User talk:Peter Campbell/Archive1

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Hello Peter Campbell/Archive1, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome!  Revived 01:41, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi Peter, you might want to check out Wikipedia:Autobiography for why creating articles about oneself is generally considered undesirable (and what the alternatives are). It's very hard to avoid bias when writing about oneself, and the added personal investment in an article can make it difficult to reach amicable consensus on its contents. --Calair 02:12, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Howdy

Hi Peter. Welcome to Wikipedia! Be sure to check out Australian resources, like The Australia Wikiportal, Australian Wikipedians' Notice Board, Australian Collaboration of the Fortnight, New Australian Articles and Australian stub articles. You can list yourself at Australian Wikipedians.

Also, seeing as though you're a Melburnian, have you considered participating in WikiProject Melbourne? Help is always needed!

As newcomer to Wikipedia, you are probably unaware that we generally discourage users from writing about themselves in article space as the potential problems with our neutrality policy are too great.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me on my Talk page. I hope you decide to become a regular editor of Wikipedia.

Happy editing, --cj | talk 02:19, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for this information. I will leave my autobiographic article with the content already published in the public domain. Peter Campbell 03:05, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

The Greens

Although I do not oppose you editing Greens related pages please see wikipedia:NPOV when considering your edits. Xtra 02:36, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the info link on NPOV. Currently, I think the "ideology" section of the Australian Greens article is biased towards the right-wing attacks against the Greens - there is no balancing information on this - such as reference to Margo Kinston's blog entry on Greens policies. Peter Campbell 03:19, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Re: Australian Greens article edits

Hi again Peter. Politics on Wikipedia is indeed difficult to balance, but in my experience, achievable. The best way to achieve balance is through consensual editing - how this encyclopædia works, really. The first step would be to append a {{POV}} tag to the top of the Australian Greens article and then clearly outline your points on the article's talk page, making sure they generally correspond to NPOV and associated policies. Make sure you also make suggestions for improvements. If the dispute becomes more heated, or results in "waring" between to users, we have mechanisms for dealing with that also. I partially reverted the last change to article, in any case. Thanks, --cj | talk 04:00, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

BTW - the 'minor edit' tag is generally reserved for things like spelling corrections, formatting, and rearrangement of text. An edit that adds or removes information, even if it's only one link, shouldn't be tagged this way (with the exception of simple reverts). Sorry to be so picky about this stuff, but it can confuse watchers who don't check 'minor' edits. --Calair 09:13, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

OK, thanks for this tip. I am still coming up to speed in the protocols for editing. Peter Campbell 11:16, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

No problem, took me ages to get to grips with things :-) --Calair 22:18, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi and welcome

Hi there. I feel a bit sheepish writing to someone who I heard about on the news in 2001 and 2004 on the elections. I have never been to Kooyong and I don't vote Green (well, except for Bob Brown who I used to vote for when I was in Tasmania, but he is an exceptional candidate), but nonetheless I have heard a lot about the impact of your work. I guess you would call me a swing voter. At one stage I even voted Liberal, but since my family votes Labor I tend to vote that way. I really take it on a candidate-by-candidate basis. Since I have no faith in John Howard, I will never vote Liberal while he is leader. But similarly I have no faith in any of the Labor leaders since Paul Keating, hence have not voted labor on any federal election since he left. This leaves me voting Democrats/Greens/independents etc for the most part at the moment. But on local elections I often vote for major parties, usually Labor in preference to Liberal. In the last local election, I voted Labor-Green-Democrat-Independent-Liberal in that order, but that's not typical. So anyway, you could basically say that I am neutral with regards to you. I see the point, but I am not really a huge fan. That being said, I come from a family of activists going back many generations, and hence those that were environmental activists (such as my grandmother) votes Green all of the time, and we usually vote Green pretty high up there. But anyway, that's the "me" introduction. I am amazed that someone like you would use Wikipedia.

Now for my Wikipedia introduction, which I extend to all new users, especially those that are being treated unfairly.

Wikipedia is generally ANTI-newbie. There is a policy called "Don't bite the newcomers" (WP:BITE) which suggests friendliness to newcomers, but this is not enforced and the majority of editors seem to think that newcomers should be abused. Whilst someone such as yourself should engender about average levels of respect due to your political affiliation, it seems that no exceptions are made. See comments in this article here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Madhuri Guin for a second example of a similar issue to your case.

