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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Dorftrottel (talk | contribs) at 16:20, 14 February 2007 (→I never said they were vandalism). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Your...opinion

First of all,if you look at User:badlydrawnjeff's userpage you would see this is part of a private joke between us. Second, if you have perused WP:NOT and, more specifically, WP:USER closely, you'll see that the inclusion of a single page explaining why my contributions decreased and what I've gone through recently would not be seen as using WP as a webhost. Seeing that I've been here quite a while and that I've been involved in many aspects of the Wiki, I hardly need to justify why these are here to some random passer by who seems to think I'm breaking the rules, but I will anyway. Perhaps you would like to go tell this admin who owns this page that he isn't following WP policy. Perhaps you'd like to tell Jimbo how awful he is for having pages like this. Perhaps you'll tell this admin that her notes on Stormfront members editing WP violates the idea that anyone should edit WP.

Or, just maybe, you could stop and assume a little good faith and ask yourself "why am I making this comment? Am I making the encyclopedia better, or am I just picking on someone who has enough problems already?" I can't stress enough that your question was upsetting. --Elaragirl 03:41, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi there, Elaragirl's page is on my watchlist and I thought I would offer my two cents. While I can appreciate your desire to learn more about the subtleties of Misplaced Pages policy, I suggest that you try to place yourself in Elara's shoes and read your original message. It may not have been your intent to offend or hurt her feelings, but that was the end result. If you try to express yourself with tactful language and take a little more time to review your comments before you press the "Save page" button, you can avoid misunderstandings like this one. --Kyoko 04:18, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, Kyoko. I am truly sorry if what I wrote upset her. -- But isn't this the point of WP:NOT I was referring to? Here we are, having a social conflict that has nothing to do with Misplaced Pages. -- Oh, alright. I know I wasn't exactly tactful, so shame on me. Sorry again. —Kncyu38 (talk • contribs) 04:29, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I think the best answer to your question is that I save policy for the article space, and that it's no more fair to call yourself a bastard with no empathy than it is for me to suggest you weren't acting in good faith. Sorry. --Elaragirl 04:45, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Your page is also on my watchlist, the better to revert any vandalism to it should any occur. I've had experience brushing up against WP:NOT#WEBSPACE thanks to this essay that was once a subpage in my userspace but is now on another website. Part of the problem is that policies are open to interpretation, and what one person may find acceptable, another may not. In my case, while many people found my essay acceptable as a way of "a way of helping other editors to understand with whom they're working" per WP:USER, one administrator suggested that it would be more appropriate on another website. While at the time, I was pretty upset about the suggestion, now I don't care about it. I'm not personally bothered by Elara having her memorial page (again, per WP:USER), and if you do some looking, you will find that many people have subpages that aren't very useful to Misplaced Pages as a whole. So it's a grey area. There are more important concerns anyway. I hope this discussion has been helpful, or at least interesting. --Kyoko 04:48, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Done and done. But it's definitely true that I have to pause more often before I act. I'm going to contemplate on that. Thanks. —Kncyu38 (talk • contribs) 04:50, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi, if you read my essay, then I suppose you can appreciate why it might or might not be appropriate to be hosted on Misplaced Pages. As I said, it's a grey area. About Grey's Anatomy, it's fine if you don't like it, everybody's entitled to their own opinion. --Kyoko 07:48, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

John McEnroe / Your requested reply

For better overview, I collected the bits and pieces of this discussion and put them all here in chronological order

(copied from User talk:Tennis expert )

We can talk about this here or here. Regards, —Kncyu38 (talk • contribs) 23:53, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

You wrote in your edit summary: "By the way, it's silly to assert that a citation is needed for obviously correct assertions." - No, it's not. And an assertion like that is far from "obviously correct". Obviously correct are things like "The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite." or "The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System." Thanks anyway for introducing a source. But next time let's not talk through edit summaries. —Kncyu38 (talk • contribs) 14:37, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't want to take this any further than necessary or useful, but I recommend taking a look at WP:Verifiability, WP:NPOV, WP:Citing sources. Concerning the word "widely" in that sentence, you may want to read Misplaced Pages:Avoid weasel words. That's where my opinion comes from that the statement needs a source. —Kncyu38 (talk • contribs) 15:10, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

(copied from User talk:Tennis expert )

