User talk:Andrés Djordjalian/Archive 1

Latest comment: 11 years ago by Andrés Djordjalian in topic Editing your talk page comments
Archive 1

Falkland Islands sovereignty dispute

Your recent tagging of this article is very close to being disruptive to make a point. As many editors are actively engaged in this article I would suggest it is more productive to ask about sources and other concerns on the talk page rather than repeatedly add tags. Continuing to add as many tags to such a contentious article is not helpful and is certainly not the way to get consensus on improving this article - discussion on the talk page is the way to do that. I've protected the article for 24 hours to allow things to calm down but if at the end of that time you continue to add tags in such a pointy manner there may be little choice but to block you.

In the spirit of openness User:Wee Curry Monster pointed out what was happening on my talk page but I have had the article watch listed for some time. As I have only ever acted in an admin capacity on this page and would have noticed it anyway I do not feel that I am involved in any way. Dpmuk (talk) 04:26, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi Dpmuk. If I am trying to make a point, it is one that serves the improvement of the article. Namely, that it has too much unreliable information and requires cleanup. I placed an article tag that serves that purpose, stating that the reason was that the article relies heavily on WP:SPS, particularly two that I mentioned there in the label. This is a fact, given that those two sources are used in 8 and 15 instances, while scholarly material is scarce by comparison. For example, four easily-accessible, detailed and well-known studies by reckoned experts Gustafson, Reisman, Hope and Greenhow—published by Oxford U., Yale, Boston Law and a reputed antique journal correspondingly—, together add up to only 4 citations (and I think I contributed 3 of those). Moreover, there are references from other WP:SPS in the article, as well as unsourced statements that I suspect were taken from such sources.
Besides, one of the two WP:SPS that I mentioned in the tag (a website) is currently offline (account suspended), while the other is recognized (at least in some circles) as a staunchly pro-British pamphlet. I can indicate forgery, out-of-context citations and plentiful other defects in it.
User:Wee Curry Monster (WCM) removed the tag twice. Firstly arguing that one of those sources is not used, with no mention of the other one. I put back the tag, observing that, in reality, it is used 8 times. Then WCM reverted again arguing that those were not controversial points, and complaining, if I understood correctly, that he was working on it. He was quickly dealing with the inline tags that I had added.
I had placed those inline tags to further justify the article tag, working only on a segment of the article, in part to avoid saturating it. Some of those observations require work, not just a quick removal to prove a point. For some of those removals, WCM offered sources that do not support the alleged fact, so I restored those instances. I offered some details and can give more.
I don't think the article is worse with some carefully-placed inline tags, and an article tag that indicates that a general cleanup is pending, at least due to the abundant usage of WP:SPS. It is important to warn readers when an article is not properly grounded, so that the trust they may be putting on WP is not turned against them, inducing them to believe in propaganda.
On the other hand, I don't think it was helpful when WCM removed the tags before the job was done, misrepresented sources, etc. As I see it, I had improved the article and some of WCM's edits were disruptive. BTW, he excruciatingly often claims sources carelessly, and each citation fraud requires work to correct, besides producing boring lengthy discussions that we could avoid.
Moreover, aren't WP:SPS not suitable for WP, particularly for sensible subjects like these, and regardless of an editor claiming that what they support are not "controversial points"? Shouldn't he at least bother to prove that point first, maybe discuss it a little at the talk page? As a side note, I did not restore the article tag again. Yet, I am the one being accused (by WCM) of disrupting...
Regarding the recommendation to use the talk page, I appreciate it but I have been using that approach for five weeks now, participating quite actively as you can see. My strategy was to suggest changes one by one, carefully discussing everything beforehand and trying to build trust. But WCM is making it impossible. His activity is, more often than not, based on misrepresentations of other people's words, as well as sources, and he ignores many arguments given to him. This produces vast superficial discussions in talk pages, in which few editors participate and we remain stuck. He had also used unnecessarily-harsh statements, pointless accusations and threats.
Most of the few edits that I have made to the article were reverted, sometimes offering no justification whatsoever. In some cases, I had discussed the issue beforehand, then it was reverted with no justification given (or perhaps an empty "no consensus" card), I detailed my reasons, waited, and the talk-page section went straight to the archive, or remained buried in a lengthy discussion of other issues, with no comments from the editors who had reverted. I haven't revived those arguments yet because I'm waiting for other debates to conclude, but I think I can now confidently say that WCM is effectively disrupting that process.
While I was patiently following that strategy, other editors (and I don't mean just WCM) have been freely reverting without giving arguments and inserting doubtful information from questionable sources.
Please see this statement, which I wrote two weeks ago. My editing today was not a sudden tantrum over something discussed recently, but a change of strategy after being very careful for 5 weeks and seeing that a lot of time invested yielded near-nil results.
However, I agree with you that the prior strategy is better if met with reasonable other editors. And if there are interesting disagreements, much better. But it hasn't been working in this case.
Sorry for the length. I would appreciate your comments and help. I will read later what WCM wrote in your talk page. -- Andrés Djordjalian (talk) 07:23, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Editing your talk page comments

Hello.

I noticed this change of yours on Talk:Falkland Islands sovereignty dispute. You may not be aware that the etiquette regarding changing your own talk page comments, at least after someone has responded, is to change it more visibly as described at WP:REDACT. It's generally fine to make a couple of edits to correct your text when nobody has responded to it - particularly when it's not too long after the original point - but once someone's responded it's more of a problem: the risk is that the response no longer makes sense. Could I ask you, if you feel the need to change a comment of yours in the future, to change it in a clearer way? Thanks, Kahastok talk 21:54, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi Kahastok. Due to the difficulties in the exchanges there, I will be extra careful in the future, following the policy that you are pointing out. I know that modifying previous remarks is a risk but, in this instance, it was the removal of a minor side note that was clearly unrelated to the response, not an act of "[r]emoving or substantially altering a comment" (quoting that policy recommendation). However, I reckon that that may be no more than my subjective evaluation, or that the other editor may be interested in having that side note present however unrelated the discussion it is, so I will be more careful in the future.
I would highly appreciate it if you could do something more than this about the quality of our exchanges with WCM. I can see that you, like some other editors, place your hearts in one of the participants of the sovereignty dispute, and that is not bad. But isn't WCM's opposition raising some suspicion in you guys, despite him pushing for the same side? Please help us promote the editing process into one that at least has a slight resemblance with a scholarly standard, where the differences in our positions work for the quality of the article and not against it. -- Andrés Djordjalian (talk) 23:55, 30 April 2013 (UTC)