Wikipedia:Editor review/Dank55

Dank55
Considering how often I try to make trouble, I'm overdue for a review. I'm asking for feedback here, so I would consider it hypocritical if I said "ZOMG! What they said! AGF! AGF!" Be brutal. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 18:07, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

 Reviews 


 * This is my first editor review, so bear with me.
 * Why is it that on your subpage User:Dank55/Admins, all of your edit summaries are just "z"? I realize that it's your own page and that you generally provide informative edit summaries, but it would be helpful for anyone who's interested in the history of the page (including you) if you actually described the edits. "z" is worse than no edit summary at all, because it could imply that you added/removed the letter Z from a misspelled word.
 * You seem to have a habit of occasionally editing pages and then making minor revisions (either to your own work or to other content within the same section) immediately thereafter. I found examples of this in the histories of History of timekeeping devices, Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (capital letters), Geography and ecology of the Everglades, and AnyKode Marilou. If you don't do it already, you should start using the "Show preview" button before saving a page. Some people use it only when they're adding graphics or tables, but I find that it's a good habit to get into regardless of what kind of edit you're making. It cuts back on the number of revisions for each page and removes the need for embarrassing edit summaries such as "why is it that I can copyedit other people's stuff but not my own? Grrr."
 * According to Interiot's tool, you've made at least 840 edits to pages and talk pages relating to the Manual of Style, which is more than all of your total Mainspace edits (835). You've also made more edits to Cold Fusion's talk page (203), your own userpage (288), your Interesting Wikipedia links page (114), your own talk page (277), the Manual of Style (557), and WP:Verifiability (191) than your most worked-on article, which is Robot with 104 edits. Robot is not a featured article, nor is Cold Fusion, nor Robotic lawn mower, nor Mechanical Engineering, etc. First-move advantage in chess is featured, but you didn't start working on it until it had been nominated. Similarly, you didn't start working on Restoration of the Everglades until just before its FAN, and long after it had achieved GA status. WikiProject Robotics, a topic of which you seem most fond of, has two featured articles, neither of which you have ever edited. Unless I'm missing something here, it appears that you've never brought an article through the featured article process. You spend so much energy commenting on articles and tweaking Wikipedia's guidelines and processes, and you have listed yourself as a member of the FA-Team, yet you essentially have zero experience bringing an article to Featured Article status. I have no problem with editors who improve Wikipedia in other ways besides writing articles - right now I've been doing a lot of work as a peer reviewer. However, simply getting the job done yourself would add an incredible amount of focus and merit to your perspective. I strongly encourage you to take an article to FA status.
 * At first glance, your attentiveness at RfA is admirable. However, I decided to dig deeper to see if I could find anything notable. You supported DHMO's third RfA with the phrase "we're building an encyclopedia, and nothing else matters as much as that; anyone who is essential to getting that done needs to be supported in every possible way", which agreed with DHMO's statement "Primarily, though, I will remain an article editor and reviewer. It's what I do best." in his answer to Question 1. Your support for Karanacs' RfA also mentioned how Karanacs did not have plans to use the admin features. However, you opposed Ali'i, who had a similar attitude towards the reasons in a very hard-to-follow paragraph, which was also one of the very few opposes which Ali'i seemed to think violated WP:AGF. When you opposed Coppertwig's RfA, you didn't give a real reason, and the link you provided wasn't helpful either. Some of your RfA supports (specifically thedemonhog and Jza84) were only one line and didn't provide any specific examples. You also have a nearly impeccable voting record - supporting those which later succeeded, opposing those which later failed. Only 3 times have you been among the first 20 users to either support or oppose, and your average voting number is 38. On several occasions (Once for Gwen Gale and thedemonhog, twice for Werdna and DHMO), you supported the candidate without having participated in the earlier RfAs. It appears to me that you may sporadically and subconsciously fall victim to the bandwagon effect. My suggestion: Don't vote oppose or support without writing at least a few sentences giving good reasons for your vote. This provides the nominee with some useful feedback, and prevents the possibly of reaching a judgment too quickly.
 * You listed VanTucky in your Support category, yet I couldn't find any comments under your name for either of his RfAs..?
 * In this archive, you changed your signature while in the middle of a discussion, making it appear as though two different users were participating in the discussion. It appears as though you've since settled on a signature. In any case, I advise you to try to avoid this potential confusion in the future, especially since User:Dan is also active.
 * According to the various WP:COUNT tools, it appears that you've never uploaded an image, nor have you ever made an edit to a template. I also searched through your mainspace contributions for the words "image", "caption" and "table", and found only two instances, both of which were in Atmosphere of Venus. It appears to me that you shy away from the more technical elements of editing. This is rubbish! And don't tell me that it's because you don't have anything to add. I don't own a camera nor PhotoShop, yet I've uploaded 4 images. I know next to nothing about wikicode, yet I made a template for Moni3. Just look at other examples of coding, copy it for yourself, and tweak it to whatever you're working on. And if I somehow made a mistake and you really are a competent image/template/table editor, then you need to provide more descriptive edit summaries.
 * Make the effort. My comments have been here for weeks, and yet I see the same bad habits happening over and over again. You continue to use "z" as an edit summary for edits to your userpage, and you still make a series of edits rather than simply previewing your text and revising it. What's the point of going through editor review if you're not going to try to improve yourself based on the comments?