I'd appreciate a reply, but have it your way. —Kncyu38 (talk • contribs) 20:25, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I replied to you here . Have a look. Tennis expert 20:28, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

(copied from User talk:Tennis expert )

Let's not have this content dispute where it clearly doesn't belong. I posted there to get some opinions. After all, I'm not the one who insists on that sentence, I'd be perfectly happy if it wasn't there. Why not let the facts speak for themselves? This isn't about your favourite tennis players, or mine, it's about the encyclopedic character of such a statement. As for unilaterally, I tried to contact you on your talk page, but you wouldn't answer, you decided to just delete my comments. Well, glad you finally answered. —Kncyu38 (talk • contribs) 20:38, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

You contacted me about the John McEnroe article only after you had deleted a sentence and I had reverted you. That's what I mean by "unilaterally." In my opinion, you should have posted something on the McEnroe discussion page first before making a clearly controversial edit. Tennis expert 20:47, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

This is my initial edit to John McEnroe. The edit summary says: "(close to *every* successful sportsperson is "widely considered to be one of the best of all time" in their Misplaced Pages article intro. By whom? And where is this published?)" I stand by that wholeheartedly.

Here, it says that

Jimbo Wales wrote:

In general, I find the {{fact}} tagging to be overdone in Misplaced Pages. A better option is to nuke the unsourced material. Sometimes {{fact}} is warranted, I don't mean that it is always a bad idea. But it is overdone.

I very often see completely preposterous claims tagged with {{fact}}, usually because an editor is being excessively cautious. Be bold. :)

Believe it or not, I considered tagging the sentence instead of "nuking it as unsourced", but then decided against it and followed Jimbo's suggestion. I offered my reasoning in the edit summary, I offered it on your talk page, now I have offered it here. You never did, you just reverted, both my initial edit and my comments on your talk page. If you have anything substantial to defend the contended sentences (wikiwise!), please tell me. —Kncyu38 (talk • contribs) 21:26, 10 February 2007 (UTC) — By the way: Please do not call me or my good-faithed edits silly.

(copied from User talk:Tennis expert )

Replied. —Kncyu38 (talk • contribs) 21:27, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

(copied from User talk:Tennis expert )

I see no other option right now than to file a request for a third opinion. I won't go so far as to call your editing and talking behaviour bad-faithed, but we have clearly reached a no-go situation here and you seem unwilling to work on a solution with me. You see, you could have exchanged my "best" with your favourite term "greatest", but you simply reverted, and the phrase "generally considered as" is worse than "is recognized as". I named my talk page as the location of the dispute, because you have been deleting all my comments in the pasts. —Kncyu38 (talk • contribs) 18:08, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

As I have tried to communicate to you before, I have been requesting that you obtain the opinions of many people before you make radical changes to established tennis-related articles. I suggested that you obtain those opinions by proposing the changes on the appropriate article discussion pages. As for your changes today, "generally considered" is not worse than "is recognized as" because the latter implies that everyone recognizes the player as one of the greatest players ever while the former implicitly acknowledges that some tennis experts do not consider the player to be among the greatest players ever. To my knowledge, no one has argued that the level of skill exhibited by Margaret Court in 1970 or Chris Evert in 1976 or Martina Navratilova in 1984 is better than the skill exhibited by the top players today. That's why your substitution of "best" for "greatest" is not advisable. And just for the record, "greatest" is not my favorite term. Best regards. Tennis expert 18:51, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Where did you try to communicate anything to me ever? I must have somehow missed that one. You are the only user who has called the deletion of that unsourced stuff "clearly controversial edits" and "radical changes". I don't think this dispute is all my fault. Anyway, that's why I asked for a third opinion, maybe I am being too dense over this, I've been taking that into consideration from the very beginning. But your overall reaction hasn't struck me as particularly cooperative, open-minded or well-informed, either. My "is recognized as" proposal could serve as a basis. Mind you that none of the articles where you reverted my edit has any sources for this statement. —Kncyu38 (talk • contribs) 19:06, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Here is what I said to you: "Before you start unilaterally deleting statements in their articles, as you did with the John McEnroe article, you should ask the established editors what they think via the relevant discussion pages." I'm sorry that you believe my disagreement with your edits makes me uncooperative, closed-minded, and uninformed. I've explained via edit summaries and discussion pages why I disagree. There's not much more I can do than that. Finally, you really should start assuming my good faith. Regards. Tennis expert 20:40, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Btw, after your initial reaction of reverting my deletion of that statement on John McEnroe, I decided not to delete it on other articles, but to {{fact}} tag it instead, and then change the wording to something a bit less bombastic. I'm beginning to regret that, I should have deleted them all as unreferenced POV cruft. You see, the burden of evidence is on you when you want that sentence with that exact wording to be in your favourite tennis players' articles. However, I'm not going to make any further edits to those articles before hearing a third opinion. —Kncyu38 (talk • contribs) 19:49, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the burden is on the person who wants to make the change. I've already suggested to you that you fix the lack of sourcing via 1 minute Google searches instead of unilaterally deleting language that has been in these articles for a very long time and not been touched by innumerable tennis editors. I renew that suggestion now. By the way, you keep attributing "favorites" to me without knowing anything about me, but I honestly do not have a favorite tennis article. The simple fact is that a couple hundred of them are on my watch list. Regards. Tennis expert 20:40, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Consider my "favourite" remarks retracted, sorry I got a little snappy. As for the burden of evidence, you may want to take a look at the first three comments I posted to your talk page. You probably deleted them without ever following the links I included, because right there it is: "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material." —Kncyu38 (talk • contribs) 21:52, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Please don't imply incivility on my part, I never called "you uncooperative, closed-minded, and uninformed", I said that "your overall reaction didn't strike me as particularly cooperative, open-minded or well-informed". I stand by that. You called my edit silly, you deleted all my comments from your talk page and you didn't follow the obviously useful policy links I provided. That's what I call not particularly cooperative, open-minded or well-informed. —Kncyu38 (talk • contribs) 22:20, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

