User talk:JulietEaly

Welcome!
Hello, JulietEaly, and welcome to Wikipedia! My name is Shalor and I work with the Wiki Education Foundation; I help support students who are editing as part of a class assignment.

I hope you enjoy editing here. If you haven't already done so, please check out the student training library, which introduces you to editing and Wikipedia's core principles. You may also want to check out the Teahouse, a community of Wikipedia editors dedicated to helping new users. Below are some resources to help you get started editing. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me on my talk page. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:29, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Passing as White
Hi! Your new article, Passing as White, looks to duplicate the existing article on passing, Passing (racial identity). I would recommend that you look at instead merging your material into the existing article as opposed to creating a new one. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:12, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi! I've talked about this with professor Hertz and she agreed that I should make my own article. I found the existing one to be poorly organized and poorly written. I didn't want to add my work to the existing article that is, in my opinion, really bad. I think the existing article could be replaced by mine. I also had this conversation with the TA for this course earlier but she never responded to me. If you really think I should merge the articles, I could. But I would much rather separate my article from the existing one. JulietEaly (talk) 20:31, 20 November 2018 (UTC)


 * The issue with that, however, is that there are still two pages with the same topic and if the existing page does have issues, this doesn't resolve them. It's better to improve the existing page than to make a new one. Another issue is that eventually the separate pages will be found and merged into the existing article, so it's better if you do it and in the process, improve the existing page. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 10:53, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Also, the other concern here is that creating a new article wouldn't fix any of the issues with the existing article, which could be repaired by you merging in and fixing the existing article. I really can't emphasize enough that it's not really a good idea to create a new article as opposed to fixing the existing one. If you want, I can bring in an uninvolved editor to give you a second opinion on this. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 11:08, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Basically, the best option here is to work on the existing article. I recommend posting to the talk page to let people know what you will be doing, then work on moving your work to the passing article. If you remove anything, make sure that you explain why it was removed in your talk page post. There's no need to make a second article - just move your work to the existing one and improve it. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:14, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Hi Shalor. I wish you had responded to my previous message sooner. My class ends on Thursday and what you're suggesting is a ton of work. Fixing the existing article will take hours. Much of the writing isn't grammatical and doesn't even relate back to the topic of passing. I also specifically decided to write about passing as white, not just racial passing in general. I think that the topic of passing as white is very different from passing as another race, and therefore could be its own article. To pass as white is to assimilate to a majority, often for one's own safety and survival. Passing as another race is generally appropriative and is done with political motives. If I were to merge my article with the existing one, I would want to delete significant portions of what already exists and I don't know if this is allowed or if it is frowned upon. I hope to hear back from you soon, thanks. JulietEaly (talk) 02:41, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Hi Juliet, it's definitely OK to completely revamp and re-write the article. As far racial passing versus passing as white, the main article is primarily about passing as white - when this topic is brought up in academic and scholarly text, as well as in general conversation, it refers to someone passing themselves off as white. If you want, you can organize the passing (racial identity) article to better show that the topic is primarily about people passing as white. Any passing as far as people passing in other contexts goes, that can be re-organized into a section on its own to designate that this isn't the primary way it's used. I can absolutely help with this if you need me to. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:20, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

I hope that you understand why this situation is so incredibly frustrating for me. This project was due weeks ago and my class ends tomorrow, on December 6th. My professor is happy with the work that I have done in my sandbox, but I'm frustrated because I didn't hear back from you until last night. I could have worked on this article for two weeks and instead I only have today to completely re-do the existing article. I don't know how you would be able to help me as you offered, but I added information about how I plan to change the existing article to its talk page. I am going to get started on those changes now. JulietEaly (talk) 21:21, 5 December 2018 (UTC)


 * I should have left this here, instead of on Sandbox talk:
 * Collaboration as a Wikipedian
 * I'm going to give you the advice I give all student editors. If you want to edit on Wikipedia, first understand that this is a collaborative process. You are entering a community of established editors here, and when you work on an article, you need to integrate your changes with what is already in established articles, not simply replace established content with a sandbox version.
 * If you go into it assuming you are going to completely re-do an established article, and that no one will object to any of your changes, you are likely to wind up frustrated. If your copy and paste becomes disruptive, it could cause problems. I'm going over your changes now, but make sure you pay attention to the sourcing and wikilinks that are already present, to the tone you use, and don't wholesale delete others' content to paste it over with your own. You have now done so and obliterated others wikilinks and structure, then left it there in a degraded version that may fit your course objectives, but does not necessarily serve Wikipedia. When you do this, you will most likely be reverted.
 * I realize that you may be frustrated at having a class deadline, but please understand that we, as a community that was already here, and will continue to be here after your class is over, can also become frustrated when people assume our work is disposable. Some of your restructuring made no sense, and looked like you hadn't actually read the sourcing or background on some of the people you were putting in new sections. Deadline or no, you need to be more careful with this. I'm attempting to work with the edits you've made, but too much of this and people will just hit revert. - CorbieV  ☊ ☼ 23:15, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Hi Corbie. Thank you for the advice, I appreciate your input. I seem to have received conflicting information from you and from Helaine, another Wiki Education person who is helping with my class. In an email I was told the following: "You can entirely revamp a page if you think it needs that level of improvement, but you should not create a new/duplicate page; this is part of the collaborative editing experience on Wikipedia." I'm not sure if I misinterpreted it, but since I had previously stated that I wanted to remove portions of the article and reorganize it, I thought that this was an OK to do so.
 * My frustrations are not with objections to what I have added to the existing article. I'm frustrated because I was given instructions that I questioned, and then I wasn't answered for two weeks. If I had known that I would not be able to keep the new article I originally worked on, I could have spent those two weeks working on integrating my work into the existing article.
 * I am sorry that I messed up the wikilinks. I thought that I was supposed to write in my sandbox first and then copy and paste it into the article I was working on. I didn't know that doing this would mess up the existing links. Is there a better way for me to add work I had already done besides copy and pasting?
 * The only restructuring I did was to put Passing in the United States next to Passing in Other Countries, which I think makes sense. If you think that Treatment in popular culture should go in between those sections, we can change it back, but I don't think that makes sense. I also thoroughly read about all of the sources and references I made, so I'm curious to see what you think I added that wasn't researched. Much of the existing article had uncited claims, and nothing that I added was without a source, except for the introduction.
 * If you could expand on anything that you mentioned above, I'd be happy to work on them because I genuinely care about this article. JulietEaly (talk) 00:48, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
 * We should take any discussion on improving the article to the article talk page, so everyone working on the article can participate. But in general, I either do all my edits on the page itself, or import that raw code into a work page and start with it, so all wikilinks and sources are preserved; that way what's there is augmented, not just paved over. Of course there are at times things that can be jettisoned, but in some cases consensus will be to keep things that one of us may want to do away with. It's just how WP works.
 * I have an ongoing concern with the teachers and professors who are assigning their students to write on Wikipedia, when those teachers are not Wikipedians themselves... I haven't looked into your class specifically, but we've had so many giving out these assignments who don't seem to understand how Wikipedia works. If you were given conflicting advice, that's not your fault. I've seen this issue cropping up for a lot of people. - CorbieV  ☊ ☼ 02:27, 6 December 2018 (UTC)