User talk:MatMar555
Minor
[edit]Only tag your edits as M for minor if meeting criteria set at WP:MINOR. David notMD (talk) 06:09, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
John Cook Wilson
[edit]Hello,
I would like to say thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. I appreciate the effort you are putting into editing John Cook Wilson, and I understand that you are an expert on the topic. There are some issues with the edits you are making onto the article. Firstly, many sections in the article are unsourced. This general lack of sources may qualify the article for deletion under WP:BIO. There may be some protections against this through WP:PROF, however it is important to ensure that the article meets these criteria. Whilst I will not personally nominate it, this may occur and I understand this will frustrate you. My recommendation is that if you continue to improve the article, you ensure to add further inline citations to sections (WP:RS), especially under material challenged or likely to be challenged.
My intention for the rollback of your edit was not to undo all the work you have added. This was a mistake and has been corrected. The intention was to remove specific edits which are likely to be challenged and do not have any inline citations, as mentioned before. I apologise for that. Good luck with your further research and I wish you good health. ✯✬✩⛥InterestGather (talk) 06:14, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- Thank you for this clarification! I got messages that explained to me that I should reference as I go along, and will do so. I am new at this and thought I would do the footnoting last ... MatMar555 (talk) 13:31, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- Throughout, I changed "Cook Wilson" to "Wilson" because Wikipedia has a only-the-surname policy. I did add a mention in the Lead that he was often referred to as "Cook Wilson"? Good-faith disagreement is not vandalism. Wikipedia policy is BRD: be Bold in your edited, but if Reverted (reversed), Discuss at Talk rather than reverting the revert, which is called edit warring, and can lead to being temporarily blocked from editing (initially, arbitrarliy, for a period of 31 hours. Yes, Wikipedia is quirky.). David notMD (talk) 14:51, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- Thank you for further advice, but having all of one's work erased admittedly in error by InterestGather who said so above, and without any explanation, was cause for concern. As for your reverting "Cook Wilson" to "Wilson" it will reflect poorly on Wikipedia, because that man is almost universally referred to as "Cook Wilson" in philosophy. It would be nice if you could give me a bit of leeway in revising this entry, especially in light of the fact that the previous effort was awaful, and even contained factual errors. For example, I corrected (under another name) last August the claim that Cook Wilson had no children. I just fixed the section "Personal Life" and footnoted it with publicly available evidence of the existence of his son, I spare you the result of my work in Cook Wilson's archives, since it is not to be indicated on Wiki. MatMar555 (talk) 14:59, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- I see that I am now in an edit conflict with someone who seems to be you. This is very frustrating when one tries and improve the entry and sees someone undermining one's efforts at the very same time. What authority do you have to overrule me? Are you a specialist of Cook Wilson? I understand about the policies regarding Wiki entries that I am now learning but this is no excuse continued editorial intervention. I shall stop working on the entry until this is satisfactorily resolved, and if not I'll erase all my changes and let the previously factually wrong, philosophically incompetent, uniformed haphazard set of anecdotes stand as your entry on Cook Wilson. I suggest instead that you let me work section by section and judge the finished text as opposed to systematically interfering. MatMar555 (talk) 15:10, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- Worse, I just spent and one hour to fix the new section Personal Life, but thank to you the footnotes etc. are now not appearing, and I can't recuperated my work. It seems like wasted time, on top of it and so stupidly in regard with the obsession with factual errors, I had provided the public proofs on the some factual point of contention. Unless I get excuses and/or hopefully see my last changes reinstated, I'll erase everything, and revert the entry to its original state before August, including this falsehood. I am starting to understand why in Academia we tell our students never to look at Wikipedia entries and that my optimism was utterly unfounded. MatMar555 (talk) 15:21, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- I am trying to undo all my changes in the past 24 hours. I am stuck after merely getting rid of your latest interferences. Please be kind and help me reverting this entry to the sorry state it was in before I intervened yesterday and your simultaneous interventions stopped me from working further. You should be happy with the version before my interventions, since you did not object, and I do not want to have anything any more with Wikipedia. As it is, with only my first improvements left, the entry is now in a ridiculous half-done state, please revert to the quality work I was trying to improve on and that everybody seemed to be satisfied with. MatMar555 (talk) 16:14, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- Throughout, I changed "Cook Wilson" to "Wilson" because Wikipedia has a only-the-surname policy. I did add a mention in the Lead that he was often referred to as "Cook Wilson"? Good-faith disagreement is not vandalism. Wikipedia policy is BRD: be Bold in your edited, but if Reverted (reversed), Discuss at Talk rather than reverting the revert, which is called edit warring, and can lead to being temporarily blocked from editing (initially, arbitrarliy, for a period of 31 hours. Yes, Wikipedia is quirky.). David notMD (talk) 14:51, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- Thank