User talk:CSGinger14

February 2018

Hello, I'm Pablomartinez. I wanted to let you know that I reverted one of your recent contributions —specifically this edit — because it did not appear constructive. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thanks. PabloMartinez (talk) 18:09, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

Pope Francis

Hi, you re-added an opinion piece as a source in this article. I've removed it again because opinion pieces should not be cited as a source except to verify that particular's writer's opinion, see WP:NEWSOPED. To source views on Francis's stance towards the traditional mass, we'd need a non-opinion source, such as a reputable obituary. Sandstein 06:55, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

Welcome!

Hello, CSGinger14, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:

• Introduction and Getting started
• Contributing to Wikipedia
• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• How to edit a page and How to develop articles
• How to create your first article
• Simplified Manual of Style
• How to avoid a conflict of interest

You may also want to complete the Wikipedia Adventure, an interactive tour that will help you learn the basics of editing Wikipedia. You can visit the Teahouse to ask questions or seek help. Need some ideas about what kind of things need doing? Try the Task Center.

Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or , and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome!

I know you've been here awhile but you never were properly welcomed, so here! Let me know if you have any questions. Cheers. GoldRomean (talk) 01:19, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Shortened Footnote Referencing Assistance.

Hi all. If anyone could assist me in creating shortened footnote references for these two citations in source editor, it would be greatly appreciated. Pages and works other than this need to be cited, but if an example for these two types of source could be provided (Journals–in which a source would appear as a specific part of a broadly based work, and thus need to be noted as appearing at that point in the text as well as laying out pertinent information in multiple sections of the text; and Books located in a database, which similarly require additional referencing (ISBN/Dating/etc.)) for "References" it would be quite helpful. An example of how to add in the fact that you got it from a PDF (or how to add that PDF if it doesn't break copyright law) would be helpful as well.

Refs:

CSGinger14 (talk) 13:03, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

Hi CSGinger14. I've added the {{talkref}} tag below to place your two references into a typical reference box, corresponding to the conventional references section of an article. I see that your has both the full number of pages in the book (i.e. 230) and the page number you are actually citing (i.e. 52–53). Normally, I would only put the full reference into the text where first used, which will place it in the references section and use the {{rp}} template, so the reference in the text would be, with possibly another reference later using different page numbers cited as, say. Doing the same thing as shortened footnotes is a bit of a pain and if you are drafting a new article then, frankly, I wouldn't bother! I'll need to start a new section to demonstrate how the same referencing using sfn works, which I'll do in a few minutes. Mike Turnbull (talk) 13:21, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

References

Same thing with sfn

Here is the first fact cited to de Luna. Now there is a fact cited to the journal. Now another from the book on a different page. and one from the journal again.

References

Sources

• de Luna, Kathryn (2017). Collecting Food, Cultivating People: Subsistence and Society in Central Africa. United States: Yale University Press. pp. 1–230. ISBN 978-0-300-22516-7.
• Grollemund, Rebecca; Schoenbrun, David; Vansina, Jan (2023) [2022-12-07]. "Moving Histories: Bantu Language Expansions, Eclectic Economies, and Mobilities". The Journal of African History. 64 (1): 13–37. doi:10.1017/S0021853722000780. ISSN 0021-8537.

Note that I've used {{talkref}} above, not {{reflist}} as would be in a standard article, since this is a talk page and we need multiple reference sections to be separated, which wouldn't be the case with genuine articles. Look at the source code and the relevant template pages to see how it is all done. Post any more questions here if you need to (I'll comment about .pdf in a while). Mike Turnbull (talk) 13:37, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

I've had to make this section use a fictional 2017 book reference to get this to work, sorry! That's a "feature" of trying to do this on a talk page. Mike Turnbull (talk) 13:42, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

Using .pdf as sources

The software knows when a source is linked to a .pdf and will show a relevant icon in that case. I'll use an example from my old place of work, which also illustrates how to reference a .pdf that's now available at the Internet Archive, so we can be sure that it is OK to link it as there is no copyright issue (usually!). I'll just put the reference straight in the text. In real article it would normally be between <ref> </ref> tags.