My third opinion: Neither of these versions is necessary. In all of these articles, both "recognized as one of the best" and "widely considered to be one of the greatest" suffer from WP:WEASEL, and even if that were fixed they would still suffer from WP:PEACOCK. Assertions of notability are welcome, but the more helpful way to address these things for the reader is to simply describe the accomplishments themselves in neutral terms, and then quote some tennis critic's exact words on each of these people to show that there was at the time (or still is today, depending on when the critic is writing) a recognition of whatever exactly that quote says. Bringing in such quotes will settle this dispute while simultaneously avoiding peacock terms, and while providing a richer and more immersive environment for the reader. — coelacan talk — 22:54, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Should the statements of "considered to be the one of the greatest" be deleted only unless sources are provided or in any case? There are several examples, among them Pete Sampras and John McEnroe, where references have been introduced, but I feel they are not supporting "general/wide consideration as one of the greatest" and I think such statements are generally precarious and should not be there. You see, the whole dispute began when I deleted the according statement from the McEnroe article. —Kncyu38 (talk • contribs) 23:05, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Really, I would keep "considered to be the one of the greatest" out unless that is an exact quote from a reliably-sourced third party. As I said, it can be helpful for the reader to be told something that gives this information, but it's much more helpful for it to be conveyed in the exact words of some tennis critic or sportscaster who can really add the "colour" that makes the article enticing to read. Such a quote then also eliminates the need for Misplaced Pages editors to overwork themselves deciding the ideal wording. It's "pass the buck" that I'm advocating, but I think we benefit from colourful sourcing anyway so it's a worthwhile pass. — coelacan talk — 23:13, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I see. Thanks again for your opinion on the matter. However, I'm going to postpone deletion of that assertions until Tennis expert has had a chance to react here. —Kncyu38 (talk • contribs) 23:16, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

On McEnroe, for instance, you might say: The BBC has said that "his straight-sets destruction of Jimmy Connors in the 1984 final had commentators talking of the greatest display of tennis the Centre Court had ever seen." Or you might quote Eric Riley: "McEnroe saw the court in different geometric dimensions than anyone else. On any given volley, the rest of us might choose between two or three shots. But somehow Mac would see all these possibilities that never occurred to anyone else before." There's heaps of fun quotes to dig through and find the sort of flavor you're looking for. Hope that helps, — coelacan talk — 23:29, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

