User talk:Canton2332

April 2018
Hello, I'm I dream of horses. Wikipedia is written by people who have a wide diversity of opinions, but we try hard to make sure articles have a neutral point of view. Your recent edit to Skydance Media seemed less than neutral to me, so I removed it for now. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thanks. I dream of horses If you reply here, please ping me by adding to your message (talk to me) (My edits) @  19:22, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

How to comply with our conflict of interest rules...
Clarification please...

has implied that the two of you discussed the wikipedia's rules on when and where contributors can edit when they might be seen as in a WP:Conflict of interest. Did they ask you to review our relevant policies and guidelines?

As I noted on Talk:Skydance Media, I played a role in an early controversy where a PR firm privately bragged to its clients that it could covertly sanitize wikipedia articles. Wikipedia contributors are supposed to put the wikipedia's goals first, not their personal interests, or those of their clients. Following the incident I described, and related incidents, there was a long discussion over when, how and why paid editors would be allowed to edit articles, so we could make sure the edits served the wikipedia's goals first.

So, if you haven't reviewed those rules, could you do so now? Note: it calls for paid editors, like yourself, to make suggestions for edits, on the article's talk page -- Talk:Skydance Media, in this case. You would then rely on non-involved editors, like, or myself, to actually make the edits.

May I make a suggestion as to how to do this? The Skydance Media article has a number of tables. If you want to suggest an updated version of one of the article's tables, why not copy text and markup language for the table into a subpage like User:Canton2332/Skydance Media table 1; make your changes to that version; then go to Talk:Skydance Media, and start a new section, where you explain why the updated table there should replace the one currently in the article.

If you use ' or ' I will see you are requesting my attention. I will look at your request, if someone else hasn't already taken care of it.

If you want to suggest changes to paragraphs that aren't part of tables, you don't need to place your change into a sub-page under User:Canton2332, just start a section, where you explain where the new paragraph(s) should go, and how updating the article with those paragraphs meets the wikipedia's goals.

There is a guideline for user pages WP:User pages. A couple of key point from the guideline: (1) while you can create sub-pages under User:Canton2332, when it is useful to you, these aren't part of the wikipedia article space. You are allowed more leeway as to what you put there, even some of the kind of personal stuff people put on facebook, but the material is generally expected to measure up to the wikipedia's goals. (2) you are expected to put a template like userspace draft or userspace notes at the top of most sub-pages created in the user namespace. Those templates include a hidden command, a  __NOINDEX__  that tells search engines to ignore that page. This is important because we don't want search engines to confuse our rough work with our actual articles, that everyone agrees should be seen by our readers when they look stuff up. (3) one thing that is not allowed is to prepare a page in userspace, and then tell a bunch of people to go there, for some reason not connected to the wikipedia's goals. You could not, for instance, put a gallery of your wedding photos in userspace, and invite everyone interested in your wedding to go there, to discuss your wedding -- as your wedding has nothing to do with the wikipedia's goals. What about asking your colleagues, at Skymedia, to review a rough draft of an updated table, or updated paragraphs, you want to suggest should be incorporated into an article. In my personal opinion, that would be okay, because your goal in doing so is to meet the wikipedia's goals.

What if you wanted to suggest changes to articles about Skydance Media's films and other projects? My understanding is that your participation would be welcome, so long as you didn't edit those articles directly but confined yourself to making suggestions on those articles' talk pages.

There is a standard template for welcoming new users. I am going to leave it for you.

I hope this is helpful information. Geo Swan (talk) 13:06, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Welcome!
Hello, Canton2332, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. 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.

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!

Using edit summaries
I noticed you used the edit summary feature on only four of your edits to Skydance Media, and only one of them was actually meaningful. The other three, , , used an inaccurate edit summary of "references removed".

Could you try to always use an brief edit summary?

If you edit articles not connected with your day job, don't try to fully explain a complicated edit in your edit summary. When an edit is complicated, give a brief hint at the edit's purpose, including the phrase "see talk", then put the extended explanation on the talk page.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 13:14, 6 April 2018 (UTC)


 * , The "references removed" in the edit you refer to is not an edit summary it is a tag, so Canton is not responsible for it. It does, however, accurately refer to removal of references in that edit. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 17:32, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
 * A robot inserted those tags? Good to know.  So, the robot only inserts an edit summary when the contributor hasn't left their own?  Can I assume you concur with the rest of my comment?  Cheers!  Geo Swan (talk) 17:54, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

you've got email

 * Good thing you sent email. I'm not sure a deluge of talk page messages is appropriate for someone who I've yet to observe use a talk page. I dream of horses If you reply here, please ping me by adding to your message (talk to me) (My edits) @  20:21, 6 April 2018 (UTC)
 * , weighing in here... but without clarifying what effort you made to help Canton2332 understand how they can comply with WP:PAY, while contributing here...


