User talk:Scott Delaney/Mentoring

Mentoring

Hi Scott, based on this I'd like to start a discussion of what's going to happen over the next few months. First off, I should say that I'm a bit nervous because I've never been a mentor before, so you'll have to forgive me when I make mistakes. Second, I realize that this is voluntary for you, and I don't want to come of as some control freak telling you what to do. Third, I should say that my main goal here is to help you become a good editor. Wikipedia needs good editors. I admire your passion, but think you need a little direction.

There were four requests made in the recent AN discussion: that you (1) Stop using Twinkle; (2) stop reverting other editor's edits; (3) stop issuing warnings to other editors; and (4) become a "normal" editor (as opposed to vandal fighter) for some time period. I agree with these, and I think now would be a good time to get started. I see that you've already done (1), and it's time to start (2) and (3) if you haven't done so already. (Stop looking at the abuse filter log, and make a commitment not to place a template on another editor's talk page for the next month or two.)

As for (4), I think the best way to learn the difference between vandalism and non-vandalism is not to read WP:VAND, but to dig in and do some real editing. Of course that requires finding an article to edit. I know that can be a daunting task. When I first started out I felt like I wasn't qualified, because I wasn't an expert on anything. But don't worry. There are plenty of horrible articles out there that need improving. But before we get to far into this, let me ask: does this seem like a reasonable route to take? Are you interested in finding an article that interests you and then improving it? There will be a lot to learn. ~Adjwilley (talk) 00:10, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I have read the message you put on my talk page, and i thought it might be a good idea to send me some articles that might need improvement.Thanks!--Scott Delaney (talk) 00:42, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. Ultimately it will be up to you to decide which articles you want to edit. I'm sure that you wouldn't have much interest in many of the articles I'm familiar with. (I usually hang out on the Religion/philosophy side of Wikipedia, and dabble in Chemistry-related areas.)

As for you, there are multiple ways to choose an article. You could try looking at the list here (Warning: it's long) and pick an article that interests you. Or you could just start by picking something that interests you and searching to see if Wikipedia has an article on it. (If you choose this, try not to pick something too controversial. Current political events is probably a bad choice, for instance.) An easy example might be a TV show that you like, or your hometown or highschool.

The other way that I sometimes use to find articles is to read the newspaper. Sometimes I find a news story that is particularly interesting, so I "update" Wikipedia to reflect that story. A couple weeks ago, the New York Times ran a piece on Micah True which I found fascinating, so I went and re-wrote the article.

Do any of these ideas sound appealing to you? ~Adjwilley (talk) 01:07, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Monitoring contributions

I've bookmarked Special:Contributions/Scott_Delaney, and I plan on checking in every so often to make sure you're following the restrictions set above. Basically this means don't undo others' edits, and don't place templates on the talk pages of other users. (Edits to the talk pages of IP editors will be a red flag.) I highly recommend taking a break from monitoring the abuse filter page you mentioned earlier on your talk page. Don't worry too much about the vandalism: others will get it eventually. ~Adjwilley (talk) 01:30, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I am going off-wiki for the evening. i'll be back on-wiki from 9:00 Tomorrow (New Zealand Time).--Scott Delaney (talk) 05:20, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

i am back online and making more contributions.--Scott Delaney (talk) 00:36, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Cool. I'm going to be going on a trip next week so my internet will be spotty, but I'll try to respond to any questions you might have. (Don't worry about posting on my talk page...I'm watching this page and will respond when I can.)

