User talk:PetSounds/Archive 003

Conflict over Dylan articles
I have now looked at some parts of this (you can see my analysis here) and, from what I can see, most of Monicasdude's criticisms of your edits were valid even though he was too harsh in much of his comments. You know my aversion to reversion. This was a good example of why I hold that view. Both of you could have stayed civil and held a more constructive conversation had you not got enmeshed in an edit war. I notice that you accepted the changes evetually and I would like to think that you would reach consensus more comfortably if you stepped back further or more redaily. I am not suggesting that you always surrender meekly. The key things that I would like to see you take from this are:
 * 1) Use the edit summary to state what you changed and why you think your version is an improvement. Be cautious, civil and objective in all edit summaries.
 * 2) Do not revert more than once every 24 hours even if someone reverts your revert. No harm will come to Wikipedia or your reputation in that time and it gives you time to reflect.
 * 3) You are doing good work and so are others. Try to see other editors' persepctives when you read their edits and try to guess their responses before you hit save.

I hope this is helpful. Do you still want me to look at the Beach Boys stuff, or can you take it from here? &mdash;Theo (Talk) 17:10, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Love you
Brian: I have looked at Love You and I understand both your frustration and Monicasdude's motivation. I have put inline comments into the text to show the changes that I would suggest to enhance the article (I also enacted afew that I thought were most essential). Here is the diff. &mdash;Theo (Talk) 17:53, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

M.I.U. Album
I liked your solution of the infobox problem; if you haven't mentioned this at the template Talk page, you should do &mdash; it might help a lot of other people. --Mel Etitis ( &Mu;&epsilon;&lambda; &Epsilon;&tau;&eta;&tau;&eta;&sigmaf; ) 20:45, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Inappropriate editing practices
Please discontinue your practice of making substantive changes to articles, especially over matters currently being disputed, while marking the edits as minor and attaching edit summaries such as "fix typo errors" or providing no edit summary whatever. Monicasdude 06:38, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

John Wesley Harding
Although I do not condone Monicasdude's reversion of all your edits, I do endorse his exhortation to use the edit summary and the minor edits check box more accurately. It seems that I should revise the first of my recommendations above to read: Use the edit summary to state what you changed and why you think your version is an improvement. Be accurate, cautious, civil, and objective in all edit summaries.

I hope that Monicasdude will heed my request to interact more civilly (and I do feel that his latest message here is a paragon of restrained complaint) but you can avoid giving him any excuse to misbehave by proposing any material changes (that is, anything other than corrections of typos, wiki links and formatting) on the appropriate discussion page and waiting 24 hours before implementing them in the article. &mdash;Theo (Talk) 12:26, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Articles
Some very nice work going on there. I especially like the entry for KTSA (sometimes it's hard to be so NPOV about such a splitter of opinion as this one). Next question: I personally think we should include links to the lyrics from Surfer Moon as per Revolver and others. As I say, I really should get to doing some extra work myself, but I'm kinda afraid to touch these articles now! As much as I don't believe in article ownership, I think you've done very well with these. Bobo192 | Edits

External link
Looks pretty cool. Just bulleted it and italicized the title of the album within the link. Plus it links to the unwindowed version of the website, which is a plus in anyone's book. It's looking pretty cool now, I think. What about you? Bobo192 | Edits


 * Cool. I'll get to the rest. I still gotta remember to access the website without frames, though.. it can be a pain for external linking otherwise. Bobo192 | Edits

Inaccurate edits & inappropriate editing practices
Please stop changing album pages to identify items as "deleted" or "unavailable" when the items are listed for sale on an artist's official site and in the artist's label's online catalogs.

Please stop listing substantive edits as "minor." Please note such applicable language as

"A minor edit to a wiki page is generally one that makes only trivial changes such as typo corrections, formatting and presentational changes, and rearranging of text (without changing any of the text's content). . . [A]ny change that affects the meaning of an article is not minor, even if it is only a single word."

"No one wants to be fooled into ignoring a significant change to an article because it was marked "minor". Therefore, remember to consider the opinions of other editors when choosing this option."

Monicasdude 03:28, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Brian: Again, I endorse Monicasdude's points. It may be that you are checking edits as minor by default. Please go to Special:Preferences, Select Editing and ensure that your "Mark all edits minor by default" box is unchecked. If you continue to mark material edits as 'minor' I will raise a Request for Comment on your behaviour. &mdash;Theo (Talk) 10:53, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Brian: I do not know if your doing this consciously, but your messages today have included covert attacks on Monicasdude. Please stop this because it makes constructive communication difficult. If it is not deliberate, take another look at the messages and consider how you might feel if you were the unnamed subject. &mdash;Theo (Talk) 16:50, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Opel
You reverted my changes to Opel (album), without saying why, and describing your changes as "minor". Please do not do so again, without providing justification for your edits, and having first read Neutral point of view. Andy Mabbett 18:03, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

My prefercences were inadvertently set to state "minor changes" (which I have since switched off) and I did those changes in haste without adding comments, which I have now done. PetSounds 18:20, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Pacific Ocean Blue
I must admit, I was surprised it wasn't there - and unfortunately I don't have a copy of that album I can call my own, so I'm kinda unable to do much with it. I know other people have copies, but it's a tricky one really. Bobo192 | Edits

