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Just uploaded copyedit. I'd be very grateful if you'd carefully compare it with your own version before responding. And then, please, in detail. Many thanks. Wingspeed ( talk) 00:20, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
Will not be here. Just logging off. I have a plane at 6:15 a.m. (ET) and have to pack and leave. Sorry that I cannot oblige. I've done what I can so far. Will be back home in early January. Just cannot stay online any further. Thank you for the post. -- NYScholar ( talk) 00:23, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
Please do not make comments on editing this article on my talk page. See "N.B." above; comments about improving the article really do belong on the talk page of the article, so that all can read them. I'll be away anyway and won't see them. Thanks. Have a good week. -- NYScholar ( talk) 00:31, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
Hello! I appreciate your being really upset about the criticism directed at you personally in the comment you are referring to. Unfortunately, this is not the first time there are comments directed at a person during this debate. First off, let me assure you that I am in no way creating a picture of you as a "bad guy" because of that or any other comment made. There are lots of frustrated people here, and what I am hoping to do is help people get rid of some of that frustration. This does of course not mean that uncivil behavior towards you or anyone else is acceptable. Regrettably, I have seen tendencies towards this sort of thing in the Talk page from way before, so it might take a while to clear the bad air, as it were.
I will try to consult with other people who might have ideas on how to tackle the problem laying at the bottom of all this frustration in a way that doesn't make any of the parties feel attacked. I ask for your patience in the short run, so that I hopefully can make a difference for everyone in the long run.
By the way, I was very happy to see that you took the time to thank User:Jezhotwells for her recent changes, I sincerely believe that communication between you and her is the key to defuse the current situation. That showed extra effort on your part, which did not go unnoticed. Thank you. Delaque ( talk) 10:00, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
Delaque: I am running into serious computer glitches due to the recent updating of my Norton Security program. If I try to go to more than one page of editing histories in Wikipedia articles or talk pages, it freezes my computer, despite having a Pentium D processor in a Dell XPS Gen 5; it's apparently gobbling up my working memory while it runs "pulse updates". This is the best I can do now in response to exaggerations and misleading comments about me posted without editing diffs. throughout user BF's "Comment" on the mediation page and more recently in your talk page. I posted a warning due to the escalation of the personal attacks (which is how I read them):
[Some time ago, I had placed the following signed and time-stamped material below within the "hidden" template simply to take up less space. It contains the editing "diff." ("evidence") requested; apparently Delaque did not realize that. One needs to click on "show" to see the material. I will not be posting further comments about this situation. I've made clear my position against ongoing personalization of this matter by other editor(s), and I will not participate any further in discussing it, as the editing dispute has, in my view and that of the editor who initiated the mediation, already been resolved. Appearing to encourage and in effect to tolerate additional comments of a personal nature in the mediation page violates WP:NPA and is causing harm to me both personally and professionally. -- NYScholar ( talk) 20:35, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
I believe that you are escalating a situation which needs to cool down. There is no reason make threats to users explaining their views. The user has tried to explain the facts behind their statements. If you believe that they are mistaken in their opinion, please clearly state which exact statements are wrong, rather than condemning the entire text, and provide reasons that you believe they are false in a concise way supported by the facts. Threats such as the one on User_talk:BehnamFarid might in themselves be considered Wikipedia:Harassment, and I would suggest you withdraw said warning and apologize. According to WP:RPA, "removal should typically be limited to clear-cut cases where it is obvious the text is a true personal attack." I have asked User:BehnamFarid to rephrase some of the wording as a courtesy, despite the fact that I do not yet understand which part of the text would be considered a personal attack according to WP:NPA. I believe everyone involved would benefit from a resolution of this issue in a non-formal, consensual way, and I would ask that you act with restraint during this process, regardless of whether you will discuss it further on the mediation page or not. Delaque ( talk) 04:37, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
Note: I will not be editing Wikipedia in the near future due to computer glitches that I am encountering. That should provide a "cooling off" period both for me and for the other user BF. Thanks for your earlier efforts. I do understand your aims, but I don't think that the other user is helping to achieve them by continually personalizing editing changes that were merely designed to correct formatting errors. -- NYScholar ( talk) 05:51, 14 January 2009 (UTC) [Update: The computer glitches are interfering with my ability to access full editing histories of articles. I've done all I can about the matter initiated by J, and I am unable to do anymore than I have already done. -- NYScholar ( talk) 20:46, 14 January 2009 (UTC)] [I have subsequently taken some time to correct some relatively-minor formatting inconsistencies in these related articles and responded to J in Talk:Harold Pinter#Wikiquotes about it just prior to logging out again. -- NYScholar ( talk) 02:19, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
Hi, Entirely off the subject of Pinter, I read that you are having problems with Norton software. A google on computing forums will show that you are not alone. May I recommend AVG software, available free (basic) here http://free.avg.com/download-avg-anti-virus-free-edition
It was recommended by my University It department for private use. You can upgrade to a full package, but the basic does me fine. It uses far less memory than Norton and you can find more information at AVG (software). Jezhotwells ( talk) 23:56, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for this comment and advice, J. Much appreciated. Unfortunately, I followed a link in the past couple of days from Norton to update my Norton package to its version 9.0, and apparently it has serious glitches. I have about 3 months left on my Norton subscription (which I have been paying for periodically to upgrade or update). This current version is just gobbling up CPU usage or creating conflicts that tie up one's online work. So I will need to do something eventually. Resetting some default settings creating glitches every few minutes (or even seconds) has helped somewhat (and only paging through Wikipedia editing histories). But I may have to do a full system restoration; though, in my past experience, that does not always function at all and the restoration points are sometimes very limited. (I usually get an error message saying something like "cannot restore to the point selected.") I may have to uninstall this version of Norton and reinstall an earlier version or install a different program, as you are suggesting. I do like relatively frequent updating of virus definitions, but not this frequent! I will look further into the program you mention (have consulted the Wiki article you link). I generally use whatever Dell offers when I buy a new computer, which came with an earlier version of Norton preinstalled, so that's why I have this package (periodically upgraded/updated). My operating system is XP Professional (with its various upgrades) via Media Center 2005, not Vista. It may be that this Norton package is just not as compatible with XP Professional (Version III +) as it might be w/ Vista. Thanks again. (I did notice on your user page that you are a member of a Wikipedia software project. Definitely not my own specialty!!) -- NYScholar ( talk) 00:48, 14 January 2009 (UTC))
It's generally unnecessary to place links to a disambig page on articles that are already at disambiguated titles, such as The Room (novel), etc. It would be hard for someone to arrive at the article about the novel if they were looking for the article about the band. Propaniac ( talk) 03:51, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
Hi NYS, I noticed that you had some trouble with the unsigned template over at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Malaka Dewapriya (2nd nomination). If you use {{unsigned|kelapstick|18:44, 11 February 2009 }} (not using any wikimarkup in the username field) it produces —Preceding unsigned comment added by kelapstick ( talk • contribs) 18:44, 11 February 2009. It is a bit of a pain since when you copy over from the revision history the date and time are reversed from how you enter them in the template, but it still works pretty well. Hope this helps!-- kelapstick ( talk) 18:50, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
I've struck my weak delete !vote, because it was the main stumbling block that was preventing the AFD from being withdrawn, and closed the AFD as withdrawn, in accordance with your requests.
I would however note that the way this AFD has been conducted is a long way wide of the mark when it comes to how to conduct an AFD. Why on earth put an AFD on an article that it is your intent to work on and rewrite, and why mess around, refactoring the discussions into sections like that? AFD discussions should be retained as a threaded discussion, not re-arranged by the nominator into sections to suit himself. Mayalld ( talk) 11:11, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
[Preface: Thanks for your comment. I do understand how the confusion may have arisen. I have reverted your closing the AfD, because you mistakenly state that I withdrew my nomination of the article for deletion (AfD). I had crossed that out and wanted administrators to take a look at the matter over the full course of time after thinking further about it and working more on the article. Below are my responses to your questions/concerns. I think the general problems of how this article got into Wikipedia in the first place, was deleted, and then was reintroduced by a later-deleted user (sockpuppet of subject) need further investigation. I still question the notability of the subject as a subject of an article in Wikipedia. (Updated.) -- NYScholar ( talk) 01:09, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
NOTE: I did not withdraw my nomination of the article for deletion, as you stated in closing. I crossed that out, because I still have grave doubts about the manipulation of Wikipedia to include an article on this subject by the subject himself and (apparently) others who appear to be working on his behalf. -- NYScholar ( talk) 22:09, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
<sigh> You requested that it be closed, then you crossed it out, and asked further down the page what the procedure for closing the AfD was, and did it have to run for 5 days. It still looked like a request to close the AfD to me.
THAT is part of the problem with this AfD. You keep changing your mind, and you keep adding more and more verbosity to it. It has become hopelessly confused. You also seem to want to make the AfD encompass a whole range of other questions about user behaviour, which are totally outside the remit of AfD.
