User talk:Blackash

Welcome!

Hello, Blackash, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using 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 ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! TomStar81 (Talk) 05:35, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Pooktre

Hi Blackash. I think what you are doing is interesting, it just doesn't warrant an article on its own, as there isn't that much information available. A redirect to Arborsculpture plus a section describing groups/individuals practicing Arborsculpture in different forms/innovations/etc. would be more suitable. Thanks for your positive attitude so far, people 'pushing' their own stuff are usually a lot less open towards criticism. Rror (talk) 11:35, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Tree Shaping

I have moved Arborsculpture to Tree Shaping, added in the informations from the Pooktre article, and done some edits. AfD hero (talk) 06:38, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Recent edits Thanks for improving the article. It's always nice to have someone with first hand knowledge of the subject doing editing on an article. Now, the reason why I'm posting here is that there are a few style issues with some of your edits. I will try explain edit by edit:

• [1]

The purpose of the lead image is to show the subject of the article, which is why originally the chair tree image was captioned: "A tree sculpture and artist Peter Cook". The key part of the caption being "tree sculpture", because that is the subject of the article. Changing it to "A tree shaper and artist Peter Cook" makes it about the artist rather than the art piece.

Recommendation: "Artist Peter Cook sitting on a tree sculpture"

• [2]

Next we have the issue of the word "arbosculpture". Now I know you don't consider Arbosculpture to describe all tree shaping, but there are some people that do. In order to be a fair encyclopedia, we have to explain both sides of the issue. The original quote is "The word Arborsculpture is used both to describe tree shaping in general, as well a particular style of tree sculpture.", which is a true statement about how the word is used. Some people use it to describe all tree shaping, and others like yourself use it to describe a certain sub-style. We even talk about this later on in the paragraph.

The current edit removes the first part of the sentence, and reads "The word Arborsculpture is used for a particular style of tree shaping". This presents your point of view, but in wikipedia we have to present a Neutral Point of View. That means we say each side, mention the controversy, and leave it at that.

Recommendation: Some artists such as Reames use the word Arborsculpture to describe tree shaping in general, whereas other artists like ARTISTNAME use the term to refer to a particular style of tree sculpture." ... "Controversy exists about the branding of Arborsculpture as some of the practitioners Reames presents in his book ("Arborsculpture Solutions for a small planet") don't accept the term, or agree to be tagged by it, whereas others do".

• [3]

In a couple places like this, the sentence directly tells the reader to do something. Here it reads: "With the Pooktre's methods it can take as little as one season of guiding the trees growth to form the design eg: The harvested mirror above. Then wait for the tree to thicken to the desired size. " Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a manual or guidebook. There is a difference - an encyclopedia explains what something is, whereas a manual explains how to do something. Therefore it's a good idea to avoid directly addressing the reader and telling them what to do, like in the last sentence of the quote.

Recommendation: "With the Pooktre's methods it can take as little as one season of guiding the trees growth to form the design, and then longer for the tree to thicken to the desired size. For example, see the harvested mirror above. "

• [4]

"If this is true, it should never be underestimated just how much John had achieved with this example." This sentence is purely opinion, which should be avoided. Statements in wikipedia have to be verifiable. There's no way to verify that statement, because its just an opinion. Now, if an art critic said that sentence, then we could say "according to art critic mr. smith, it should never be underestimated that ...", because the fact mr. smith said it is a statement of fact. However, you can't just insert your own opinions into the articles.

Recommendation: remove the sentence.

• Ok, so I hope that helps. I'll make these changes to the article sometime later today (got to run right now), but feel free to make them yourself in the meantime if you want. AfD hero (talk) 17:10, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
• I've left a comment on the talk page of the article. Also, I can't be sure, but it seems to me that Pooktre is the name a private company gave to a pre-existing artform. Someone should look into that. - Mgm|^(talk) 13:23, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
• I recommend using the most neutral name possible. Another possible solution is to pick a neutral basename and redirect all the other names people thought of over the years (assuming said names are verifiably used by a significant amount of people in reliable sources). - Mgm|^(talk) 22:58, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

De-orphan attempts

Hey there, I noticed you've been attempting to de-orphan articles, this is great, keep it up. I just wanted to give you a tip: You should not be removing the |date= parameter when adding the |att= parameter. The date of the orphan tag and the date of the de-orphan attempt are two separate things! Instead of replacing |date= with |att= it should be placed in addition to it. This way, the date the orphan tag was first placed on the article remains (and is visible on the face of template when viewing the article), and is distinct from the date that the de-orphan attempt was made. See [5] for an example. Other than that, I'm happy and glad to see that other people are out there de-orphaning articles (I thought I was the only one!) :) Regards, œ^™ 17:15, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

ps. don't worry about it being double-categorized because that doesn't happen! Once the att= parameter is used it gets moved to the attempted de-orphan category.. so you're not having to revisit the same article twice when browsing through the monthly orphaned articles category. œ^™ 17:21, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

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Managing a conflict of interest

Hello, Blackash. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about on the page Tree shaping, you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a conflict of interest may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for organizations for more information. We ask that you:

• avoid editing or creating articles about yourself, your family, friends, colleagues, company, organization or competitors;
• propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (you can use the {{request edit}} template);
• disclose your conflict of interest when discussing affected articles (see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest#How to disclose a COI);
• avoid linking to your organization's website in other articles (see WP:Spam);
• do your best to comply with Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, you are required by the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use to disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution which forms all or part of work for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation. See Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure.

Also, editing for the purpose of advertising, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. Hello, I also left you a personal message on my talk page since you are involved there in a discussion about the Tree shaping article. Netherzone (talk) 19:40, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Hi Netherzone Thanks for this. Though my editing of wikipedia a I've always done my best to observe and follow the rules and guild lines. LOL thou I did stumble in my early editing knowing nothing. I don't usually make the same mistake twice.

Multiple editors have acknowledged the befit the Tree shaping article has received with having expert editors working on the article. From memory experts and COI editors are welcome on Wikipedia, including expert editors with a professional or commercial interest in the subject of articles they edit. However, the guidelines concerning conflicts of interest must be observed where applicable, and expert editors must at all times avoid editing (or appearing to edit) the encyclopaedia in order to promote their own professional or commercial interest. At times I have edited wikipedia to the detriment of Pooktre or myself to help wiki be more balanced to refs. If you are interested I have created multiple articles within this field of tree shaping. A quick look at those pages before other editors had done changes to them show that I created pages from a neutral point of view following the refs. One other factor you should be aware of is Tree Shaping is very small field and takes a long time for things to change in this art form. Blackash (talk) 23:41, 9 June 2021 (UTC)