you very much for having understood the situation. I am now stuck thanks to another person's simultaneous editorial interventions as a bull in a china shop, that stopped me from introducing new modifications, resulted in the loss of new modifications, notably introducing footnotes, so I decided not to pursue my endeavour to improve this entry and withdraw my previous modifications that leave the job half done. I wish I could undo all my interventions and revert the page to what it was say two days ago, but I can't. Would you kindly help me to undo? MatMar555 (talk) 16:01, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- Dear InterestGather, with hindsight you were the only non callous person here. This is not a friendly milieu for novice users. Thank you very much for your understanding however. I wish you could intervene to help improving relations here (see below) so that I could carry on with my improvements to the entry, but I simply despair. MatMar555 (talk) 18:21, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- I have given up on your colleagues. I will not improve further the entry. But thank you for your kindness towards me. MatMar555 (talk) 22:43, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
Teahouse talkback: you've got messages!
[edit]Please note that all old questions are archived after 2-3 days of inactivity. Message added by Theroadislong (talk) 16:58, 22 January 2023 (UTC). (You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{teahouse talkback}} template.
January 2023
[edit]Please do not remove content or templates from pages on Wikipedia, as you did to John Cook Wilson, without giving a valid reason for the removal in the edit summary. Your content removal does not appear to be constructive and has been reverted. If you only meant to make a test edit, please use your sandbox for that. Thank you. Theroadislong (talk) 17:43, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
Please stop. If you continue to blank out or remove portions of page content, templates, or other materials from Wikipedia without adequate explanation, as you did at John Cook Wilson, you may be blocked from editing. Theroadislong (talk) 17:50, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- Do you realize what you are doing? You erase the link to my work and keep me from taking out the parts that I wrote might therefore be plagiarism. How do you explain this behaviour apart from being angry at me? MatMar555 (talk) 17:52, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- the link to your work is in a reference I added so it is not required as an external link. Theroadislong (talk) 17:55, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- I am not touching anything anymore, l need a pause, I never thought that volunteering to improve an entry would be such a nightmare. If you are satisfied with it as it is now, good for you. MatMar555 (talk) 18:18, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- the link to your work is in a reference I added so it is not required as an external link. Theroadislong (talk) 17:55, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- In essence, so far (1) all my changes were reverted in the middle of my revisions without warning or explanations, but reintroduced with apologies later, but (2) in the meantime someone else, feeling justified thinking this was the final product, started tampering with what I was trying to do, and caused me to lose further improvements and now (3) you take away the link (putting it in the first footnote is not enough to avoid te accusation of plagiarism) and threaten to ban me because I want to withdraw my modifications? Can you step back one moment and realize what you are doing and what "collaboration" is supposed to mean? I will suffer the personal indignity, compounded by the fact that I am the only expert here, of having my revisions standing as incomplete and have nothing further do to with so unpleasant non collaborative people, none of them with productive actions, only pokes in my wheel and fundamental lack of respect. Ban me if you wish, keeping my paragraphs, knowing that you could not write them, that will only serve to show the whole hypocrisy of not respecting the expert, and truly collaborating with him. Perhaps I am not the only one who needs a change of attitude here, if you don't want this entry to look silly. Just a hint, 90% of Cook Wilson's contributions, as stated, are to philosophy, but you have in effect stopped me from writing about this and you stop me from taking away the bits about contributions to classics and mathematics that can only be found in my Stanford Encyclopedia entry, hence the plagiarism. I was not given time to put proper footnotes, when I did, (2) occurred and I lost my work, hence my being upset. So although I was able to correct many mistakes including a straight falsehood - but without being able to put the footnotes showing this - we are left with a loop-sided entry that looks as if a few paragraphs lifted from my Stanford Encyclopedia. Happy with that? If not stop this attitude and let us work towards my improving the entry without further pokes in the wheel from overeager editors. It seems best I do the work, introduce the changes and have them vetted instead of people intervening simultaneously with adverse effect, no? MatMar555 (talk) 18:11, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- It seems as if you are wishing to add content sourced to your own published work, it would be better if you submitted suggestions on the article's talk page with the {{request edit}} template and a reliable source. Theroadislong (talk) 19:20, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- "It seems as if you are wishing to add content sourced to your own published work" This was not the aim given that even in the bit stands now there is stuff not in the the Stanford Encyclopedia entry, but is rather exhaustive, so some overlap is unavoidable. And the plan was to footnote properly, the Stanford Encyclopedia entry if you care to look is already a compendium of other published work to which to refer. And you must really not know anything to the field if you