User talk:Sfrahm

Proposed deletion of Wikipedia culture
A proposed deletion template has been added to the article Wikipedia culture, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process&#32; because of the following concern:
 * Personal essay. WP:NOTSOAPBOX

All contributions are appreciated, but this article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice should explain why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the  notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised because, even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. A More Perfect Onion (talk) 17:28, 6 July 2009 (UTC)


 * another admin moved it to your user space, which is where it should have been written, as User:Sfrahm/Wikipedia culture. Do you have suggestions for better wording? we'd be glad to have them. The problem is that long messages are not read., and short ones sound curt. I do not at all like the present ones, and neither do a lot of others, but it's hard coming up with better. If you have any ideas, the talk pages for the templates is where to putthem. Let me know, too. DGG (talk) 23:24, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

OK, so after being soundly boxed about the ears by kindly fellow editors and bots. I will concede to scurrying back to the relative safety of the environment of my own user pages. For now... Here's my concept... What if ALL Wikipedia AfD tags (especially the TERROR inspiring speedy delete - offered to regular users (who may be accustomed to personal computers that willfully throw away up to years or work at a whim)) were actually initially helpful, especially in regards to their timing, tone and content before becoming draconian in connotation and import?

Something like, (after say a few minutes, unless automated vandalism is detected)

Thank You for your attempt to contribute to Wikipedia. Your valued contributions must meet certain criteria before they will be retained by Wikipedia and are subject to automatic open review by both human editors and robots. If you believe that you have received this message in error, please continue to edit and improve your article and do not despair.  If you need more time please move it to your own user page to start with for now and feel free to ask us for help with it. Please note, original works are not appropriate contributions here, as Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Any contributions must have sufficient references.  Original works are more appropriately to be placed here or here... Please note: anything contributed to Wikipedia WILL be edited brutally by multiple individuals, please do not be offended, that's just how Wikipedia works. Come join us, You are welcome here.

The fine print that no one can hardly read, included as an apparent afterthought of civility, needs to be replaced with an overriding tone of civility.

Anything that a robot does to a human should be framed in painfully polite terms. Wikipedia is a brutally intellectual domain for new users. I have been building and repairing complex electronic systems for 40 years (including computer automation systems for over 30 years) and I find interacting with Wikipedia daunting and with that said I still find contributing to Wikipedia painful and intellectually terrifying.

Consider for instance, the way error pages are worded at Pandora. My user page there http://www.pandora.com/people/zz25

Like the following; "I'm sorry, I had a small problem while retrieving info for this song. It's my fault. |Try Again|  |cancel|  "

As in a stance of, I am a pandorabot (robot at pandora), so I will use carefully crafted proper English and attempt to not frighten, alienate or offend users while GENTLY guiding them through this voluminous maze of potentially useful computer managed content.

Always with plenty of actually helpful suggestions in plain English and viable alternatives everywhere at hand one click away.

More suggestions, the function of a new bot should always be a collaborative project. A programmer type person should make it work as intended. An English major (or other appropriate language expert and not a psychologist) should carefully craft how it might be perceived by users new and old alike to say what it needs to say.Sfrahm (talk) 00:26, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

actually, there is another place to put these--in Wikipedia space. Perhaps that's what you meant to do, not article space. There are some pretty strange essays there on the one hand, and some that are actually accepted policy also. I see you are talking about all deletion tags, not just AfD in particular. speedy is not carried out by robots, by the way, just the notices are sent by them. If someone places a notice by hand, the robots are supposed to recognize that and skip it. I usually do mine by hand, with a keystroke macro program, & then modify them. A sample text I use is "It doesn't usually work out well to create articles without references. If you have the information to write the article, you have it from somewhere--so say where. Articles without references are likely to get deleted. To avoid problems, I advise you to do this the moment you create the article.  "    My first thought about yours is that they are too length, and using links to almost incomprehensible policy pages doesn't really help beginners. There are a lot of customized welcome messages at Welcoming committee/Welcome templates and we especially could use new versions of the problem ones at Welcoming committee/Welcome templates/Table DGG (talk) 02:35, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your constructive suggestions as to contributing to the Welcome templates. Um, I did start with the references in my original article. 20 of them in fact. From which I was distracted with what seemed as castigation for making "just a list of books," while trying to write an article. I am with you 100% so far, except where, pray tell, is Wikipedia space? ..and how does one move content there? Need some graphical site-maps perhaps?

So anyway, now that I understand the meta space concepts of Wikipedia just a little bit better (still not very well, and so much for being "bold" anyway) I will now start all my new projects in user space before dumping them into Article space. There's a possible suggestion. I will be working on some template verbiage in a bit with that in mind, as in simple, clear, friendly instructions. As you suggested, linking to yet more simple, clear, friendly instructions. Ease of use is (nearly) everything, and yes I do know about building better idiots. Trial by fire is one method to parse quality content. Look ma, I've got an article in article space with only two (non-time-limited) tags left on it, woo-hoo!Sfrahm (talk) 05:29, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Talkback
A More Perfect Onion (talk) 19:57, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Nomination of Societism for deletion
A discussion has begun about whether the article Societism, which you created or to which you contributed, should be deleted. While contributions are welcome, an article may be deleted if it is inconsistent with Wikipedia policies and guidelines for inclusion, explained in the deletion policy.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/Societism until a consensus is reached, and you are welcome to contribute to the discussion.

You may edit the article during the discussion, including to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:52, 8 October 2010 (UTC)