Finally, regardless of whether I was mistaken in closing the AfD, please note that only an admin can reverse a NAC. Once I had closed the debate (correctly or otherwise), you should NOT have undone that closure. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mayalld ( talk • contribs) 02:43, 13 February 2009
Thank you again for your initial review and for the rest of the time that you have spent on this matter. I do appreciate it. I don't think it hurts, however, to leave the matter open a bit longer (another day or two--the 5 or 7 day period (for a controversial article). -- NYScholar ( talk) 19:06, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia articles normally use footnotes and a references section. I'm just making the articles follow that norm. I ask you to review my edit comment. -- Cybercobra ( talk) 23:34, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
This article is a style guide article. It is intended to illustrate the style. It already has a "Notes" section; your changes are amounting to vandalism of the article. Please stop. -- NYScholar ( talk) 23:36, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
There is no such "Norm"; Wikipedia "layout" has options, and this article follows the one that is most suitable for its subject. Please desist. -- NYScholar ( talk) 23:37, 6 March 2009 (UTC) [Directed user C. to WP:CITE in talk page discussions. -- NYScholar ( talk) 02:58, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
My sincere apologies regarding the MLA incident, I had not read Wikipedia:Citing sources and just was going off of what appeared to be the norm on other articles, but that was incorrect as obviously policy trumps intuition. Sorry for the inconvenience. Now I know about the citation policy for the future. Best of luck on improving the articles back to their pre-copyvio-reversion quality. -- Cybercobra ( talk) 01:08, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Much appreciated!!! -- NYScholar ( talk) 01:09, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm sorry to have to say this, but I don't think you have someone attacking you here. Instead there appears to have been a disagreement and again, due to your style of communication (which you were supposed to be working on) things have escalated and both sides are now upset and frustrated.
You seem to prefer the MLA citation format and are, for all practical purposes, insisting it be used on pages that you re-format. This is a problem that's been brought up to you many times - regardless of how right you think a certain action is, you need to listen and work with other editors. The fact that you are having this dispute currently on more than one article is a serious concern. If you are running in to opposition in multiple places, that's a good indication that your actions do not have a consensus and you should immediately stop.
Other editors have objected to the change for various reasons and whether or not you meant it, the tone of your response comes across as condescending and dismissive. You have also fallen back into the style of leaving multiple long posts for every change and discussion. This makes it very difficult for other editors to communicate with you and understand your points.
It seems like you need to take a step back from this issue. Shell babelfish 18:19, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
I really must set the record straight here, Shell.
For Harold Pinter MLA Style (format of citations and bibliography) has been the prevailing style since it passed its "good article" review with that style in October 2007.
There was no "change" in the MLA style format of the article between October 2007 and when J. began complaining about it after Pinter's death in late December 2008. [Emphasis up front. Please see rest of comment composed earlier. Thank you.-- NYScholar ( talk) 19:53, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
"You seem to prefer the MLA citation format and are, for all practical purposes, insisting it be used on pages that you re-format.":
I do not use MLA Style for every article that I work on, or even most of them, even when I create articles. I follow the prevailing citation style if it is consistent; or I provide a consistent style, often citation templates (for over a year or two--ever since I mastered how to do them). (See the articles mentioned on my user page and go through my contributions history from 2005 to the present.)
For Harold Pinter MLA Style (format of citations and bibliography) has been the prevailing style since it passed its "good article" review with that style in October 2007.
There was no "change" in the MLA style format of the article between October 2007 and when J. began complaining about it after Pinter's death in late December 2008.
Your comments re: what J. is doing (e.g., listing links to comments about me in Talk:Bibliography for Harold Pinter) do not take into account the fact that J. has been focusing specifically on me (a contributor) and not on the actual editing comments that I make, taking personally comments about content that are not about J. but are about the content or format of the article or section of article discussed on the talk pages. Diffs.
I have stepped back, and every time I return, I see more of J.'s attempts to focus on me.
J.'s behavior has proved detrimental for every article where I have encountered J. J. appears to be following me around, searching out information about me, and even linking to old out-of-context complaints about me that have been resolved in the past.
The only opposition that I have seen in Harold Pinter between October 2007 (good article review passing) and late Dec. 2008 has been instigated and continued by J. (There was one other editor who also made outrageous personal statements about me that should have been struck out and that were not. The user who "opened" the mediation that J. posted never returned to respond to my concerns and never closed it.)
J. would not accept another editor's comment in the RfC that J. posted in Talk:Harold Pinter that the MLA Style format (a simple kind of parenthetical referencing) is "reasonable" for an article on a writer who won the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature (see Talk:Harold Pinter for that first responder's response.
Author-date (APA) is simply not useful for that article; its subject is a humanities subject and its sources are mostly print publications.(See Parenthetical referencing. [See its talk page, where some users had pointed out to others that there are more than one style of parenthetical referencing: one common for social sciences subjects and another for humanities (and the arts)--e.g., MLA, Chicago (in the sections on Humanities style). Author-date is used in APA style; it is not used in MLA style; both APA and MLA use parenthetical referencing.]
I have already supplied links to online articles as a convenience (not strictly speaking "convenience links" in sense Wikipedia:Convenience links states; but links to accommodate readers (like J. [based on his/her comments]) who are not familiar with parenthetical referencing enough (or were not earlier) to know that there are two main /kinds: author-date (" APA style", also called "Harvard style") and author-title or author-page (MLA style, Chicago (for articles and books in the humanities), etc.).
Subsequently, J. single-mindedly and single-handedly took further out-of-context remarks about Harold Pinter--completely misrepresenting the situation--and brought it to the talk pages of other articles, like Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#Parenthetical referencing ( cf. Talk:Parenthetical referencing) and project pages, seeking support in an editing dispute. That is also not within Wikipedia:Etiquette guidelines. The people posting there were not aware of the contexts of J.'s involvement in an editing dispute (which J. began in late December 2008) in Harold Pinter or in The arts and politics about parenthetical referencing.
Though I have tried to assume good faith on the part of J. ( WP:AGF), it is clear to me that J. is not currently acting "in good faith" (in relation to my editing of Wikipedia and J.'s filing of all kinds of administrative complaints directed against me in very personal terms); instead, it appears to me that J. is trying to "win" a battle that does not even exist (from my own perspective as an editor who is also a person).
Talk:The arts and politics was linked in Art, Truth and Politics, Pinter's Nobel lecture, in the "See also" and that is how I first noticed it; I worked on it to make its initially inconsistent references (the creator of the article had errors of documentation throughout it--inconsistencies of format) consistent both with its disciplinary subject ( art, later the arts, part of the humanities, not Social sciences) and to improve the development of the article. J.'s additions there appeared to slant the article toward UK issues involving bands, skewing the original direction of the article toward less neutral point of view; I tried to restore neutral point of view and corrected the inconsistencies in citations used in it (by developing one consistent format consistently and provided the Style Sheet so others would be able to know what it is).
J's continuing opposition to any use of MLA Style (a kind of parenthetical referencing used in the humanities) anywhere in Wikipedia is what fuels the animus against me there and after that.
Editing Wikipedia is not about "winning" battles in contests with other contributors. It is supposed to be about improving articles.
There is no doubt in my mind and there was no doubt in the "good article" reviewer's mind, that my work on Harold Pinter, in collaboration with the good article review, improved the article. (I've already provided the link to that "good article review" discussion in Talk:Harold Pinter#Good article review.)
After Pinter's death (24 Dec. 2008), J. entered the article and has been engaged in edit warring ever since, there and in every other article where J. enters the editing process (it appears to me): I see evidence of J.'s filing of complaints against other editors in Wikipedia project pages since J.'s reentry as an editor to Wikipedia (close to that date).
In my experience with J. since then, J's behavior is not collaborative behavior. It is contentious behavior. The statement that J. states re: the "conflict" with me in J.'s request for a review of him/herself as editor is false: J. never "apologized" (to me one would be led to believe) for the outrageous personal attacks which you warned J. about. I received no such apology. J. simply deleted your warning from his/her talk page without complying with it after that, since J. continued after that to focus on me as a contributor instead of on the content of the edits. Diffs
This kind of behavior on J.'s part--the continual filing of still further mediation or other formal types of review requests about me--despite the acknowledgment J. made in the first one that J. found Harold Pinter improved--is disruptive editing.
I think, Shell, that before you accept what J. is saying, you need to examine the full record.
J. posts no "differences" which are required in such procedings. I have posted the links to the differences that I was referring to in my comment in your talk page (recently and a while ago, but got no response then) and repeated one of them above.
It is not acceptable Wikipedia behavior for J. to go into talk pages about various articles and subjects (e.g., Talk:Bibliography for Harold Pinter) and post strings of links to complaints about me by other people. Diffs. That is an outright violation of WP:NPA. I explained that when I removed it, and J. reverted that. I removed the offensive and irrelevant posting of all those links about a contributor (me) again: according to Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines (based on the "Exceptions" given there) one can remove irrelevant material from talk pages, even if they are posted by another user. I cited that section in the past. It is common to remove irrelevant material from talk pages based on those guidelines.]
