Wikipedia:Editor review/Bonkers The Clown (2)

Bonkers The Clown (2)
The June holidays here have arrived and I think time for me has passed pretty fast and my mindset and all here has changed quite some. Interested to here your appreciated words of spite or love. :) ☯ Bonkers The Clown  \(^_^)/  Nonsensical Babble  ☯ 10:38, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

 Questions


 * 1) What are your primary contributions to Wikipedia? Are there any about which you are particularly pleased? Why?
 * It used to be just random edits here and there but over the course of the past few months or so, I've become more and more interested in content creation, and so far I'm pleased with my ever growing amount of DYK credits (78 at the moment, and plenty more itching to be reviewed)
 * 1) Have you been in editing disputes or do you feel other users have caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future? If you have never been in an editing dispute, explain how you would respond to one.
 * I call myself level headed, so nothing causes me stress, though I have gotten into some minor "disputes" here. (Okay, nothing went violent, so I prefer to call them "crises") Can't recall everything, but I've been "reprimanded" for making "odd" edits and edit summaries. Other than that, I think it's been all good and fruitful here.
 * 1) What do you want to get out of this editor review? Are you thinking of running for adminship? Would you like feedback on a specific area of your editing? Or would you just like a general review of your edits?
 * Ah, I'm a bit bored with all my homework for June complete. I think in the long run, I might consider adminship, I want to know where I can further improve. So, pointers please! Thank you.

 Reviews 

Well, here we are again, Bonkers. Since the last review, I've noticed your contributions a lot more, particularly at AFC.

Let me start off with some plus points. You're keen and enthusiastic, and that's always welcome. Though I've had words with you and over the last few days, I stand by my point that I feel your work is better than his, and you're better at spotting problems with notability and verifiability better. Your work in DYK is good, as it means our content is improving and you're introducing more people to it via the front page.

The problem I see at the moment is that your enthusiasm can work against you rather than for you. I know people on the AfC talk pages (including me, I admit) want your head on a plate because you're just over-keen, but the best way to overcome that is just to get better at reviewing. The backlog drive is not a race to see who can hit the "decline" button the fastest. It's to help new editors create quality work at Wikipedia with some help. Take more time in your reviews - for instance, tonight I reviewed Forty Plus Cycling Club and it took the best part of half an hour. I deliberated back and forth whether to accept or decline it, added a few sources myself, and concluded, in the end, there was just about enough coverage in reliable sources for it to scrape through. I'm not sure you spend that long on reviews, if I'm honest. You need to check sources carefully, understand what's reliable and what isn't, and read up on some of our notability policies outside of the general WP:SIGCOV, such as WP:PROF, WP:NMUSIC, WP:AUTHOR, WP:SOLDIER and WP:POLITICIAN. Some people can be inherently notable even if they've not got lots of news / book sources as inline cites, and I think that's where one of the big problems has happened in the last week or so.

If you work on AFC, particularly if you decline a lot of articles, you will get questions from all walks of life, from people who don't understand Wikipedia policies and need help. So as well as being familiar with policy, you've got to be able to explain it to other people. Hang out at the help desk a bit more, and see what sort of questions are being asked, and what sort of responses are coming out, particularly from and  who are both very experienced in judging submission quality. I assume that you're quite young at the moment, and these skills of being able to effectively communicate will come in time as you grow up.

If you want to have a look at more content creation, the next thing you might want to try at is taking an article to good article status. It will prove you really understand Wikipedia policies and content creation. As you may have seen on Huon's RFA, the one area people are criticising (though I personally don't agree with it) is a lack of any GA quality articles.

About being an administrator - I'm not one here, but I have been one on other sites on the internet. If you really want to go for this, you need to knuckle down and get on with some serious content creation, hang out at Articles for deletion and get a good feel for our basic inclusion policies, and generally act like a mature and sensible adult. A typical administrator scenario on WP:ANI might involve blocking a long standing user that suddenly means 20 editors hate your guts, or two people are edit warring over a politically sensitive subject over Israel / Palestine conflict and making death threats to each other, and you have to step in and be the judge. Is that really something you want to do? It if is, then I wish you well, but I wouldn't recommend you run for RfA for at least another year, certainly not with good evidence of content creation, dispute resolution and diplomacy under your belt. You might find in a year or two after you've left school, got a job, found a partner etc that Wikipedia loses its appeal.

Anyway, good luck with whatever you decide to move forward with. Ritchie333 (talk)  (cont)   17:28, 18 July 2013 (UTC)


 * I can't say it any better than Ritchie. The way to learn what a WP article ought to be is to write a few, or at least mage major and significant upgrades to existing articles. Myself, I don't personally pay much attention to our formal article evaluation procedure, but one way of getting confirmation that you are doing it right is GA. You should also consider participating in some discussions at WP:AFD, where you can see to what extent your opinions are supported by the consensus. Just do a few, and consider carefully what you are saying, and go back and check in the guidelines before you make the comment.   WP is not a solitary but a collaborative process--you need the interaction with other editors.  In reviewing, that's a good idea also: first read carefully the entire article, and then check in the relevant places in Wikipedia before you comment. Compare the proposal with established articles in the subject to see what's expected. Myself, I usually don't review more than 5 or so at a time,and I've been doing it for years.  I find I can't be accurate and helpful if I go faster than that.


 * I think most admin jobs are much less dramatic than Ritchie indicated, but the key part of being an admin is that other people are trusting your judgment, and that you do as an admin nothing except what you know will represent what the community consensus would approve of. You first have to know what it is, and second, to be careful and prudent in doing it. Learning both parts takes a while.     DGG ( talk ) 04:29, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you both fine gentlemen. I'm rather pleased with my content contribution and creation. I mentioned above that I have 78 DYK credits. It surprises me that it's know more than 110 – achieved in a little over a month. I have wrote/contributed to two GAs so far, and I dare say plenty more of my works are GA worthy, just that I have yet to single the unpolished gems out. Regarding interaction, I definitely do not recognised myself as a lone wolf and indeed I have interacted well with some editors; some others, not so... I used to participate in AFD discussions, but nowadays I focus more on article creation instead. I think right now I have no intention of retiring or anything but I guess things might change, who knows. Currently I find it to be a lesiure tool and a hub for improving my writing. 15:30, 19 July 2013 (UTC)