Have you found any articles that you'd be interested in contributing to? ~Adjwilley (talk) 15:44, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

I have found some articles with subjects i am interested in.--Scott Delaney (talk) 20:59, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Awesome! The next step would be to find a good source of some sort. What kind of articles are we talking about? Are they stubs, or well-developed articles? Do they already have a lot of references? ~Adjwilley (talk)

Well Developed articles.--Scott Delaney (talk) 22:20, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Hmm. That's a little trickier than editing a stub, because they're already somewhat polished, and often have a community of editors surrounding them, and a lot of the information is already there (not much to add). Would you mind telling me the names of a couple, so I can have a look? ~Adjwilley (talk) 22:42, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

A couple of articles are List of cars 2 characters and List of lpfm stations in nz. the last one might have incorrect info due to having only a few updates a week.--Scott Delaney (talk) 00:40, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Those sound like great articles to start out on. Let me respond to your query below and then I'll get back to you on this. I'm sorry our time zones don't seem to overlap very well. I'm in the United States, and I think I remember you saying at some point you were in New Zealand. ~Adjwilley (talk) 01:37, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Requesting permission

I would like to get permissions to edit IP talk pages. I promise i will Only edit IP talk pages to add the old IP warnings template, Or enage in a conversation with that user..Thanks!--Scott Delaney (talk) 00:40, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Hmm. I'd still rather not have you edit IP talk pages at all at this point, but let's make a deal. Let's say you can edit pages you've already posted on and reply to comments and stuff, but no new IP's. Also, absolutely no new templates. And before you do anything at all, I would like for you to read the essay WP:IPs are people too. Basically I want you to understand that IP editors have the same standing as registered users, and should be treated with respect. ~Adjwilley (talk) 01:46, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

 Done--Scott Delaney (talk) 02:14, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

This is the template.--Scott Delaney (talk) 02:19, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for reading that essay. That template looks ok, if there's an IP talk page with stale old warnings on it. However, if the IP has already removed the templates (blanked them from the talk page) it would be a bad idea to restore them, even if you were collapsing them into the new template. Does that make sense? ~Adjwilley (talk) 02:46, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

As a general rule of thumb, you might ask yourself: "Would I appreciate it if somebody did this to my talk page?" If the answer is no, then don't do it to somebody else's talk page. If it's yes, then you can consider doing it. ~Adjwilley (talk) 02:47, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

YYes, i would be fine if someone did that to my talk page.--Scott Delaney (talk) 05:16, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Oh yeah... and no need to correct others' spelling and stuff. For more info on the dos and dont's of editing others comments, see WP:TPO. Sorry I didn't clarify that before.

I am a little glad though that you got the experience of being hit with a generic template for what was a good-faith edit. (I've had it happen to me as well, so I know it's not an enjoyable experience.)

Any progress on the articles you wanted to edit? I looked at the List of Cars characters and it looks like there are complaints that the article is too long and consists almost entirely of plot summary. Perhaps you could help crop it back a little, trimming back the extra unneeded plot details. You'll want to use clear edit summaries when doing this, otherwise people get really nervous when you start removing information without the summary, and might think you're trying to vandalize Wikipedia ;-) ~Adjwilley (talk) 13:56, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Y Done one section,but i still have a lot to improve.--Scott Delaney (talk) 20:37, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Hey, that looks pretty good! There were a couple problems in one paragraph (capitalization and such) that I fixed, but I approve of your choice of material that needed to be cut. I noticed your first edit used an edit summary, but the next three didn't. Try to shoot for 100% there. ~Adjwilley (talk) 21:38, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

old IP warnings templates

Sorry to jump in here, but Dennis asked me to help keep an eye on you Scott. I see you've mastered using the {{old IP warnings top}} and {{old IP warnings bottom}} pair of templates, but remember I previously explained that the TOC needs to be above the {{old IP warnings top}} (outside the pair), otherwise it will be hidden. Also, you should leave recent messages visible – you hid everything before May, just last month – that's far too recent. Administrators will look at these warning when contemplating a block (and its duration) and if you hide the messages, they might overlook them. I'd say a good rule of thumb is to leave the last six months unhidden. I've adjusted the changes you made at User talk:198.110.175.129. I hope this makes sense.

