User:Michig/stuff

Wikipedia annoyances

 * People who nominate articles for deletion without making any effort to determine whether the subject is notable and/or improve the articles in question. We're here to build an encyclopedia not to see how much stuff we can get deleted as quickly as possible.
 * Abuse of speedy-delete tags (by non-vandals), and the fact that WP doesn't have adequate measures for dealing with such abuse. Examples of articles that I 'rescued' because they were wrongly tagged for speedy deletion in one week in December 2007: Lillie Pope, Floyd Johnson, Greg Hartley, Peter Peters, Gospel Gangstaz. Who knows how many others get wrongly deleted because nobody spots them in time?
 * Editors who subtly troll without actually violating any WP policies or guidelines, but nonetheless seem to delight in winding other editors up
 * Incivility, and people who don't know the difference between an editor telling them they've done something wrong and being uncivil
 * People who seem to want Wikipedia to become a debating society - we're here to build an encyclopedia not to argue for the sakes of it.
 * Editors who act like silly little children then go on and on for months about how unfair it is that they get treated like silly little children here. Grow up or find somewhere else to play.
 * Idiots
 * Zealots

Good ways to spend your time on Wikipedia (please do these)

 * Expand short or inadequate articles on encyclopedic subjects
 * Add citations of reliable sources to articles that lack them
 * Create new, properly sourced articles on encyclopedic subjects currently missing from this encyclopedia
 * Add appropriate maintenance tags to articles that need improvement
 * Give help to other editors where you can

Good ways to waste your time (and everybody else's) on Wikipedia (please don't do these)

 * Start AFD discussions for articles that are probably encyclopedic and will most likely get kept
 * Take articles to AfD without any effort to first determine whether or not the article can be improved, then expect other less lazy and more competent editors to sort the articles out
 * Debate endlessly the appropriate length of dashes in articles
 * Allow yourself to be drawn into lengthy discussions with other editors who will continue those discussions until hell freezes over rather than allow someone else to have the last word
 * Add maintenance tags to articles when fixing the problem would take less effort than adding the maintenance tags
 * Add vague maintenance tags that don't really explain what the issue is then walk away without discussing concerns on the talk page
 * Wikilawyering in AfD discussions. When you're wrong, admit it, learn from it, and move on. Don't keep thinking up bad reasons to get something deleted when it obviously shouldn't be.

Wisdom

 * Flavor Flav knows the score
 * as did Sugar Minott
 * and Nick Cave (sadly)