In my opinion, if you had assumed good faith on my part: (1) you would not have erroneously assumed that I did not read the policy links you provided, when in fact I read them all; (2) you would not have gotten snappy in the first place; (3) you would not have reacted by posting the "not particularly cooperative, open-minded or well-informed" incivil comment; and (4) you would not have assumed that my deleting your comments on my talk page after I had read them and replied to many of them was a bad thing, especially after you copied them over to your own talk page. This whole "dispute" (your term, not mine) could be resolved by your finding the sources for the material that you think should be sourced. As I have said repeatedly, the sources are not hard to find. That's far better, in my opinion, than drive-by deletions or tagging. One last thing: I have no problem with Coelacan's suggestion, except that I still believe the "one of the greatest" language is self-evident and does not need to be sourced. But if we assume that the language does need to be sourced, then I have no problem with your finding the appropriate sources or quotations and adding them to the articles. Thank you. Tennis expert 02:43, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

You're making little sense.

1) I assumed you had not read the policy links clearly based on your above statement that the burden of evidence lies with me, when the WP:V section I linked to states that it lies with you.

2) I apologized for being a little snappy. Why not leave it at that?

3) I explained the "not particularly cooperative, open-minded or well-informed" above, it was clearly not incivil and it was in part based on

4) I only decided to copy my comments over after and because you deleted them from your talk page for no good reason I can imagine.

What do you then suppose this is or hopefully was other than a "content dispute"? —Kncyu38 (talk • contribs) 03:19, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

You are free to delete my posts entirely. But if you are unwilling to do that, then please do not move them. Moving them obscures the context in which I provided them and, therefore, changes their meaning. Feel free to delete this post as soon as you have moved my previous post back to its original location. Thanks. Tennis expert 04:34, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

The context in which you provided your post is evident from the date stamp on your signature. Anyway, you could have thought about this earlier and not post in between earlier posts. And yes, I am totally unwilling to obscure this debate by putting your comment back where it doesn't belong. After all I've witnessed from you, I guess you did this because you wanted to avoid having to positively react (!) to Coelacan's good suggestions, but instead preferred to negatively accuse me (!) of incivility. As I posted to your talk page, you may want to read WP:AAGF. And after having you given a good reason not to do as you demand, I feel compelled to say: as someone who deleted every single one of my comments to his talk page, you have nothing to demand as to how I manage my talk page. This is the WP:WORD. —Kncyu38 (talk • contribs) 16:44, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

John Edwards

Hi there, saw your comment about John Edwards on my User Talk page. Here is what I was after: the footnote (URL reference) in the house-size section was not pointing to the specific issue (date) of the newspaper in question. I felt it would be better to have a link to "Newspaper x, dated page yy, retrieved zz-zz-zz" or some such. The reference to "Newspaper x, current issue" just isn't as reliable or useful. Anyway, I should add, in reverting I inadvertently added back a lot of excess about some other topic/author much further down; this is inadvertent & I hope you weren't offended. My newbie mistake. By the way, is this the correct way to answer your post on my UserTalk page? Yours is my first message ever. Thank you.... Dwight666 18:37, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Research

Google Books and Google Scholar are the encyclopaedist's friends. It really is as simple as that. Incidentally: If you add citations for the things that you have found to the article, other editors can build upon your work. Uncle G 00:55, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I have posted the ISBNs to Talk:Lurker. —Kncyu38 (talk • contribs) 02:28, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I never said they were vandalism

The edits you listed on my talk page were simple "reversions," not "reversions of vandalism." In case you didn't know this already, "rv" means revert while "rvv" means reversion of vandalism. When I intend to revert vandalism, I either use "rvv" or spell it out. As for the warning I provided, the user in question was providing clearly incorrect information about Roddick having children and living next door to a celebrity. Regards. Tennis expert 15:38, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

(the above is Tennis expert's reaction to the following comment I put on his talk page.)

not a good idea

This is not a good idea. The contributions from that IP are clearly not vandalism. I strongly recommend studying WP:VAND before incorrectly issuing another warning like that. To give you an idea of what a justified warning is:

On February 2, you reverted four edits that were not vandalism on Roger Federer. Here, here, here, and here. This can be considered disruption. I recommend carefully reading WP:3RR, being much more careful what to label as vandalism and when to issue vandalism warnings and strictly abstaining from more than three non-vandalism-reverts per day and single article. Consider this a friendly warning, as I'm sure you were not aware of the policies at the time.

See? That's what a warning can look like. —Kncyu38 (talk • contribs) 02:48, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Comments anyone? —Kncyu38 (talk • contribs) 16:20, 14 February 2007 (UTC)