don't know yet that the Stanford Encyclopedia is the benchmark in my discipline. I am not sure I want to add further stuff if my efforts will be again undermined as they have been just now. I hope you realise that I ended up being threatened to be barred from editing, while I am basically the specialist of Cook Wilson, that I came (without experience I confess) here to improve the entry, because I wanted to withdraw what I wrote? Does this not look absurd to you? I would very much like, if I am to pursue this to be sure that no one will come barging in midway to undermine my efforts. I have no guarantee, so I leave things as they stand for now, the record of to my mind callous editorial interventions that scuttled my own. MatMar555 (talk) 19:31, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- See WP:OWN. No one, no matter what, has the right to act as though they are the owner of a particular article (or any part of it). Theroadislong (talk) 19:57, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- I am not acting as such, I understand that what I wrote is not mine anymore, but to be threatened to be banned because I take it back is, to say the least, stunning. MatMar555 (talk) 20:16, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- By the way, I am to understand that if I write something that I deem inappropriate, an expert on format - but not on content - that likes it can threaten to bar me if I want to take it away.? Is this really how Wikipedia works? I think this would be grounds to never get involved. I wonder if there is a platform to lodge a complaint about this sort of behaviour and discuss this. MatMar555 (talk) 20:28, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- You can report misdemeanours here Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. Theroadislong (talk) 20:41, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- Thank you for this. I have no intention to report what I do not consider a "misdemeanour" but it might be useful for me in the future. For now we have an understanding and can continue discussing so that the matter is resolved. If you could answer my questions, I would be very glad. MatMar555 (talk) 20:44, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- You can report misdemeanours here Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. Theroadislong (talk) 20:41, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- In the meantime, there is a section on "classics and Mathematics" left with nothing about mathematics and a discussion of stuff on classics that is lacking footnotes (to the authors mentioned) and looks as if silently lifted from the Stanford Encyclopedia, because I stopped working on the entry. Are we to wait until some one shows up and carries on with revisions or are these threats and interference will stop so that I can do a decent job? You, for example, erase the link to the Stanford Encyclopedia entry and placed it in the first footnote. If I think as expert on content that this is insufficient and wish to change matters, are you going to "collaborate" by reverting my changes and issue threats, or simply respect my word as expert on content? MatMar555 (talk) 20:36, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- It seems as if you are wishing to add content sourced to your own published work, it would be better if you submitted suggestions on the article's talk page with the {{request edit}} template and a reliable source. Theroadislong (talk) 19:20, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
≈
Experts versus experts
[edit]There are experts on topic (you) and experts on Wikipedia format (Theroadislong, and to a lesser extent, me). Neither of us are disagreeing with you on content. The caution about edit warring potentially leading to a temporary block is standard information shared with new editors. David notMD (talk) 20:10, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- Standard practice or not, it seems to me that it would go more smoothly if expert on format threat expert on topic more kindly. That's all. (And please wait until the modifications are complete before suggesting/requesting modifications.) MatMar555 (talk) 20:18, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- Besides, what has happened to me in the past 24 hours goes in many ways far beyond issues of format. It has been reverting a bunch of modifications without justification, albeit, it seems accidentally, and then reshuffling on material, creation of new sections, making me lose some of what I had prepared (footnoting an entire section), changing links and adding references (from an expert on format, not content) and threats because I want to withdraw some content. As a matter of fact, I would not be here to discuss if it had been possible to withdraw all my suggested content and revert the entry to its original state. This is what all of this makes me feel. MatMar555 (talk) 20:24, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- To continue on my point. If your issue as expert on format is that there are insufficient references (i agree, foolishly I was planning to add them last, as I explained), why scrap the changes? Why not simply requesting them (this was done but after we got in a mess) and then wait until I add them? MatMar555 (talk) 20:42, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- Expert editors can be very valuable contributors to Wikipedia, but they sometimes have a difficult time realising that Wikipedia is a different environment from scholarly and scientific publishing. See Wikipedia:Expert editors. Theroadislong (talk) 21:01, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- that may be true, but it seems that on the other hand experts on format sometimes become callous and intervene without due consideration. Again : (1) reverting my changes suddenly without explanations, (2) intervening in the text and its organisation, reshuffling material and creating new sections, (3) changing links and references and issue threats. None of this is acceptable to contributors to the content, but it seems experts on format never act wrongly or issue apologies. To me this is no "collaboration".