 * I don't like this procedure, and, when I went for my RFA (as a matter of fact when I was dragged by Aldux and FutPer! What a story!) I wasn't interested in it. But, since you initiated it, and you seem to want some feedback, and after I learnt you a bit better during your professional work in Roman-Persian Wars, I thought about dropping here, and offering my review (although I prefer to review articles, and not editors!):
 * I did not study you in depth, and my conclusions come from the edit counter. Making the hypothesis that you are interested in becoming a sysop, these are some problematic data I found:
 * A very low ratio of mainspace edits (766 of a total of 6436). This is not well-balanced. Your user talk edits are already 1051 (one wonders: "Only chatting and no working here?!"), while your wikipedia-space edits are 2878; four times higher than your mainspace edits.
 * Now, let's focus on the main edits themselves. They are a bit "monolithic". Only copy-editing. And you are already one of the best around (if Ceoil says so, and as I saw you during the "job"), but is this enough? Having a glance at your mainspace work, I saw that Roman-Persian Wars are already third at the top of the list. Oups! And this is just a two-day copyediting! Anything more profound? And I'm sure that not only me but many more editors are grateful for your copy-editing, but is this enough to make you a "revered mainspace editor"? And I know from my experience that most RfA reviewers are impressed when they hear a nominee saying "I brough the x article to FA or GA status." Meaning I am the driving force for this success.
 * Your edits per page ratio is 6.23, which is higher even than mine! This is not so nice, because it does not show a variety of interests, and because one gets the impression that you don't know how to edit the article or what Cryptic said above: "Don't you see the 'preview' button?"
 * It is positive that you have improved your edit summaries record, but Cryptic is correct to mention that, when you use an edit summary, it should be an edit summary!
 * Your participation in RfAs is positive. It is also good to participate in WP:FAC, WP:FAR, and definitely AFDs, TfDs and other Ds, where I do not see you very active. Also RfA reviewers expect you to fight vandalism not in one page, but in more of them. Do you have the rollback tool? If no, ask for it, and use it.
 * "I work on style guidelines and answer questions on the talk pages." That's good, but elaborate a bit on it, and make it clearer. When I go to the category you send me, I see nothing but more links! As a RfA reviewer I do not intend to start searching in each one of them to see what you did (you may characterize me a bad reviewer, but there are many of us, and you should still convince us!). You have to make clear to me what specifically you added to the project, and which are you innovative contributions.
 * You are new in Wikipedia (I see active editing for about 8 months), but this is not necessarily an obstacle for administratorship. But do make clear in an eloquent and convincing way during your future RfA nomination why you need the tools. It is important for some reviewers.
 * You seemed polite to me, with a sense of humor (although unfortunately RfA reviewers do not care about humor), I don't think you had the time to make any ennemies (although it is not so difficult!), and I see no bans.
 * Concluding: If you balance a bit your Wikipediaspace-mainspace editing, be more active in a wider variety of Wikipediaspace pages, take a more active editing role in one or more mainspace articles, keep your record of civility, and give some good answers to the main and the possible additional question during your RfA, you will sweep the poll!--Yannismarou (talk) 09:42, 7 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you both for commenting, and you've given me some good ideas. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 12:54, 7 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Dan is a real asset to the project. Two points: (1) I do wish he'd write short, sharp, crisp comments at styleguide/policy talk pages; some of them are this, but there are long tomes that I think are not read by many people. (2) I encourage him not to be all things to all editors at these tempestuous locations; he does this because he dislikes conflict (a good personal attribute indeed), but I think he'd have more impact if he didn't try to hedge his views to avoid offending anyone. Sorry, I haven't looked seriously at his copy-editing, but I know he's in demand. TONY   (talk)  14:07, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks Tony, I think can be briefer. (See?) - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:04, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

 Comments 


 * View this user's edit count using Interiot's 'Wannabe Kate' Tool

Questions

 * 1) Of your contributions to Wikipedia, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?
 * Feel free to browse, whatever interests you:
 * 1) *I have participated in a lot of RfA's (see the link on my talk page), and I answered the RfA review questions.
 * 2) *See the link on my talk page for some article review work; I tend to put in a lot of effort on these.
 * 3) *I believe people appreciated my review and subsequent work at Talk:Cold fusion.
 * 4) *I answered questions on WT:V up through early May, and I still drop by often.
 * 5) *I work on style guidelines and answer questions on the talk pages; you can see my work in most of CAT:GEN.
 * 6) *My WP:GAU project revealed attitudes of a random sample of editors who brought articles to WP:GAN; feel free to add any conclusions you want to draw to the project page or talk page.
 * 7) *I led the discussion at WP:VPP that led to the creation of WP:STYLE1.0.
 * 8) *Before I started answering most of the questions and reverting a lot of the vandalism at Robot in January, it was a mess: a constant fight against spam links, contentious debates, much more than its share of vandalism, etc. Things are a lot calmer there now.
 * 9) *Not Wikipedia, but I created almost all the content at robots.wikia.com.
 * 10) Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past 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?
 * I'm not aware that I've made any enemies, but this is only because Wikipedians tend to deal well with my usual bluntness.  At the end of most days, I check my list of contribs quickly, and I think back about whether I said anything that's strange for me, and what that says about where my head is. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 18:11, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not aware that I've made any enemies, but this is only because Wikipedians tend to deal well with my usual bluntness.  At the end of most days, I check my list of contribs quickly, and I think back about whether I said anything that's strange for me, and what that says about where my head is. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 18:11, 18 June 2008 (UTC)