I have done my best to avoid engaging in the same incivil behavior that I perceive J. engaging in. I do not focus on J. in my comments about my editing changes. When I think it necessary, I comment on the reasons that I am making edits and cite the WP and guidelines that pertain to them: e.g., Wikipedia:Dead links or Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines. But I do have a right to remove the links that J. has added focusing on me as a contributor from Talk:Bibliography for Harold Pinter.
As a result of my experience with J., I do not find J. an editor whom I feel that I can work with; due to the methods and tactics that J. is using or attempting to use and the belligerent attitude toward me, I do not feel comfortable communicating with J. at all any more.
In my experience of J.'s talk page conduct since late December, such conduct is simply not conducive to improving Wikipedia. Speaking for myself, I do not want to work further with J. [or with other editors who behave in that manner]. -- NYScholar ( talk) 23:58, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
I have worked on Harold Pinter (beginning around 2006) (and, later, the split off section, now called Bibliography for Harold Pinter, which grew out of the "good article" review suggestions) to bring them (and their interlinked Wikipedia articles, which are sections of Harold Pinter) through a "good article" review (in 2007; working on it since then to continue to update it and its sources).
J. is not a "good article" reviewer and even appeared to be questioning whether the article passed a "good article" review. It did. Even after I supplied the link to the good article reviewer's talk page discussion, J. did not and still does not acknowledge that the MLA Style has been a format that passed the "good article" review.
As one who worked closely with the good article reviewer in that process, I know what the intentions were for improving the article, and I have kept them in mind in updating the article. (Opposition from users like J. first appeared after Pinter's death, after 24 Dec. 2008.)
The proposal currently in Harold Pinter is an attempt to continue that "good article" process, as the article has become longer after Pinter's death and (in my view recently) needs reorganization via a split (I think).
J. appears to agree: Talk:Harold Pinter#Proposal re: Harold Pinter#Civic activities and political activism. (J. wrote that after I objected to the personal attacking of me throughout other talk pages; e.g. Talk:Bibliography for Harold Pinter.)
But I will not be able to work with J. due to the continuing personal attacks (in various places and in various ways). I hope that J.'s recent attempts will not result in my inability to continue to work on the articles of interest to me in Wikipedia.
Your impression that J. has not engaged in personal attacks is, in my view, incorrect. In my view, J. has done that and will continue to do that if J. is not reminded of the policy stated in WP:NPA (at v. beginning and throughout) and specifically WP:Talk page guidelines#Behavior that is unacceptable: the policy clearly states to focus on the content not on the contributor. Diffs. -- NYScholar ( talk) 23:58, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
[Please excuse the typographical errors in the above; I had a publishing deadline to meet between yesterday and today, and met it, but that has left me very tired. The confrontational attitude of users like J. I find extremely debilitating and counterproductive and extremely uncongenial. -- NYScholar ( talk) 00:21, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
[Before anyone takes me further to task for writing this long explanation, I would suggest that everyone keep in mind that these matters are complicated and involve over three years of editing of Harold Pinter, a "good article" review, which it passed, and many derogatory personal comments made about me as a contributor and many negative characterizations of my editing style and writing (pejorative terms) in several talk pages of several articles by J. as well as a "mediation" that was resolved but not closed and that J. has now escalated in still another administrative filing as well as a review of J.'s own editing that J. filed, focusing in it more on me than it does on J. I must say: I do not see "good faith" operating there. -- NYScholar ( talk) 01:05, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
"It seems like you need to take a step back from this issue." Nevertheless, I will try to take your advice and do that! -- NYScholar ( talk) 04:04, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
I have already understood and accepted what you have said about me. But communication is a two-way street, and the the other party here (J.) does also have a role in communicating with me (and others too).
I have tried for several weeks to get your attention by posting requests for assistance on your talk page since the warning that you placed on J.'s talk page. But I have gotten no response until just yesterday. I really haven't been able to get your attention until just now, despite those prior messages on your talk page.
I thought that perhaps you might have been away. Please check your archive for my previous requests for help.
I don't think your "mentorship has ultimately been unsuccessful"; but I do think that you haven't been around to provide a perspective on my concerns of these continuing problems with J. (through January, February, and now half of March) relating mostly to Harold Pinter; all along I have been asking for further help from you and was concerned about being "on my own" with this situation.
Please examine also not only J.'s complaints about me, but also the kinds of responses that I have been getting from J.: they are archived in Talk:Harold Pinter and are in Talk:Bibliography for Harold Pinter and in Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#Parenthetical referencing. Some of them are nasty and sarcastic; recently, J. thanked me for being courteous as usual Diffs.; on the surface it looks like a compliment; but [given its context--written while the writer has posted notices claiming the opposite of me in a (now still current talk page) RfC, the earlier mediation request, and the more recent WP/ANI, and later comments also claiming the opposite about me not being "courteous" "as ever", etc.], I believe that it is sarcastic and not what it seems to be. [Though, of course, I could be misinterpreting J.'s "tone of voice" there; such is the ambiguity of online communication; the bolded references to "ignorance" and "stupidity" in another response to me Diffs. just led me to "hear" sarcasm when I [first read or re-read] the [actually earlier] "compliment". Or, maybe J. was actually taking a new and more civil approach; it would be nice to believe the latter.]
I do not think that those comments are made "in good faith": nevertheless, I have not replied to them in kind with any degree of sarcasm on my side. I try to comment as matter of factly as possible. For anyone to think I am "condescending" is really also a function of how they read, not just how I write. "Tone of voice" indicates "attitude"; but it is very easy to misinterpret on the internet. If all of you (including you Shell) are going to assume that I am being condescending, that is what you are going to see (or hear in your mind's ear). But that is not how I am writing. If I cite policies and guidelines, it is only because I think that the user who has asked a question or questioned an edit is unaware of it: like Wikipedia:Dead links, which states very clearly not to remove (delete) entire source citations from articles but to replace the links (or just cite printed versions).
When I try to explain my edits, I am not saying that they are the "only" "right" ways to edit an article; but, when someone has questions about them, I respond with answering the questions. Not to respond is to appear uncivil (to appear to be ignoring concerns).
In Harold Pinter there already is a prevailing citation format (7 Oct. 2007 to 24 Dec. 2008), and that format is consistent (as it was on Dec. 24, when J. entered that article), then according to WP:CITE and WP:MOS, one continues with it. One does not change a format that has had consensus for over 2 years.
I did not invent such Wikipedia policy and guidelines; I just try to learn what they are and to follow them.
I refer to them when one raises a question that indicates to me that the person is not familiar with the policy and guidelines. If someone points out the policy and guidelines that are the basis for an edit, it is customary to have an acknowledgment. But I have seen no such acknowledgments from J. J. just moves to another thing to complain about. In the few articles on which I have worked that I have encountered J. as an editor, I have seen very little actual contribution to editing articles and a lot of complaining about others' editing (not only mine). (I do not visit articles about Bristol, so I do not know about those.)
I do not think, Shell, that you recognize that since Dec. 24, 2008, I have made many attempts to accommodate J.'s concerns in an entirely civil manner (many editing changes that are just found via editing history and summary and not discussed in talk pages--just done) and still been met with nasty comments, sarcasm, complaints about being "arrogant" or "condescending" (when I still do not believe that I am).
After J. began complaining about parenthetical references being obtrusive, I have moved several parenthetical citations to endnotes where that might seem less obtrusive and only left the briefest ones in the text. Then J. called that an inconsistency; but it is not. Sometime J. is just simply incorrect. That is a case where J. is incorrect. MLA Style citation format (and almost every other format)--in Wikipedia and out of Wikipedia--uses a mixture of both parenthetical citations and "content notes" (footnotes or endnotes) to document articles and to add additional references beyond the parenthetical ones. Many articles in Wikipedia have both (parenthetical citation references in a text and endnotes).
When I pointed that out, instead of acknowledging that that is so (no response), J. then moved on to rehash the very same complaints already addressed in Harold Pinter--an editing dispute already resolved in J.'s mediation request in January, when J. changed my 2nd ed. MLA Style Manual style to 3rd ed. (with many errors that I later corrected). It is then that it began to appear to me even more that J. was "shopping around" project pages with this editing dispute.
After that, I took still more time to adding links for convenience of readers like J., there has been no acknowledgment that I have done that. All of my attempts to listen to and to try to accommodate J.'s concerns while still maintaining the consistency of the prevailing citaiton format of the article have been rebuffed and treated as if they did not even occur.
I have been accused of not responding when I have responded civilly. It is the nature of J.'s comments that they appear to require responses.
I can't be "damned if I do" respond (by trying to answer questions or explain edits when asked to do so) and also "damned if I don't respond" (as if I were ignoring the concerns raised by other editors like J.). I try to be polite and to respond.
Then even you are complaining about that. I really do not know what you want me to do in such situations. Ignoring other users' concerns is really not civil either. (And I have reviewed your previous recommendations.)
