User:DoubleGrazing

On COI and things of that ilk
It seems that as an AfC reviewer one can occasionally get wrongly accused of paid editing/reviewing, so I just want to put it on record that I have never edited for pay or other reward, and never will. More generally, I have never been asked by anyone to edit anything, and if I were asked, I would decline, as I'm not here to do anyone's bidding. When I create an article on a potentially sensitive subject, such as a living person or an extant business, I don't even inform them of this, so that there can be no suggestion of impropriety. I'm hyper-sensitive about COI, and have put a couple of drafts through AfC review, rather than publishing directly, where I thought someone could even think that I might have a COI.

I will display here my disclosed COIs (of which I don't expect there to be many), however slight, so they're all clearly visible in one place:

Articles created
Looking back at my creation history, it seems I work on fairly eclectic (ie., disparate) stuff, mostly to do with Finland; including but not only:
 * Women artists, designers, opera singers, ballet dancers, etc., as my modest contribution to the 'Women in Red' project
 * Works of Alvar Aalto, and Finnish architecture more generally
 * Finnish lighthouses, ports, bridges, etc.
 * Helsinki-related topics

Bling
The display cabinet of vanity...



My essays

 * On 'cuckoo' editing: WP:CUCKOO; "Oh what a wondrous bird is the..." — hold on, wrong bird!
 * On using Wikipedia as a marketing channel: WP:WIKIMARKETING
 * On application of GNG source criteria: WP:GNGSC



My username
I googled my username 'DoubleGrazing', and discovered to my slight surprise that there is all sorts of stuff out there using the same name. I use this name only on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, so if you come across the name on social media etc., it has nothing whatsoever to do with me.

My new no.1 pet peeve
Using (or trying to) Wikipedia as a marketing channel: my essay WP:WIKIMARKETING elaborates.

My no.1 no.2 pet peeve
The thing that gets my goat on WP more than just about anything: articles being published with no, or grossly inadequate, sources — and then me getting flak for pointing this out.


 * "Hey, it's a new editor, give them a break!" (At what Wiki age do the rules start to apply?)
 * "Hey, it's a new article, give it time, the references will be added!" (Oh yeah? When?)
 * "It was published in good faith!" (How do we know that? And what does that even mean?!)
 * "It's only a stub!" (And that makes it okay... how, exactly?)
 * "Instead of [tagging it / draftifying / requesting speedy], help to find the sources!" (Why me; why not the creator?)

It's in particular the last one that drives me up the wall. When I publish an article, I make sure to add sources and citations to it. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect others to do the same. People who can't be bothered to reference their articles, especially the serial offenders, are effectively saying they don't need to play by the rules, and it's instead up to others to make up for their shortcomings. Yes, Wikipedia is a collaborative effort and everyone can and should chip in — but that doesn't mean you just do whatever you want, however you want, and leave it for others to clean up your messes. So when I come across an un(der)referenced article where notability is in question and/or the contents are even mildly promotional in nature, I will move for deletion. If that makes me a 'deletionist' or any other kind of 'ist', so be it.

Okay, rant over, feel a bit better now. :)

On the nonsense that is IP editing
I've read various arguments for why IP editing is allowed, or even a 'good idea'. I've read none that was compelling. Here are my reasons why I think it's not a good idea, and why it should be banned:


 * Per WP:ISU, user names that imply shared use are not allowed, so why is editing using an IP address allowed, given that IP addresses usually are shared? If the logic behind this policy is that an edit must be traceable to an individual editor, not a collective entity, then allowing anonymous editing from an IP address flies squarely in the face of that.
 * IP editing accounts for a large chunk of vandalism, disruptive editing, BLP violations, etc., and stopping it would reduce the cleanup workload for other editors.
 * The 'hassle' of registering really is not great, and therefore I don't buy the argument that mandatory registration would make it difficult to recruit new editors.
 * It's too easy for a registered editor to get around certain rules (such as creators not being allowed to remove speedy tags from their own articles) by logging out and editing under IP.
 * The whole malarkey about hiding IP addresses, allegedly for privacy reasons (!), would go away if IP editing weren't an option.

To be clear, I think everyone should be able to access the site without registering, and anyone should be allowed to edit, just not edit without registering. In that sense it's not that different from using a public library: you're welcome to browse the collection, access the reference section, etc. without anyone asking you any questions, but if you want to take a book home, you need to get a library card from the nice librarian first.