 * You implied the two of you discussed this issue, but I couldn't find where you made this effort. Um, you do realize it would be helpful if you made the effort to clarify what help you provided?  Geo Swan (talk) 20:33, 6 April 2018 (UTC)
 * You can't find it because it was done over email. I told Canton2332 to disclose per Terms of Use, and explained why I reverted their edit. I dream of horses If you reply here, please ping me by adding to your message (talk to me) (My edits) @  09:12, 7 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Your comments about your interaction, on Talk:Skydance Media, hinted at an email.
 * There is nothing wrong with you communicating with Canton over email, provided your correspondence, your agreement, complies with WP:OWN. No wikipedia contributor owns the articles they work on.  No wikipedia contributor gets to tell others, "This article has to be left as is, because I say so, and I am not going to explain why."  I don't get to do that.  Canton doesn't get to do that.  And you don't get to do that.
 * You wrote that my curiousity risked "possibly restarting a conflict that is already resolved and over." Essentially, weren't you lapsing from OWN, asserting that you could dictate the article's content -- without any obligation to explain yourself?
 * , surely you can see that once you and Canton reached some kind of agreement, via email, you had an obligation to summarize that agreement, on the talk page, so the rest of the community knows what was going on?
 * Canton largely restored the material you excised. Is this consistent with your agreement?  Are you going to excise their contribution, a second time?  Or was that material sufficiently modified so it no longer triggers the NPOV concern you never explained?
 * You don't own the article, so surely you can see the rest of needed to have been told what you agreed to? Surely the rest of us were entitled to read your explanation of your NPOV concern?
 * I have no problem if, after a couple of days, you have changed your mind as to whether there ever was an NPOV concern. But, if that is your thinking now, say you are dropping your concern, don't make us guess, OK?  Geo Swan (talk) 13:56, 7 April 2018 (UTC)
 * No one is obliged to provide you with anything nor should they summarize their conversation on a talk page. This is completely inappropriate and you need to stop. Attempting to force someone to reveal their e-mail conversation regarding policy violations can be viewed as an attempt of outing. Please stop trying to force people to comply with your own personal policies that do not follow wikipedia's. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:8D80:6AA:1B18:B87D:1A0F:F88F:8D23 (talk) 14:37, 7 April 2018 (UTC)
 * While I wouldn't have been as harsh in tonality as the IP editor above, I'll have to agree. I don't have to summarize anything. Email is inherently private, because even summarizing the exchange may accidentally reveal personal information that can be used for malicious purposes. When you started this discussion, I advised you to stay out of conflicts that don't involve you. I advise you of this again. You have unreasonable expectations. I dream of horses If you reply here, please ping me by adding to your message  (talk to me) (My edits) @  16:43, 7 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Oh, you agree with ? Then let me introduce you. , quality control volunteer, meet the contributor once known as , wikistalker, edit-warrior, and sockpuppetmaster, evading their indefinite block through the abuse of anonymous IP addresses.  You think you agree with them?  Jeez, I'm sorry, because I have to recommend you take nothing they write at face value.  I am going to have to wonder whether the reason you haven't explained your POV concern was that you found you simply could not back up your assertion.  It happens.  We are all fallible.  We are all going to make assertions we can't back up, sooner or later.  The important thing is, to own up, when we realize we made assertions we can't explain.  Sorry, but if you now realize you can't explain you claim Canton's contribution lapsed from NPOV, I am afraid being reluctant to own up to that is a kind of lapse from WP:BITE.  Canton is particularly owed an explanation of how you think they lapsed from NPOV.  And, if you now realize you can't explain yourself, they really need to know that.  How, after all, can they aim for being an experienced, good faith contributor, capable of writing neutrally written contributions, if they believe you that they lapsed here, but you won't explain yourself?  You keep saying your dispute with them is none of my business?  I think that is mistaken, on several points.  First, I think we have to rely on third parties to speak up, when it looks like one contributor is letting another contributor down; second, the rest of us, contributors like myself, who are considering editing Skydance Media, who want to avoid wasting their time, or having their edit reversed, need to have you spell out your POV concern.  Canton, as I wrote above, I think compliance with WP:PAY, will require you to confine yourself to merely drafting suggested wording, on the talk pages of Skydance Media, and other articles related to your job.  I think compliance with WP:PAY requires you to merely request contributors who don't work for Skydance, like Idoh and myself, to evaluate whether we agree with your suggested changes, and want to incorporating them.  If we agree with them, and incorporate them into article space, I think we would then be obliged to defend your suggestions.  But I think you are entitled to expect that anyone who engages in a discussion of your suggestions with you should do their best to explain themselves clearly.  If they say they disagree with you, or have questions, they should try to lay out the policy basis of their disagreement.  Idoh may have meant to imply they explained their concern over their perception your contributions showed bias in private emails.  Are you satisfied that they explained their concern in a way you can understand?  Cheers!   Geo Swan (talk) 22:15, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

If the anonymous user is honestly a sockpuppet, then you would go to WP:SPI and assume good faith on my part. You could show further AGF by not being angrily sarcastic. Again, the explanation happened over email. I reverted because of one paragraph in particular that I found to be deviating from NPOV. I'm not sure this person understands talk pages, and hasn't edited since that day, so perhaps stop using their talk page, and again, email them. We can continue this discussion on my talk page. I dream of horses If you reply here, please ping me by adding to your message (talk to me) (My edits) @  09:20, 8 April 2018 (UTC)