User talk:CombinatoriallyPlastic
Group Think and Political Correctness
[edit]I know Wikipedia has a very long history of edit wars, which is why I rarely bothered to make substantive edits on my old Wikipedia account, (which is somewhere on an old computer disk); like 2 decades old.
So, with an emphatic statement of the unbiased neutrality of my perspective, I thusly state that; I came upon a disturbing, although (apparently) well intentioned advice to a new, logged in and account holding member of Wikipedia.
The post of concern: "... editing in a manner that promotes an entity or viewpoint over others can appear to be detrimental to the purpose of Wikipedia and the neutrality required in articles."
CITATION: User talk:Juanuwuwu - Wikipedia. COMMENTARY FROM: http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/User:Hipal
CombinatoriallyPlastic (talk) 06:07, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
So far so good
[edit]Of my experience(s) with Wikipedia; now, and idealy hopefully perpetual, on the innner-side of the perspective of a Wikipedia Editor, that anyboby can become, but many many will not succeed at because of many diverse reasons which may exclude the more obvious, like lack of (or aptitude of) verbal logic skills, communication skills (yahh gottah get along with those who tell you your're wrong, even if your're right), yah-duh, yah-duh, yah-duh (I'm not stealing my yahduhs from Seinfeld, I'm merely appropriating them!), ; so far, I haven't been chastised (yet?). The little feedback so far has been neutral according to my biased perceptions. That means (to me) that I didn't screw-up in being unwittingly tactless.
And I'd rather be corrected than rejected. CombinatoriallyPlastic (talk) 08:17, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
- I must have been half asleep at the above "rant". Well, I'll keep it up (the above post) to be transparent about my weaknesses.
- I think I meant to say: So far so good. In terms of my first experiences as a WikiPedia editor.
- I hope to contribute more and qualitatively better material.
- I learn from my mistakes, and impulsive rants. Even!
- Hopefully before I age into senility.
- Did I just age myself? :\ CombinatoriallyPlastic (talk) 07:23, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
Please do not make edits like this, it seems like doing link fraud, where you click for youtube and are taken elsewhere. 𝓔xclusive𝓔ditor Ping Me🔔 14:45, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
- Please explain. I'm still very new here, and expect any mistakes I may make will be corrected/refined as appropriate, but none of my edits should be considered malicious, thoughtless, or without appropriate citations. This is my ideal. I am still learning how to "navigate" the editing process. Please explain to me, exactly what your concerns are.
- As for the Youtube link. That is the CNN-News18 Youtube channel. Please elaborate.
- You could also introduce me to a mentor, so that I can be sure I'm doing everything up-to-standard. RTFM will take months (or so it seems), but getting immediate feedback via a mentor will help ensure accurate information in a timely manner, and help ensure there are no misgivings on anything I try to improve. Thanks. CombinatoriallyPlastic (talk) 23:51, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
WikiPedia Learning Curve
[edit]Some people may think me didactic, OCD, perfectionist. This is how I think most normal people would percieve me. That being said, I'm not aware of any of the edits I've made to any of the articles have been reverted/un-done. This is good, because I often put a lot of time and effort into the edits I've made, as contrasted with the quantitative changes I've made. For example, most of my edits have involved improving the legibility of a sentence, which can sometimes take me over half an hour to an hour to perfect. When dealing with abstract concepts like math or computer languages, it is often difficult to express what many people may have an intuitive understanding of, but may lack the linguistic aptitudes, skills, or experiences to accurately explain.
An example of communicating concepts to people not already familiar with them (which ideally should be the paradigm of unambigous explanations), is anecdotal, when a linguistics professor mentioned in class why trying to explain, in the context of a dictionary, the problems. The problem he described was explaining what a dog is, in the concise manner of a dictionary. A dog can be described as having four legs, a tail, large teeth, and fur. The problem should be self-evident that hundreds of animals can be described this way without distinction.
Explaining and articulating with accuracy, and without defining unfamiliar or ambiguous terms is more difficult than most people appear to believe. There is a psychological concept that people hear not what is said, but what they expect to have been said. This is an example of a cognitive bias. The news media is an filled with numerous type errors, often with the ecxcuse of deadlines for the lack of fact checking. There is even a journalism term, similar to "citation needed" that journalists use when they know they need further information. They use this term in their drafts of course, and not in their deadline constrained publications that are often vetted by significant advertisors that fund these publications.
Doing a good edit is (for me) time consuming and tedious in terms of looking for appropriate citations, fact checking, grammar checking, spell checking, and writing in a style that is appropriate for the intended audience. It's not easy being good.
I do find, that as an editor, that the WikiPedia experience to be un-intuitive in terms of the user-interface, both the "visual" and the "source". This is not a complaint, but an observation. I do find it frustrating when I see incorrect or outdated or biased information published that I don't have the technical skills to change, like with editor-defined templates.
I have a few articles on my Watch List so that I can improve them when I learn the appropriate skills to do so with confidence and without controversy.
As I've noted, I've made under fifty edits, and none of them have been reverted or challenged (I've had to add further info for one edit, but I was not formally notified when I noticed that one of my edits was temporarilly reverted). I've also had a snarky remark made towards me based on my "faulty analysis", but this person still agreed that the change I requested was appropriate, despite my apparent lack of intelligence and sanity. This remark appeared to be made with the understanding that I would not read it, because it was very rude and inappropriate. This person conspicuously agreed with the correctness of my edit, but passively insulted me when talking to another editor who originally approved my suggestion. Note that I didn't have the edit experience or account age to independently change an obvious mistake. When a person approves your edit and diss's you at the same time! Just wow! But I'll move on. So far so good.