One of the main reasons why newbies are attacked is because of a suspicion that they are not really new users. Some people argue that new accounts should be more difficult to create, which might help to resolve the problem, but generally speaking it is still very easy for a banned user to come in with a new user name and cause problems. There are groups of people in Wikipedia who go out of their way, effectively, to abuse new users. Some of these are called the "Counter Vandalism Unit", which is devoted to getting rid of new users blanking articles and adding nonsense, however they also have a tendency to attack new users as well. Accusations of Wikipedia:Sock puppet are common as well. It's a tough world being here.

As for your individual situation, there is a rule about creating your own Autobiography (WP:AUTO) which suggests that you should not edit an article about yourself. However, once again this is a guideline that is enforced for some, not for others. Wikipedia has recently come under significant criticism in relation to that rule, and current majority opinion is that it should be scrapped or reviewed in some way. I will not get in to that, as you can review such things on the internet if you are interested in criticising Wikipedia.

That being said, Wikipedia has many positives. It has the potential to be much better than a regular encyclopaedia (such as Brittanica) in that it can be updated on-the-spot by anyone, and can be about articles that are about anything. However, such things as Wikipedia:Notability mean that some users believe that articles about topics that are not generally notable should not be included - even though this is the very thing that could make Wikipedia superior to regular encyclopaedias. One of the big problems is that people who go to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion tend to be Deletionist, and enjoy deleting articles - as having any alternative view leads to hostility offered against them. Once again, its a hard world!

What I think that you should do at this stage is to keep the information on your user page, and then hopefully another user will write something about you. I might do it myself at some stage, or User:Capitalistroadster is probably a good person to ask for advice. I think that the article will be deleted at this point, which in my opinion is unfortunate, but so be it.

That being said, your experiences can be seen as a positive as well. In your limited time here, you have witnessed some problems with how Wikipedia works, which you could use as part of your political campaign. I am sure that you can imagine a way to use them - for example, to talk about internet regulations etc. Alternatively, you could work to help Wikipedia, either by working inside Wikipedia and commenting in relevant parts, or else talking to media outlets in relation to it. Criticism of Wikipedia is quite topical at the moment. Given that you are a public figure, writing something on a web page or giving an interview about Wikipedia may be the better option for you.

On the other hand, if you want to just contribute, then do it. Go around, make small edits and slowly contribute in larger projects, always trying to make sure that they are desired. One problem that new users often make is that they see that their edits are not being respected and thus believe that they should therefore be making their own pages about something - this is actually a very bad idea. They are better off to write in the article's "Discussion" page to explain why they think that something should be improved, or alternatively to go to such places as Wikipedia talk:Deletion Reform to talk about how they think that things should be improved. People there will listen to you a lot more than people in an AFD discussion. Similarly, you might want to comment on Wikipedia talk:Notability (people).

Why did you come to Wikipedia, by the way? If it was to advertise for your upcoming electoral campaign, then you probably shouldn't have tried to create your own article. Was there some other reason? PS. You can write to me on my talk page by following the link in my signature. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 11:47, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Zordrac, thanks for this very helpful information and background on Wikipedia. I will add some of my comments on the page deletion process to the articles you have suggested.

I am very interested in Wikis as a new paradigm for publishing and information sharing in a distributed fashion. I think the concept of an encyclopaedia that can be edited by multiple (millions even) of people is a very powerful resource. I am active in forest campaigning. I was searching via Google for information about Senator [John Devereux] - he resigned from the ALP over their Tasmanian forest policies in Tasmania. If found a Wikipedia entry via Google for him - he was listed as an Australian Senator with not details or article about him. So I created an article for him and added some information to it. Then I got curious and checked out some Greens articles - and noticed that there was information on elected Greens and elections, but no mention of a candidates. So I added references to candidates and created a page listing all candidates for the 2004 Federal Election (and a subcategory for Greens Candidates)

Then I added a page for myself linked to the list of candidates as I had information about my campaign and believe the results to be significant. The Liberals certainly do too - I think the growing Greens vote has partly motivated them to attack the Greens to marginalise them and portray them as "fringe extremists". This is fairly basic negative PR tactics designed to stop the trend of "thinking liberal" voters moving to the Greens due to better policies on refugees and the environment etc. I also think Petro Georgiou's recent outspoken stand on asylum seeker policies (welcome though it is) is partly motivated by him losing votes to the Greens. The whole thing looked like a set play - Petro threatens his private members bill. "Progressive Liberal MPs" (Bruce Baird and Judy Moylan etc) rally around him. John Howard states that he can hear public concern on the issue. End result - NO change to policy, but increased ministerial discretions to Vanstone (who won't use them). Some token releases of children & long term detainees, but now they are locking more up. A win for Petro, a win for Howard, and refugees and the Australian public dudded yet again!

