User talk:Paolo.dL/Mild refactoring

This is a discussion with Scrawlspacer about a conservative form of refactoring that I applied on his 29 June 2007 comment, with the intention of highlighting its well balanced structure. Notice that I also refactored other parts of my open letter by adding headings, paragraph titles, an introduction and a short summary.

I archived this discussion because I believe it is not relevant to the subject of my open letter (discussions about refactoring belong in here), and I want to keep the text of my open letter as short and easily readable as possible.

To provide you with a complete description of the facts that were reported in this discussion, I copied below a note that I posted on Scrawlspacer's user talk page, where I warned him about my refactoring and asked him for feedback. Paolo.dL 10:15, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

About your comment on my open letter (part 1)

[NOTE. The following comment was posted on User talk:Scrawlspacer]

Thanks for your exhaustive, thought provoking and well balanced comment.

Your text appears somewhat lengthy, but it is dense and very well structured. People tend to browse long comments too superficially, and your comment deserves more attention. I added paragraph titles to make it more appealing, and to more easily refer to specific parts of your comment in my answer. If you don't like the titles, please just edit or remove them or ask me to remove them and I will do it.

In your text, I substituted "strikethrough option" with "strikethrough formatting option" (notice that I included an internal link), because I think that not everybody knows the meaning of the word "strikethrough" (I didn't).

My answer is published on my user talk page. Paolo.dL 11:43, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Scrawlspacer's reaction and my answer

[NOTE. The following comments were posted on User talk:Paolo.dL]

Hello again, Paolo.dL. I'm glad you found my comments interesting, worthwhile, and well-written. However, you still seem to find it hard to accept at least one policy that must be adhered to here since it impinges so much on the ability of someone to say exactly what he wants to on a Talk page. That is, you continue to forget that it is neither your right nor your privilege to edit my or anyone else's comments on a Talk page in any way whatsoever. Your desire to edit must confine itself to articles. That leaves millions of pages to edit to your heart's content. But, as Mr. Matthews told you, even providing the facts and opinions for his statement, Talk pages are off-limits to editing and you are allowed to expand, clarify, or ask for clarification ONLY by adding other comments, NOT by changing anything whatsoever. Your continued reluctance to obey this rule and incorporate it into your behavior almost makes me wish I had never written my comment in the first place. Although I will always treat you with civility, I regret to say I have lost a great deal of respect for you and hope that our dealings in the future will be minimal. Sincerely, Scrawlspacer 19:19, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I am appalled. I just added a few very conservative paragraph titles and a single word ("formatting", now removed) to your comment. I neither deleted any of your words nor changed their order. Moreover, I thoroughly explained to you the reasons, politely asked for your feedback, and declared I was ready to undo my changes. Since I am very surprised of your reaction, I hypothesize that it was caused by yet another "undelivered" message: you might not have read the explanations I wrote on your user talk page about 10 days ago (30 June 2007). Please, let me know if my hypothesis is true. Otherwise, it would not be understandable, for me, the reason why you so angrily rejected my minimal additions, which, by the way, were scrupolously compiled, using when possible your own words, and put well in evidence the (perfectly balanced) structure of your contribution, making it, in my opinion, more appealing for future readers. You could have answered "Yes, please undo your edits" to my request: "If you don't like the titles, please just [...] ask me to remove them and I will do it" (included in my 30 June posting). This request means "please feel free to disapprove", but it was meant to be a polite request of approval, made implicit with the purpose of making your possible disapproval as easy as possible. I could have faithfully restored your original text, exploiting the history page. Now, I cannot anymore, because otherwise your reaction and this answer would become incomprehensible to the readers. However, I added a warning at the beginning of this subsection, informing the readers that the paragraph titles were not written by you.

Your first comment appeared wise, because you analyzed the problem from several different standpoints, showing that the behaviour of both Matthews and me was neither absolutely right nor absolutely wrong. Similarly, Wikipedia policies and guidelines have several shades of gray, and I believe this is wise. For instance, refactoring is one of the many well motivated exceptions to the Wikipedia policies regarding talk page editing. Absolute respect for what a user wrote and absolute respect for the reader are both desirable, but when these two principles are incompatible, Wikipedia policies allow for a compromise. A useful, motivated and extremely conservative refactoring performed by a user in his user talk page, accompained by a polite request for approval is much closer to absolutely desirable and right than to absolutely condemnable and wrong.

I repeatedly added paragraph titles to other users' comments in other talk pages (see here and here), and nobody ever reacted as you did. On the contrary, I am certain that both writers and readers appreciated my work, because quick references to paragraph titles undeniably make discussions much shorter and more easily readable. When the discussed topic is complex and multiple aspects of it are discussed, adding paragraph, subsection and section titles is advisable. Of course, if some user disapproves, as you did, even a mild refactoring should be undone. But up to now, you were the only one who disapproved. I added a new subsection to Wikipedia:Refactoring explaining this form of mild refactoring (in some cases preferable, in my opinion, to the less conservative summarizing). We'll see how other users will react in the talk page about refactoring.

I have already read your latest comment several times and considered your point with attention, learning that, in the future, when adding paragraph titles, I should always immediately insert a warning such as that I inserted at the beginning of this subsection, and leave it there until the author of the edited comment authorizes me to remove it. I would like to avoid increasing the size of this letter with additional misunderstandings and explanations. I don't need to read your latest comment anymore. If you remove it, I will immediately remove this answer (you can do it yourself, if you like), and I will also restore your original text, if you like. If we need to read them again, your comment and my answer will always be stored in the history page. I believe that the readers of this open letter would be more interested on your analysis of the contents of my answer to your comment (dated 30 June), rather than on a discussion about refactoring policies, which is not even necessary because I am ready to remove my changes. Notice that I also removed the double indentation ("::") from your latest comment, to make it coherent with the format of this page. Paolo.dL 11:08, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

About your comment on my open letter (part 2)

[NOTE. The following comments were posted on User talk:Scrawlspacer]

I answered to your latest comment. Please tell me whether my hypothesis is correct or not, and consider my final request. Paolo.dL 11:33, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I will soon archive your latest comment and my answer in a separate sub-page of my talk page. If you want me to wait for your reply, please warn me. Paolo.dL 10:08, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Since you didn't answer to my request posted above and dated 13 July 2007, and you wrote "I hope your dealings with you in the future will be minimal", I consider our discussion closed. Therefore, I am archiving the second part of it, which is quite interesting for me, but in my opinion not relevant in the context of my open letter. If you change your mind, feel free to continue our discussion in this page. I will insert the archive in my watchlist and I will anwer. Thank you again for your first comment, which remains one of the most interesting parts of my open letter. With regards, Paolo.dL 10:19, 21 July 2007 (UTC)