• "Syngenta: Celebrating 75 years of scientific excellence at Jealott's Hill International Research Centre" (PDF). Syngenta. 2003. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 11, 2007. Retrieved 2025-05-05.

Again, you could use the {{rp}} template to specify a page range within the .pdf if needed. There is even a trick to get the .pdf to open at a specific page number by using #pagenumber at the end of the URL. So compare the above link (to the archived version) with this version:

• "Syngenta: Celebrating 75 years of scientific excellence at Jealott's Hill International Research Centre" (PDF). Syngenta. 2003. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 11, 2007. Retrieved 2025-05-05.

The first link opens at page 5, for reasons I don't understand, but we can force it to open at page 2 using the # trick (compare source code). Again, if you have questions about .pdf, just add them to this thread. I hope this helps! Mike Turnbull (talk) 14:07, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

WP:OWNership of articles

The section on your talk page titled Contributions (Please notify me before removing major edits) appears to be asserting ownership of those articles. That's not ok and you should probably change it. Nobody needs to consult you for any edits to any pages. Toddst1 (talk) 23:31, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

@Toddst1 Apologies man, I’m not attempting to assert ownership over anything. I’m attempting to ensure that relevant information isn’t randomly deleted from pages for an editors personal idea of notability or importance. No one has to notify, I’m just asking that they do, which isn’t a violation of site policy. Unless it’s irrelevant to the topic entirely, it’s worth maintaining. If you read the whole sub-header info at the top, it clearly says that it’s based on the number of characters added to the page. If you had taken the time to read what’s written next to the articles, it explains what I wrote, where I wrote it, and what assistance/input I’ve thus far surmised my contributions or the page need from other editors. I might ask that you be slightly less critical until you’ve taken the time to know and understand what you’re criticizing. All the best - CSGinger14 (talk) 00:25, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

@Toddst1 To add on to this, I totally get the nature of this being a collaborative space that anyone can freely edit. I’m not attempting to preach my contributions as gospel, but I’m also attempting to get the people who are active on this site and who take the time and effort to make edits regularly / check user pages / engage in talk board discussions to actually communicate with people who are also interested and involved in the topic. Wikipedia is supposed to get bigger over time, that can’t happen if we’re constantly cutting properly referenced and relevant material because someone feels it’s not perfectly situated in their particular view of the topic at hand. A story, I feel, needs to be told from many different perspectives, and I think that far too often people hide behind applications of site policy that don’t always necessarily apply to prevent that from happening, though not always for political/socially biased reasons, and though I’m not accusing you of doing this. I’m confident you posted this in good faith, and I can see that you’ve been on this site through many of its evolutions. I don’t want to discount that, but I would hope that you might note/consider this point in discussion with other admin. I’ve changed the sub-heading for clarity, hope that helps.

Best CSGinger14 (talk) 01:08, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

While I appreciate your thoughtful reply, I think it's worth sharing the three relevant points I made on Talk:September 11 here as I expect them to be relevant to future discussions here:

1. Your answers [1] and above not only strengthen my observation of WP:OWN, but they smack of WP:ADVOCACY and raise concerns regarding WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS.
2. Do not use articles from Wikipedia (whether English Wikipedia or Wikipedias in other languages) as sources, since Wikipedia is a user-generated source. See WP:CIRCULAR.
3. The general rule for the WP:DOY project is unless the event itself - in this case, the arrival of the caravan, merits an article on to itself, then the event doesn't meet the threshold for inclusion. See WP:DOYSTYLE.

Toddst1 (talk) 22:37, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Hi @Toddst1. Everything I've posted on this website, with the exception of a rather lengthy and poetic end to the legacy section of Pope Francis' wikipedia page, has been cited to a professional source, or, if not, corrected quickly thereafter. Once again, you haven't established anything that actually points to my argument violating WP:OWN guidelines. In regards to WP: ADVOCACY, I would like you to point to any specific interest group, with the exception of the specific human interests (and essay written on profit in academics, which is fully my right under WP: USERPAGE policy), that my article contributions seem to be pointing towards. No information I've posted wasn't thoroughly cited by a professional source, with the exception of a couple of grammatical edits that you reasonably don't hold anyone else to.