Because concerns of editors like J. (who are apparently unfamiliar with the details of citation and bibliographical formats beyond Wikipedia articles) can be based on confusions due to contradictions in peer-edited articles and policy pages in Wikipedia (like the earlier versions of parenthetical referencing), the situations can be quite complicated and it take some time and some words to explain how and why (as in this circumstance).
Removing sources entirely from a bibligraphy or an EL from EL section when the URL has changed (as J. did recently in Harold Pinter (also see Talk: Bibliography for Harold Pinter) is also not in keeping with Wikipedia:Dead links (and WP:CITE and WP:V). I have now pointed it out several times in several ways, because J. just was commenting on me and not recognizing that I am not addressing J. personally, but writing an explanation on a talk page that serves everyone who might be reading J.'s comments. J. is not the only intended recipient; everyone who reads the talk page is. That is why I sometimes start a new section to add a link in a heading or subheading of a talk page to Wikipedia policy/guidelines (It enables anyone who needs to know it to refer to it). I explain edits that are being challenged or that might need further explanation, not every minor edit that I make (which are explained in editing summaries briefly).
I really do not know what to do when even my mentor is not looking at the whole picture. (This one involving Harold Pinter extends from around spring 2006 through now--about 3 years.)
Please examine the situation from Dec. 24, 2008 to now and please keep in mind that the subject of the article died on that date. The article then changed from an article about a living person subject to WP:BLP to an article about a recently-deceased person, and several new users (not editors but readers), including some anon IP users, came to it than had been looking at it before that. Some of them were not particularly interested in working on the article; some of those who changed the article lost source citations and they needed to be restored. They would just delete stuff, including the source citations.
It is not possible to satisfy everyone. The edits that I have made were made in the context of a several weeks long "good article" review that J. seemed to be insinuating did not occur (in effect, suggesting that I was a liar): see part before Talk:Harold Pinter#Good article review. When I gave the link to the good article reviewer's discussion page (which I had to find in her archive), J. did not acknowledge that I had done so. In my mind, that is not civil behavior.
This is not a matter of who is "right" or who is "wrong" in how to edit the article (although sometimes citation matters do have a "right" and a "wrong" format--order of item, punctuation, and so on): matters of formal consistency.
It is a matter of J.'s deciding that the prevailing style format of the article is not to J.'s liking and questioning whether it is "acceptable" when a "good article" review and longstanding consensus occurring from 7 Oct. 2007 through 24 December 2008 already decided that it was both appropriate and acceptable. I consider this insistence on not following the prevailing format a disruption. It is not improving the article to bog us down in continual discussions about this, when the format is consistent.
If several different editors were to change the entire formatting style of the article (which WP:CITE actually says not to do if the citation format is reasonable and consistent), it would result in many more errors and less consistency. It would also not change the fact that many of the citations are to print sources (articles and books) and are part of several sources being referred to in an endnote; there is no other format that I know of used in Wikipedia that would make such references any clearer than they already are. The Bibliography is a split-off section, resulting from the good article review. The article has split-off sections that are part of it. Looking up parenthetical references to sources on a list of Works cited is a frequent procedure in Wikipedia articles.
These are not "personal" matters, and they are not matters of "content". They are matters of citation format (style) for an article on a writer who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2005. It is "reasonable" to use MLA Style citation formatting in the article (according to the response that J. got to the RfC.
The first responder to J.'s RfC (see Talk:Harold Pinter stated that the format is "reasonable" though there could be other formats possible (that's the case with almost any article). According to WP:MOS (guidelines), one is supposed to have strong basis for changing it, and there is none here. The user asked what J. would propose as an alternative, and J. did not answer the question. J. never proposed any other citation format for the article. Why should J.'s dislike of and unfamiliarity with a prevailing and consistent format of an article take precedence over longstanding consensus. (If one examines Bibliography for Harold Pinter one will see the largeness of the task of changing everything to a different format. No one has come forward to do all that work. No one has proposed what to change it to.)
[If one is going to suggest "Author-date"--basically APA style or sometimes called "Harvard" style--now found as merely one of the two main style formats in parenthetical referencing)--it is simply not as suitable a style to Harold Pinter as "author-title" (or author-page) (MLA style). Most of the print sources cited in the article also use MLA style; it is a subject in the humanities, and readers are more interested in the names of authors [critics and scholars who write on Pinter in many instances] and titles of their articles and books than the dates when they were published (those are given in the full citations in the attached/interlinked Bibliography).
Featured articles in Wikipedia may privilege "Harvard style" but that may be because the article now called parenthetical referencing (which was called "author-date" prior to its being moved by another editor) gave the (false) impression that that was the only parenthetical referencing style available. It may be that those who deal with feature article reviews have a preference for Harvard style, but that does not make it suitable for every article, and not for articles in literature. British, other European, and Australian Wikipedia editors may be more familiar with Harvard style because the previous emphasis on it in the earlier versions of those articles led featured article reviewers to use it. But not every article is a featured article or ready to go through a featured article review. This one is still in flux, due both to Pinter's relatively-recent death (late Dec. 2008) and the need (I think) to split off a section of the article.]
I have volunteered an enormous amount of time to working on articles in Wikipedia. I do far more editing of articles than commenting on talk pages. It is the contentiousness that I have encountered from J. in the past 3 months that has been slowing me down. I have devoted a lot of time to making corrections to articles relating to style guides and parenthetical referencing because of the confusions that I have perceived in J.'s comments. I do not think that people understand that these are good faith edits and that they are evidence of commitment to quality editing in Wikipedia. There is a great deal of plagiarism in Wikipedia, and it should not exist. By improving the references to "how to avoid plagiarism" in some of these articles (including that one), one can hope to improve the quality of Wikipedia. But a great deal depends on the willingness of Wikipedia editors to follow its policies and guidelines. In order for them to do that, first they need to know what they are and to consult them more often and more carefully. -- NYScholar ( talk) 09:43, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
"Simply put, you must find an appropriate way to resolve differences of opinion when they arise. Should you continue to show no change in your ability to handle disputes, it will require me to indicate that the mentorship has ultimately been unsuccessful."
I'll stay logged out of Wikipedia for an extended period of time. Maybe that will help.
Before I post anything in any [article or project or other user's] talk page in Wikipedia, I will review your comments above and in User talk:NYScholar/Archive 23#Adoption request and User talk:NYScholar/Archive 24#Mentorship.
Thanks again for you past help and your more recent replies above. -- NYScholar ( talk) 03:05, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
Shell: Please know that I did not see your message about having personal matters taking you offline from Wikipedia that you posted somewhat below the top of your user talk page on March 16 until a few minutes ago today ([March 19, 23:16 (UTC)]). I hope that everything works out well. (I returned to try to fix the archive bot myself and removed the sec. addressed to you a few days ago about that.) -- NYScholar ( talk) 23:16, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
[Note: I have posted these responses only on my own talk page, not on the talk pages of articles or project pages or any other user's talk page. I intend my responses as part of my communication with my (present or past) mentor, Shell, who has posted a notice on March 16 saying that she would be away from Wikipedia for personal reasons and that one could e-mail her if necessary. I do not communicate with Wikipedia through e-mail due to privacy concerns, however, so this is my only means of communicating with Shell.] -- NYScholar ( talk) 22:06, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
Shell: I hope that the personal situation that you refer to on your talk page on March 16th (that I saw first on the 19th) is resolved to your satisfaction and that all is well. Thank you again.
Actually, I am "interested in changing" the way I respond in talk pages at this time, and I will strive much harder to do so. While I am away, I will think more about how to follow Shell's previous advice better. -- NYScholar ( talk) 04:30, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
Viriditas (
talk) has smiled at you! Smiles promote
WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Go on, smile! Cheers, and happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{
subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.
Jezhotwells (
talk) has smiled at you! Smiles promote
WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Go on, smile! Cheers, and happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{
subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.