- I'll ask the same question as I did earlier, with a different example : in the "Further readings" section, someone put a French-language book published in Egypt in the 1930s and another book published in India in the 1950s, that absolutely no one in the field ever read or commented. I even could not get hold of copies after years of searching, because they are presumably extremely rare. They cannot be counted as key texts on Cook Wilson by any standard whatsoever. This is another example of the currently mediocre statut of this entry. But these are literally 2 of 4 references, missing are dozens and dozens of relevant ones, see the Stanford Encyclopedia entry, out of which I was pondering the best selection last night when I discovered my whole set of changes was annulled. If I erase these 2 irrelevant entries and add numerous important ones, will you - as you seem fond of intervening about references - reject my changes, yes or no? I remind you that it would be curtesy for you to defer to my expertise in the field and let me work without interference on the entry, not end up antagonizing me. I would understand another expert on Cook Wilson discussing with me the best selection. But tell me what your answer would be. This may change my mind about wishing to continue collaborative work on the entry or just definitely throwing the towel. MatMar555 (talk) 21:16, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- Just add that InterestGather at the top of this page recognized his mistakes and apologized, I would not like my blanket statement to apply to them. MatMar555 (talk) 21:18, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- You are conflating "further reading" with references, the further reading section could easily be deleted, what we require is a reliable source for any fact that could be challenged. Theroadislong (talk) 21:21, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- Well, these books I mentioned are not reliable source, because basically unavailable to verify, as the expert I am is telling you. I am glad they could be deleted, but I was not conflating "Further reading" with "references" because they are all references and I want to know to which extend *you* are going to mingle with content. Because if I deem a reference not reliable, who is to no that you will request it to stand? And I would also be wary of an expert on format having problems with "Further reading" sections since they are permitted. See Wikipedia:Further reading MatMar555 (talk) 21:27, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- My fear, given the treatment to which I have been suggested by you and others is that if I suppress these books, you will attack me again but refusing my changes and issuing threat if I insist. As a matter of fact, after your threat to ban me earlier I was shocked that still these lousy references were standing and that taking them away would result in my being banned from editing on wiki by you. If you don't understand what I am talking to you about, you have a problem with contributors. MatMar555 (talk) 21:31, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- sorry for the typos, it should read: by* refusing my changes and issuing threats* MatMar555 (talk) 21:32, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- The books in the further reading section can be removed they are not supporting any of the articles content, they are not references. Theroadislong (talk) 21:35, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- "The books in the further reading section can be removed they are not supporting any of the articles content, they are not references." If that means that you would not go against my decision, that is good to know. But you do understand I hope that the way I was treated does not lead me to believe that I could securely do so? MatMar555 (talk) 21:41, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- You were warned for blanking content with no explanation or edit summary here [1] you should not blank content from pages on Wikipedia, as you did without giving a valid reason for the removal in the edit summary. Theroadislong (talk) 21:50, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- I was warned first that I did not provide an explantation and overruled by you, but then provided an explanation for the first passage (risk of looking like plagiarism) and this change still stands. But it is then that I was threatened by you not to to this any more to any other passage. That is a slightly different story. MatMar555 (talk) 21:59, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- You have to understand the consequences of your actions on others, it seems to be lost in your sense of "collaboration". MatMar555 (talk) 22:05, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- You were warned for blanking content with no explanation or edit summary here [1] you should not blank content from pages on Wikipedia, as you did without giving a valid reason for the removal in the edit summary. Theroadislong (talk) 21:50, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- "The books in the further reading section can be removed they are not supporting any of the articles content, they are not references." If that means that you would not go against my decision, that is good to know. But you do understand I hope that the way I was treated does not lead me to believe that I could securely do so? MatMar555 (talk) 21:41, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- The books in the further reading