Regarding WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS, I will cede to you that I have high hopes for my work on this project, I'm not soulless. I would like to ensure that people's voices are included in the conversation. It's not based off conjecture. In regards to the September 11 talk page, I'm not adding anything that I don't think is relevant based on the breadth of reporting which exists. I found at least 8 articles on the arrival of the caravan, 3 of which I cited in that talk page. That, I think, given that wikipedia policy requires 2-3 professionally cited sources to create a profile on an individual, is enough to consider it worthy of its own topic.

With regards to WP: CIRCULAR I haven't used Wikipedia as a source for any page other than talk discussions where a wikipedia page would be pertinent, except for a reference to the Sunrise Earth article which was quickly corrected by another user. I'm also particularly frustrated at you pointing to that example given that it was in regards to whether or not the Resolution Copper mine could be used as a DOY project article, which you nonetheless answered thereafter. I'm not certain there's any other way to cite it, and I've seen other users link to other pages in talk, it isn't anything new.

With all respect, I did not feel particularly respected by your response. You are thus far the only user or administrator that has brought this to my attention, and I'm not certain what it is you'd like me to do in order to fix it. My user page, under content policy, can express any personal views I please so long as they are not baseless, defamatory, offensive, subject to the policies we've discussed above, or revealing of personal information. I invite you to find relevant examples of my presenting a biased view of an issue if that bias cannot just as easily be attributed to the general sway of the journalistic / academic reporting on the material, which is exactly what we are supposed to do under WP: ORIGINALRESEARCH policy to avoid conjecture. Even in the Resolution mine article, I offered a reflection of both sides needs and interests. My point is that we need to be paying attention to all of those interests, and it is this exact kind of overwhelming, often briefly considered technical review (that I've experienced on a number of occasions, so in no way do I attribute this to you alone) that I'm attempting to reason with you against. I look forward to a response, but I'd also ask that you take care to look around my profile a bit, or at the very least review/consider further the claims you're making. I wish you all the best regardless - CSGinger14 (talk) 02:07, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Hi @Toddst1. To begin, if this is a point you feel should be made on the talk pages for the articles as opposed to here, please let me know. Otherwise, I saw your edits on the Rio Tinto (corporation) and Resolution Copper. I appreciate your help in citing some main issues with the articles, though I think that you and @Dormskirk could have gone about trimming with slightly more review, as several pieces were verified through citations in other areas of the article, and could have been used to support the pieces that you cut, which were nonetheless removed with large sections of the text. I will note that large sections of the latter article are inaccurate or misleading and large parts of the former are skewed towards one side. Nonetheless, fair portions of it were properly cited by wikipedia standards, but did not meet a particular standard of relevancy. This was justified in the case of much of the Rio Tinto cuts (though not all, in my opinion), but not in the case of the majority of edits made on Resolution copper. It's far easier to remove text than it is to write it. I understand your interest in protecting the credibility of the site, and I understand that you're supported in your thinking by official site guidelines. But I'd like to remind you that site guidelines were not always the way they were now. Beyond that, it takes people time to make these additions. They might not deserve credit for it under the grand scheme the site's mission, but I don't think you're treating their contributions with nearly the respect they deserve. Removal edits can be rife with as much bias as contribution edits can be, and I'd hope that you watch your own actions as closely as you do others. The morality of reputable/justifiable editing isn't a one way street. If it were, Wikipedia would not have almost 7,000,000 articles.

