User talk:Antimoany

It appears you are being accused of being me
The user didn't give you a heads up so I will - someone thinks we are the same person, or is at least claiming it because they didn't like your edits to a page on their Watchlist. I found your work on the lesbian erasure article to be very impressive so I'm flattered but you may want to deny being me at the link or else your account may get blocked. Computer-ergonomics (talk) 01:13, 18 April 2023 (UTC)


 * User:Computer-ergonomics thanks for the heads-up! this is certainly new territory for me.
 * No problem! To my understanding it's customary for the accuser to actually tell you themselves but it appears that this user is uh a little passionate about the edit you cut down. They were editing on a different page I was also editing yesterday and similarly were not allowed to revert wholesale, so I assume that the editor is frustrated with me and (wrongly) believes I have a vendetta against them. When editors have no strong argument on a contentious topic, they will sometimes switch to trying to get their way through bureaucracy. In this case trying to frame me as a malicious actor for having two accounts in good standing and for some early conflict I engaged in on the site with someone else. Regardless, users are usually expected to go through bold edits line by line and work out differences on the talk page, so you didn't do anything wrong.Computer-ergonomics (talk) 11:44, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Welcome!
Hello, Antimoany, and welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:
 * Introduction and Getting started
 * Contributing to Wikipedia
 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
 * How to edit a page and How to develop articles
 * How to create your first article
 * Simplified Manual of Style

You may also want to complete the Wikipedia Adventure, an interactive tour that will help you learn the basics of editing Wikipedia. You can visit the Teahouse to ask questions or seek help. Need some ideas about what kind of things need doing? Try the Task Center.

Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or, and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome! Mathglot (talk) 04:00, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Jumping in head first into the deep end
Well, even though you're brand new here, you certainly seemed to have jumped head first into the deep end, with major reverts of well-sourced material, here at Transgender health care, and here at Lesbian erasure. That, and some of your very first edits really fit the pattern of a fairly experienced editor; may I ask if you've edit here before under a different account? Whether you have or not, it's important to understand that both of these articles fall under what Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee calls "Contentious topics". These articles have more stringent rules than others do, and editors are expected to be aware of them, and to pay attention that all their edits at such articles are compliant with all relevant Wikipedia policy and guidelines. Below, I'll add a standardized message for you composed by the ArbCom, so you are aware. Mathglot (talk) 04:19, 19 April 2023 (UTC)


 * user:Mathglot hello! don't think i've logged in for a couple of days.


 * this is my first wikipedia account, actually! i didn't even use it for anything until at least two years after making it (and i can't remember why i originally made it. likely for the same reason i did finally start using it recently: i got tired of all the warning banners on pages and decided if no-one else is going to fix it, then i guess i should)


 * besides a few relatively small edits a well over a decade ago, i've never edited wikipedia outside this account.


 * i've contributed to other wikis, which all seem to have the same general structure and markup (taken from wikipedia, i assume) so i'm familiar with how sites like this work. that, and clicking "edit" on any page reveals how that page is structured, so it's pretty easy to reverse-engineer most stuff. admittedly, i do still have to copy table markup from the help page.


 * is there some mark on contentious topic pages? i have hidden categories on, but there doesn't seem to be one for that.


 * ironically, i looked and and chose not to fix several articles about sports because i thought i'd have this kind of problem with those. Antimoany (talk) 15:38, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Antimoany, if you go to Talk:Lesbian erasure, the first thing you'll see, is the contentious topics banner at the top of the page. Currently, Talk:Transgender health care doesn't have one, but either it's not considered contentious (doubtful, considering conversion therapy, and bills attempting to limit health care, or to permit health care workers to refuse to assist trans individuals), or no one has bothered to add the banner yet. Mathglot (talk) 16:42, 21 April 2023 (UTC)


 * user:Mathglot i had assumed there was a list somewhere of contentious topics, but that doesn't seem to be the case.


 * i never want to risk editing a contentious topic again, but it doesn't look like there's an easy way for me to avoid that. if there's no absolute list of them all, and the talk pages of contentious topics have to be manually marked by a user, it looks like it would be possible for me to not see any indication a topic is contentious before editing the page.


 * while i can likely guess that some topics are contentious because people tend to argue about them (LGBTQ, politics, religion, sports), i have no absolute certainty i'm not going to get in trouble for editing one again.


