User:Enkyo2/Sandbox/Sado

Opinion/Perspective

Perhaps I should mention at the outset, you've encountered me before as User:Ooperhoofd -- in 2007. My reasons for changing names have only an oblique relationship to what follows here. Although not particularly relevant for you to know, the name change does make sense in a peculiar context of Japanese era names (nengō) and the subjects which most occupy my attention as a Wikipedia editor.

Japanese calligraphy by Satow. The kanji reads "敬和" (Kei-Wa), literally "Respect and harmony".

You offered a 3rd-person perspective in January at Talk:Kōryū-ji#Wrongful deletion. I simply ignored User:Bueller 007's response. What if I had done something -- anything -- differently? Can you think of a constructive response which might have been worth trying?

I'm persuaded that my moderate response here was likely a causative factor in User:Bueller 007's more abrasive gambits which developed elsewhere. Without getting into that, I'm just wondering if this thread represented a plausible missed nip-it-in-the-bud opportunity. Maybe not? --Tenmei (talk) 16:32, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

While I have not had a good look through Bueller007's edit history, and I am not familiar with the history of your relationship with this user, your conduct with regards to the Kōryū-ji article was not all that bad. The only negative point that I have is that you should not use article talk pages to air criticism of a particular user (even if your criticism may be well-founded): discussion on article talk pages should be confined to the article itself, and perhaps this may be a contributing factor to his subsequent (and unacceptable) abrasiveness. But your conduct on the whole was, to me, fine.

I believed that you made your case clear in that the article was significant, with only the need to reword things a bit to provide the right context. In bringing the matter to Third Opinion, I believe that, after my comments and your subsequent work on the article, the article has improved - and that is the main objective here.

I must admit that I am concerned by Bueller007's recent comments, with the inappropriate title "Wrongful deletion", my aching arse. His tone here is not acceptable.

At the moment, the best advice I can give you is to keep cool, be sure of any edits you make, but do not get involved in any edit warring. I'll be keeping an eye on this article for now. - 52 Pickup (deal) 11:27, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I have emphasized your words in one sentence above: His tone here is not acceptable. But, frankly, the easy follow-up responses which come to mind are unsatisfactory -- they're mere gambits which have already failed or seem unpersuasive in ways I can't quite parse well enough. For today, the one example which most gives me pause is something to do with Weimar Germany ....

In that period in which you were being considered for administrator status, there were a number of questions to which you'd provided thoughtful answers. These questions/answers were open for all to read, and I seem to recall that your "Weimar answer" addressed an issue of a pernicious, low-grade inflammation which persisted across a number of months and a range of related subjects. I didn't divine a new and better way of dealing with User:Bueller 007; but I felt there was something there which might help me. Sometimes we confront problems, issues, people which are best ignored; but this feels like something I'm going to have to deal with again and again if I don't address it now. In any case, I'm sure there was something there that I need to figure out ....

At this point, I'm just struggling to come up with a constructive way of looking at I-don't-know-what. I need an alchemy which reduces this into a malleable form. I'm really floundering here. Intervention is not my first choice here, rather it's amongst the least favored options.

In this context, I do like these words of yours:

A certain amount of detachment is required to write for Wikipedia. Everyone has a bias, but you need to look through that and get to the facts. This is an encyclopaedia, so facts always take precedence over opinion.

Perhaps this becomes a fortuitous encounter with a Gorgian knot in your first week as a new administrator, because this isn't a problem YOU can fix. I dunno -- see User talk:WJBscribe#Deaf to good advice

I'd like to frame this as an opportunity for you to help me figure out a reasonable next step with an uncertain set of plausible risks and pay-offs; but I can't quite pull it together yet. --Tenmei (talk) 17:40, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Please do not modify other peoples' entries on talk pages in any way - it is not allowed (however good your intentions may be) and can inflame the situation.

Looking at my Weimar example, it was not easy to solve this problem and required a lot of work, both off- and on-line - all for a single word, sounds a bit silly to go to so much trouble, but it has proven worthwhile.

This was the process I followed in attacking this problem. Maybe this can help you:

• First and most important, do nothing until you have clearly identified your problem and you have all the necessary facts at hand to solve this problem. This can take a lot of research. To achieve the clarity you need, you must take the time necessary. During this time, you may be tempted to keep correcting edits as you see fit. Don't.
• If it helps, compile your notes in a page within your user space.
• Get your argument clear, and make sure you can back it up - and do not simply choose the facts that support your argument: such arguments are generally shot down very quickly.
• Once you're ready, go to the problem article (or if there are a lot of articles, go to the highest profile article, or most active article, or maybe even a relevant WikiProject) and lay out your argument on the article Talk page. Now is the time to get other people involved in a constructive manner. Stay focused on solving the problem - there are many other cases where a problem has degenerated completely out of hand (see Wikipedia:Lamest edit wars for examples of what not to do)
• Make your changes once they have stood up to reasonable scrutiny.
• If a particular user starts to cause trouble, go directly to them and discuss it on their talk page. Perhaps they have a valid point to make - there is always that possibility, so be prepared to accept that you might not be as correct as you thought. But no matter what, keep cool and keep civil.

What I have listed here is not a set of instructions for what you must do for your particular problem, but just some ideas from my own experience that might help. But I think you first need to step back for a bit and have a good think about what exactly you are trying to do. I don't mean that you shouldn't ask for advice (everyone needs advice from time to time), but asking for involvement is different. - 52 Pickup (deal) 18:06, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

This is a good, helpful, constructive. I am copying your plausible, step-by-step template to one of my sandbox pages -- the one named Sado Island. As it happens, my sandboxes are named after Japanese islands; and Sado was used after the 8th century as a place of exile, as something like a penitentiary island. This was not much like Botany Bay, but perhaps it can be construed as a bit of a nod to your Aussie background? Thank you/arigato (ありがとう). Unfortunately, I see critical elements of my Bueller-problem are still up in the air; but having taken even this much in hand does encourage me to feel a little less perplexed. Thanks again. --Tenmei (talk) 18:48, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Ooperhoofd → Tenmei

• Current name: Ooperhoofd (talk · contribs · logs · block log)
• Requested name: Tenmei (other projects?) (rename user)
• Reason: During the past year, my primary focus has had to do with Japanese era names (nengō). These time-period names were changed periodically, but not regularly -- some lasting only months, and others lasting for decades. I want to adopt one of these Japanese era names as my username. As it happens, my initial user name, "Ooperhoofd," was a deliberate mis-spelling of the Dutch word for the chief trader on the island of Dejima in Nagasaki harbor. In Japan, the title "Opperhoofd" had significance during the 300 years in which all but the VOC merchants were excluded from Japan as part of a deliberate, "country-in-chains" policy (sakoku). Now that I'm beginning to feel more comfortable in the Wikipedia environment, I think I can cast aside a user name which serves me less well than it did some months ago. A new vista of perceived opportunities is beginning to open up for me, and I want to mirror something of a nengō-informed approach to a what I'm doing as a Wikipedia editor. In that context, the nengō which means "dawn" seems an attractive alternative, a good step in a constructive direction. "Tenmei" is short ... and, yes, I know that I need to learn to write in shorter sentences. The other users whose opinions I most value will have no difficulty in adapting to this name change -- and, in fact, I flatter myself that they would likely recognize my contributions even if I were identified by an unfamiliar IP-address. My prose has been charitably called "a dense, overly-academic" writing style -- as you can see for yourself here. I wonder if a user name change will help me "find my own voice" -- assuming, of course, that I still have it in me to grow a little bit. --Ooperhoofd (talk) 03:27, 10 February 2008 (UTC)