Wikipedia:Editor review/Slon02

Slon02
I've been at Wikipedia for almost 11 months now, and I'm going to try a third attempt at an RfA in a month. I'd like some feedback on how I'm doing, what I should be doing, and what I could be doing better. I mostly participate in copyediting, fighting vandalism, Articles for Deletion, the Articles for Creation Wikiproject, patrolling new pages and solving copyright violations. Slon02 (talk) 02:08, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

 Questions


 * 1) What are your primary contributions to Wikipedia? Are there any about which you are particularly pleased? Why?
 * I would say that my primary contributions to Wikipedia have been in fighting vandalism and copyediting. I have copyedited almost 200 articles with the Guild of Copy Editors and have participated in the last two of their drives. However, my primary focus is on reverting vandalism, which I do quite frequently.
 * 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.
 * The editing dispute that comes to my mind is the one at User_talk:Slon02. In it, I argued my position until I felt that I had nothing new to add without repeating myself too much, after which I went and asked for a third opinion. If I had to redo that situation, I would have still asked for a third opinion, but instead of asking in the third opinion area I would have contacted the drive coordinator to settle the matter.
 * The editing dispute that comes to my mind is the one at User_talk:Slon02. In it, I argued my position until I felt that I had nothing new to add without repeating myself too much, after which I went and asked for a third opinion. If I had to redo that situation, I would have still asked for a third opinion, but instead of asking in the third opinion area I would have contacted the drive coordinator to settle the matter.

 Reviews  I have a "template" I use for editor reviews, but I'm going to scrap it this time around... I'll start out with the positive: you are an excellent editor who contributes to the project in many positive ways. You are an effective vandal fighter... 95 reports to WP:AIV is a huge number. And the copyedit barnstars you've earned show you aren't just a "pure" vandal fighter. Thank you for contributing to the project in a positive way.
 * Review by VictorianMutant:

Now that I've got the good part out of the way... it's time for the part you might not want to hear, but need to hear. I highly recommend you do not seek an Rfa next month. Seeking a third Rfa in your first year here is likely to be seen as being too eager for the tools and shows impatience. You received gentle "newbie" treatment your first two Rfa's... you are not likely to receive as much moral support if the next time around is too soon. I don't have any stats to back it up, but it seems to me that with each successive Rfa, the chances of the candidate being successful decreases... so you need to make your third effort a "slam dunk" because it could be your last time as a viable Rfa candidate. Show a little patience and keep up the good work, and you will surely have the tools with a little bit of work rounding out your wiki-experience.

One thing I found which showed extreme impatience was your good article nomination of Vladimir Teplyakov. It is a decent article which you should be proud of creating, but the way it was brought up for good article/peer review would surely be brought up in your next Rfa because it seems to present a glaring lack of experience with some of the article review processes here. You nominated the article for GA status without going through a peer review of the article. A couple weeks later while the article was waiting for a review at GA's, you put it up for peer review. I could be mistaken, but an article is not supposed to be listed as a GA nom and at peer review at the same time... I think I've read somewhere that an article can even be "quick failed" at GA if it is also undergoing a peer review. But you received an honest review from User:Finetooth at peer review and made a total of three edits between then and the GA review a month later. You addressed few of the issues brought up at the peer review and so it failed without a full review. The questions you would probably have to answer at Rfa: "Why did you nominate an article for GA which was obviously not ready. When you received a peer review of the article which stated it wasn't ready for GA status, why didn't you withdraw it or at least fix the problems?" You kind of painted yourself into a corner... you might end up having to bring this article up to GA status (or perhaps another article) to show you've learned from your mistakes before trying at Rfa again.

Specific recommendations:
 * Don't nominate yourself for another Rfa for at least another six months. An Rfa in one month will fail as certainly as the first two. An Rfa six months down the road(May 2011)would have a chance, especially if you implement the rest of the recommendations below. Be patient... good things come to those who wait.
 * You've proven yourself as a vandal fighter... you don't need to prove your serious about fighting vandals. I'm not telling you to stop fighting vandals, but try to round out your Wikipedia experience in other areas. You might have enough total edits, but you don't have enough non-automated edits for many Rfa participants. I'm not saying to stop vandal fighting... just make the bulk of your edits the next six months be in other areas.
 * Bring Vladimir Teplyakov up to GA status. Do it the right way... take it to peer review and follow up on the suggestions. In a way, you killed the peer review of Vladimir Teplyakov by not following up on it and making changes. At peer review, if other editors see you are trying hard to improve the article, you'll get more feedback. More = better at a peer review. Keep improving the article and don't close the peer review (or let it be auto-closed by a bot for inactivity) until you get at least a few editors who say something like "Looks like a good bet at GA), and then close the peer review and then nominate the article for GA. It's time-consuming and definitely takes a few months, but it would go a long way to show you are learning to be patient.
 * Become active in a WikiProject or two in an area which interests you.
 * Pay attention to the Rfa's in the next six months and pay attention to why people vote support and (especially) why they oppose. Get a better feel for what people are really looking for...

I hope I haven't been too negative. I think you are a great editor with a lot of positives, but if you take anything from this editor review it is hopefully the fact that you are not quite ready for the tools. Be patient though and you'll be there sooner than you think. Victorian Mutant (Talk) 13:28, 5 November 2010 (UTC)