WP: SOAPBOX isn't meant to prevent bias from just one side. From some of your comments I can presume you read my above comment, or at the very least hope you made the time to do so in the interest of WP:GOOD FAITH. Regardless, I'd hope that you didn't choose to selectively edit the articles I've contributed to (which, I'll note, the majority of sections you removed (some of which had commentary that mirrored our conversation) were not actually edits I had made, most of them in fact you chose to keep as reputable). I will assume you didn't in the interest of good faith, but I think at the very least several of the points I made above have been well proven :). I think that speaks equally well to the point you made several days ago about the intention behind the edits you choose to make.

You'll see several updates on your changes, likely tomorrow, when I have a chance. I'll add some additional commentary to address your concerns if I have the opportunity, keeping in mind that it takes a slightly longer venture to find the scholarship.

Regards, CSGinger14 (talk) 01:21, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

Your thread has been archived

Hello CSGinger14! The thread you created at the Teahouse, Partner feature for Wikipedia, has been archived because there was no discussion for a few days. You can still read the archived discussion. If you have follow-up questions, please . (Since edited*)

Your thread has been archived

Hello CSGinger14! The thread you created at the Teahouse, Where to go to request article assessment, has been archived because there was no discussion for a few days. You can still read the archived discussion. If you have follow-up questions, please .

A fox for you!

Looks like a very good start at touch-starvation.

★Trekker (talk) 04:10, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

A tip: next time, might be easier to ask the technical move requests board at WP:RMT. Your method is totally fine (using {{db-move}}); I just wanted to let you know about alternate methods. Cheers, Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 03:50, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Your thread has been archived

Hello CSGinger14! The thread you created at the Teahouse, New article help, has been archived because there was no discussion for a few days. You can still read the archived discussion. If you have follow-up questions, please .

Disambiguation link notification for May 30

An automated process has detected that you recently added links to disambiguation pages.

Albula/Alvra

added a link pointing to 24 heures

Brienz/Brinzauls

added a link pointing to 24 heures

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 07:58, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

June 2025

Hi CSGinger14! I noticed that you recently made an edit at Margaret Nicholson and marked it as "minor", but it may not have been. "Minor edit" has a specific definition on Wikipedia: it refers only to superficial edits that could never be the subject of a dispute, such as typo corrections or reverting obvious vandalism. Any edit that changes the meaning of an article is not a minor edit, even if it only concerns a single word. Thank you. DrKay (talk) 07:54, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

@DrKay Apologies, can be attributed to thoughtlessness, was not intentional. Will be happy to take care of any necessary fixes if you can instruct me. Thanks!

CSGinger14 (talk) 08:07, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

The role of admins

Hi CSGinger14. I was reading your userpage and was struck by the statement Despite it being marked as a page of 'top importance', The History of Zambia has not seen a single admin come along to verify edits or sourcing in months. I think you have a mistaken view of the role of Wikipedia administrators, which is fully described at WP:ADMIN. Wikipedia is based on the wisdom of crowds and administrators have no more authority to determine or oversee article content than any other editor. Encyclopedia content is determined by consensus developed according to the policies and guidelines. While admins may be more aware of these policies than the average editor, they do not own any article: no-one does. Mike Turnbull (talk) 10:56, 11 June 2025 (UTC)

Hi @Michael D. Turnbull, I appreciate the response. I can see where that could have been misleading. I’ve changed proper nouns to better clarify, and will go back to make additional commentary. My focus was on critiquing the fast paced cleanup process that’s generally applied to these types of articles, without consistent effort (based on the wisdom of the crowds that’s applied) to devote adequate time and attention to pages that the community writ large has made a seeming priority. I can see though, where it can be confusing, and I didn’t mean for it to appear to be an unfocused, unwarranted criticism towards the admin class. Thanks for pointing this out.

All the best - CSGinger14 (talk) 11:55, 11 June 2025 (UTC)

One point about style

See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Abbreviations § Contractions:

Contractions such as aren't should not be used in Wikipedia, except in quoted material; use the full wording (e.g., are not) instead.

In general, I recommend skimming the Manual of Style if you haven't already regardless—one learns a lot!