 * Reviewing pending changes is not a quality assurance activity, other than in the crudest possible sense. If the change is blatant vandalism, grossly derogatory, clearly falls four of the BLP policy, or otherwise is on a similar level of no-no, reject it; otherwise accept it. It's not my job as a reviewer to make judgement calls or to try to be a guardian of editing standards. After all, if the page weren't protected, that change would have gone through without as much as by-your-leave. And that's fine (or so I'm told).
 * Alternatives to deletion include draftifying. Alternatives to draftifying include deletion. Which is great for the black-and-white stuff, not always so helpful for the vast areas of grey in the middle. And either way, someone is likely to take issue with whichever way you jump.
 * Nothing in and of itself guarantees notability, or lack of it; only presumption one way or the other. I sort of understand that, but often forget it. (It seems many others do, too.) Oh, and WP notability and 'real life' notability aren't the same thing at all, but that's just p.1 stuff.
 * If someone isn't taking any notice of, or responding to, talk page messages and the like, it's not necessarily that they are being obstinate or malevolent; they could be editing on a mobile device and WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU. Which really sucks, to put it mildly. (Note to self: check if the user has edited their talk page; if they have, then this point probably doesn't apply.)
 * It seems many new editors interpret the site's tagline "free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" as meaning that anyone can freely write whatever they want.
 * Having hit the 'random article' link more times than I care to admit, I've discovered that a surprisingly large chunk of the English-language Wikipedia is made up of articles on:
 * Insects and other creepy crawlies
 * TV series, and individual seasons and episodes thereof
 * Iranian (not exclusively, but especially, for some weird reason) villages
 * Translating articles from other wikis, or even just using them as sources, can be tricky, because the English-language one seems to have stricter requirements for referencing and notability... and, as luck would have it, sources quoted in the other-than-English wiki articles are all too often expired links or offline publications. Dang.
 * There's a direct correlation between the maturity of one's career, and the likelihood of one having done or achieved something notable or noteworthy (some exceptions like Shirley Temple notwithstanding). There's also an apparent inverse relationship between the maturity of one's career, and one's eagerness to have one's career described in a Wikipedia article. Which largely explains the seemingly never-ending stream of new vanity/promo articles cropping up constantly, on people (as well as organisations, products, etc.) who really want to have an article, but really do not warrant one. Often these articles are created, overtly or covertly, by the subject themselves, or by someone closely associated with them, and very often the creating editor is a new account with the required 10 edits (deleting empty spaces, changing punctuation, etc.) before — WHAM! — out comes the promo piece.
 * For this reason, and this alone, I think the WP:AUTOCONFIRM threshold for new articles on a few specific subjects — namely: living people, companies and products (incl. musical recordings) — should be raised from 10 edits & 4 days to, say, 50 & 20, as this could cut down the curation and deletion workload.
 * You shouldn't unnecessarily invoke ref tags on talk pages.
 * BLPs don't need to have every statement supported, only the potentially contentious ones. (And what does 'contentious' mean, or better yet 'contentious positive'? WhoTF knows!)
 * Reviewing drafts at AfC is a thankless task: you review ten, and when you're done, the number of pending drafts has actually gone up. And the next thing you know, someone is on your talk page complaining about one of your reviews.
 * But if AfC is thankless, NPP is thankless and exhausting! At AfC you only need to find one reason to decline (not that that's the aim, but that's how it often goes), but at NPP you have to be sure there are no major problems... and decide what to do about it, if you do find some. And whatever you then do, the next thing you know, someone is on your talk page complaining about it. Hey ho hum.
 * If you find a significant content match in a new draft or article, it's likely to be a copyvio. If you find one in an old one (a few years or more), it's likely that the source has copied from Wikipedia, directly or indirectly. (Meaning, don't bother reporting them, they invariably aren't actioned.)
 * Notes to self:
 * NEVER try for the mop. (Forgotten why not? Check out any RfA for the ****-slinging that involves.)
 * Try very hard to resist AfD'ing US or UK secondary schools, there'll always be someone arguing that either their particular school or secondary schools in general are somehow inherently notable. (Which they're not, but try telling them that!)

Links to handy tools and guidelines:
 * NewPagesFeed
 * Copyvio detector
 * CopyScape
 * GPT-2 AI detector
 * AI detector 2
 * Timtrent's copyvio crib sheet
 * WP:Library
 * WP:OUTCOMES
 * Template:Contentious topics/list
 * WP:NEWSORGINDIA
 * WP:NOTGAME
 * Citer
 * Authorship reckoner
 * Edit summary search
 * My creations by page views
 * My AfC stats
 * My AfD stats

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