section can be removed they are not supporting any of the articles content, they are not references. Theroadislong (talk) 21:35, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- sorry for the typos, it should read: by* refusing my changes and issuing threats* MatMar555 (talk) 21:32, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- My fear, given the treatment to which I have been suggested by you and others is that if I suppress these books, you will attack me again but refusing my changes and issuing threat if I insist. As a matter of fact, after your threat to ban me earlier I was shocked that still these lousy references were standing and that taking them away would result in my being banned from editing on wiki by you. If you don't understand what I am talking to you about, you have a problem with contributors. MatMar555 (talk) 21:31, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- Incidentally, I hope that you and David notMD appreciate the irony that in the original page there was only one fact which was disputed, the existence of Cook Wilson's son, that that my work on footnoting the whole section, including evidence that he did exist was destryed because David notMD was busy modify the entry at the same time and that voided my changes. Alas, I do not expect excuses, but I hope the irony will be patent. As it stand the evidence is now missing, and I hope one day to make both of you realize that you have antagonized the person who can provide it ... MatMar555 (talk) 21:39, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- I added a source for Ralph Woempener Wilson, you have not added a single source for any of your content so far as far as I can tell? Theroadislong (talk) 21:44, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- "I added a source for Ralph Woempener Wilson" Nice, because I could never add any source thanks to the collaboration of editors like you. I just explained to you that I had added sources to that whole section and that this all went to waste when I tried to publish the new, referenced version became in conflict with changes made behind my back by David notMD. Which part do you not understand? And then I have been threatened because I was withdrawing, so I do not touch anymore this entry under the fear that some callous editor who wants to interfere endlessly bans me. If you are insinuating that I can't add sources, this is deeply insulting, given that I have explained many times that I was planning to add sources to what I wrote when it all went wrong when InterestGather chucked out all my work, before I could do it and that since then I began doing it with that section to no avail because my work became in conflict with changes made behind my back by David notMD. Do you understand? at least now I will rest assured that (1) you will do that job for me, since this is what in effect you are doing, or (2) the rest of the entry ought to be taken down because it is not sourced. I would love to leave no trace of my writing, if I can't do any further improvements. Btu the fact remains that you can't to that job, it is not your job either so could you stop and recognize the problem? MatMar555 (talk) 21:56, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- I see what you have done to the entry, substituting yourself as me in putting as best you can some footnotes/references to repair all the mess caused by editorial interventions. I guess that this is what you call "collaboration", even using my own work (that you visibly have not read), while you are busy trying to deny any untoward actions towards me. So good luck with the missing citations, it would have taken me 2 minutes, and with the lame almost totally empty sections that follow. The entry still looks like a shit job. I think that this is about all for me here. MatMar555 (talk) 22:40, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- I added a source for Ralph Woempener Wilson, you have not added a single source for any of your content so far as far as I can tell? Theroadislong (talk) 21:44, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- Well, these books I mentioned are not reliable source, because basically unavailable to verify, as the expert I am is telling you. I am glad they could be deleted, but I was not conflating "Further reading" with "references" because they are all references and I want to know to which extend *you* are going to mingle with content. Because if I deem a reference not reliable, who is to no that you will request it to stand? And I would also be wary of an expert on format having problems with "Further reading" sections since they are permitted. See Wikipedia:Further reading MatMar555 (talk) 21:27, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- You are conflating "further reading" with references, the further reading section could easily be deleted, what we require is a reliable source for any fact that could be challenged. Theroadislong (talk) 21:21, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- Just add that InterestGather at the top of this page recognized his mistakes and apologized, I would not like my blanket statement to apply to them. MatMar555 (talk) 21:18, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- Expert editors can be very valuable contributors to Wikipedia, but they sometimes have a difficult time realising that Wikipedia is a different environment from scholarly and scientific publishing. See Wikipedia:Expert editors. Theroadislong (talk) 21:01, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
