For my part, I stopped contributing long ago because every single edit attempt I made, including simple stuff like fixing punctuation, would inevitably get reverted by a bot or an overprotective editor within the next day or two.
When the latest Tesla press release came out about performance, I surrendered after about an hour or two of edit warring about how it wasn't actually a verified / independent track time, but rather a PR piece about predicted performance.
Pointing out the guidelines on the page themselves didn't matter.
Reverting with comments in the revert itself didn't matter.
Whether new people or established editor, everyone was falling over themselves to get the edit in.
I decided it was futile when they started deciding the solution was instead to rewrite the "guidelines" for what measurements were acceptable, basically "Screw you, we're putting the Tesla in. If it doesn't count based on the rules, we're changing the rules."
So now it's in three categories, "independent/ verified", "manufacturer tested", and "manufacturer claimed" (the latter of which only had the new Tesla).
First off, you shouldn't be edit warring [0], but rather you should discuss issues on the talk page. [1] As for the situation, it sounds like other editors discussed the issue and came to a consensus on how it should be handled. [2] It sounds to me like Wikipedia was able to adapt to a different kind of situation (instead of stubbornly clinging to the "rule of the law") and that you personally just didn't like how it was handled. For that you could ask the relevant WikiProject for guidance [3] or start an RFC [4]. Instead you just came here to complain about how the system worked, just not in your favor; not really constructive.
Edit: Since HN is saying that I'm "submitting too fast" even though I haven't commented in half an hour, I'll reply to the replies here. (Really stupid that it throttles you just because you went against the hivemind)
Also those are pretty important policies, would you rather Wikipedians just ignore them and cede to whatever demands you have?
@FireBeyond
Yes I was being optimistic because all I had to go off of was your own description. If people are ignoring you, add a comment and tell them to discuss it until a consensus is reached. If they still edit war, then you can request page protection. And yeah you're right that I assumed you're naive, apologies, it's too bad in this case then. Still, there's nothing stopping you from removing that information and restarting the discussion.
Haha. You're excessively optimistic and assume naivety on my part.
1. Agreed. Except: I discussed my concerns on the Talk page. Nobody paid any attention to it, let alone replied. I discussed that I had removed an edit because by its own statement didn't fit the criteria on the page.
2. No. No other editor discussed anything, on the Talk page, or elsewhere. Just reverted my reverts, or rearranged slightly.
So really, your example is more a failing of the system, rather than a complaint of "me just not getting my way".
"Don't edit war" - works only if all parties do so, otherwise it's "Victory of the Stubborn"
"Assume Good Faith"... like you did here, and assumed the worst, that I'm naive about these things.
The reality was that a certain group were hell bent on being the first to add the Tesla as one of the fastest production automobiles and weren't interested in hearing any discussion to the contrary.
I think WP:UNDUE is one of the most disruptive and misused rules on WP. It's a trump card for anyone experienced editor who favors deletion. It's intention was as an equal time rule, where VIEWPOIONTS were balanced.
Instead it is used anytime an editor thinks one section weighs too much, or personally doesnt find the information of value. The thing is, if I only have part to contribute to an article, it makes no sense to put my contribution on hold until other parts of the article flesh out, it becomes a catch22, self limiting the article.
I think its pretty obvious I side with inclusion of just about everything. The belief in not letting part of an article grow until the other part does is asinine. If weight becomes imbalanced, write more. OR Maybe viewpoint A requires 10,000 words, and viewpoint B only requires 100 to prove its point. Eitherway WP:UNDUE stinks.
so on and so forth. people citing conflicting rules back and forth at each other forever, ad nauseum
that is one of the reasons people leave wikipedia right away, they get hit with pages and pages of rules and style guides and tons of other technicalities. reject over help fix is the status quo.
Deleting content is one of Wikipedia's biggest issues right now. I'm not surprised that the stable solution was to include the new content, and add a new way of describing it. Futile? No: inclusive.
In a month or two you'll have the verified track time to add.
Great. And in a month or two, then it should be added.
But as a hint, in an area which isn't exactly new - manufacturers have been releasing new cars for a century, some faster than others, have been releasing press releases ever since, too, especially for supercars/ etc., on a list that has been updated for years (and this is one of my first edits on the topic, so I'm hardly claiming ownership)...
the fact that you have to add another column that completely defies the "real world" measurements of every other vehicle there in order to get their fandom vehicle in should be indicative that it was a stretch.
Here's an example:
"List of fastest 100m races" lists the top 20 verified 100m times in history.
Along comes an athlete's team and they release a press release saying "Based on our simulations, we predict he will run 9.45s in this race in a few months time" and, rather than do nothing with it, editors fall over each other to add a new column to the list, so it now has "verified times", "independent times", and "team projected times" and based on that states that Athlete is now the third fastest 100m runner in the world.
Instead of, as you say, waiting for that event to verify (or prove false) that claim.
But yet, to witness sibling posts, my perspective is "wrong".
Yeah, working together with volunteers is fun, isn't it? You seem to be doing a good job of representing the current "deletionista" faction, which is the source of many complaints from new, existing, and former Wikipedia editors.
I think there's no real reason (to use an old example) of why every Pokemon needs its own page, while other more worthy topics get deleted.
But overall? I'm an inclusionist, if there's a consistency. Instead, the practical application is "included if it gels well with certain fads or obsessions, but more more critically considered if not".
Out of curiosity, though, I went back. Over a thousand edits to WP and of those, 12 on "Articles for Deletion". Of those I voted keep on 2, delete on 10.
Of those ten, five were Biographies of Living People, and three were Original Research - including "List of Problems Solved by MacGyver", "Suggested Reading Order for Discworld Novels", and "Star Trek Vessels by Size". The other two were "WP: Admins Willing To Make Difficult Blocks" and a sub-user page from a now disgraced admin that he used to collect "evidence" on users he disliked.
Using a stats tool I can see that on other edits my ratio of "Content Created to Content Removed" is 28.37:1. So I think I'm doing okay there, too.
I've edited pages, created pages, and added sources, and each time someone has taken the small work I do and turned it into something with quality. I'm very impressed by Wikipedia.
If every single edit you made was reverted, maybe they weren't really constructive edits? Just food for thought.
> If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole. - Raylan Givens, Justified
On a more serious note, I always hear people complaining about getting reverted. What they don't realize is that, often, their edits really are just bad. Here's some of the stuff I have to revert daily:
* Test edits/gibberish
* Vandalism
* Original research [0]
* Changing stuff to match their variety of English [1]
* Making the grammar worse, or going against the Manual of Style [2]
* Improper tone [3]
* No edit summary giving a rationale for the edit
A lot of the time, the changes people make are just arbitrary or don't improve the article. If you ever feel you were improperly reverted though, you can always bring it up on the talk page.
Considering this very common experience had by people trying to contribute, I think your saying applies more to the "full time" entrenched editors, who are acting as wall of assholes blocking a wider group of contributors.
Also, that saying has been around alot longer than Justified.
I mean I just gave you the reasoning of entrenched editors, they're just not often good edits. These complaints come from people who think that Wikipedia is obliged to take any of their edits just because they took the time to hit the submit button. Wikipedia has policies and standards to uphold and people would complain if we went the other way and accepted all garbage people felt necessary to dump on the site. Also, the people who bring up these accusations never list the articles they were reverted on. Show me some of these edits improperly reverted and I'll personally help reinstate them or explain what was wrong with them.
