User talk:Richard matt

Hello, Richard Matt. I see we are both working on improving the Wikipedia article about Toni Matt. I feel it really deserves to be a good article, since so many skiers (especially here in NH) are fascinated by his legend.

It looks like you may be new to Wikipedia. I'm certainly no expert Wikipedian, but I have edited a couple hundred articles and learned a lot along the way from more experienced editors. I haven't changed much that you wrote, but I thought you might be interested in why I made the changes I did, and, perhaps, in some of the Wiki-wisdom that has been passed down to me.

On one of the very first articles I edited, I made a change without reading the original story carefully. The editor I “corrected” pointed out that the info I added was already there in the preceding sentence. I was embarrassed, of course, but I did learn to be careful about respecting the work of prior editors.

I assume you are a skier yourself, so I feel certain that you didn't actually mean to write that Toni Matt was going 90 mph rather than 40-45 mph “when he dropped over the lip at the top of the headwall”.

A more general principle is also in play here: the 40-45 mph figure was a quote with a footnote. A quick Google check will show that Toni Matt is widely quoted saying exactly that. If a reference makes a certain statement, it creates an error when you change the statement and leave the footnote.

Wikipedia encourages editors to assume good faith on the part of other editors. Therefore it is usually preferred not to remove a well-referenced statement, even if you disagree with it. It is perfectly acceptable to provide an opposing point of view, of course. The continual pressure of thesis and antithesis is one of things that makes Wikipedia so useful. But the proper way to do it is to offer contrary information in the form of a reference to another published work. You'll often see wording like “Opinions vary on this” or “On the other hand, X wrote in 1973. . .” or “his critics were quick to respond” etc.

One minor point: Emphasis should be used sparingly, otherwise it gets to be The Boy Who Cried Wolf. In the few spots where it is really needed for clarity, emphasis should be indicated by italics, not boldface. (check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Emphasis )

And finally: I see that you put back into the original structure of the article a lot of material about the headwall schuss that I had moved down into the new "Headwall Schuss" section. Do you think it's better having it in both places? I was trying to consolidate all the material about the schuss in a single section to avoid redundancy, and possibly temporal confusion. But I don't feel strongly about it. So I'd like to hear your take on that, and on the rest of all this. Please leave me a message on my talk page or yours. This will aid you and me – and hopefully lots of other Wikipedians who will join us in the future – as we move this project ahead.

Sincerely yours, Paugus 2017-03-04