Sleeve notes as sources
Hi Brian: I am pleased to see you citing sources for your edits. Please be aware that not all sources are equal! While it is appropriate to use CD booklets as sources for assertions of hard facts (or what purport to be so), they are suspect as sources for soft facts, judgements or opinions. This is because they tend to be promotional. It is fine to cite such things towards the end of an article when discussing opinions and reactions, but they should be avoided in the lead and in the first few paragraphs. For example, if the sleeve says that a record was "a pivotal album" (which could be an opinion), we need to know why it is pivotal and state those causes. For example "Foobar is a pivotal album because it contains four tracks in the band's established folk style and six in the electropop idiom that they adopted hereafter." Note that the (admittedly absurd) supporting facts are essentially objective. I am aware that I seem to be making relentless criticisms of your contributions; I hope that you realise that I am making this effort because I believe that you have a lot to offer the encyclopedia. When I was the subject of a similar process, I found it hard to take at the time but I now value what I learnt. &mdash;Theo (Talk) 12:48, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Brian: Monicasdude has complained on my talk page that you are repeatedly introducing definitive judgements of albums into those articles. I agree with him and I now ask you to stop writing such phrases into articles without proposing them first on article talk pages. Do you understand how statements of this nature differ from the main body of an encyclopedic article? Either way, please stop making any qualitative additions to articles without discussion. I hope that you will rapidly learn to identify unencyclopedic phrases and can rely on your own judgement. &mdash;Theo (Talk) 18:14, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

I have edited Younger Than Yesterday to show the kind of thing that I consider appropriate. I hope this helps. &mdash;Theo (Talk) 00:36, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

I prefer the revised format, although I think an even better approach would be to list the additional tracks as a subsection of ==Track listing==. I prefer the revised format because it pauts all the discursive text in the body of the article and leaves the other sections as consistent lists. We can gradually change the others as we increase their objectivity (where they were last touched by you (smiling exaggeration)) or their subjectivity (where your changes were reverted bigger grin)). &mdash;Theo (Talk) 01:13, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Stop vandalizing pages by removing other users contributions
It is entirely inappropriate for you to systematically remove other users' contributions because you believe their edit summaries insufficient. I note that in no cases have you posted appropriate comments on the talk pages of the users involved. Removing edits with which you can cite no substantive dispute is vandalous.

You have been repeatedly cited by a number of editors, myself included, and several admins for mismarking substantive edits as minor, and for your practice of writing misleading edit summaries -- for example, making substantial deletions of lengthy contributions from other editors and describing the edits as spelling or grammar corrections. You would be better advised to return to your own past edits and clean up the results of your own misconduct rather than harassing users whose failures result from inexperience rather than malice or deceptive intent. Monicasdude 18:27, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Stop making false claims of vandalism in your edit summaries
You have repeatedly inserted false claims of vandalism in edit summaries today regarding your dispute with one or more other users regarding tracklists of various Beach Boys-related pages and comments in the articles. For one user to disagree with another about the appropriate level of detail in an article is not unusual; for one user in such, without evidence, to characterize the other's insistence as motivated by vandalism appears no better than dishonest. Monicasdude 18:42, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

I see that Monicasdude is one step ahead of me again. This edit makes two changes under the summary "removing vandalism". One is the changing of a release date, with which you have previously disagreed, and the other deletes a parenthetical phrase "including the Al Jardine-produced re-recording of "Cotton Fields", retitled on the single as "Cottonfields"", which you accepted in your edit at 02:31 (which is also incorrectly summarised as "removing vandalism"), your edit at 00:05, and others. I have asked you twice before to leave accurate edit summaries. I have also asked you to cite sources inline and to explain your changes on the discussion page. You have disregarded all this with your edits to Sunflower (album) over the last 24 hours or so. I can see that you used a clear explanatory edit summary here but that does not justify your repeated unexplained or misexplained reversal of the edits that you consider erroneous. Once again, I have made the kind of changes that I recommend and explained them on the talk page. Please try to follow this process yourself in future. &mdash;Theo (Talk) 19:46, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Stop posting threats and false accusations of misconduct on other users' talk pages
Your comments on the talk page of user:4.131.157.238 are contemptible and violate applicable guidelines on civlity, editing, etc. It is not vandalism for another user to have "erased some of my wording," and no user needs to "ask before removing details" from pages you have written. You are simply being dishonest in an attempt to intimidate and harass an editor you disagree with. Monicasdude 19:15, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Brian: Comments like those at [User talk:4.131.157.238#Sunflower] are not acceptable. I have replaced them with something more appropriate. This user is making the same mistakes that you made. How would you feel to be bullied in such a fashion? Please do not bite the newcomers. &mdash;Theo (Talk) 20:05, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Just in case you have not yet gone: I am sorry that you feel so assailed, and I regret the hours that I spent trying to help. But not so much that I will not persist should you choose the stay or return. &mdashTheo (Talk) 22:00, 25 July 2005 (UTC)