User talk:Nicengelhart

Welcome!
Hi, Nicengelhart. Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Our intro page contains a lot of helpful material for new users—please check it out! If you need help, visit Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place   on this page, followed by your question, and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions.  SilkTork  ✔Tea time  12:06, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Deleted Edits
Hello, one of the information team has identified you as the person who deleted most of the recent edits I made. My original message to them is below. Can you please respond with an explanation. I recently added several external links to your entries on “Cynicism” (contemporary and philosophy), “Tramp”, “Hobo” and “Asceticism”. All my edits were taken down by someone within Wikipedia after I received a message to say that multiple changes indicates spamming! I have published an academic text on Cynicism that has been on Wikipedia’s “Cynicism (philosophy)” entry for about 8 years now: Ian Cutler, (2005), Cynicism from Diogenes to Dilbert. McFarland & Co. ISBN 0-7864-2093-6, and is still there.

All my new edits, under the username ‘nicengelhart’ were deleted from the sites. The reason for the updating is simply that I have not got around to updating the Wikipedia pages for some years and have a lot of new, and very relevant, information to add including philosophy journal articles on the subjects. The website I developed, ‘Cynical Reflections’ and an online book I’m writing ‘A Philosophy of Tramping’ < http://www.cynicalreflections.net/ > has a lot of information that I’m sure researchers interested in those subjects would find of useful. Furthermore, I receive no professional or financial benefits from this work, I’m retired! If it is so difficult and contentious to add information to Wikipedia, what is the point of it? Please can you reinstate the edits I made, or advise me how I can add them myself without them being zapped Nicengelhart (talk) 19:20, 25 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your message. I understand that your work may well be a sound and useful academic text. The removal of your links and books is not intended a personal slight. As Silk Tork explains, links repeatedly added to articles can be seen as promotional. Blogs are taken as unreliable sources because the as user-edited. Links and books written by the editor themselves can be a conflict of interest, which is discouraged. If you wish to explore this further please visit the external links, COI, reliable sources or spam noticeboards. I hope this helps. Thanks. Span (talk) 21:01, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Message for Span: you are making assumptions about the external links I left, by parroting guidelines that mention self-promotion and a conflict of interest without checking out if this is the case. What evidence do you have that this is the case? I have read your guidelines, which refers in most cases to using common sense. If you are taking on the role of policing other people's activity, then have the courtesy of discussing individual links with me before simply deleting all of my edits. And who is policing your activity? The Philosophy of Tramping section on my blog is primarily a showcase of work by published tramp writers (currently Victorian tramp writers), whose work has sadly been overlooked. It is not about MY Ideas, and is certainly far more thoroughly researched than the pages on this subject in Wikipedia, which appears very superficial on the subject indeed. In any case, a lot of published work (and I say this as a published writer) can be less accurate and verifiable than writing that appears in blogs and websites (which in any case are frequently linked to on Wikipedia, hence the reason for making the links I did). If Wikipedia sets out to embrace the digital age in which we live, then it needs to review it's attitude to other digital sources of information; otherwise it is in danger of going the same way as the current publishing industry—into obscurity. I would like this discussion monitored by an independent third party, as I note from your talk page that I am not the first person that you have vexed in this way. helpme. In any case, this experience of engaging with Wikipedia has just convinced me that I am wasting my time on something frivolous that is taking me away from more serious concerns, so I will leave it at that. Nicengelhart (talk) 15:10, 30 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Advice and information was left on your talkpage on 22 June. When you logged on to leave the message for Span on 25 June you may have missed the new (rather small and discrete) message box informing you that you had a message. If this was the case, please let me know, as we used to have a big orange banner that could not be missed, and that has recently changed. Anyway, if you look at the message I left you on the 22nd, I advised that your links were not appropriate, and I directed you to our guidelines on the matter. If you haven't yet done so, it would be worth reading the guideline I mentioned and those additional ones that Span has left you. This should go some way to providing the answers you are seeking from Span. Wikipedia can be frustrating to learn how to contribute to appropriately; however, advise and information is available, and if followed, then contributing can be a very enjoyable and rewarding experience.
 * If you're not sure of anything, you can type on this page, or you can leave a note for me on my talkpage, Regards  SilkTork  ✔Tea time  21:30, 25 June 2013 (UTC)