I got no skin in this game. Adios. David notMD (talk) 22:01, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- If ever I resume work on the entry, please talk to me here before making changes behind my back. Adios to you too. Again before you go, I understand the level of callousness with years doing this, unable to see any fault except in the expert on topic, but do understand why in Academia there is little respect for Wikipedia if the people like you make it so hard to improve it. MatMar555 (talk) 22:08, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- What happened is that while I was providing references to a section this morning (here in Canada), you went about introducing new sections and shuffling parts of the text about (and I do not call this a mere matter of formatting), so when I pressed "publish changes", being happy that now you guys will start seeing references, this was blocked because of an "editorial conflict", given that the original text had been moved elsewhere by you, and when I went back to my page with my new modifications, they were gone. I understand you don't care about me and seemingly think having done nothing wrong, like that other editor who threatened to ban me, but we are human beings here and my resentment is rather justified under such circumstances. I see also that this discussion will be endless because I will not get any sort of understanding here. MatMar555 (talk) 22:31, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- For future reference, if when you click on Publish changes and get edit conflict, all is not lost. Scan down. Your blocked changes are visible, and can be copied. You can then leave, open up Wikipedia and either park the content in your Sandbox for future use or else return to the acticle, which has since incorporated the other editor's changes, and continue. David notMD (talk) 22:42, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- There won't be any "future reference". But thanks for the advice. I just can't believe the level of mistreatment, the refusal to be kind and helpful. This leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth, especially given that I have been working on Cook Wilson or "Wilson" as one must say here, for more than two decades and my work on him is part of the reasons why I was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. All this and some overeager editors make sure that I can't fix the entry or withdraw my words. Speechless. MatMar555 (talk) 22:47, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- That's a pity, MatMar555. I'm sorry that people didn't seem to be helpful: I'm sure they intended to be, but tiredness can bring on misreading, impatience, and abruptness. If you'd stayed I think you could have improved the article a lot, and even (after initial irritations) enjoyed the process. Unfortunately Wikipedia gives the stupid advice "Be bold" to newcomers, when it should instead say "Be trepidatious". With a little experience, one can dial down the trepidation; and after a few dozen edits there need be very little trepidation at all: this is the stage where "Be bold" is actually sensible advice. Oh, and there's no rule against calling the man "Cook Wilson". (I did most of the work of creating the humdrum article Gianni Berengo Gardin, in which GBG is referred to not as "Gardin" but as "Berengo Gardin".) Well, fingers crossed you'll return after a short break from the apparent insanity here. -- Hoary (talk) 13:24, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- Thank you so much for your kind understanding and soothing words. To be clear on your point about GBG, one of the "expert on format" had revised what I had done, in advance of my finishing and without prior discussion, changing all occurrences of "Cook Wilson" into "Wilson", invoking this rule after the fact, as opposed to simply discussing this with me first. Contributors really are at the mercy of editors that barge in, in this "collaborative" work. But I don't want to complain any more. I am not ready to try again to fix the entry, but your kind words make me think twice, so maybe in the not too distant future ... I just want to know the best way to proceed, if any, to avoid this sort of repeated interferences: do I simply revise and post section by section with inline references ? Do I have to wait for a while to see if someone reacts before going for the next section or I am likely to have someone, as it happen chuck everything out without warning and explanation, then someone else changing the content, etc.? I don't want to try again and attract the sort of reaction I got, so want to make sure about the best way to proceed. Again, thank you so much for your comments, they are a great relief. MatMar555 (talk) 15:04, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- If you are planning to use your own work as a source then it is probably best to use the article talk page first, because that would be a conflict of interest, but calling my work on the article a "shit job" does not persuade me to help you further. Theroadislong (talk) 15:14, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- Honestly, if you call your interventions and your threat to ban me "help", I can do without it. I also seriously think that you are under the radically false impression that your help is needed to reference the text - justifying your interferences - while I have explained to you many times that I was trying to do exactly that when (1) all my work was chuck out, and when it was