What the Liberals don't want to do is assimilate Greens policies - they are hell bent on burning coal, running a budget surplus at any cost, robbing the poor to pay the rich, and shifting Australia to a "dog eat dog" competitive nation like America. I don't think they are conservatives any more - they are actually tending towards extremists and even fascism now - as Malcolm Fraser has recently pointed out. My activities in politics are now motivated by reversing this trend - in addition to campaigning broadly for sustainability and environmental protection. My blog has some of my recent articles, letters and writings on it.

I didn't think the page would harm my bid for preselection, but I didn't think it would boost it much either, as it fairly obscure to most of the general public and Greens members. Some late breaking news - I missed out on preselection - but I still think the page is valid and should remain. I understand though that it is likely to be deleted. Having checked out the process for this, I find it to be vague, subjective and not well documented - certainly for 'newbies' such as myself. There really should be mention of this page creation policy (on vanity articles) in the page creation guidlines.

Having added several Wiki links to my page I checked the content of them and have edited quite a few. There is certainly a lot of improvements and corrections required. It is simply fantastic to be able to make them. And then it is curious to see them reversed or kept, and view the process behind this (such as the discussion page contents etc.) I have had some positive feedback for these contributions, which has partly offset the not too pleasant experience of having "my page" listed for deletion.

I intend to keep on editing, but will take a break over Christmas and the New Year.

I had previously looked up your user page and was impressed by your efforts and activities. Keep up the good work.

Peter Campbell 12:28, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

You seem to be getting used to the commands. One thing is to remember to use ~~~~ whenever you sign your comments. You can also set up a unique signature too (although this is a bit tricky - I wouldn't recommend it for a while yet). I am glad to see that you can see the positives. I think that this is one thing that a lot of the people who oppose WP:BITE don't realise is that criticisms of Wikipedia help Wikipedia, especially when presented to new users. Its when people think that it is perfect and then oh no discover some problem that then we have issues. If the problems are well known, then we work our way around them. From a computer point of view, imagine using Microsoft Windows for the first time and being told that it was perfect and would never crash? I think if anything knowing about the criticisms helps. Of course, corruption/abuse etc probably doesn't help, but I think that it is unrealistic for any business model to be void of corruption. You work in politics so I am sure that you are aware of the unavoidability of corruption.

It looks like you will be a good editor. Again, I wouldn't push too hard for your own personal bio. There are famous people in my family (my grandmother and grandfather especially) who don't have their own Wikipedia entries. My grandfather used to, but it was deleted due to him being "non notable", while my grandmother is mentioned here, but not by name (in spite of the sources saying her name). Whilst I am tempted to go ahead and write their articles, since they clearly are famous, doing so may be a violation of WP:AUTO, and I likely couldn't write it neutrally. I'd be saying about how wonderful they are! :). Also, there is the second issue. I don't really want to have my real name mentioned anywhere online unless I am working in an official capacity (for work etc) and hence I am cautious that if I were to write entries for them, someone might find out my name and stalk me or something. Its happened before, and something that I am very conscious of. Hopefully someone else will write articles about them. When my grandfather died they renamed a famous historical building after him, and both of my grandparents have articles in Brittanica, yet for some bizarre reason Wikipedia doesn't think that they are notable. Go figure. It certainly isn't because of lack of media coverage. Of course, their names aren't so well known as their actions. But I digress a bit there.

There's a lot of things that I'd like to add that to me are personally notable, and the thing is that after a while, you get to include them. I eventually was able to write about all of my favourite computer games quite happily, including Stick cricket and Metal Knights, which I was quite happy about. Neither have even been nominated for deletion. I also wrote about two small towns which I visited recently, Barrow Creek, Northern Territory and Ti Tree, Northern Territory, the latter I wrote about because I just got offered a job there and I personally went to look up on the internet as to where it was and what its like. So that was good. So you do eventually get to write things that are personal to you. But it just has to be over time. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 13:04, 22 December 2005 (UTC)