And thanks Adjwilley, for stepping up to mentor Scott! Enjoy your trip next week, and let me know if there's anything I can do to help out while you're gone (although I'll be leaving on a trip too a week from now). Mojoworker (talk) 21:06, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for catching that. I expect I'll have internet from time to time, but it will definitely be spotty. ~Adjwilley (talk) 21:25, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

A couple minor etiquette issues

Scott: the next two things I'm going to recommend are fairly minor issues, and it's something that you can ignore if you want.

The first is leaving detailed edit summaries. I probably have a stronger opinion than most on these, because I think people should be required to leave them. They are optional, but it's really good practice to do it, so much so, that they've even made a tool to track whether you do it or not. (You can see the percentage of blank edit summaries you've left by looking here. Ideally, that would all be green.)

The second is indentation or "threading" on talk pages. If you're replying to somebody's comment, instead of just hitting "Enter" and typing on the next line, add colons to the beginning of the line (::::like this) to indent it. Standard practice is to add one more colon than the person before you. Here's an example from WP:THREAD of how it should look. ~Adjwilley (talk) 21:52, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

How's the soup? --[[User:John]] :It's great!! --[[User:Jane]] ::I made it myself! --[[User:John]] Let's move the discussion to [[Talk:Soup]]. --[[User:Jane]] :I tend to disagree. --[[User:George]]

How's the soup? --John It's great!! --Jane I made it myself! --John Let's move the discussion to Talk:Soup. --Jane I tend to disagree. --George

Retired

Scott: I'm sorry to see that you have retired, but I respect your decision. I just hope that it wasn't because of the temporary editing restrictions that were placed. I want to let you know that you're welcome back anytime, though I still think you need a little more editing experience before becoming a vandal-fighter again. If you have any questions at all, do feel free to contact me here, on my talk page, or by email.

Thank you for the work you did here on Wikipedia. It's a hard job with little thanks, and I respect you for all the work you've done. If I don't hear from you again, I wish you the best of luck in all your future endeavors. ~Adjwilley (talk) 22:56, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

I was looking at an AN archive, And i saw that a couple of users might have been a bit too hard on him, which could have drove him away from Wikipedia.--Anderson - what's up? 02:07, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

I've been following Scott since he arrived, and while he had good intentions, sometimes his methods weren't consistent with Wikipedia's norms, so he always had a bit of concern fitting in. There is no doubt he meant well even when he made mistakes, but I expected that adjusting to Wikilife would always be difficult, if not insurmountable for him. I think he has been given many opportunities but in the ends, it just wasn't the right environment for him. I wish Scott well. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 02:12, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

It is true that people were hard on Scott, but at the same time, Scott had been really dishing it out with the many reverts and warnings to good-faith IPs and users, and he needed a stern talking to. I was sorry to see him go, but I wouldn't be surprised if he came back at some later date with a better perspective on things. ~Adjwilley (talk) 14:38, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Why was CIR issued? CIR is an essay, not a policy.Anderson - what's up? If you believe there has been a mistake, report it on my talk page. 22:04, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

While I'm not sure about the finer details, my understanding is that the essay simply describes a behavior. So nobody issued a CIR, but people were saying that CIR was an issue or a problem. I'm guessing that the real problem was WP:Disruptive editing, and CIR was assumed to be the root of the problem. Quoting from Disruptive editing: "Disruptive editing is not always intentional. An editor may be accidentally disruptive because they don't understand how to correctly edit, or because they lack the social skills or competence necessary to work collaboratively. The fact that the disruption occurs in good faith does not change the fact that it is harmful to Wikipedia." ~Adjwilley (talk) 22:37, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Adjwilley nails it. And essays are worth the value we put into them, and may not be "official", but are often given a lot of respect and credence if they are good or simply very useful, like CIR is. Not everyone works in this environment well. Some do for a time, but it wears on them and after a while, it shows. It isn't a statement on their character or worth. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 22:48, 16 July 2012 (UTC)