re-established (2) I lost my changes thanks to some having nothing to do with "format" were being done simultaneously in my back and that that led me to stop. I can't believe you have not yet understood that. Also, I was not actually planning to "use my own work as a source", this is exactly the kind of assumption that I resent and against which I could do nothing in the way of working on the entry, given that I was under your threat of banning me. As for the entry, as it stand now there are many defects such as these (for illustration): one of the section as only one sentence, another, where the philosophical accomplishments and theses of Cook Wilson should be described (and referenced, including references by those who discuss them, not me, since my Stanford Encyclopedia entry is already a compendium of other people's views) has a short set of disjointed phrases (the first paragraph was my introductory one, all I could ever achieve before being repeatedly disrupted) that look ridiculous and do not even begin to cover the topic. Please look at my Stanford Encyclopedia entry for this, but here is one example: even the original sentence on Carroll's barbershop paradox stupidly avoids the discussion of Carroll's paradox of inference, a far more important paradox, for which Cook Wilson has made an important contribution discussed today that ought in priority to be mentioned. This is exactly the sort of mediocrity that should not be allowed in Wikipedia pages. But what is your help going to achieve here? Write the section yourself? I seriously doubt it, although I noticed that used hints that I gave in the discussion yesterday to make changes yourself to the entry. These sections, how do you propose to fill them in? Antagonize me further so that I do nothing more and leave this entry in its current sorry state, since you seem not even able to realize that it is in that terrible state? Please stop writing to me, and if ever I muster the courage of having to face another set of indignities like I did since Friday, and try and fix the entry, please try and look elsewhere on that day. MatMar555 (talk) 15:54, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- You have raged and raged, here and at The Teahouse, if you wish to improve the article the place to discuss it, is the talk page Talk:John Cook Wilson calmly. Theroadislong (talk) 16:04, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- If you are not going to be referencing your own work then you are free to edit the article directly. Theroadislong (talk) 16:09, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- Again : stop writing to me. I have a life to live, I am done with here. MatMar555 (talk) 17:03, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- I keep asking you to stop being on my back, giving reasons for this. You just don't stop antagonizing me. I skip the fact that once more you avoid responding to my questions. Now this: "If you are not going to be referencing your own work then you are free to edit the article directly." Is this supposed to mean that I can't cite my own work? Did you not get yet that it is central for decades to the study of Cook Wilson? You yourself manage to cite it because you could not do better. Again more negative authoritarian indications that I should leave the entry in its sorry state. Please stop writing, you have achieved your goal, *the* expert on the topic will not contribute, he is only hoping you will fill in his shoes. MatMar555 (talk) 16:43, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- If you are not going to be referencing your own work then you are free to edit the article directly. Theroadislong (talk) 16:09, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- You have raged and raged, here and at The Teahouse, if you wish to improve the article the place to discuss it, is the talk page Talk:John Cook Wilson calmly. Theroadislong (talk) 16:04, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- Honestly, if you call your interventions and your threat to ban me "help", I can do without it. I also seriously think that you are under the radically false impression that your help is needed to reference the text - justifying your interferences - while I have explained to you many times that I was trying to do exactly that when (1) all my work was chuck out, and when it was re-established (2) I lost my changes thanks to some having nothing to do with "format" were being done simultaneously in my back and that that led me to stop. I can't believe you have not yet understood that. Also, I was not actually planning to "use my own work as a source", this is exactly the kind of assumption that I resent and against which I could do nothing in the way of working on the entry, given that I was under your threat of banning me. As for the entry, as it stand now there are many defects such as these (for illustration): one of the section as only one sentence, another, where the philosophical accomplishments and theses of Cook Wilson should be described (and referenced, including references by those who discuss them, not me, since my Stanford Encyclopedia entry is already a compendium of other people's views) has a short set of disjointed phrases (the first paragraph was my introductory one, all I could ever achieve before being repeatedly disrupted) that look ridiculous and do not even begin to cover the topic. Please look at my Stanford Encyclopedia entry for this, but here is one example: even the original sentence on Carroll's barbershop paradox stupidly