Wikipedia:Editor review/ExplorerCDT

User:ExplorerCDT
I'm looking for general feedback on the general quality of my edits and my overall contribution to the project. I've been a contributor (and member) since September 2004, and have started over 60 articles. I have no intention of seeking adminship or anything...chiefly because I don't think I'd pass. I might be convinced otherwise down the line...but for the immediate future no such aspirations. Recently, however, I got dragged into an editwar and nasty debate over what amounts to just a few words and would like to reassess my contributions here in general. Thank you in advance for your comments and consideration. ExplorerCDT 22:07, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

 Reviews 

I have been asked by ExplorerCDT to review his work here. We have collaborated on some articles, especially Paulins Kill (now featured). My contributions have been at the peer review stage and after, when he had already done much of the work. I have generally enjoyed working with him. I think his overall writing is very good to excellent and his citations are generally very good in terms of quality and applicability, as far as I have been able to check. Technically he does almost everything correctly, although he does not use cite web or the other cite templates for references (as is his right). However, I was dismayed to learn that he had deliberately inserted two errors into articles as jokes / tests (both have since been corrected).

Looking at his edit summary here, it is clear he puts a lot of work and time into Wikipedia (over 7600 edits). His edits are also distributed throughout all the categories with about half in Mainspace, but I am not an expert on what areas should or could be stronger here (sorry). I also ran the edit summary check on him : "Edit summary usage for ExplorerCDT: 17% for major edits and 49% for minor edits. Based on the last 150 major and 150 minor edits in the article namespace." This is something that could be improved greatly (and he has been asked to do on his talk page before - vide infra).

As for other improvements in his editing, I was somewhat surprised when Paulins Kill was in FAC to see that there were still a few items from our talk page discussions that had not been taken care of (for example, some books with no ISBN having "No ISBN" in their refs while others did not, or the web source of a photo he uploaded still not being given). I would suggest before Joyce Kilmer or any other article he nominates goes up for FAC, he double check that all the i's are dotted and t's are crossed from peer review and from others' suggestions.

Turning to his contributions to the community, he has done a great job organizing the recent NYC meetup and founding the NYC Wikipedia Club (I was not at the meetup, so I am going by talk page and meetup and club pages and comments there). All the reactions seemed very positive and this is a real service to the community.

Unfortunately, he does not always get along so well with others in the community. While he has always been pleasant to me in our exchanges, I have read his talk page and talk archives and have looked at the current edit war on Joyce Kilmer's talk page (to fully disclose, I reviewed the article at WP:PR and have made two comments on the talk page during the edit war). On multiple occasions his comments and edits have come close to violating Wikiquette, especially assuming good faith, being civil, and not owning articles. Sometimes it appears to me that they do cross the line, and I fear he may be blocked or even banned if he persists in such behavior (he has been blocked briefly twice already, once for 3RR and once for incivility).

While it is clear he is aware of this (his talk page header says in part "Beware though...I'm crazy, opinionated, and often bite!"), I want to ask what it is he gains from such behavior (since the repeated reminders of others to be civil and assume good faith seem not to have worked). It seems to me that behaving in such a way is detrimental to himself and the articles he works on in the long term (even if it offers him stress relief in the short term). I also think it is something that is a bigger problem than he thinks or wants to admit. Explorer refers to incivility in the heat of edit wars (does an edit war excuse incivility?), but this exchange is not an edit war. It started with a innocuous request by Xiner to use edit summaries and ended with ExplorerCDT calling Xiner (who remained pleasant throughout) a "fucking missionary" and making a mock(ing) template of the edit summary request template Xiner used. This was not an edit war, just someone who annoyed him and felt his wrath as a result. (Warning, I am about to wax philosophical and change topics for a bit.)

Wikipedia proves (to me at least) that working together we are smarter and better than any one of us working alone. No one person could make the current encyclopedia in a lifetime of trying, and Wikipedia's improvement through community is, I believe, fractal in nature. By this I mean that not only is the encyclopedia better, but each part of it, each article and even each sentence can be and often is better because of many editors. This is why community, consensus, and civil behavior are so important. Each editor can contribute something. (We now return to our regularly scheduled editor review, already in progress.)

We assume good faith because it is easier, and because most edits will improve (or at least not harm) an article. We are civil to preserve and build the community needed for the Wiki to work well. We renounce ownership because we cannot own articles, really, and because sharing them is the only way to make them better (which is or should be everyone's goal). It is not clear to me that ExplorerCDT really gets this though, or even that he wants to. As for edit wars, in a way an edit war is a reflection of caring too much, sometimes fanatically so (George Santayana: "Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim"; and Winston Churchill: "A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject", see Fanaticism). I know that noise in a sytem is a sign of energy being wasted and not put to work - to me edit wars are so much noise and wasted effort. What does it get you?