Howdy! I apologize since this goes back a while. On the Art, Truth and Politics article, I notice you added the phrase used with permission to a fair use image. Do you remember what was going on there, and/or do you have some means of verifying the permission? If the copyright holder has agreed to license the image under an appropriate license we should probably change it on the image page. Many thanks and keep up the great work! -- TeaDrinker ( talk) 10:03, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for your message. (No apology necessary at all!) The permission was granted to me to publish the image in information about the DVD in private e-mail correspondence with Illuminations; however, I do not use e-mail in or with Wikipedia due to privacy issues. I will try to remove the phrase "used with permission", since the image has a fair-use rationale as a promotional DVD cover, and "permission" is not needed for this usage of it (to illustrate the work (DVD recording of the Lecture discussed in the article). Thanks again for bringing this to my attention. -- NYScholar ( talk) 20:41, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
Hi, I never intended it to be much more than my opening. I have no objection it it's put on my talk page (perhaps the first entry might remain with a link), or inserted into a [can't think of term] openable–closeable tag at MOS talk. Or it can stay as it is. Cheers. Tony (talk) 11:00, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Just uploaded copyedit. I'd be very grateful if you'd carefully compare it with your own version before responding. And then, please, in detail. Many thanks. Wingspeed ( talk) 00:20, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
Will not be here. Just logging off. I have a plane at 6:15 a.m. (ET) and have to pack and leave. Sorry that I cannot oblige. I've done what I can so far. Will be back home in early January. Just cannot stay online any further. Thank you for the post. -- NYScholar ( talk) 00:23, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
Please do not make comments on editing this article on my talk page. See "N.B." above; comments about improving the article really do belong on the talk page of the article, so that all can read them. I'll be away anyway and won't see them. Thanks. Have a good week. -- NYScholar ( talk) 00:31, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
Hello! I appreciate your being really upset about the criticism directed at you personally in the comment you are referring to. Unfortunately, this is not the first time there are comments directed at a person during this debate. First off, let me assure you that I am in no way creating a picture of you as a "bad guy" because of that or any other comment made. There are lots of frustrated people here, and what I am hoping to do is help people get rid of some of that frustration. This does of course not mean that uncivil behavior towards you or anyone else is acceptable. Regrettably, I have seen tendencies towards this sort of thing in the Talk page from way before, so it might take a while to clear the bad air, as it were.
I will try to consult with other people who might have ideas on how to tackle the problem laying at the bottom of all this frustration in a way that doesn't make any of the parties feel attacked. I ask for your patience in the short run, so that I hopefully can make a difference for everyone in the long run.
By the way, I was very happy to see that you took the time to thank User:Jezhotwells for her recent changes, I sincerely believe that communication between you and her is the key to defuse the current situation. That showed extra effort on your part, which did not go unnoticed. Thank you. Delaque ( talk) 10:00, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
Delaque: I am running into serious computer glitches due to the recent updating of my Norton Security program. If I try to go to more than one page of editing histories in Wikipedia articles or talk pages, it freezes my computer, despite having a Pentium D processor in a Dell XPS Gen 5; it's apparently gobbling up my working memory while it runs "pulse updates". This is the best I can do now in response to exaggerations and misleading comments about me posted without editing diffs. throughout user BF's "Comment" on the mediation page and more recently in your talk page. I posted a warning due to the escalation of the personal attacks (which is how I read them):
[Some time ago, I had placed the following signed and time-stamped material below within the "hidden" template simply to take up less space. It contains the editing "diff." ("evidence") requested; apparently Delaque did not realize that. One needs to click on "show" to see the material. I will not be posting further comments about this situation. I've made clear my position against ongoing personalization of this matter by other editor(s), and I will not participate any further in discussing it, as the editing dispute has, in my view and that of the editor who initiated the mediation, already been resolved. Appearing to encourage and in effect to tolerate additional comments of a personal nature in the mediation page violates WP:NPA and is causing harm to me both personally and professionally. -- NYScholar ( talk) 20:35, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
I believe that you are escalating a situation which needs to cool down. There is no reason make threats to users explaining their views. The user has tried to explain the facts behind their statements. If you believe that they are mistaken in their opinion, please clearly state which exact statements are wrong, rather than condemning the entire text, and provide reasons that you believe they are false in a concise way supported by the facts. Threats such as the one on User_talk:BehnamFarid might in themselves be considered Wikipedia:Harassment, and I would suggest you withdraw said warning and apologize. According to WP:RPA, "removal should typically be limited to clear-cut cases where it is obvious the text is a true personal attack." I have asked User:BehnamFarid to rephrase some of the wording as a courtesy, despite the fact that I do not yet understand which part of the text would be considered a personal attack according to WP:NPA. I believe everyone involved would benefit from a resolution of this issue in a non-formal, consensual way, and I would ask that you act with restraint during this process, regardless of whether you will discuss it further on the mediation page or not. Delaque ( talk) 04:37, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
Note: I will not be editing Wikipedia in the near future due to computer glitches that I am encountering. That should provide a "cooling off" period both for me and for the other user BF. Thanks for your earlier efforts. I do understand your aims, but I don't think that the other user is helping to achieve them by continually personalizing editing changes that were merely designed to correct formatting errors. -- NYScholar ( talk) 05:51, 14 January 2009 (UTC) [Update: The computer glitches are interfering with my ability to access full editing histories of articles. I've done all I can about the matter initiated by J, and I am unable to do anymore than I have already done. -- NYScholar ( talk) 20:46, 14 January 2009 (UTC)] [I have subsequently taken some time to correct some relatively-minor formatting inconsistencies in these related articles and responded to J in Talk:Harold Pinter#Wikiquotes about it just prior to logging out again. -- NYScholar ( talk) 02:19, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
Hi, Entirely off the subject of Pinter, I read that you are having problems with Norton software. A google on computing forums will show that you are not alone. May I recommend AVG software, available free (basic) here http://free.avg.com/download-avg-anti-virus-free-edition
It was recommended by my University It department for private use. You can upgrade to a full package, but the basic does me fine. It uses far less memory than Norton and you can find more information at AVG (software). Jezhotwells ( talk) 23:56, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for this comment and advice, J. Much appreciated. Unfortunately, I followed a link in the past couple of days from Norton to update my Norton package to its version 9.0, and apparently it has serious glitches. I have about 3 months left on my Norton subscription (which I have been paying for periodically to upgrade or update). This current version is just gobbling up CPU usage or creating conflicts that tie up one's online work. So I will need to do something eventually. Resetting some default settings creating glitches every few minutes (or even seconds) has helped somewhat (and only paging through Wikipedia editing histories). But I may have to do a full system restoration; though, in my past experience, that does not always function at all and the restoration points are sometimes very limited. (I usually get an error message saying something like "cannot restore to the point selected.") I may have to uninstall this version of Norton and reinstall an earlier version or install a different program, as you are suggesting. I do like relatively frequent updating of virus definitions, but not this frequent! I will look further into the program you mention (have consulted the Wiki article you link). I generally use whatever Dell offers when I buy a new computer, which came with an earlier version of Norton preinstalled, so that's why I have this package (periodically upgraded/updated). My operating system is XP Professional (with its various upgrades) via Media Center 2005, not Vista. It may be that this Norton package is just not as compatible with XP Professional (Version III +) as it might be w/ Vista. Thanks again. (I did notice on your user page that you are a member of a Wikipedia software project. Definitely not my own specialty!!) -- NYScholar ( talk) 00:48, 14 January 2009 (UTC))
It's generally unnecessary to place links to a disambig page on articles that are already at disambiguated titles, such as The Room (novel), etc. It would be hard for someone to arrive at the article about the novel if they were looking for the article about the band. Propaniac ( talk) 03:51, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
Hi NYS, I noticed that you had some trouble with the unsigned template over at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Malaka Dewapriya (2nd nomination). If you use {{unsigned|kelapstick|18:44, 11 February 2009 }} (not using any wikimarkup in the username field) it produces —Preceding unsigned comment added by kelapstick ( talk • contribs) 18:44, 11 February 2009. It is a bit of a pain since when you copy over from the revision history the date and time are reversed from how you enter them in the template, but it still works pretty well. Hope this helps!-- kelapstick ( talk) 18:50, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
I've struck my weak delete !vote, because it was the main stumbling block that was preventing the AFD from being withdrawn, and closed the AFD as withdrawn, in accordance with your requests.
I would however note that the way this AFD has been conducted is a long way wide of the mark when it comes to how to conduct an AFD. Why on earth put an AFD on an article that it is your intent to work on and rewrite, and why mess around, refactoring the discussions into sections like that? AFD discussions should be retained as a threaded discussion, not re-arranged by the nominator into sections to suit himself. Mayalld ( talk) 11:11, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
[Preface: Thanks for your comment. I do understand how the confusion may have arisen. I have reverted your closing the AfD, because you mistakenly state that I withdrew my nomination of the article for deletion (AfD). I had crossed that out and wanted administrators to take a look at the matter over the full course of time after thinking further about it and working more on the article. Below are my responses to your questions/concerns. I think the general problems of how this article got into Wikipedia in the first place, was deleted, and then was reintroduced by a later-deleted user (sockpuppet of subject) need further investigation. I still question the notability of the subject as a subject of an article in Wikipedia. (Updated.) -- NYScholar ( talk) 01:09, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
NOTE: I did not withdraw my nomination of the article for deletion, as you stated in closing. I crossed that out, because I still have grave doubts about the manipulation of Wikipedia to include an article on this subject by the subject himself and (apparently) others who appear to be working on his behalf. -- NYScholar ( talk) 22:09, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
<sigh> You requested that it be closed, then you crossed it out, and asked further down the page what the procedure for closing the AfD was, and did it have to run for 5 days. It still looked like a request to close the AfD to me.
THAT is part of the problem with this AfD. You keep changing your mind, and you keep adding more and more verbosity to it. It has become hopelessly confused. You also seem to want to make the AfD encompass a whole range of other questions about user behaviour, which are totally outside the remit of AfD.
