User:RealWorldExperience/Mentoring

This page is designed to help in their development as a wikipedian.

Basics
Thank you so much for your help. I have a lot to learn here obviously! I would like to understand the basic operation of Wikipedia first if thats ok with you, especially the peer review process and the steps up the ladder so to speak. I am really only interested in contributing content, but I can already see that the disputes about content are a fact of life, and people get very upset about these things. I would like to understand that process to make sure it is compatible with my ideas of fair play and impartial adjudication.

I have already been involved in a dispute and that was my first post! I submitted some very respectful wording about the PowerBasic compiler and it was completely deleted by the PowerBasic company. I wrote a very detailed piece in the COI page, and nothing really happened. The PowerBasic company edited their entry so it reads as they want and they continue to delete any content that they do not like.

I have added some more content and supported it on the talk page so it will be interesting to see what happens next, but I am left wondering how situations like this are handled.

It seems futile to spend time researching a subject and adding content if all it takes is a persistent detractor to remove it. I have no objection to constructive criticism or better wording.

I am in the golden years of my life and I have a lot of experience on a lot of subjects. I hold a Masters Degree and I like to think that I am proponent of the information age, fair play and truth. I would like to be part of a community with similar goals.

BTW Is this page public? RealWorldExperience (talk) 18:39, 15 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I would like to get to the Peer Review process at a later date. Disputes are common on wikipedia, in some areas more than others. What these content disputes should bring about is a concensus, which is the fundamental tool for editorial decision making, for more information, visit Wikipedia:Consensus.
 * This page can be viewed by other people, but as there is no link to it, it will most probably not be viewed. Five Years 07:41, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

First Step

 * The basic operation of wikipedia, and its policies and guidelines is pretty well summarised by Wikipedia:Five pillars. I would like you to read that page and tell me what you think each of the five pillars means, in your own words;
 * Wikipedia is an encyclopedia:
 * Wikipedia has a Neutral Point of View:
 * Wikipedia is free content:
 * Wikipedia has a code of conduct:
 * Wikipedia does not have firm rules:

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Wikipedia is an encyclopedia incorporating elements of general encyclopedias, specialized encyclopedias, and almanacs. All articles must follow our no original research policy, and strive for verifiable accuracy: unreferenced material may be removed, so please provide references. Wikipedia is not the place to insert personal opinions, experiences, or arguments. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Wikipedia is not a soapbox, a vanity press, an experiment in anarchy or democracy, or a web directory. It is not a newspaper or a collection of source documents; these kinds of content should be contributed to the Wikimedia sister projects. Wikipedia has a neutral point of view, which means we strive for articles that advocate no single point of view. Sometimes this requires representing multiple points of view, presenting each point of view accurately, providing context for any given point of view, and presenting no one point of view as "the truth" or "the best view". It means citing verifiable, authoritative sources whenever possible, especially on controversial topics. When a conflict arises regarding neutrality, declare a cool-down period and tag the article as disputed, hammer out details on the talk page, and follow dispute resolution. Wikipedia is free content that anyone may edit. All text is available under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) and may be distributed or linked accordingly. Recognize that articles can be changed by anyone and no individual controls any specific article; therefore, any writing you contribute can be mercilessly edited and redistributed at will by the community. Do not infringe on copyright or submit work licensed in a way incompatible with the GFDL. Wikipedia has a code of conduct: Respect your fellow Wikipedians even when you may not agree with them. Be civil. Avoid conflicts of interest, personal attacks or sweeping generalizations. Find consensus, avoid edit wars, follow the three-revert rule, and remember that there are 2,335,171 articles on the English Wikipedia to work on and discuss. Act in good faith, never disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point, and assume good faith on the part of others. Be open and welcoming. Wikipedia does not have firm rules besides the five general principles presented here. Be bold in editing, moving, and modifying articles. Although it should be aimed for, perfection is not required. Do not worry about messing up. All prior versions of articles are kept, so there is no way that you can accidentally damage Wikipedia or irretrievably destroy content. Remember, whatever you write here will be preserved for posterity.

I have read these five pillars carefully before. They are well written. I have now read them again. I still think they are well articulated, and I doubt I could improve on them.

Perhaps it might make more sens to discuss how they might be applied to particular case, say PowerBasic, since that is my first attempt at contributing content.

