User talk:Jason S Wright

Help me
Please help me with...

I recently created a login name and made my first edit, because I came across the wikipedia page of my deceased mentor. I deleted some erroneous material and provided my reason why; however, I thought that justification/reason was private....it is not. I didn't even grammar check it and wouldn't have said exactly what I said had I known it was publicly accessible--it could hurt people's feelings and I look like an idiot. My user name on wikipedia is my real name. Is this help inquiry public as well? My justification for editing shows up in the "view history" tab on the main page. I wish to edit this justification or have it removed. How do I make that happen? Thanks, - Jason

Jason S Wright (talk) 23:04, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I have removed the edit summary in question. To answer your general question, yes, everything on Wikipedia is public, unless a user redacts or suppresses the content; the former can be seen only by administrators and oversighters, the latter is only visible by the OS team. In this case, I used suppression. If you want more help, change the help me-helped back into a help me, stop by the Teahouse, or Wikipedia's live help channel, or the help desk to ask someone for assistance. Primefac (talk) 23:35, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Citing sources for information
Please do not add or change content without citing a reliable source. Please review the guidelines at Citing sources and take this opportunity to add references to the article. JBW (talk) 23:50, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

I am a reliable source and happily deleted false content citing an irrelevant source that misconstrued a deceased friend's ideas. Created an account today. This place is a mess.

Help me!
Please help me with...

I created an account today, mistakenly used my real name, only to learn this place is a total mess. I want my private information, IP address, and name entirely erased from and never to be associated with this place again. How do I remove myself from this contraption without leaving private information behind? Thanks. - Jason

Jason S Wright (talk) 02:48, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
 * See WP:VANISH. Primefac (talk) 03:29, 26 January 2020 (UTC)


 * If you are sure that you are never going to edit again I can rename your account to something arbitrary, with a random string of letters. Your name will then be completely removed from the history of your editing. It will also be easy to edit this page to remove your name. As for your IP address, most people, even Wikipedia administrators, can't see that anyway. A very small number of people, known as "CheckUsers", do have access to IP addresses, but they are subject to very strict confidentiality rules about using the information. Every time they look at an editor's IP address the fact is logged, and if they cannot provide a very good justification for checking they are likely to have their privileges removed. I can think of no reason why any CheckUser might be interested enough in your IP address even to wish to check it, let alone enough to risk having their privileges removed, so I don't think you have anything to worry about there. Also, IP addresses are kept only for a fairly short time, after which they are discarded, so nobody can see them.


 * While I am writing to you, I will jsut mention something else which seems relevant to concerns you have expressed. The reason why we need published reliable sources, not just the say-so of someone who tells us they have personal knowledge, is that experience over the years has shown that information from such a person is unreliable. You may well know what you have posted perfectly well, but very often when people post information giving their personal knowledge as justification, that information is inaccurate and unreliable. There are many reasons for that including: (1) the person is lying, whether as arbitrary vandalism, as a deliberate attempt to libel someone, as a deliberate attempt to boost the reputation of themselves or someone they know, or for any of various other reasons; (2) the person sincerely believes what they say, but their information is just wrong. Of course, there are people who along and provide perfectly correct information based on their personal knowledge, but we have no way of telling who those people are, and who are the ones who provide inaccurate information, so we have to rely on published sources of information.


 * If you want me to rename your account as I have described above, post a message here, putting at the beginning of your message, and ~ at the end. I will then get an automatic notification of your message, and I will do the renaming for you. If, however, you change your mind and decide you may at some time decide to edit again, just ignore this. JBW (talk) 18:41, 27 January 2020 (UTC)