User talk:WormTT/Adopt/Electriccatfish2

Hey Catfish. First things first, it occurs to me that you may not like the name Catfish! Are you ok with me calling you that, or do you have any other preferences?

This page is just for general chatting, including about aspirations regarding adminship, which I'm happy to chat about. As I mentioned, content creation of some sort or another would be pretty essential, but I'm happy to help out a bit. Do you have any subjects that interest you? I find places are easy to write about, but hard to get to really high levels - unless you focus on smaller places. So for example, a famous house or river or something like that. But something that interests you is key at the moment.

Also, you'll need to work out ways to let things not get on top of you. I know you've been very upset over what's happened, but I also think you over-reacted to large parts of it. Given the areas you are most active in, You are going to need a thick skin for the vandals - but more than that, I think you might need to focus on finding positives in criticism from fellow wikipedians. Worm^TT(talk) 11:35, 6 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Dave! First of all, I don't mind being called Catfish. Second of all, I actually don't mind having my userpage or talk page vandalized by trolls or vandals. It's happened 16 times so far, and I've even been made legal threats against. I've also had an attack account (User:Electriccatfish3) make an attack page (Electriccatfish2) against me. As a vandal-fighter, this is what you get and understandably, people are mad when you warn them or report them. However, it hurts a lot more to be criticized in a public forum, where many people are there, as Dennis said, "looking for blood". Anyways, I've helped out at AIV and UAA since I have returned, however, I have only commented (using the (Non-administrator comment) template). Diannaa was working at AIV and UAA that night and put declined templates by all of the reports that I put (Non-administrator comment)'s by. Also, people said that I disregarded warnings. As you can see on my talk, this is not truw. JBW wrote about not using the (Non-administrator comment) template, while Ponyo wrote about commenting on reports saying that they are legit. Indeed, this just clutters the page. The AN/I thread was about removing reports. Also, I am a DRN volunteer, an AFC reviewer, plus I work at WP: AF/FP (that's how Someguy1221 knows me). Also, I've created 12 articles of my own, including 4 BLPs. Nothing spectacular, but none of them have tags on them. I'd like to make an article into B-class, or maybe go for a GA. I'm not a content creator, but I think that admins should show a wide variety of work around here. Also, how can you tell a newbie that there article doesn't meet our notability guidelines when you haven't created a single article yourself? Best, Electric Catfish 11:19, 7 August 2012 (UTC).[reply]

I'm glad you can cope with the attacks, it's a shame, but they do happen. The best thing is to laugh it off, remembering that the vandals aren't thinking of you as a person, but as a user who can be abused. Once you accept that, some of their insults can actually be quite funny (meet User:Worm that turded for example).

On public fora, when you're being criticised by wikipedians, those who should be here to improve the encyclopedia... it is a lot more upsetting. What you must remember though is that they're not commenting on you as entire person, they're commenting on your online persona, combined with their general perception of wikipedia life and what other people have already said about you. It's much more difficult to brush these things off, but try to remember that they're not criticising you for the purpose of hurting your feelings, they're trying to help you improve, but the medium of written text is not good for that. Let me show you what I mean:

The Wikipedia Street

Let's imagine Wikipedia is a suburban street. A perfectly normal street, with front gardens and picket fences. There's a resident's committee, who have certain rules, and everyone on the street knows them. You know, things like "no garden gnomes" and "make sure your lawn is regularly mown". Not unreasonable rules, but not the same as everywhere else. A new neighbour, Jack, moves in and the resident's committee leaves the rule book (which is pretty damn big!) at the front door. In fact, that's better than it used to be... the residents used to just shout at people for breaking the rules and point at the rule book, which was left under a box in the corner of the street, where it wouldn't be noticed by passers by.
Anyway, Jack doesn't notice the rule book and is so busy with moving in and doing the house up that the grass starts to grow quite long. The residents have a few ways to deal with this, for example a resident could a note through the door saying "Welcome to the neighbourhood. I note your grass is long. Please cut it". That'd be the equivalent of a talk page template. It might work, but a personalised message would be better, explaining what's going wrong... something like "Hi, welcome to the neighbourhood. It's great to have someone new around here, how's the move going? I know it's a little different than some other places, but the residents got together a few years ago and decided the lawns should be mown regularly, I'm not sure if anyone told you. I can give you a hand mowing it for now, if you like, just so you get the hang of it." Of course, even better would be to go around and chat, but that's pretty impossible on the internet.
Worst case scenario, is all the other residents getting together and complaining about the state of the lawn. Especially when the subject turns up, sees everyone complaining, and didn't realise a Wildlife garden would upset anyone. Those complaining residents don't mean any harm, but it might feel that way to Jack.

Is it worth Jack moving away? Not really, he's got lots of other options. He could fall in line with the other residents, ignore them all together or even join the committee and get wildlife gardens allowed. Similarly with you and the ANI - no one meant to upset you with their comments, they just felt your behaviour was not within community norms. It's not worth retiring over, you just have to alter your perception so that the comments don't feel insulting. Worm^TT(talk) 12:20, 7 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I pretty much view Wikipedia as a community. We're all (hopefully) in it together to improve this site and we all (hopefully) have no intentions to offend other editors. Best, Electric Catfish 20:43, 7 August 2012 (UTC).[reply]

If the point was here, you seem to have missed it and hit Outer Mongolia ;) I wasn't really referring to the the fact that we're a community, nor that you were likely to offend others. I was trying to explain to you that no one on that ANI meant any offence, and there was no need for you to retire over the matter. It's a combination of people having trouble with criticism (you're not alone in that) and the poor method of communication over the internet. Worm^TT(talk) 08:00, 8 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

GA's

Hi Dave! I've been working on a certain umpire BLP for a while and I'm going to collaborate with Automatic Strikeout to get Joe West to GA status. Electric Catfish 00:11, 8 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a great idea! I'll watchlist it and might drop a suggestion or two on the talk page :) Worm^TT(talk) 07:57, 8 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Rollback

Catfish, I'm going to have to go into the CVUA and bust some heads soon, and yours is at the top of the list. Stop relating rollback to CVUA. CVUA is not a route to rollback. Example... Worm^TT(talk) 12:11, 8 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fine. Electric Catfish 21:44, 8 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Did you get my email? Worm^TT(talk) 21:46, 8 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Chat

Hey Dave! My computer crashed during the chat. Here's an example of Keepscases using profanity at an RFA. Best, Electric Catfish 21:46, 8 August 2012 (UTC).[reply]