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia

All articles must follow our no original research policy:

Utilizing a commercial product and arriving at conclusions many others have arrived is probably not original research.

verifiable accuracy:

Any high school graduate can verify the statements made. These facts are not in dispute, only the presentation of them on Wikipedia

please provide references:

Links to the company's official website where the issues are discussed and acknowledged by the owner is hard to beat for references I suspect.

Wikipedia is not the place to insert personal opinions, experiences, or arguments:

Allthough I have personal experience with the product, my opinions are not relevant nor expressed.

Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information:

Information that will affect the usability of a product is not indiscriminate

Wikipedia is not a soapbox, a vanity press, an experiment in anarchy or democracy..:

enumerating relevant information is none of the above

Wikipedia is not a newspaper or a collection of source documents:

This may apply to the links section and I would be interested to hear argument about linking to relevant websites. My opinion, and it is just that, is that an encylopedia is served by pointing to further reading. I accept this view may not be shared. Currently the only link PowerBasic will allow on their entry is one to their official website.

Wikipedia has a neutral point of view.

I agree.

we strive for articles that advocate no single point of view:

This makes a lot of sense

Sometimes this requires representing multiple points of view,

presenting each point of view accurately, providing context for any given point of view,

presenting no one point of view as "the truth" or "the best view".

It means citing verifiable, authoritative sources whenever possible,

This is what my contribution was designed to accomplish. I am open to criticism of style or wording, but the content is not in dispute. PowerBasic just doesn't want anyone to know these facts.

especially on controversial topics.

There is no conroversy over the facts. They are all clearly verified.

When a conflict arises regarding neutrality, declare a cool-down period and tag the article as disputed, hammer out details on the talk page, and follow dispute resolution.

Despite my best effort's, I am not able to understand the process of dispute resolution.

Wikipedia is free content that anyone may edit. All text is available under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) and may be distributed or linked accordingly. Recognize that articles can be changed by anyone and no individual controls any specific article; therefore, any writing you contribute can be mercilessly edited and redistributed at will by the community. Do not infringe on copyright or submit work licensed in a way incompatible with the GFDL.

I think this a great idea.

Wikipedia has a code of conduct: Respect your fellow Wikipedians even when you may not agree with them. Be civil. Avoid conflicts of interest, personal attacks or sweeping generalizations. Find consensus, avoid edit wars...

I agree with all these points. The part I am not clear about is what happens when there is an "edit war"

Wikipedia does not have firm rules besides the five general principles presented here.

That's great.

Be bold in editing, moving, and modifying articles.

Well, that just exactly what I did

Although it should be aimed for, perfection is not required. Do not worry about messing up.

I am not. I am growing concerned about the reality of ajudication though

I have probably spent over 10 hours researching this topic and writing and re-writing a concise no biased contribution. A month ago I submitted a COI page entry, which has now dissappeared and seems to have gone un-noticed. PowerBasic continues to delete any content that they deem unflattering to their product. They have openly declared that they will not discuss anything, and they refuse to even register. I can't think of clearer example of COI.

As history teaches us, history is written by the victors in any struggle. The truth is often inconvenient. I am a proponant of truth, hence my handle. In the case of Wikipedia, verifiable truth. If this is to be obliterated by a determined source with a special interest, then it doesn't make a lot of sense for to spend time participating in that environment. This entry has conveniently become a window to the inner workings of Wikipedia.

In Wikipedia, I hear the words, but I do not yet see the action. So far, it seems as though any attempt to address this is met with strong suspicion that I must have an axe to grind. If it is this hard to deal with a determined special interest COI on a largely irrelevant topic like a software compiler, then I wonder about the reality of the process expressed in the phrase "process of dispute resolution"

From my perpspective, the small entries are as important as the big ones (like for example a political leaders entry). I would like to resolve this and move on, but I have no idea how that is accomplished.

This is why I would really like to begin with an outline of dispute resolution. RealWorldExperience (talk) 19:05, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Consensus
Consensus is an inherent part of the wiki process. Consensus is typically reached as a natural product of the editing process; generally someone makes a change or addition to a page, and then everyone who reads the page has an opportunity to either leave the page as it is or change it. In essence, silence implies consent if there is adequate exposure to the community. In the case of policy pages a higher standard of participation and consensus is expected.

This works when people do not have a vested interest in the outcome.

Whether the change or addition to the page is reverted, or modified or not, any refinements or objections can be discussed on the discussion page.

This only works if the participating parties are willing to discuss.