Also, if I may, I recommend posting on talk before going for some of the maintenance tagging you are doing. Tags are often more trouble than they are worth, and they inherently interrupt readers and editors alike. Cheers! Happy editing. Remsense 🌈 论 07:01, 28 June 2025 (UTC)

Hi @Remsense, thanks for reaching out. I understand the point you were making on Ethnography, but am not certain I agree with you on your revisions on River. The information I added is pertinent, relates to the intimate cultural and demographic attachment that humans have to rivers, and the edits I made outside of it nonetheless assist in maintaining clarity and improving upon grammatical/structural issues (I.e cultural…mythological elements - over - ….aspects to them). The latter is acceptable, as the overall context can be assumed, but it nonetheless is confusing grammatically. I won’t do so myself (not trying to start an edit war) but I’d appreciate your reviewing the grammatical change outside of the context of the added sentence, as those types of blanket revisions can remove meaningful contributions in an effort to otherwise disperse with less helpful ones.

All my best - CSGinger14 (talk) 15:36, 28 June 2025 (UTC)

@Remsense For instance, could the information not be included in another section of the article? If a citation is present, and it doesn’t seem to be referenced elsewhere, and contains information that is nonetheless important to the discussion (even if you do consider it a ‘factoid’, would it not be of greater use to simply add it in a more pertinent location within the article?).

I mean no disrespect in saying this, but if you had the time necessary to consider the revision-worthiness of the edit in the context of the article’s lead (which is necessarily intended to be a short intro/(or) amalgamation/summarization of the article as a whole, did you not simultaneously have time to consider where it might fit in best within the article otherwise? I appreciate your efforts, and understand where you’re coming from, but would ask that you consider that argument moving forward.

Again, all my best - CSGinger14 (talk) 15:43, 28 June 2025 (UTC)

Also, would you be able to provide an explanation for your removal of sourcing in the lead, seen in this edit here (not my own work)? I understand that the lead of an article doesn’t generally include sourcing, but it’s a bit concerning that those references were removed, given that there’s otherwise no real justification for the statements that remain. . I can understand if sourcing is kept but left to another section, but the sources were removed entirely. Any insight would be appreciated.

Best - CSGinger14 (talk) 15:52, 28 June 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for your patience. Per WP:LEADCITE, the lead section is meant to be a balanced summary of the content of the article body. As such, additional citations tend not to be required and can actually be confusing, as citations can already be found with the corresponding material in the article body. Remsense 🌈 论 20:37, 28 June 2025 (UTC)

Recommendation

CSGinger14, please consider putting the Wikipedia:Teahouse on your watchlist, and answering questions when you can. I think your "customer service" approach to discussions would fit in well there. Even if you only answer one easy question a week, or even once a month, you'd be helping the whole community. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:59, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

Done, I’ll see what I can do. Much appreciated - CSGinger14 (talk) 19:45, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

Issues (Answers “Issues I’ve Noticed” section)

I've looked at User:CSGinger14#Issues I've Noticed (Admin please read), and on the assumption that you'd like some answers, here are a few notes:

