User talk:Ra56

January 2012
Welcome to Wikipedia. Everyone is welcome to contribute to the encyclopedia, but when you add or change content, as you did to the article Symphony No. 3 (Schubert), please cite a reliable source for your addition. This helps maintain our policy of verifiability. See Citing sources for how to cite sources, and the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. -- MST  ☆  R   (Chat Me!) 03:32, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi, and welcome to Wikipedia :) - your edit that you provided, is unsourced. On Wikipedia, we can't just pull out observations - without a reliable source to corroborate the observation. Are you possibly able to provide a reference that supports your edit? Thank you, -- MST  ☆  R   (Chat Me!) 03:54, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * A link to a reliable source, maybe? has the subject stated this himself? because if he has, it can be included per WP:ABOUTSELF. Other than that, if it's original research, it can't be included. Sorry about that, -- MST  ☆  R   (Chat Me!) 04:03, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not having a go at you or anything, so you shouldn't be heated on this. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia after all. More to life than information. Barring that, Wikipedia does have a set of rules, and just because other editors in the past have done original research edits - does not excuse you to do it too - in other words, the ends don't justify the means. O.R. damages the integrity of Wikipedia. Thanks -- MST  ☆  R   (Chat Me!) 04:09, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I think you're taking this a little too far. I personally have no issue with your edits. But Wikipedia Original Research policy, does. Hopefully no hard feelings. Thanks, -- MST  ☆  R   (Chat Me!) 04:21, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

No, I don't feel I am. I've been reading articles about classical compositions on Wikipedia so long that when I have something to add (far less far-fetched a claim than most of these articles make without sources, and exactly in the vein of what I and others seek in them), the fact that the response when I add a single sentence is to delete it immediately really does upset me, and it makes me feel that my expertise is not only unwanted but valueless. I have no desire to contribute to a community that throws my work away. If you're going to do so, perhaps you should go the whole hog on purging interesting information from the Wiki and delete the pages on half the other Schubert symphonies (and countless other pieces of music). It disgusts me. Ra56 (talk) 04:59, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Reverting your contribution to Haydn #104
Hello Ra, I removed your unsourced speculation from Haydn #104 article. I notice above that in the past you have taken such reverts personally, but really, you shouldn't. We're trying to produce an encyclopedia that is as solid as possible in its scholarship, and that means everything must come from a peer-reviewed source. WP editors are mostly amateurs, and it is not reasonable to expect them to carry out professional-level peer review of novel contributions. The sensible policy is simply not to include any contributions that would require such review; see WP:NOR.

So please, adopt a thicker skin on this point, and next time you want to edit, take time out for an enjoyable visit to your local music library. Sincerely, Opus33 (talk) 22:01, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

What Wikipedia is not
Greetings. I am sorry to see that you are finding Wikipedia uncongenial. I hope you will take my comments in the friendly spirit in which I offer them.

Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia. Wikipedia has always been a tertiary source, trying to report only what is verifiable from reliable secondary sources. These are the first two of Wikipedia's "five pillars". Since its infancy, Wikipedia has not been a place to publish "new" knowledge - I stumbled across the project in April 2005, and remember this was the case even then. There is a consensus that this is how it should be: it is not a decree from on high, nor merely somebody's whim.

You seem, therefore, to be railing against Wikipedia because it is not what you want it to be. Isn't this like railing against the weather because it was drizzling when you wanted to go out for a walk? - perhaps a little egocentric, and certainly unproductive. It is perhaps more fruitful to see things in a different light: the garden needed some rain; thank goodness we have policies that allow us to remove wacky solutions to Elgar's Enigma. [I'm British - so forgive me for talking about the weather.]

Since the insights you have been adding are your personal observations, Wikipedia is simply the wrong place for them. I am sorry that their removal upset you. May I suggest that you write a blog, or find some other outlet for them? I should be interested to know if you do, as it would be a stream I might follow.

Meanwhile, I invite you most cordially to continue here, contributing information that has been published in reliable sources. If you wanted to contribute somewhere that is more welcoming to experts as experts, or where the philosophy is different, perhaps you are looking for Citizendium or somewhere similar (they don't yet even have an article on Schubert or Haydn). Best wishes, RobertG ♬ talk 11:19, 26 January 2012 (UTC)