Finally, regardless of whether I was mistaken in closing the AfD, please note that only an admin can reverse a NAC. Once I had closed the debate (correctly or otherwise), you should NOT have undone that closure. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mayalld ( talk • contribs) 02:43, 13 February 2009
Thank you again for your initial review and for the rest of the time that you have spent on this matter. I do appreciate it. I don't think it hurts, however, to leave the matter open a bit longer (another day or two--the 5 or 7 day period (for a controversial article). -- NYScholar ( talk) 19:06, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia articles normally use footnotes and a references section. I'm just making the articles follow that norm. I ask you to review my edit comment. -- Cybercobra ( talk) 23:34, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
This article is a style guide article. It is intended to illustrate the style. It already has a "Notes" section; your changes are amounting to vandalism of the article. Please stop. -- NYScholar ( talk) 23:36, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
There is no such "Norm"; Wikipedia "layout" has options, and this article follows the one that is most suitable for its subject. Please desist. -- NYScholar ( talk) 23:37, 6 March 2009 (UTC) [Directed user C. to WP:CITE in talk page discussions. -- NYScholar ( talk) 02:58, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
My sincere apologies regarding the MLA incident, I had not read Wikipedia:Citing sources and just was going off of what appeared to be the norm on other articles, but that was incorrect as obviously policy trumps intuition. Sorry for the inconvenience. Now I know about the citation policy for the future. Best of luck on improving the articles back to their pre-copyvio-reversion quality. -- Cybercobra ( talk) 01:08, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Much appreciated!!! -- NYScholar ( talk) 01:09, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm sorry to have to say this, but I don't think you have someone attacking you here. Instead there appears to have been a disagreement and again, due to your style of communication (which you were supposed to be working on) things have escalated and both sides are now upset and frustrated.
You seem to prefer the MLA citation format and are, for all practical purposes, insisting it be used on pages that you re-format. This is a problem that's been brought up to you many times - regardless of how right you think a certain action is, you need to listen and work with other editors. The fact that you are having this dispute currently on more than one article is a serious concern. If you are running in to opposition in multiple places, that's a good indication that your actions do not have a consensus and you should immediately stop.
Other editors have objected to the change for various reasons and whether or not you meant it, the tone of your response comes across as condescending and dismissive. You have also fallen back into the style of leaving multiple long posts for every change and discussion. This makes it very difficult for other editors to communicate with you and understand your points.
It seems like you need to take a step back from this issue. Shell babelfish 18:19, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
I really must set the record straight here, Shell.
For Harold Pinter MLA Style (format of citations and bibliography) has been the prevailing style since it passed its "good article" review with that style in October 2007.
There was no "change" in the MLA style format of the article between October 2007 and when J. began complaining about it after Pinter's death in late December 2008. [Emphasis up front. Please see rest of comment composed earlier. Thank you.-- NYScholar ( talk) 19:53, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
"You seem to prefer the MLA citation format and are, for all practical purposes, insisting it be used on pages that you re-format.":
I do not use MLA Style for every article that I work on, or even most of them, even when I create articles. I follow the prevailing citation style if it is consistent; or I provide a consistent style, often citation templates (for over a year or two--ever since I mastered how to do them). (See the articles mentioned on my user page and go through my contributions history from 2005 to the present.)
For Harold Pinter MLA Style (format of citations and bibliography) has been the prevailing style since it passed its "good article" review with that style in October 2007.
There was no "change" in the MLA style format of the article between October 2007 and when J. began complaining about it after Pinter's death in late December 2008.
Your comments re: what J. is doing (e.g., listing links to comments about me in Talk:Bibliography for Harold Pinter) do not take into account the fact that J. has been focusing specifically on me (a contributor) and not on the actual editing comments that I make, taking personally comments about content that are not about J. but are about the content or format of the article or section of article discussed on the talk pages. Diffs.
I have stepped back, and every time I return, I see more of J.'s attempts to focus on me.
J.'s behavior has proved detrimental for every article where I have encountered J. J. appears to be following me around, searching out information about me, and even linking to old out-of-context complaints about me that have been resolved in the past.
The only opposition that I have seen in Harold Pinter between October 2007 (good article review passing) and late Dec. 2008 has been instigated and continued by J. (There was one other editor who also made outrageous personal statements about me that should have been struck out and that were not. The user who "opened" the mediation that J. posted never returned to respond to my concerns and never closed it.)
J. would not accept another editor's comment in the RfC that J. posted in Talk:Harold Pinter that the MLA Style format (a simple kind of parenthetical referencing) is "reasonable" for an article on a writer who won the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature (see Talk:Harold Pinter for that first responder's response.
Author-date (APA) is simply not useful for that article; its subject is a humanities subject and its sources are mostly print publications.(See Parenthetical referencing. [See its talk page, where some users had pointed out to others that there are more than one style of parenthetical referencing: one common for social sciences subjects and another for humanities (and the arts)--e.g., MLA, Chicago (in the sections on Humanities style). Author-date is used in APA style; it is not used in MLA style; both APA and MLA use parenthetical referencing.]
I have already supplied links to online articles as a convenience (not strictly speaking "convenience links" in sense Wikipedia:Convenience links states; but links to accommodate readers (like J. [based on his/her comments]) who are not familiar with parenthetical referencing enough (or were not earlier) to know that there are two main /kinds: author-date (" APA style", also called "Harvard style") and author-title or author-page (MLA style, Chicago (for articles and books in the humanities), etc.).
Subsequently, J. single-mindedly and single-handedly took further out-of-context remarks about Harold Pinter--completely misrepresenting the situation--and brought it to the talk pages of other articles, like Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#Parenthetical referencing ( cf. Talk:Parenthetical referencing) and project pages, seeking support in an editing dispute. That is also not within Wikipedia:Etiquette guidelines. The people posting there were not aware of the contexts of J.'s involvement in an editing dispute (which J. began in late December 2008) in Harold Pinter or in The arts and politics about parenthetical referencing.
Though I have tried to assume good faith on the part of J. ( WP:AGF), it is clear to me that J. is not currently acting "in good faith" (in relation to my editing of Wikipedia and J.'s filing of all kinds of administrative complaints directed against me in very personal terms); instead, it appears to me that J. is trying to "win" a battle that does not even exist (from my own perspective as an editor who is also a person).
Talk:The arts and politics was linked in Art, Truth and Politics, Pinter's Nobel lecture, in the "See also" and that is how I first noticed it; I worked on it to make its initially inconsistent references (the creator of the article had errors of documentation throughout it--inconsistencies of format) consistent both with its disciplinary subject ( art, later the arts, part of the humanities, not Social sciences) and to improve the development of the article. J.'s additions there appeared to slant the article toward UK issues involving bands, skewing the original direction of the article toward less neutral point of view; I tried to restore neutral point of view and corrected the inconsistencies in citations used in it (by developing one consistent format consistently and provided the Style Sheet so others would be able to know what it is).
J's continuing opposition to any use of MLA Style (a kind of parenthetical referencing used in the humanities) anywhere in Wikipedia is what fuels the animus against me there and after that.
Editing Wikipedia is not about "winning" battles in contests with other contributors. It is supposed to be about improving articles.
There is no doubt in my mind and there was no doubt in the "good article" reviewer's mind, that my work on Harold Pinter, in collaboration with the good article review, improved the article. (I've already provided the link to that "good article review" discussion in Talk:Harold Pinter#Good article review.)
After Pinter's death (24 Dec. 2008), J. entered the article and has been engaged in edit warring ever since, there and in every other article where J. enters the editing process (it appears to me): I see evidence of J.'s filing of complaints against other editors in Wikipedia project pages since J.'s reentry as an editor to Wikipedia (close to that date).
In my experience with J. since then, J's behavior is not collaborative behavior. It is contentious behavior. The statement that J. states re: the "conflict" with me in J.'s request for a review of him/herself as editor is false: J. never "apologized" (to me one would be led to believe) for the outrageous personal attacks which you warned J. about. I received no such apology. J. simply deleted your warning from his/her talk page without complying with it after that, since J. continued after that to focus on me as a contributor instead of on the content of the edits. Diffs
This kind of behavior on J.'s part--the continual filing of still further mediation or other formal types of review requests about me--despite the acknowledgment J. made in the first one that J. found Harold Pinter improved--is disruptive editing.
I think, Shell, that before you accept what J. is saying, you need to examine the full record.
J. posts no "differences" which are required in such procedings. I have posted the links to the differences that I was referring to in my comment in your talk page (recently and a while ago, but got no response then) and repeated one of them above.
It is not acceptable Wikipedia behavior for J. to go into talk pages about various articles and subjects (e.g., Talk:Bibliography for Harold Pinter) and post strings of links to complaints about me by other people. Diffs. That is an outright violation of WP:NPA. I explained that when I removed it, and J. reverted that. I removed the offensive and irrelevant posting of all those links about a contributor (me) again: according to Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines (based on the "Exceptions" given there) one can remove irrelevant material from talk pages, even if they are posted by another user. I cited that section in the past. It is common to remove irrelevant material from talk pages based on those guidelines.]
