User talk:Philcha/Archives/2010/December

unaware of "vandalism"
I guess I am unaware of how this is supposed to work as I usually just read but when it read as "Harry Potter a young." I assumed I would be allowed to change it.

Please enlighten me as to why this is not the case so that I will better understand in the future. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.96.208.3 (talk) 14:25, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

On second thought.
I will not be requiring a response from you as you are wrong. Looking at old revisions I see that the page indeed had a word left out. My attempt to correct this was proper and cannot, as far as I can tell, result in my being blocked.

Vandalism is any addition, removal, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia. Vandalism cannot and will not be tolerated. Common types of vandalism are the addition of obscenities or crude humor, page blanking, and the insertion of nonsense into articles. Even if misguided or ill-considered, any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia is not vandalism. Even harmful edits that are not explicitly made in bad faith are not vandalism. For example, although reinserting it despite multiple warnings can be disruptive, adding a controversial personal opinion to an article is not vandalism. However, edits/reverts over a content dispute are never vandalism, but edit warring. Not all vandalism is obvious, nor are all massive or controversial changes vandalism. Careful thought may be needed to decide whether changes made are beneficial, detrimental but well-intended, or outright vandalism.

Perhaps a nicer message than, "stop it or you will be blocked" could be used? It seems harsh in this situation. Have a nice day! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.96.208.3 (talk) 14:43, 8 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I can't comment on the specific article as you haven't identified it.
 * I use "stop it or you will be blocked" because the standard messages are weak (e.g. "that was unconstructive") and do not make it clear that further vandalism is likely to have consequences.
 * The boundaries of vandalism are not clear. For example I would treat Randy in Boise as a type of vandalism. Another is ignoring warnings within article, e.g. edit notes like the one currently displayed if any one starts to edit Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
 * You may think my approach is severe. But any of the behaviours I've described, if not checked, can make the perpetrator do damage to other articles, and fixing the damage usually takes more time and effort than the damage did - wasting time that could have been spent on improving articles. So deterring further unconstructive behaviour minimises wasting time.
 * And remember that just 1 warning won't lead to a block. --Philcha (talk) 12:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Vandalism
Perhaps if the boundaries of vandalism are "not clear" some time should be spent updating the article if it is going to be linked to frequently. I am fairly certain that a softer message could have been used to great effect in a situation such as this. Really all I am trying to say is chill out unless you are going to tell me specifically why I am vandalizing a particular article. I cannot attempt to compete with you in regards to wikipedia rules and regulations on the subject of vandalism when the article itself does not contain the proper information, and when you have clearly spent so much more time here than I have. Thank you for the lesson. I will no longer attempt to contribute to any articles for fear that I will unknowingly commit vandalism even in good faith. Have a wonderful day.--38.96.208.3 (talk) 14:40, 9 December 2010


 * I've looked at the history of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and see that you're right, the article has "Harry Potter a young" without "boy". I apologise, and will fix the article.
 * Can I suggest that in future you give like 1 or more links to what needs to be discussed - I had to do some detective work to find that we were discussing Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. If you're interested, I can tell you the trail.

Thank you for the update and follow up. Unfortunately I don't know how to link at the moment, so I apologize for not leaving more information for you to go on. I'm still learning so I hope it won't be an issue in the future. I think I'm going to spend some time in the sandbox now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.96.208.3 (talk) 16:04, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

And to you!
Thanks, Philcha! Merry Christmas to you too, and best wishes for 2011 (-:

-- Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  19:03, 26 December 2010 (UTC)