User:Coder Dan

This user is a native speaker of the English language.

Hi, my name is Dan. I used to contribute to Wikipedia in a variety of ways, but I've given up because ignorant or malicious editors have resisted or undone so much of my work.

For newbies

Plot summaries

Film plot summaries I've worked on

#	50 First Dates
A	Absolute Power – Angel – Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
B	Beauty and the Beast (1991) – A Bill of Divorcement
C	The Cat and the Canary (1939) – Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen
D	Dial M for Murder
E	Emma (1996)
F	Fargo – The Flight of the Phoenix (1965)
G	Galaxy Quest – George of the Jungle – Ghost World
H	Hands Across the Table – Hang 'Em High – Herbie: Fully Loaded – High Plains Drifter – Hold Back the Dawn – The Hot Chick – Houseboat
I	I Confess – If You Could Only Cook – The Incredibles
J	Jumanji
K	Kim Possible: A Sitch in Time
L	Last Action Hero – Legally Blonde – Life-Size – Little Nicky – Love Me Tonight
M	The Mad Miss Manton – Monsters, Inc. – My Sassy Girl (2008)
N	The Naked Edge
O	Once Upon a Time in the West – Only You (1994) – The Outsiders
P	The Parent Trap (1998) – Pay It Forward – People Will Talk – The Princess Bride – Prudence and the Pill – The Pumpkin Eater
R	The Rat Race – Real Genius – Rear Window – Red Dust – The Redhead from Wyoming
S	Scooby-Doo – The Searchers – See No Evil, Hear No Evil – Silver Streak – Sky High (2005) – Smiley Face – Spider-Man – A Star Is Born (1937) – Sunset Boulevard
T	Tango & Cash – Terror by Night – Tiger Bay (1959) – The Time Machine (2002) – Timecop
V	Vivacious Lady
W	Wait Until Dark – Welcome to the Dollhouse – Westworld – While You Were Sleeping – Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Wikipedia has a quality problem

Wikipedia is plagued with problems in grammar, writing style, and organization. Too many editors lack the skills, and in some cases the maturity, that should be required to contribute to an encyclopedia. This is especially a problem with anonymous editors, but it also applies to registered wikipedians, including administrators.

Bad English

See User:Coder Dan/Bad english.

Bad style

Misusing the pluperfect

Many editors use the past-perfect tense ("it had happened", "they had done it") to indicate that something occurred a "long" time ago. This is incorrect. The pluperfect (past perfect) indicates that the event occurred before some other time that is also in the past. It should be used only when two conditions are satisfied: (a) the intermediate time is specified, and (b) the fact that the event occurred before that time is important (notable). In all other cases, the simple past tense should be used ("it happened", "they did it").

Unrelated ideas

duplicated text in Westworld plot summary
Use of fancy words as a substitute for good writing

"Subsequently" has become something of a fetish on Wikipedia. In most cases, "later" would be just as precise and less intimidating.

The Honda Civic is a line of subcompact and subsequently compact cars

"Garner(ed)" is a loaded word that show-business writers use for its emotional affect on readers. It's not encyclopedic, so it should never be used on Wikipedia. "Receiv(ed)" is a good substitute.

Extremes and inconsistency

Editors often work at cross purposes. Sometimes they prefer opposite extremes over reasonable compromises.

Names of starring actors listed in the lede of film articles:
One editor adds redundant first names in the plot summary
while another removes the names altogether.

Churning

Sometimes editors replace high-quality text with text in their own personal writing style, which in many cases is worse than the original.

complete rewrite of The Incredibles plot summary (rewritten by an administrator, much worse than the previous version)
complete rewrite of Kim Possible: A Sitch in Time plot summary (anonymous editor, gratuitous changes, incoherent, too many details and quotations)

Excessive detail in plot summaries

Wait Until Dark