User talk:Will Golden

Edit filter report
Hello. I have responded to your edit filter false positive report here: Edit filter/False positives/Reports. 28bytes (talk) 06:47, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Penile agenesis
Hi Will Golden,

Please understand that no-one's trying to prevent you editing this page. As described here, the edits that were blocked contained "!!!!!!" or other terms commonly used by vandals (probably "penis"). The filter is just an anti-vandalism measure that helps protect Wikipedia from the millions of bored schoolkids, which unfortunately will occasionally block good-faith edits by well-intentioned contributors such as yourself.

Regarding the "5-10 million males" figure, I also don't know where that came from, but the page history shows the figure was added by you on 9 April 2010 (article before your edits, article after your edits, diff view). Prior to your edits, the article stated that penile agenesis occurred about once in 30 million births.

Regarding the male genital transplant, I'm afraid I can't see what you're referring to. I can't see that you or anyone else has ever written anything about a genital transplant throughout this article's history. But regardless, I'm afraid something a surgeon personally told you isn't suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia per Wikipedia's policy on verifiability. Although your personal experiences may give you valuable insight in understanding this condition, Wikipedia can only accept material that has already been published in reliable sources.

Finally, I would ask that you please take a look at the page about ownership of articles. No-one "owns" any article on Wikipedia, and you should assume that everyone who has edited this article has done so because they sincerely believed they were improving it.

I'm sorry I can't be more help right now (it's nearly 1 am in Australia), but if you want more help you could ask at the help desk for general Wikipedia-related questions or at the talk page of Wikiproject Medicine for help finding sources.

Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 14:35, 22 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi again, and sorry for the dreadfully belated response... It's been a crazily busy week for me in real life, and I lost track of how many days I'd kept you waiting.


 * Not to worry about your reaction – I understand editing Wikipedia can be a frustrating process, especially when it's a topic that's really important to you, and double-especially when you have a run-in with automated anti-vandalism measures.


 * The reason you were able to finally get past the edit filter was explained in this edit, which you might not have seen. Basically, most anti-vandalism measures try to weigh up how much an edit "looks like" vandalism against an automatic estimate of how "trusted" the person making the edit is.  In your case, you made your tenth edit some time in between the unsuccessful and successful attempts to edit Penile agenesis and testicular agenesis.  Anyone who has made at least ten edits and who has an account at least four days old is "autoconfirmed", which grants certain user rights (eg the ability to upload pictures) and is deemed more "trusted" by anti-vandalism measures.  From what I've seen, smaller wikis don't have anti-vandalism measures as complex as Wikipedia, so I doubt you'd meet the same problem at the World Naked Bike Ride wiki.  But if you're worried, I'd suggest creating an account there a few days before you intend to edit, and if you have a run-in with an anti-vandalism measure, try making ten edits to any page(s). Even editing your own userpage back-and-forth several times might increase how "trusted" anti-vandalism measures perceive you to be.


 * No need to worry about Penile Agenesis & Testicular Agenesis – that's already been deleted by an administrator under the policy for author-requested deletions (I presume you blanked the article and that was taken as an implicit request for deletion, per CSD).


 * Why editing Wikipedia is so hard is an excellent question, and one that the community has been grappling with recently (see the first two numbered points halfway down this page). I'd recommend that you click "My preferences" at the top of the page, click "gadgets", then check "wikEd" under "Editing gadgets".  That makes several changes to Wikipedia's interface that help make it easier and more intuitive.


 * Hope that helps, and I hope your experiences so far haven't discouraged you from editing further.


 * Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 14:41, 27 March 2011 (UTC)