Wikipedia:Editor review/MarcusBritish

MarcusBritish
Just curious, really.. nearly 6 months contributing (1 month IP/5 registered). Might as well check in. Ma &reg;&copy; usBr iti sh ''' (talk) 07:31, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

 Questions


 * 1) What are your primary contributions to Wikipedia? Are there any about which you are particularly pleased? Why?
 * Small edits all over, gnoming, copy-edits, originally. Created a few small articles on some local hills, and uploaded some photos for them and other nice places: MarcusBritish/Gallery_1. Contributed a whole load of edits, citations and tweaks to Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington which seems to have gone unnoticed. Working mainly on WP:MILHIST Project things at the moment: creating a couple of articles the working them through Peer Reviews, BCR and ACR (not interested in FA level yet). Gave a first Peer Review which I think was taken well, mostly. Also found a range of articles (SSSIs in UK) that lacked consistency and took it upon myself to organise a "format" for them and created a table checklist for keeping track of these articles - I probably won't update them all myself as there is literally 100s of hours of very dull copy/paste work required - but over time they may expand, although many appear to have been abandoned half-way through. Most of what I've contributed to the SSSI lists already involved regex copy-editing to get things done in bulk. I am pretty thorough and organised, so it shouldn't be too much trouble to keep an eye on this as a minor side-editing project when I'm bored or lacking other things to do.
 * 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.
 * More a 'review dispute'. Had issues with the attitude of a ACR reviewer, who was pushing his luck and became pretty obnoxious, imo. Led to some coordinators trying to get all "Freudian" on me, but not wanting to take sides. Regardless, they seem to realise it's better to take me for who I am and take my frank attitude with a pinch of salt than to take offence. :) Have continued with the review, regardless of that incident, and hope to get a couple more articles up to ACR over time that are in development and will inevitably require more work from review feedback.
 * More a 'review dispute'. Had issues with the attitude of a ACR reviewer, who was pushing his luck and became pretty obnoxious, imo. Led to some coordinators trying to get all "Freudian" on me, but not wanting to take sides. Regardless, they seem to realise it's better to take me for who I am and take my frank attitude with a pinch of salt than to take offence. :) Have continued with the review, regardless of that incident, and hope to get a couple more articles up to ACR over time that are in development and will inevitably require more work from review feedback.

 Reviews 

Interaction with other editors vastly needs improvement. Gerardw (talk) 00:34, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I waited 3 weeks and you could only comment from my last day or so on 1 conflict from 6 months history..? See my Contrib history, please.. I would like feedback on my edits, work, articles, submissions, etc, not my disputes.. which I am blissfully aware of. Thanks.  Ma &reg;&copy; usBr iti sh [talk]

Review by GB fan
I started out by looking at your edit count, to see where you edit at. Since we are here to make an encyclopedia, I like that most, almost 60%, of your edits are to the article space. The next highest space is userspace, which in most cases would be a little off. But since well over half of your edits in user are to a draft article, you are only adding to the encyclopedia. It is great that you are not getting involved in the drama areas.

Next I decided to look at the article you have made the most edits to, Battle record of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington. This article does bring up a couple of concerns.
 * 1) I noticed at least in one instance you made a lot of small edits in rapid succession. In the history I saw this in five minutes to basically add one image to the article.  It would have been better to use the "Show preview" button and make all those small edits in preview mode prior to actually saving the edit to the database.
 * 2) The other concern is the lack of edit summaries. I think they are important to let other editors know what you are doing.  In the last 50 edits to the article (if I counted right 41 of them are yours) 15 of them have no edit summary at all. Six of the edit summaries you used tell us you edited the article, I think everyone knows that already.  The rest I think are fairly good, I personally would have been more descriptive of what I did.

You have done a great job overall on the article in the last 3 months.

Finally I looked at you interaction with other editors. I saw your interactions concerning the Good Article Nomination. I am not assigning any blame on how the conflict started or anyone else's part of the conflict, just reviewing what I see of your side of the conflict. I apologize in advance if this comes out negative. Your interaction leaves a lot to be desired. You were rude, aggressive, called people names, none of which are helpful to improving Wikipedia. Your interactions appear to be improving, I saw your latest message to George SJ XXI where you explained in a very good way your concerns with the edit they made and explained how to improve their editing. I believe if you continue communicating like that you will do much better and be happier with your participation here. p.s., I wrote this before I saw your comments above as I have been working on this in my userspace.