 * i was accused of being someone's alt account because i edited the same contentious topic they did. looking at the talk page of lesbian erasuere, it seems they the were the one who placed the banner stating the article needed reducing, but had no authority to do so. given that apparently anyone can place these banners, and there's no internal system that prevents unauthorised users from doing so, i think i'm going to give up on my attempt to fix the issues these banners complain about.


 * so, thank you for trying to help, but i think i'm done. Antimoany (talk) 17:00, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
 * See Contentious topics/table for the list. The section below has a link to the ArbCom page concerning WP:Contentious topics in the first sentence, but it may be difficult to find the link from that page to the full list; I'll see what I can do about that to make it more apparent.
 * As far as "no absolute certainty" about getting in trouble with CT, don't worry, we all make mistakes. As long as you continue to edit in good faith and you are here to improve the encyclopedia, any mistake you make, even some pretty serious ones, will be excused with a warning the first time; that's often how we learn about these policies in the first place. For most problems, there has to be a pattern of violations for you to be sanctioned. (There are very few problems that are so serious, that you could get WP:BLOCKed the first time, but we're talking about serious stuff like libel or threats of violence, so you're not likely to fall into that by mistake.) So, this is just by way of encouraging you to be bold and to make edits that you think will be an improvement to the encyclopedia; mistakes won't get you in hot water the first time. If the topic is a contentious one, maybe ramp back the "be bold" to "take baby steps". In the meanwhile, do read up on the key policies and guidelines (some key ones, imho: WP:NPOV, WP:V, and WP:CIVIL) so your editing becomes more in line with how we do things. There are also tutorials, the WP:Help desk, the WP:Tea house, and the  feature which are good for that.
 * As far as how to react to articles in contentious topics, I'm not sure what advice to give you. For starters, this is a volunteer project, so nobody can tell you what to work on. (In cases of repeat patterns of bad behavior by an editor who has ignored several previous warnings, it's possible for administrators to tell someone what *not* to work on, but their Talk page would have to be full of warnings of increasing severity about the pattern of behavior before that happened, so don't worry about that.) It's true that contentious topics are difficult even for experienced editors, and new editors may be advised to gain experience first in other areas before attempting to edit them, but neither I nor anybody else could (or should) tell someone *not* to edit a contentious topic just because they're new, so it's your decision to edit them or not, as you wish.
 * Regarding the "alt account", if there is evidence of that, an SPI investigation may happen, and if there isn't, it won't; so if your hands are clean, you really have nothing to worry about and can just ignore it. If someone raises bad faith or frivolous accusations of socking against someone, that in itself is actionable. If you have any other questions, feel free to reply below, or contact me on my Talk page any time. Mathglot (talk) 18:22, 21 April 2023 (UTC)


 * user:mathglot i'm grateful for all the advice, and information, and i appreciate that you're trying to help.


 * i did read the arbcom page about contentious topics, but did not find the link to the tabled list. i do see it now, and in retrospect probably should have cntrl+f'd for "list". i expected to see the list on the contentious topics page itself, and didn't notice that the list was linked in the opening paragraph.


 * my decision to stop editing (at least for now, i may change my mind eventually) was not based solely on the desire to avoid contentious topics. my decision rests primarily on the discovery i made about how issue banners work.


 * i thought that these banners were put in place by users with special permissions to do so. that they were in place correctly; that the decision this work needs doing was made by someone with authority to make that decision.


 * fan-made wikis copied everything else from wikipedia, i assumed they copied this system too.


 * but wikipedia doesn't seem to have that. a user doesn't need to have been granted permissions to add a page to any given "needs work" category, or to remove it. anyone can do that, and they can be wrong.


 * i can't handle a system where edits have to be justified after the fact. i'm sure avoiding contentious topics would help with not needing to do that, but it's not so much the "danger" that i might have to justify my edit, as it is the underlying structure of why that is the case.


 * i need the confidence that what i'm trying to do is something that someone should be trying to do. that someone with authority has decided is needed.


 * i expected a simple, linear, "job needed >> job done >> job confirmed" structure. without that, i can't contribute. i have too much anxiety.


