Wikipedia:Editor review/Epbr123

Epbr123
Hi. I'm not interested in becoming an admin, but would just like some tips on how I could improve. Epbr123 (talk) 22:58, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

 Review by delldot: 

Hi Epbr123, you're one of the few people I've reviewed whose name I actually recognize before starting. Here are some thoughts:

Overall, I'm quite impressed with your content work and your recent progress with civility. It's possible I've missed something since I didn't look at your contribs exhaustively, but I definitely looked close enough to feel confident in saying I think you're doing great. delldot  talk  18:05, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I think your commitment to creating and helping others create featured and good content is awesome.
 * I found your Style and prose checklist on your userpage very helpful! It actually made me run to my current pet article and make some changes. I notice you say "Whole numbers under 11 should be spelled out as words..." I think it's actually numbers under 10 per WP:MOSNUM (I was recently corrected about this).
 * I like your willingness to "rv unsourced" Even better might be a friendly note on the user's talk page explaining why, I didn't see one in this case.
 * I noticed some problems people brought up with your AWB edits to articles involving minor wording changes. I'm not decided on whether this is just par for the course when you're making tons of edits like these or whether I should advise you to be more careful with the AWB edits.  They looked ok to me.  At any rate, I assume you review the edits before saving, right?
 * I didn't want to spend much time on your RfC, as you've obviously gotten plenty of feedback from others there already. But I would be interested to know how you'd handle things this time around. From a look at the difs provided, I didn't see the kind of gross incivility you were being accused of, but it really couldn't hurt to soften your statements and try to be kind to others you're in a dispute with. It looks to me like a common thing happened there: your neutral comments were interpreted as more hostile than they actually were.  This might in part be because you didn't provide a tone for them.  Try to always think of something to thank or compliment them for in your notes to them.  Not only does that help you keep perspective rather than letting you convince yourself they're a waste of space on the project, it really helps them to hear what you have to say rather than brushing it off as incivil.  And if you set the tone of your post in a friendly way, it'll cut down on the likelihood that they'll read something as hostile that you didn't mean that way.  Another thing you can try is after you write something but before you hit save, reread it in your snottiest possible tone of voice: is there anything that sounds meaner than you meant it to?  Reword it.
 * Again, I didn't look too closely at the RfC, but I think from the diffs you could easily be accused of giving way too much of a FUCK. Dunno what you can do about that, apathy just comes naturally to me ;) But you may want to keep it in mind that you can get too attached to an outcome.
 * I saw that you endorsed the view by Malleus Fatuarum, does that mean you admit to being "rude, arrogant..." in the past? If so, good for you for owning up.  Good for you for your statement in Q2, as well.  Have you noticed a difference lately?
 * I noticed you responding well to criticism on your talk page, so it looks like you really have taken the issue to heart. Good for you!  Similarly, you received quite a nasty attack, and from what I can see, didn't respond at all, which is awesome (well, you did make fun of them later, which is sub-optimum, but putting that in context, I'd say pretty good work overall).  Also, you were presented with the opportunity to get into a nasty brawl, and all you said was  "All I can do is assure you that this is a misunderstanding." I'm quite impressed and pleased with your progress here.
 * Looks like you do a lot of RfA participation, from your talk page. Good for you for putting in the time and effort necessary to nominate people, it's an important task that too few people are willing to put in the grunt work to do.
 * I'm very impressed by the effort you (apparently, from their comments) put into helping Ctjf83 on your talk page.
 * Thank you for taking the time to do my review. I shall have a good think about your advice. Epbr123 (talk) 22:48, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

New review by delldot:  I was pleased to get the chance to review your contributions again because I'd been wondering how you were doing. I'll focus on civility and interaction because those were the only things I found to be problems before.
 * I thought you handled yourself well during your RfA even though it got really nasty. I think you made a mistake, though, by engaging with folks that were really out to get you.  I would have stood back and let others step up, that's just me though.  At least you didn't let yourself get provoked enough to really lose it.
 * I still notice that your comments may be coming across as a little more brusque than you may mean them to because you launch into the content rather than preceeding it with a greeting or something. e.g. on 23:50, 24 March 2008 (don't feel like finding the diff) you responded to a question, "Logical quotation has to be used as per Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Quotation marks." (Oh crap, did I screw that quotation up??) Not that there's anything wrong with this, I don't think you should necessarily change if doing so would feel insincere.  But you see what I'm saying, right?  With just the terse statement, it's ambiguous how you're feeling, it leaves it open to the reader to interpret and they may think it sounds angrier than you mean it to.  If you're making a criticism, it can sound particularly harsh if you just launch into it.  (I haven't seen you do this, I'm just saying).  Similarly, not responding at all can make people uncomfortable.  I noticed that you had altered some of your comments to clarify that you were admitting fault, apologizing, and agreeing to be more vigilant, so that's good
 * I noticed a few times on your user page that people brought up errors with rollback; I make a lot of them myself and tend to think a few are bound to happen when you're reverting a lot of vandalism. Nonetheless, you know it's something to watch out for.
 * I read your whole talk page since your last RfA and saw no civility problems, so that's great! Even if (as some will inevitably say on your next RfA) you've just been on your best behavior lately, that's really all you have to do: keep it up!
 * The amount of help you give other folks in terms of copy editing, commenting on FACs and doing GA reviews is truly awe inspiring. You're a terriffic asset to the project and you've made a great deal of progress with civility.   delldot on a public computer   talk  08:37, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

 Comments 


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 Questions


 * 1) Of your contributions to Wikipedia, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?
 * I have significantly contributed to 7 FAs, 1 FL and 4 GAs. I occasionally review articles at WP:GAN and WP:FAC, and I hand out GAN Reviewer of the Week awards at Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations. I participate at WikiProject UK geography, where I am currently involved in placing assessment tags on all UK settlement talk pages. I sometimes participate at WP:AfD and patrol recent changes. I am also on quests to add images to every Kent settlement article, and to ensure that only notable porn stars have articles.
 * 1) 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?
 * My AfD nominations have led to a request for comment. I think the result of the RfC was that there wasn't much wrong with my nominations, but I acted too aggressively to the people that were opposed to them. I am hoping that my behaviour has improved since the RfC; it taught me that WP:Civility is a far more important policy than WP:Notability. Epbr123 (talk) 23:26, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
 * My AfD nominations have led to a request for comment. I think the result of the RfC was that there wasn't much wrong with my nominations, but I acted too aggressively to the people that were opposed to them. I am hoping that my behaviour has improved since the RfC; it taught me that WP:Civility is a far more important policy than WP:Notability. Epbr123 (talk) 23:26, 29 November 2007 (UTC)