If you want anything more or any clarification let me know. GB fan please review my editing 17:40, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, . I wondered what "It is great that you are not getting involved in the drama areas" meant. If I take it literally it could mean articles on TV/film, etc.. if I take it socially it could mean not getting involved in areas prone to debate, such as AfDs. Could you clarify which you meant, please? Oh, and you were right, I have a lot going on in Sandbox atm, hence the high number of edits there. As for the 5 edits for the image, I think that may have been before I got wikEd, not sure - I use preview more now, as the options and two types of preview with it are much better for editors, plus I tend to cut large chunks and work on them in Notepad++ before pasting them to Wiki to preview then publish as a bulk submission rather than many tiny edits. Cheers for the review.  Ma &reg;&copy; usBr iti sh  [talk] 18:56, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
 * You are welcome, I think this is the first one I have done. The drama areas as I see them are those areas where people complain all the time.  A couple of the worst are, Administrators' noticeboard and Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents.  There are some of the threads that are important but a lot of them are useless just people complaining about each other.  I watch them some but am very picky about the things I get involved with.  Some AFDs can get to be drama filled but I most are fairly calm.  Hopefully this clarifies my comments.  GB fan please review my editing 19:11, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for confirming that, thought it might mean something like that but wasn't sure, as I have seen a few comments by editors who do not approve of fictional "drama" articles and think they should be left to dedicated wiki sites. Good review though, shows much experience and enlightenment - would never have guessed it was your first.  Ma &reg;&copy; usBr iti sh [talk] 19:34, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Comments by Beeblebrox
Not a full review, just focusing on your interactions with. Did George do some things that were obviously wrong? Yes. But some of your comments on his talk page were needlessly inflammatory. You seem to be very offended that someone dared to contradict you and revert your edits. You shouldn't allow yourself to become so invested in your contributions that a newer users misguided edits to an article unleash the type of hostility reflected in your edits on George's talk page and on your own. This is not acceptable, as it is essentially a death threat. I can assure that if this admin had seen that remark at the time it was made you would have been blocked for it. I've quickly discovered that George is a somewhat frustrating person to deal with, and that he does not listen well but your attitude is harming rather than helping the situation. Both I and another admin mentioned to you that you were being needlessly confrontational and unhelpful, and your response in both instances was condescending and, well, arrogant. I see from your talk page that you recently were criticized by a user who perceived your remarks as being arrogant, and your response to that user was to tell them that they were "arrogant and belligerent" and that in a previous remark you referred to them as a hypocrite  apparently because you did not like their findings at an article review. Don't take things so personally and I thnk you will find it much easier to get along with others in this environment. And don't ever, even in jest, suggest that another user you are in a disagreement with be taken outside and shot. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:02, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * That wasn't a review, it was a rebuke - and not a very subtle attempt. I'm not sure what country you're from, so I'll assume not mine, and you'll find that such a "jest" is common-place in England, it's a cultural in-joke, mainly due to the fact that we have no personal guns, executions or such in this country to perform such acts - therefore it is called "irony", not your misconstrued interpretation. You suggest that I am "needlessly inflammatory" - since when does "bring back firing squads" (note: a form of judicial execution) transpire into "taken outside and shot" (note: probably murder)? I think you'll also find that accusing someone of making a "death threat" is paramount to slander when your analysis is clearly flawed and essentially that's your own fault by not being culturally diverse - perhaps in a gun-wielding country like America it would be deemed a threat, but not mine, and not in my country's Courts which have common sense and know the distinction between a likely threat and a sincere joke - especially when the supposed "victim" is 9,000 miles away and such a death threat, as you claim, holds no credence. Your interpretation is in bad faith, given that with a little imagination you might have applied some good faith humour to the comment. We don't all share the same "politically correct" ideals, nor should you seek to impose it when the comment was made between Brits who get the joke.  Ma &reg;&copy; usBr iti sh [talk] 06:13, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, you've certainly shown me the error of my ways. Nothing arrogant or condescending in that reply, keep up the good work! Beeblebrox (talk) 16:43, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Sarcasm doesn't become you, nor is it clever. When you try to manifest your own ideals on others you stop becoming a responsible admin, and step into the realms of dictating. Don't be upset that not everyone is going to respect your "authoritah". Arrogance is subjective - my reply is like your review - take it or leave it. Have a nice day.  Ma &reg;&copy; usBr iti sh [talk] 17:17, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * If I didn't know better I would think you were being deliberately ironic. Good luck with that. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:30, 14 August 2011 (UTC)