 * so, sincerely, thank you for trying to help. but wikipedia just doesn't work the way i thought it did. Antimoany (talk) 21:38, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I do understand much better now, so thanks for that, and I sympathize. Rather than:
 * [authority says:] 'job needed' >>
 * [somebody see that and volunteers, and gives it a whirl:] job done >>
 * [authority checks it out, gives result:] 'job confirmed';
 * it's a lot more like,
 * [random editor A says:] 'I claim this job is needed! ['But what do I know? let's see what happens!' and they place a banner] >>
 * [random editor B says: 'Hmm, maybe they're right. Let's try this change, seems good to me. Okay, then;] job done!' >>
 * [random editors C, D, E, F, G, H all see the change, leave it alone, and move on to something else.]
 * In that case, the edit stays. Or, step 3 might go like this:
 * 3. [random editor C sees the change, and goes:] 'That violates policy XYZ. Reverted!'
 * There is a way that the 'job confirmed' step can happen, although it's infrequent; that happens in a formal procedure called an Rfcc, and that may occur when editors C,D,E,F,G,H square off in two (or more) camps, disagreeing with each other about what should be done with the article, so they go to the Talk page and try to talk it out. If it *still* fails to reach a decision, then one of them starts an Rfc, which is a formal, one-month long discussion with presentation of policy-based argumentation, voting, and a formal assessment and closure at the end, which is pretty close to the 'job confirmed' you imagined, and then step 3 would go like this (in several subparts):
 * 3a. editor A, or C, or somebody starts an Rfc and notifications are automatically sent out.
 * b. editors D – H (and a bunch others) all join in to participate in a month-long discussion, voting on which way to go.
 * c. At the end, the Rfc discussion is closed by a bot, and is on hold.
 * d. Impartial editor Z (who has no opinion on the Rfc) comes along and examines the whole discussion and all the votes, and renders a decision, which could be job confirmed as you imagined, or the opposite ('job rejected').
 * But that doesn't happen for every change, only for ones where several editors cannot agree on the right path forward, and organize a formal Rfc process to determine what should happen. But 99% of disagreements just get talked out on the Talk page, without ever reaching the level of an Rfc. I hope this helps clarify a bit how things work around here.
 * I respect your decision to leave, and I'm not going to try to change it. There is a working group (we call it a "WikiProject") that deals with trying to retain editors here called WP:WikiProject Editor retention, and your feedback about why you are leaving would be valuable, especially the part about how issue banners work.
 * I'd like to open a discussion at the Editor retention community page, not about you, but about how to provide a welcoming environment for new editors so they'll want to stay, and invite you to provide feedback about the banners issue. That could be helpful to Wikipedia, even if it's your last comment before you retire. Your feedback would be valuable in such a discussion, and could really help Wikipedia. You don't have to say nice things about Wikipedia, the point would be to let the group know what didn't work for you, and perhaps, how we could do better in the future, if you have any thoughts about that. May I ping you from there? Either way, I hope you decide to come back some day, when you feel up to it. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 22:33, 21 April 2023 (UTC)


 * user:mathglot i'll say this first so i don't forget to mention it at the end: i'll be checking in every day or so as time (and, frankly, my own memory) permits until it's clear discussion about this has died. i suppose there's irony in declaring that i'm done with wikipedia for now, and continuing to participate in discussion about wikipedia, but i do want things to improve (or at least, for others to understand my reasons for leaving, and sometimes understanding is improvement enough) and i'm happy to provide any feedback that might help with that.
 * if you do start (or already have started) a discussion about retetion that relates to the points i've mentioned, feel free to ping me there. also feel free to point readers directly to this discussion if you think it will help, though i'd prefer you ask them to keep their comments to the retention discussion and off my talk page.
 * i may end up repeating myself over there, but at least for your sake i will also say: i understand and even appreciate wikipedia's current system. in fact, i've wished in the past that other projects i've worked on had a similarly, uh, "anarchist" (i can't remember the right word) structure. this was usually because i either found the organisation structure too strict and/or too complex; or because necessary steps in that structure were either missing (high-ranking members of staff offline for long periods of time); or actively harmful to the project's goals (high-ranking members who were overly interested in specific details to the detriment of their other duties).
 * so i see the benefit of how wikipedia does (or, doesn't?) do things. i don't necessarily believe a more rigid heirarchical structure would be beneficial. on a project this large, it might do more harm than good. but, on an individual level, i'm not currently able to participate in a project where there isn't someone, or a group of someones, clearly in charge of dictating jobs. Antimoany (talk) 19:53, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Understood, thanks. I've opened the discussion at WT:RETENTION, and pinged you from there. Really appreciate your willingness to discuss this and if I don't repeat it later, all the best to you in whatever you decide to do, and by all means come back again if things look different to you in the future. In the meantime, hopefully we'll be working to make things better on our end. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 08:50, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Introduction to contentious topics

 * As discussed above; please read this note from the Arbitration Committee and follow the links.