User talk:Markwpowell64

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By the way, I loved your edit summary here. Cheers! SS ✞(Kay) 20:26, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

May 2011
Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, you are reminded not to attack other editors. Please comment on the contributions and not the contributors. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. You are welcome to rephrase your comment as a civil criticism of the article. Thank you. Jasper Deng (talk) 16:46, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

August 2013
Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, you are reminded not to attack other editors. Please comment on the contributions and not the contributors. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Mistakes do occur during transposing of articles. Thank you. --Molestash (talk) 18:53, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for September 2
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Your recent edits
I really do not understand your editing. 3 months ago, you switched around the order of some nouns in a sentence that had stood in the article on Michigan for several years. I immediately changed it back, saying not an improvement. The fact that no-one saw fit to revert it back to your version is pretty much a tacit approval of that action. So today, you come and change it again, operating on some rule of grammar that apparently only lives in your head. The fact that you felt the need to add a parenthetical phrase to clarify why you did it should be indication enough that the way you chose to express it is awkward. You made similar edits on other articles, in some cases referring to other editors as stupid. Care to explain your actions? The two edit summaries in which you referred to other editors as stupid are more than enough to take you to ANI. I would like to hear why you are doing this first. John from Idegon (talk) 06:44, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Civility
I noticed the dispute at Michigan. I don't feel strongly about it one way or the other (the original alphabetical order was fine, size order is fine too but the parenthetical was no good) - I'm dropping a note because I don't think that calling out other editors by name, describing edits as "stupid", or offering sarcastic commentary in edit summaries is constructive or welcome. Other editors have commented on this before, and I encourage you, as they have, to go review WP:Civility. It's a better encyclopedia when we're not denigrating one another. Thanks. JohnInDC (talk) 13:23, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

There is currently a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.

November 2013
JohnInDC (talk) 11:47, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Fustration
Listen Mate, if you can tone it down a bit, I'm prepared to support your edits: You do the factual stuff that you think is needed (a little or a lot, it is up to you) and, if you get frustrated, I'll do the jumping through hoops that is needed to gain consensus. It is a fact that Wikipedia needs you more than you need it but it is also a fact that Wikipedia editors don't need you - and Wikipedia needs them too. I just need you to acknowledge that they have feelings and tone down your frustration - we can get there in the end, it is just a slower process than most people anticipate. If you agree then I can start straight away, say at the Skype article. Tommy Pinball (talk) 12:48, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
 * It occurs to me that rather than simply telling you what not to do, it may be helpful to suggest alternatives. The article and user Talk pages exist precisely to permit editors to hash out issues relating to the articles, be they factual, stylistic or something else.  Edit summaries by contrast are a poor place to conduct discussions - they're too short and, in my experience, often accompany an edit that simply undoes the other editor's efforts.  Next time you correct a factual error or clarify something in an article, confine the edit summary to a simple and dispassionate statement of what you did, e.g., "conform to existing Wikipedia article at (so-and-so)" or "clarify to indicate that development took place before Microsoft involvement".  Don't slam Wikipedia, decry the ignorance of its editors, or include characterizations like "bizarre", "incompetent" or "negligent".  Just make the change.  If it is a sound change it will stand.  If not, if someone undoes it - out of ignorance, or sloppiness, or reasonable disagreement - then start a Talk page discussion explaining, again in dispassionate terms, the change you made and the reasons you made it.  If you want to, you can restore your edit with a pointer to the Talk page discussion you've started; whether you take that step will depend on lots of things like, whether the disagreement is purely factual, or rather one of style.  Here too, assume the good faith of the other Wikipedia editors and undertake to discuss it with them as though they are adults, trying like you to make it a better encyclopedia, rather than as ignorant or willful children making a mess of a carefully-tended garden.  Whether you like it or not, Wikipedia is a collaborative effort, and collaboration works better when the participants address one another respectfully and patiently.  Even when other editors seem incapable of or unwilling to understand even the most basic concepts.  I hope this is helpful. JohnInDC (talk) 16:33, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Really. It may be fun to be snarky and snide but it's really unpleasant for other editors and it's not hard at all to be, you know, nice.  Why not?  JohnInDC (talk) 19:49, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Civility, redux
I'm reaching out to you again, Mark, because while your edits appear to be sound, they are accompanied - almost invariably - by gratuitous, exceedingly unpleasant commentary in the edit summaries, including insults of individual editors and the Wikipedia community in general. I've suggested a few times that you review WP:Civility for some background on why Wikipedia, as a collaborative, communal effort, functions better if its editors make the effort to get along and be respectful to one another - an effort which, to this point, you seem unwilling to exert. I now suggest it again, because your behavior - despite my attempts to draw your attention to this issue - remains well out of bounds.

This is not just a schoolmarmish request of a particularly thin-skinned editor. It's a community standard, and an important part of the way things work here. If you can't bring yourself to work within those standards, there is a risk - no matter how bulletproof your edits may be from a substantive standpoint - that you may not be permitted to continue to edit here.

Please give the page a look and respond to me here. Thanks. JohnInDC (talk) 00:32, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

JohnInDC (talk) 19:08, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
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Disambiguation link notification for April 16
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Civility and competence
Hello Mark, and welcome back. I am sorry that your hiatus did not temper your incivility. You seem to regard it as a kind of badge of honor, though, so I suppose the rest of us will just have to endure it until (perhaps) it winds up getting you blocked. Meanwhile if you are going to take potshots at the incompetence of other Wikipedia editors you should probably take greater care to ensure that your own edits are executed correctly, as the foregoing message notes. Thanks. JohnInDC (talk) 12:04, 16 April 2016 (UTC)