1. Editing interface: The visual editor is less esoteric than the wikitext editor, but the mobile interface is limited. This isn't part of the WP:ADMINS job. This is handled by the Product & Technology department of the Wikimedia Foundation. Specifically, any work done on this will be handled by the mw:Editing team. They are nice people, and you can leave notes and suggestions on their talk pages. You might start at mw:VisualEditor on mobile, as I hope that they will cycle back to mobile editing next year.
2. Explanations of key concepts: The Editing team's current project is called mw:Edit check. They are interested in getting ideas about where newcomers get confused/make the wrong choice/need an explanation or reminder. You can post a note on their talk page. Two known challenges to keep in mind: Every wiki has its own rules (so they want to focus on the most common things, with wide applicability), and they're looking for things that affect most new editors (not picky details that only highly experienced editors care about). For more general education efforts, outside the context of a relevant edit, we can make 'announcements' using the Notifications system. These are the automated messages that say things like "You've successfully made your first edit". We could use the edit milestone system to send out simple educational messages, such as "You've made five edits! If you need help, ask at the Teahouse" or "If you are writing about people, please read the Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons policy" (or whatever information we want to provide).
3. Lack of template parity
   1. See mw:Global templates.
   2. I don't understand this: Why can images not be attributed to the user of origin across sites. Images are WP:ATTRIBUTED everywhere.
   3. I don't understand this: Could an integrated system not exist to edit template headers while working on translating pages which would necessarily need a version of that template. Do you mean something like "If I'm translating from English to French, could the Wikipedia:Content translation tool automatically import a copy of the enwiki template to the frwiki site?"
4. Lack of template parity between different wikimedia projects, especially wiktionary.org: Different wikis have different preferences. The English Wikivoyage, for example, prefers the smallest number of templates possible. Also, the needs of a small wiki are different. There is no point in having 1,000 different maintenance templates when you only have 1,000 different articles.
5. Difficulty supporting multiple editors amid breaking news: Is this a complaint about Help:Edit conflicts? Those are reduced if you use the visual editor. In terms of more basic technical support, things have improved. Wikipedia crashed when Michael Jackson died; it didn't crash when Queen Elizabeth died.
6. The tendency among editors to simply remove content that they feel is problematic is a double-edged sword. It may (or may not!) improve the article. It may (or may not!) hide useful/relevant/promising sources and content. We officially tell editors to WP:PRESERVE appropriate content, but that goes against human nature: People are often lazy and self-centered. The fastest and easiest thing for me to do is to blank imperfect content. Sure, that will create extra work for the other editor, but figuring out how to improve the other editor's first attempt would require extra effort from me. (One of the reasons I think you should help at the Teahouse is because you don't seem to have this tendency.) If you are interested in countering this, then I suggest finding ways to publicize the importance of building on others' contributions, rather than quickly removing them. I sometimes wish for a way to easily find such edits, so that I could thank the collaborating editor for improving on someone else's contribution; perhaps that should become a formal wish.
7. Some of the definitions of original research might be absurd, but they might make more sense if you know the history. First, OR was originally "stuff made up by an editor" – and specifically, stuff made up by a specific Usenet personality who thought he had disproven Einstein's theories about physics. The academic physics journals wouldn't publish his pseudoscience, so he hoped that Wikipedia would accept it. The OR policy was created in response to this. Back in the day, an OR problem meant "not in any [published] source" (e.g., you did chemistry 'experiments' in your kitchen and wrote the results on Wikipedia), and a WP:V problem meant "not in any reliable source" (e.g., you copied it from a kid's social media post). Now, OR says "not in any reliable source", and some editors have their own personal, made-up definitions. (And then there are the ones who only seem to see two kinds of content: If it's not a copyright violation, then it's OR.)
8. The importance ratings belong to the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team. They work on offline releases, originally on CDs, for use in rural schools and other places with limited internet access. "Top rating" meant "no matter how short or bad or ignored this article is, the editors at WikiProject ____ believe it should be included in your next release". Importance/priority ratings are not task lists (though some WikiProjects have used them that way; for example, about 15 years ago, Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine made sure that all of the top-importance medicine articles were rated at least as Start-class).
9. Guidelines are written by ordinary editors, not "by verdict of the administrative body". The only administrative body that can impose rules is the Board of the Wikimedia Foundation, and they do this about once every five or ten years (for general rules) or a few times a year, temporarily, in response to serious legal concerns (though they don't even do most of those, as local admins usually handle DMCA takedowns themselves). Not even WP:ARBCOM is allowed to impose new policies and guidelines on editors.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:50, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

Hi @WhatamIdoing, thanks for the info. This is actually the best explanation I’ve received on this. I still hold out on some of my points, but will revise when I get a chance based upon the information you’ve given me. This was actually phenomenally helpful and I apologize if it seemed like willful ignorance, I appreciate it.

All the best - CSGinger14 (talk) 19:39, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

Just so you know, I can't even imagine you posting something out of willful ignorance.