avoids the discussion of Carroll's paradox of inference, a far more important paradox, for which Cook Wilson has made an important contribution discussed today that ought in priority to be mentioned. This is exactly the sort of mediocrity that should not be allowed in Wikipedia pages. But what is your help going to achieve here? Write the section yourself? I seriously doubt it, although I noticed that used hints that I gave in the discussion yesterday to make changes yourself to the entry. These sections, how do you propose to fill them in? Antagonize me further so that I do nothing more and leave this entry in its current sorry state, since you seem not even able to realize that it is in that terrible state? Please stop writing to me, and if ever I muster the courage of having to face another set of indignities like I did since Friday, and try and fix the entry, please try and look elsewhere on that day. MatMar555 (talk) 15:54, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- If you are planning to use your own work as a source then it is probably best to use the article talk page first, because that would be a conflict of interest, but calling my work on the article a "shit job" does not persuade me to help you further. Theroadislong (talk) 15:14, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- Thank you so much for your kind understanding and soothing words. To be clear on your point about GBG, one of the "expert on format" had revised what I had done, in advance of my finishing and without prior discussion, changing all occurrences of "Cook Wilson" into "Wilson", invoking this rule after the fact, as opposed to simply discussing this with me first. Contributors really are at the mercy of editors that barge in, in this "collaborative" work. But I don't want to complain any more. I am not ready to try again to fix the entry, but your kind words make me think twice, so maybe in the not too distant future ... I just want to know the best way to proceed, if any, to avoid this sort of repeated interferences: do I simply revise and post section by section with inline references ? Do I have to wait for a while to see if someone reacts before going for the next section or I am likely to have someone, as it happen chuck everything out without warning and explanation, then someone else changing the content, etc.? I don't want to try again and attract the sort of reaction I got, so want to make sure about the best way to proceed. Again, thank you so much for your comments, they are a great relief. MatMar555 (talk) 15:04, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- That's a pity, MatMar555. I'm sorry that people didn't seem to be helpful: I'm sure they intended to be, but tiredness can bring on misreading, impatience, and abruptness. If you'd stayed I think you could have improved the article a lot, and even (after initial irritations) enjoyed the process. Unfortunately Wikipedia gives the stupid advice "Be bold" to newcomers, when it should instead say "Be trepidatious". With a little experience, one can dial down the trepidation; and after a few dozen edits there need be very little trepidation at all: this is the stage where "Be bold" is actually sensible advice. Oh, and there's no rule against calling the man "Cook Wilson". (I did most of the work of creating the humdrum article Gianni Berengo Gardin, in which GBG is referred to not as "Gardin" but as "Berengo Gardin".) Well, fingers crossed you'll return after a short break from the apparent insanity here. -- Hoary (talk) 13:24, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- There won't be any "future reference". But thanks for the advice. I just can't believe the level of mistreatment, the refusal to be kind and helpful. This leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth, especially given that I have been working on Cook Wilson or "Wilson" as one must say here, for more than two decades and my work on him is part of the reasons why I was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. All this and some overeager editors make sure that I can't fix the entry or withdraw my words. Speechless. MatMar555 (talk) 22:47, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- For future reference, if when you click on Publish changes and get edit conflict, all is not lost. Scan down. Your blocked changes are visible, and can be copied. You can then leave, open up Wikipedia and either park the content in your Sandbox for future use or else return to the acticle, which has since incorporated the other editor's changes, and continue. David notMD (talk) 22:42, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- What happened is that while I was providing references to a section this morning (here in Canada), you went about introducing new sections and shuffling parts of the text about (and I do not call this a mere matter of formatting), so when I pressed "publish changes", being happy that now you guys will start seeing references, this was blocked because of an "editorial conflict", given that the original text had been moved elsewhere by you, and when I went back to my page with my new modifications, they were gone. I understand you don't care about me and seemingly think having done nothing wrong, like that other editor who threatened to ban me, but we are human beings here and my resentment is rather justified under such circumstances. I see also that this discussion will be endless because I will not get any sort of understanding here. MatMar555 (talk) 22:31, 22 January 2023 (UTC)