser (T) 00:57, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Hoping to start over

Joe, I am hoping that we are now on better terms. I re-read your contribution. For what it's worth, from an amateur such as myself, I am impressed by the quality writing and the entertaining story. However, I would also humbly suggest that while having most of the article in the first person point-of-view is good for an entire book about the movie, it's inappropriate for an encyclopedia article. I would suggest you look at several of wikipedia's policies. Wikipedia:Verifiability says that all contributions to the encyclopedia have to be verifiable. Frankly, though I believe you, it is impossible for the reader to verify any of this. The only way to do so would be to track you down and ask you about it. (And I don't think you would want to put your name and phone number on the page!) What's more, Wikipedia:No original research seems to indicate that if your experiences with this movie are not already "published by a reliable publication", then they shouldn't be in the encyclopedia. You obviously know a lot about the movie. Your knowledge is a tremendous resource for this article. Why don't you try to expand the article and attempt to make it more like Halloween (film), Casablanca (film), Ran (film), V for Vendetta (film), or Tenebrae (film)? While not all of these may be great movies, the wikipedia community has agreed that the articles themselves are among wikipedia's best. I await your response.--Chaser T 08:05, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Joe, you have not responded to my message in twelve days, so I'm left with no other choice but to remove your contribution from the page. I am very sorry, but I simply don't have the time nor the inclination to clean-up your helpful contributions in such a way that they will comply with wikipedia policies. If you want to do so, you can find your contribution in the history, or at this link.--Chaser T 08:31, 21 June 2006 (UTC)