I have done my best to avoid engaging in the same incivil behavior that I perceive J. engaging in. I do not focus on J. in my comments about my editing changes. When I think it necessary, I comment on the reasons that I am making edits and cite the WP and guidelines that pertain to them: e.g., Wikipedia:Dead links or Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines. But I do have a right to remove the links that J. has added focusing on me as a contributor from Talk:Bibliography for Harold Pinter.
As a result of my experience with J., I do not find J. an editor whom I feel that I can work with; due to the methods and tactics that J. is using or attempting to use and the belligerent attitude toward me, I do not feel comfortable communicating with J. at all any more.
In my experience of J.'s talk page conduct since late December, such conduct is simply not conducive to improving Wikipedia. Speaking for myself, I do not want to work further with J. [or with other editors who behave in that manner]. -- NYScholar ( talk) 23:58, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
I have worked on Harold Pinter (beginning around 2006) (and, later, the split off section, now called Bibliography for Harold Pinter, which grew out of the "good article" review suggestions) to bring them (and their interlinked Wikipedia articles, which are sections of Harold Pinter) through a "good article" review (in 2007; working on it since then to continue to update it and its sources).
J. is not a "good article" reviewer and even appeared to be questioning whether the article passed a "good article" review. It did. Even after I supplied the link to the good article reviewer's talk page discussion, J. did not and still does not acknowledge that the MLA Style has been a format that passed the "good article" review.
As one who worked closely with the good article reviewer in that process, I know what the intentions were for improving the article, and I have kept them in mind in updating the article. (Opposition from users like J. first appeared after Pinter's death, after 24 Dec. 2008.)
The proposal currently in Harold Pinter is an attempt to continue that "good article" process, as the article has become longer after Pinter's death and (in my view recently) needs reorganization via a split (I think).
J. appears to agree: Talk:Harold Pinter#Proposal re: Harold Pinter#Civic activities and political activism. (J. wrote that after I objected to the personal attacking of me throughout other talk pages; e.g. Talk:Bibliography for Harold Pinter.)
But I will not be able to work with J. due to the continuing personal attacks (in various places and in various ways). I hope that J.'s recent attempts will not result in my inability to continue to work on the articles of interest to me in Wikipedia.
Your impression that J. has not engaged in personal attacks is, in my view, incorrect. In my view, J. has done that and will continue to do that if J. is not reminded of the policy stated in WP:NPA (at v. beginning and throughout) and specifically WP:Talk page guidelines#Behavior that is unacceptable: the policy clearly states to focus on the content not on the contributor. Diffs. -- NYScholar ( talk) 23:58, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
[Please excuse the typographical errors in the above; I had a publishing deadline to meet between yesterday and today, and met it, but that has left me very tired. The confrontational attitude of users like J. I find extremely debilitating and counterproductive and extremely uncongenial. -- NYScholar ( talk) 00:21, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
[Before anyone takes me further to task for writing this long explanation, I would suggest that everyone keep in mind that these matters are complicated and involve over three years of editing of Harold Pinter, a "good article" review, which it passed, and many derogatory personal comments made about me as a contributor and many negative characterizations of my editing style and writing (pejorative terms) in several talk pages of several articles by J. as well as a "mediation" that was resolved but not closed and that J. has now escalated in still another administrative filing as well as a review of J.'s own editing that J. filed, focusing in it more on me than it does on J. I must say: I do not see "good faith" operating there. -- NYScholar ( talk) 01:05, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
"It seems like you need to take a step back from this issue." Nevertheless, I will try to take your advice and do that! -- NYScholar ( talk) 04:04, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
I have already understood and accepted what you have said about me. But communication is a two-way street, and the the other party here (J.) does also have a role in communicating with me (and others too).
I have tried for several weeks to get your attention by posting requests for assistance on your talk page since the warning that you placed on J.'s talk page. But I have gotten no response until just yesterday. I really haven't been able to get your attention until just now, despite those prior messages on your talk page.
I thought that perhaps you might have been away. Please check your archive for my previous requests for help.
I don't think your "mentorship has ultimately been unsuccessful"; but I do think that you haven't been around to provide a perspective on my concerns of these continuing problems with J. (through January, February, and now half of March) relating mostly to Harold Pinter; all along I have been asking for further help from you and was concerned about being "on my own" with this situation.
Please examine also not only J.'s complaints about me, but also the kinds of responses that I have been getting from J.: they are archived in Talk:Harold Pinter and are in Talk:Bibliography for Harold Pinter and in Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#Parenthetical referencing. Some of them are nasty and sarcastic; recently, J. thanked me for being courteous as usual Diffs.; on the surface it looks like a compliment; but [given its context--written while the writer has posted notices claiming the opposite of me in a (now still current talk page) RfC, the earlier mediation request, and the more recent WP/ANI, and later comments also claiming the opposite about me not being "courteous" "as ever", etc.], I believe that it is sarcastic and not what it seems to be. [Though, of course, I could be misinterpreting J.'s "tone of voice" there; such is the ambiguity of online communication; the bolded references to "ignorance" and "stupidity" in another response to me Diffs. just led me to "hear" sarcasm when I [first read or re-read] the [actually earlier] "compliment". Or, maybe J. was actually taking a new and more civil approach; it would be nice to believe the latter.]
I do not think that those comments are made "in good faith": nevertheless, I have not replied to them in kind with any degree of sarcasm on my side. I try to comment as matter of factly as possible. For anyone to think I am "condescending" is really also a function of how they read, not just how I write. "Tone of voice" indicates "attitude"; but it is very easy to misinterpret on the internet. If all of you (including you Shell) are going to assume that I am being condescending, that is what you are going to see (or hear in your mind's ear). But that is not how I am writing. If I cite policies and guidelines, it is only because I think that the user who has asked a question or questioned an edit is unaware of it: like Wikipedia:Dead links, which states very clearly not to remove (delete) entire source citations from articles but to replace the links (or just cite printed versions).
When I try to explain my edits, I am not saying that they are the "only" "right" ways to edit an article; but, when someone has questions about them, I respond with answering the questions. Not to respond is to appear uncivil (to appear to be ignoring concerns).
In Harold Pinter there already is a prevailing citation format (7 Oct. 2007 to 24 Dec. 2008), and that format is consistent (as it was on Dec. 24, when J. entered that article), then according to WP:CITE and WP:MOS, one continues with it. One does not change a format that has had consensus for over 2 years.
I did not invent such Wikipedia policy and guidelines; I just try to learn what they are and to follow them.
I refer to them when one raises a question that indicates to me that the person is not familiar with the policy and guidelines. If someone points out the policy and guidelines that are the basis for an edit, it is customary to have an acknowledgment. But I have seen no such acknowledgments from J. J. just moves to another thing to complain about. In the few articles on which I have worked that I have encountered J. as an editor, I have seen very little actual contribution to editing articles and a lot of complaining about others' editing (not only mine). (I do not visit articles about Bristol, so I do not know about those.)
I do not think, Shell, that you recognize that since Dec. 24, 2008, I have made many attempts to accommodate J.'s concerns in an entirely civil manner (many editing changes that are just found via editing history and summary and not discussed in talk pages--just done) and still been met with nasty comments, sarcasm, complaints about being "arrogant" or "condescending" (when I still do not believe that I am).
After J. began complaining about parenthetical references being obtrusive, I have moved several parenthetical citations to endnotes where that might seem less obtrusive and only left the briefest ones in the text. Then J. called that an inconsistency; but it is not. Sometime J. is just simply incorrect. That is a case where J. is incorrect. MLA Style citation format (and almost every other format)--in Wikipedia and out of Wikipedia--uses a mixture of both parenthetical citations and "content notes" (footnotes or endnotes) to document articles and to add additional references beyond the parenthetical ones. Many articles in Wikipedia have both (parenthetical citation references in a text and endnotes).
When I pointed that out, instead of acknowledging that that is so (no response), J. then moved on to rehash the very same complaints already addressed in Harold Pinter--an editing dispute already resolved in J.'s mediation request in January, when J. changed my 2nd ed. MLA Style Manual style to 3rd ed. (with many errors that I later corrected). It is then that it began to appear to me even more that J. was "shopping around" project pages with this editing dispute.
After that, I took still more time to adding links for convenience of readers like J., there has been no acknowledgment that I have done that. All of my attempts to listen to and to try to accommodate J.'s concerns while still maintaining the consistency of the prevailing citaiton format of the article have been rebuffed and treated as if they did not even occur.
I have been accused of not responding when I have responded civilly. It is the nature of J.'s comments that they appear to require responses.
I can't be "damned if I do" respond (by trying to answer questions or explain edits when asked to do so) and also "damned if I don't respond" (as if I were ignoring the concerns raised by other editors like J.). I try to be polite and to respond.
Then even you are complaining about that. I really do not know what you want me to do in such situations. Ignoring other users' concerns is really not civil either. (And I have reviewed your previous recommendations.)