When there are disagreements, they are resolved through polite reasoning and cooperation. Negotiation on talk pages takes place in an attempt to develop and maintain a neutral point of view. In cases where consensus is hard to find, the dispute resolution processes provide several other ways agreed by the community, to involve independent editors and more experienced help in the discussion, and to address the problems which prevent a consensus from arising.

How is this initiated?

PowerBASIC Issue

 * Its, really good that youve started trying to talk over the content issue on the talk page.
 * I did notice, that you added alot of external links to the page in your edits on April 15. Some of them dont comply with WP:EXTERNAL, next time when you add external links to a page, make sure that they comply with that policy.
 * I noticed that you added alot of content to the page, which is good. When you add content it is best to cite reliable sources to back up the information. If you need help citing sources, it might be worth looking at Wikipedia:Citing sources. Five Years 08:17, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

-I did notice, that you added a lot of external links to the page.. Some of them don't comply.. Ah I wondered about that. Thank you for pointing that out.

-When you add content it is best to cite reliable sources to back up the information Well this goes to the heart of the problem. I agree with this poilicy in that in general for weblogs and forums: There is no fact-checking process and no guarantee of quality of reliability. It is obvious that these are more likely opnions. This case is a little different in that the forum articles only POINT to the facts.

For example the incompatability of DWORD datatypes is not mentioned anywhere in the PowerBasic literature. In the forum, advanced users share their tales of wasted hours tracking down this fact. It is not their tales that are being included, it is the fact they point to. Once illuminated, it can be easily verified by any and all users. This renders the source worthless for the wiki entry but relevant for the supporting text on the talk page.

I would liken this to a magazine article pointing out that there is an IRS exemption in estate tax of 2 million dollars when gifting to anyone other than your spouse. The magazine article is immediately redundant. The fact can be verified in the published tax code.

In this example the magazine article would be an obviously valid and relevant source, if someone with no experience in reading complex legal code were to challenge this fact, but it is still not a good candidate for inclusion becuase this code is complex and most writers do not grasp all the implications and will misdirect a reader.

This goes to the second problem with smaller entries in the Wiki. In this day and age, published magazines, newspapers and periodicals are in severe decline. Online media is replacing print in almost all areas due to the economic realities of the internet. In this case you are not going to see magazine articles about DataTypes of compilers or even articles of any depth at all about compilers. The best you will probably get is an article that mentions the compiler exists.

Which brings us to this section. "Web forums and the talkback section of weblogs are rarely regarded as reliable. While they are often controlled by a single party (as opposed to the distributed nature of Usenet), many still permit anonymous commentary and we have no way of verifying the identity of a poster. Some however, are edited by reliable organizations, and therefore may possibly be justified as exceptions."

To me this validates the use of the "official" Powerbasic website as a source. Because it is controlled by a single party, the statements of that party are obviously genuine. This forum requires everyone to use their full, real name, so anonimity is not an issue (assuming Powerbasic is effective in verifiying identity which as a vendor taking credit cards, they should be) in which case I would argue that no only is the information in the posts pointing to intrinsically verifyable facts, but that the post themselves are justified as exceptions and could be used directly as quoted sources in the wiki entry. (

I chose not to do this however, as the compatability issues raised in my addition to the PowerBasic entry are not in doubt. They are simply self evident facts that are being suppressed by the PowerBasic company. The section on support for example is easily verifyable by visiting the "support" forums at any moment. Since the link to their "official" website is relevant, then ergo should be facts about it. Where I would appreciate help is in the wording of this section as I do not want to write and "weasel" words. For example it is probably not fair to say "many people..." So I was hoping that this would be an area for revision.

I guess we shall see what if anything happens from here RealWorldExperience (talk) 18:22, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

It seems that i am not able to attract the attention of an admin qualified in computer science. I have now posted a mediation request with the Cabal. Lets hope that will attract someone that is willing to look at the issues a little more deeply. Do you have any suggestions?


 * You seem to have gotten into some hot water regarding this entire PowerBASIC thing. Alot of people are suggesting that you need to diversify your interests on wikipedia (start editing other articles). I think the best way forward is possibly for you to leave the issue for a couple of days (possibly a week) and come back. In the past, when I was in a conflict, i just kept making my case in an AfD, making more than 50 edits to the discussion (which lasted 5 days or so). Sometimes, its just best to walk away from the issue, and come back to it at a later date. Five Years 03:24, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes I think you are right. Clearly this page is not private. Do we have an option for private communication?

You can contact me privately via email. Five Years 15:19, 26 April 2008 (UTC)