So to sum up (finally), I value ExplorerCDT's abilities as a writer and researcher and have enjoyed our collaborations. He is able to write well on a variety of topics and usually plays by the rules as an editor. For whatever reason(s) though, he sometimes gets involved in disputes which do not do him credit. I fear if he continues to act in this way he will alienate himself from the community, which would harm his work (with less input / edits from others). I am encouraged that he has sought this editor review and that his behavior in the Joyce Kilmer edit war seems to have moderated as of late. I hope my comments are helpful. He asked me to be 'brutal' in assessing him and I have tried to be as honest and helpful as I can be. I would hope that someday soon he will be as pleasant, cooperative and helpful with every editor as he has been with me. Ruhrfisch 21:18, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment I have two general comments, one positive and one negative, all meant in good faith and as part of what I hope to be an effort on your part to continually improve your editing. I did not read the review above, because I want to give you my impression uncolored by other editor's opinions. Thats all - keep up the good editing, please! - Dmz5 *Edits**Talk* 23:40, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The quality of your edits is, in general, excellent. You are committed to the topics you choose, and you bring a wide range of sources to bear on your editing work.  You clearly have only the best interest of the project and the individual articles at heart, and that's pretty awesome!  Of late I have noticed that you are also invested in improving the GA process, which is good, and you make many worthwhile contributions to project space.
 * You are extraordinarily uncivil. I noticed this first at Joyce Kilmer but I then followed the thread to many other places you contribute.  On the Paulins Kill talk page, you refer to one user's well-meaning suggestion as "inane."  I look at the talk page of American Revolution and see this.  Your comment below about User:Alansohn, who you have heaped abuse on because you disagree with him, is telling.  It isn't a disagreement, in your view, but him being an idiot and you being right.  I have noticed that you seem to follow a general pattern of making a very good suggestion, proper edit, or incisive comment, but then completely undercutting it by adding a really nasty and unprovoked comment (usually along the lines of "and if you disagree, you're a complete idiot and don't belong on wikipedia.")  I would not emphasize incivility (which nearly everyone falls prey to now and then) if I didn't think it compromised your skill as an editor, which I feel it does.  I would recommend an experiment: whenever you make a comment or state your case on even a remotely controversial topic or talk page, try and do it without insulting/questioning the motives of/reporting vandalism by the people who disagree (or you assume will disagree).  I think you'll find it pretty easy.
 * One other thing, and you can take this or leave it: as awesome as it is that you are fully committed to the articles you edit, it is difficult to "single-handedly" bring an article to FA status, and even when it can be done, it can really increase one's stress level and potential for incivility. For example, if you took a 2 week break from Joyce Kilmer, it probably wouldn't fall apart as an article.  It might get some good new contributions, it might get some useless contributions, it might get completely rewritten and not to your liking.  But that is the real test of a wikipedia editor.  If it gets rewritten top to bottom against your wishes, but is still a good article, will you revert it to your preferred structure/wording/version?  This is not an accusation of WP:OWN but it's something to think about; it's something I know I think about.     —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dmz5 (talk • contribs) 23:45, 16 January 2007 (UTC).

 Comments 


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 Questions


 * 1) Of your contributions to Wikipedia, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?
 * Answer: I'm particularly pleased with the two articles I've almost single-handedly gotten raised to Good Article status, Paulins Kill (which is, as of yesterday, a Featured Article) and Joyce Kilmer. I have several other projects underway that will follow their path to GA and FA recognition (Rutgers University, Athletics at Rutgers University, for instance).  Several of them are listed on my user page.  I feel that my research skills and writing style are beneficial to Wikipedia.  However, I always fear that my stubborn behavior on what I perceive as matters of principle might negatively overshadow such worthwhile and (if i may say so myself) excellent contributions.


 * 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?
 * Answer: I've gotten into several edit wars over the past few years. I tend to be rather cocky and I respond sometimes to people I percieve as idiots with acerbic wit.  I stand on principle and refuse to budge.  Hoping their common sense will kick into gear (hoping for a lost cause, most often).  This, some people have perceived as "ownership" of articles, but I see it as preserving an article's integrity pursuant to the guidelines and policies.  This has most recently happened with Joyce Kilmer as two editors sought to include genealogical information (and some false, misleading information) I thought was irrelevant and against Wikipedia's policy (the talk page for Joyce Kilmer has the extended discussion).  I refuse to back down, and always seek to get in the last word.  It's not an endearing quality.  But I think I am right, and often, I am.  And the debates often get heated, if, seemingly, over inconsequential things.  To put it frankly, idiots cause me intolerable aggravation. I've always approached those I've thought were being idiots with a policy of "nip it in the bud", sternly telling them what's what, and hope they learn. Sometimes with a bit of acerbic wit. They never learn. I hope that reason will cause them to back off and realize that I'm right (as I said before, I often am proven right.) but they refuse to acknowledge it even when my arguments are sound and based on the clear words of policy.  What I perceive as their inability to reason is aggravating. I don't see my style in argument changing any time soon.  After all, it's rather successful, even with the short-term stressors.  And I must say I frequently do get my share of jollies out of it.  What stresses me more...since argument itself really doesn't cause me any agita...are the hypocrites who start arguments and then run off for protection under WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA when they lose on the facts and the argument descends into bitter rhetorical flourishes. But what makes me think of committing murder are idiots that refuse to listen when I am right (as the case with User:Alansohn on Joyce Kilmer right now).