You have multiple good ideas here, and now you have more information about them than 99% of other editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:22, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

And to your point about customer service, something I’ve realized over the past several years is that, while the customer isn’t always right, everyone has a right to feel as if concerns they have which are valid are in fact valid, and that someone is willing to pay attention and to meet them where they are, not where they expect they should be.

My first experience editing as an official user on this website was met almost immediately with the content I added being wiped by another user simply because, in their opinion, the small fun fact I added to the relevant page was not relevant in their eyes. I didn’t have any real or important connection to the topic beyond the information I’d read, but was nonetheless frustrated by his unwillingness to even respond after handing down a verdict he deemed to be justified based on his personal interpretation of site guidelines. This was part of the reason that I stopped editing almost entirely for the next 7 years thereafter (save for one, and a number of edits made anonymously), as nearly every edit I made as a ‘new user’ inevitably prompted a blanket response that questioned the validity of my edits and assumed that my unfamiliarity with site guidelines meant I couldn’t approach the topic rationally, simply because I was not as experienced with the mechanisms and protocols of the site itself.

Something that angers me greatly about Wikipedia is the tendency of and comfort with which some editors to/will ‘inform’ newer users of their violations of site guidelines, then be unwilling to actually assist them in handling the problem or violation thereafter (even if they are willing to repeatedly remove that content thereafter based upon their own opinion or interpretation). I’ve watched over the past several months as the number of active editors has slowly trickled downwards, and, though I imagine it vacillates, I think there’s a real danger that the most opinionated editors will eventually do so much damage to the credibility and validity of protocols which are meant to foster communication and encourage new usership that eventually none of the people with the interest or wherewithal to involve themselves in this project will do so, leaving the site to die as more seasoned editors gradually retire. I want people to feel as if they have a stake in what is objectively one of the most important projects for human knowledge in our species history. That can only be done if people abandon their notion of self importance and seek to foster real and critical understanding between members. Also, having worked in campaign politics for quite a while, I know a thing or two about communicating and caring about people who fundamentally disagree with your goals or ideals. We’re all human, and we’re all we’ve got. I hope and suspect you feel the same, regardless of that, I wish you well.

CSGinger14 (talk) 19:57, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing on the “difficulty supporting multiple editors” piece, I was specifically referring to the inability of the site to upload edits made after another edits has been published without risking losing the entirety of that edit, especially when it’s being performed on mobile. I encountered that when assisting in revisions/updates to Pope Francis’s page on the day of his death. Things were exceptionally chaotic, and it would have taken far longer for me to go through and identify exactly what had changed in my edit vs the original page that had existed before I made revisions CSGinger14 (talk) 20:19, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

Edit conflicts are expected in high-traffic situations. As it happens, I expanded Help:Edit conflict#Prevention yesterday, and that method might be interesting to you.

From the devs' perspective, a change to a long article can take up to two minutes to fully process on the servers, so reducing the number of edits to less than 1 edit per 2 minutes is helpful. From the editors' perspective, lots of small edits is best, as they reduce edit conflicts.

Generally, the server processes edits by "line" (think 'paragraph', but it's really about where the linebreaks are in the wikitext, not what displays as a paragraph after posting), so if two people are editing at the same time, and they are editing the same or adjacent lines, then the second one to post their change will get an edit conflict. But if they are not editing the same or adjacent lines, then the system can usually resolve things automagically. This means:

• Alice changes line 3
• Bob changes line 2
• The second person to hit the Big Blue Button will get an edit conflict

but:

• Alice changes line 3
• Bob changes line 5
• (Important: neither of them touch the adjacent line 4)
• The system will automatically resolve the edit conflict, and neither of them will even know that their edit was at risk.

Because of this, if you and the other editors(!) confine your edits to a small section of the article at a time (and mostly stay out of the lead/high-traffic areas), then you should be able to reduce the number of edit conflicts you have to process. But if someone decides to "help" by running a ref formatting script that touches every other line in the whole page, then everyone who is editing at the moment is going to get an edit conflict due to that "helpful" person's choice. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:18, 12 July 2025 (UTC)