Because concerns of editors like J. (who are apparently unfamiliar with the details of citation and bibliographical formats beyond Wikipedia articles) can be based on confusions due to contradictions in peer-edited articles and policy pages in Wikipedia (like the earlier versions of parenthetical referencing), the situations can be quite complicated and it take some time and some words to explain how and why (as in this circumstance).
Removing sources entirely from a bibligraphy or an EL from EL section when the URL has changed (as J. did recently in Harold Pinter (also see Talk: Bibliography for Harold Pinter) is also not in keeping with Wikipedia:Dead links (and WP:CITE and WP:V). I have now pointed it out several times in several ways, because J. just was commenting on me and not recognizing that I am not addressing J. personally, but writing an explanation on a talk page that serves everyone who might be reading J.'s comments. J. is not the only intended recipient; everyone who reads the talk page is. That is why I sometimes start a new section to add a link in a heading or subheading of a talk page to Wikipedia policy/guidelines (It enables anyone who needs to know it to refer to it). I explain edits that are being challenged or that might need further explanation, not every minor edit that I make (which are explained in editing summaries briefly).
I really do not know what to do when even my mentor is not looking at the whole picture. (This one involving Harold Pinter extends from around spring 2006 through now--about 3 years.)
Please examine the situation from Dec. 24, 2008 to now and please keep in mind that the subject of the article died on that date. The article then changed from an article about a living person subject to WP:BLP to an article about a recently-deceased person, and several new users (not editors but readers), including some anon IP users, came to it than had been looking at it before that. Some of them were not particularly interested in working on the article; some of those who changed the article lost source citations and they needed to be restored. They would just delete stuff, including the source citations.
It is not possible to satisfy everyone. The edits that I have made were made in the context of a several weeks long "good article" review that J. seemed to be insinuating did not occur (in effect, suggesting that I was a liar): see part before Talk:Harold Pinter#Good article review. When I gave the link to the good article reviewer's discussion page (which I had to find in her archive), J. did not acknowledge that I had done so. In my mind, that is not civil behavior.
This is not a matter of who is "right" or who is "wrong" in how to edit the article (although sometimes citation matters do have a "right" and a "wrong" format--order of item, punctuation, and so on): matters of formal consistency.
It is a matter of J.'s deciding that the prevailing style format of the article is not to J.'s liking and questioning whether it is "acceptable" when a "good article" review and longstanding consensus occurring from 7 Oct. 2007 through 24 December 2008 already decided that it was both appropriate and acceptable. I consider this insistence on not following the prevailing format a disruption. It is not improving the article to bog us down in continual discussions about this, when the format is consistent.
If several different editors were to change the entire formatting style of the article (which WP:CITE actually says not to do if the citation format is reasonable and consistent), it would result in many more errors and less consistency. It would also not change the fact that many of the citations are to print sources (articles and books) and are part of several sources being referred to in an endnote; there is no other format that I know of used in Wikipedia that would make such references any clearer than they already are. The Bibliography is a split-off section, resulting from the good article review. The article has split-off sections that are part of it. Looking up parenthetical references to sources on a list of Works cited is a frequent procedure in Wikipedia articles.
These are not "personal" matters, and they are not matters of "content". They are matters of citation format (style) for an article on a writer who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2005. It is "reasonable" to use MLA Style citation formatting in the article (according to the response that J. got to the RfC.
The first responder to J.'s RfC (see Talk:Harold Pinter stated that the format is "reasonable" though there could be other formats possible (that's the case with almost any article). According to WP:MOS (guidelines), one is supposed to have strong basis for changing it, and there is none here. The user asked what J. would propose as an alternative, and J. did not answer the question. J. never proposed any other citation format for the article. Why should J.'s dislike of and unfamiliarity with a prevailing and consistent format of an article take precedence over longstanding consensus. (If one examines Bibliography for Harold Pinter one will see the largeness of the task of changing everything to a different format. No one has come forward to do all that work. No one has proposed what to change it to.)
[If one is going to suggest "Author-date"--basically APA style or sometimes called "Harvard" style--now found as merely one of the two main style formats in parenthetical referencing)--it is simply not as suitable a style to Harold Pinter as "author-title" (or author-page) (MLA style). Most of the print sources cited in the article also use MLA style; it is a subject in the humanities, and readers are more interested in the names of authors [critics and scholars who write on Pinter in many instances] and titles of their articles and books than the dates when they were published (those are given in the full citations in the attached/interlinked Bibliography).
Featured articles in Wikipedia may privilege "Harvard style" but that may be because the article now called parenthetical referencing (which was called "author-date" prior to its being moved by another editor) gave the (false) impression that that was the only parenthetical referencing style available. It may be that those who deal with feature article reviews have a preference for Harvard style, but that does not make it suitable for every article, and not for articles in literature. British, other European, and Australian Wikipedia editors may be more familiar with Harvard style because the previous emphasis on it in the earlier versions of those articles led featured article reviewers to use it. But not every article is a featured article or ready to go through a featured article review. This one is still in flux, due both to Pinter's relatively-recent death (late Dec. 2008) and the need (I think) to split off a section of the article.]
I have volunteered an enormous amount of time to working on articles in Wikipedia. I do far more editing of articles than commenting on talk pages. It is the contentiousness that I have encountered from J. in the past 3 months that has been slowing me down. I have devoted a lot of time to making corrections to articles relating to style guides and parenthetical referencing because of the confusions that I have perceived in J.'s comments. I do not think that people understand that these are good faith edits and that they are evidence of commitment to quality editing in Wikipedia. There is a great deal of plagiarism in Wikipedia, and it should not exist. By improving the references to "how to avoid plagiarism" in some of these articles (including that one), one can hope to improve the quality of Wikipedia. But a great deal depends on the willingness of Wikipedia editors to follow its policies and guidelines. In order for them to do that, first they need to know what they are and to consult them more often and more carefully. -- NYScholar ( talk) 09:43, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
"Simply put, you must find an appropriate way to resolve differences of opinion when they arise. Should you continue to show no change in your ability to handle disputes, it will require me to indicate that the mentorship has ultimately been unsuccessful."
I'll stay logged out of Wikipedia for an extended period of time. Maybe that will help.
Before I post anything in any [article or project or other user's] talk page in Wikipedia, I will review your comments above and in User talk:NYScholar/Archive 23#Adoption request and User talk:NYScholar/Archive 24#Mentorship.
Thanks again for you past help and your more recent replies above. -- NYScholar ( talk) 03:05, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
Shell: Please know that I did not see your message about having personal matters taking you offline from Wikipedia that you posted somewhat below the top of your user talk page on March 16 until a few minutes ago today ([March 19, 23:16 (UTC)]). I hope that everything works out well. (I returned to try to fix the archive bot myself and removed the sec. addressed to you a few days ago about that.) -- NYScholar ( talk) 23:16, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
[Note: I have posted these responses only on my own talk page, not on the talk pages of articles or project pages or any other user's talk page. I intend my responses as part of my communication with my (present or past) mentor, Shell, who has posted a notice on March 16 saying that she would be away from Wikipedia for personal reasons and that one could e-mail her if necessary. I do not communicate with Wikipedia through e-mail due to privacy concerns, however, so this is my only means of communicating with Shell.] -- NYScholar ( talk) 22:06, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
Shell: I hope that the personal situation that you refer to on your talk page on March 16th (that I saw first on the 19th) is resolved to your satisfaction and that all is well. Thank you again.
Actually, I am "interested in changing" the way I respond in talk pages at this time, and I will strive much harder to do so. While I am away, I will think more about how to follow Shell's previous advice better. -- NYScholar ( talk) 04:30, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
Viriditas (
talk) has smiled at you! Smiles promote
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Smile at others by adding {{
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Jezhotwells (
talk) has smiled at you! Smiles promote
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Smile at others by adding {{
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Howdy! I apologize since this goes back a while. On the Art, Truth and Politics article, I notice you added the phrase used with permission to a fair use image. Do you remember what was going on there, and/or do you have some means of verifying the permission? If the copyright holder has agreed to license the image under an appropriate license we should probably change it on the image page. Many thanks and keep up the great work! -- TeaDrinker ( talk) 10:03, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for your message. (No apology necessary at all!) The permission was granted to me to publish the image in information about the DVD in private e-mail correspondence with Illuminations; however, I do not use e-mail in or with Wikipedia due to privacy issues. I will try to remove the phrase "used with permission", since the image has a fair-use rationale as a promotional DVD cover, and "permission" is not needed for this usage of it (to illustrate the work (DVD recording of the Lecture discussed in the article). Thanks again for bringing this to my attention. -- NYScholar ( talk) 20:41, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
Hi, I never intended it to be much more than my opening. I have no objection it it's put on my talk page (perhaps the first entry might remain with a link), or inserted into a [can't think of term] openable–closeable tag at MOS talk. Or it can stay as it is. Cheers. Tony (talk) 11:00, 2 June 2009 (UTC)