Wikipedia talk:Staying cool when the editing gets hot

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I'm a newbie in need of advice. After happily working on some articles about physics and other noncontroversial subjects, I did some editing on these articles: astrology, horoscope, and Walter Mercado (an astrologer). Now I seem to be getting into "edit wars." Any suggestions on how to handle this? I felt that the original articles were completely credulous about astrology, and lacked any pretense of a neutral point of view. The Walter Mercado article is particularly goofy; if you look at its history, it started out with an anonymous user sticking in a fluffy, adulatory fan piece. Then someone edited it to try to restore a neutal point of view. Then a user came along and changed it back, and then I edited it again. How long does this go on? -- User:Bcrowell

Well, it depends on the dispute in question. I looked at astrology and Walter Mercado. For the latter, it seems you are the only person who has edited it since November, so there's no conflict there. Generally, when two Wikipedians disagree on edits or article content, they take it to the discussion page of the article in question, which I see you've done. I usually find it helpful to stop editing until some sort of agreement is reached in discussion; this tends to keep the other party from getting defensive and avoids edit wars. The vast majority of Wikipedians are reasonable people, and agreements are often reached quickly, as longas both parties recognize that they are working on the article in good faith. Oh, and welcome to Wikipedia! We're glad to have you here. -- Stephen Gilbert 00:48 Dec 20, 2002 (UTC)

Well, it's pretty discouraging if you look at the history of how the zodiac and Walter Mercado articles have been edited. People who don't believe in astrology have repeatedly tried to introduce a neutral point of view, but over and over again the true believers have deleted their text and reverted to a completely credulous, one-sided view. -- User:Bcrowell

I think we're making some progress now, because some new people have gotten involved in working on the articles, and it's no longer just a back-and-forth between me and User:Eclecticology. Right now, I think it would be helpful if someone without an agenda could go over some of the most controversial articles such as horoscope and just edit them for style, so they don't read so much like "one person says this, and another person says this." -- User:Bcrowell

In my own defense, I know nothing about Mercado so I have said nothing there at all. User:Bcrowell can apply whatever POV material he wants, and I won't interfere with it. In the other articles he has insistead on his POV that astrology is pseudoscience should dominate all ithers, and insists on a one-sided idiosyncratic interpretation of scientific method. He fails to understand that his true believer syndrome can afflict the orthodox scientific view just as much as its opponents. There are dogmatic Points of View on both sides of that divide, and I feel quite content to revert that kind of bullshit from either side. Eclecticology 02:38 Dec 22, 2002 (UTC)

I have to say I originally wrote the Walter Mercado article. Yes, I admire the man, because he is a legend of Puerto Rico and I did not know how to write back then because it was one of my very first articles. But in no way does it look like a fan page in my opinion. I am not personally a fan of his although I do admire him for the aforementioned reason. Tell me, if I attempted to make it look like a fan page would I have talked about his rumored (keep in mind I said rumored, Im not saying he is) homosexuality??

I like the page the way it is now. It looks less point of view and more like an encyclopedia article. As with all other articles I began to write, I will keep the page updated with any new information I get and I hope all over wiki-collaborators do the same.

Thanks and God bless you

Sincerely yours; Antonio I want Pink!! Martin

- - - -

By the way, is the use of a first-person sentence ("I think this is the type of users we don't really want on Wikipedia, and a few have been.") deliberate and ironic? If not, could this sentence itself be rephrased to NPOV?

___

If you are going to talk about "removing" people, lets get rid of this "anyone including you can edit an article now. Because to define "anyone" and then get really specific and say "you" but then employ some technical/legal device and perhaps force to exclude an individual from the category of you could very well provoke someone in a way we don't want to see. If you don't mean anyone, don't say it.

It worries me that this very important subject matter is spread across at least 3 articles. Wikipedia:Civility, Wikipedia:Wikiquette and Wikipedia:Staying cool when the editing gets hot. I don't see this as situation as necessarily bad or redundant in a functional sense. That is, I think it's valuable to have 3 kinds of pages: 1) a succinct cheat-sheet that we can point people to from the Welcome page or in our personal greetings to new users, which I think is the purpose the Wikiquette page serves now. 2) A good cheat sheet that mediators could provide a link to when a talk page discussion heats up, which I think the "Staying cool" page is meant to be. 3) A deeper and more substantiated discussion of civility to which we might direct the philosophically or ideologically uncivil ("Duh, I know how to be polite, but this place is a jungle and so it's jungle rules that I'm going to go by") or anybody who's interested. I think that's what's going on with the "Civility" page. My worry is that with 3 places for people to contribute ideas on Civility, some pages are liable to miss out on some valuable ideas, and our lean-mean cheat sheets about how to be nice will become bloated tomes that just turn away the cranky and make them crankier. To guard against this, I suggest we formally declare these pages a "series" or group of pages, which each acknowledge each other in some prominent and official-looking way. That way, if someone stumbles on what is not quite the right page for their idea or their need, they will know immediately where to go, and likewise would-be mediators will learn that they have a choice of where to point their hypothetical mediatees, and so be able pick the most suitable one. Also if these pages are more prominently connected to one another, someone with a good idea for one of them will be led to consider whether it's a good one for any of the others, and add it, either beefing it up or trimming it down, as appropriate to the page for which the idea is destined. What do people think? 168... 17:35, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Copied from Wikipedia talk:Civility: I suggest that anybody who is interested post responses there.168... 17:38, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I removed the redirect assigned to this page. The text of this article is very specific. When I need to remind a user of what to do to avoid an edit war, THIS is what i want them to read. Kingturtle 03:02, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Added "Deletion upsets people and makes them feel they have wasted their time: consider moving their text to a sub-directory of their user pages instead (e.g. saying not quite the right place for it but so they can still use it): much less provocative" this happened in my first 24 hours: set up a duplicate page without checking and wrote lots of stuff on it. Outrage at deletion become contentment with it being moved to my space to see what wasn't duplicated. --(talk)BozMo 21:00, 11 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Move request

(from WP:RM)

Wikipedia:Staying cool when the editing gets hot → Wikipedia:Stay cool.

[[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (hopefully!)]] 19:26, Oct 24, 2004 (UTC)
- Disagree for ambiguity reasons. Similar to "Be bold" above. This is an advice page about editing, not about regulating your body temperature. New users and visitors will get the right context from the current article title. All appropriate redirects are already in place, so finding the article (or citing it) is no problem. -- Netoholic @ 17:40, 2004 Oct 27 (UTC)
- The original title (staying cool when the editing gets hot) makes more sense, and also sounds more like an instruction page than an order. Angela . 03:27, Oct 30, 2004 (UTC)

Merge with Wikipedia:Writers rules of engagement?

These seem (from a cursory look) to be about the same topic. I think they should be merged; any objections? JesseW 12:55, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Please do not recommend altering others' talk comments

While material contributed to the article space is open for editing by any person, postings to the Talk space are the signed words of specific editors. It is not OK to alter someone else's words and leave their signature on them, since doing so makes it seem that the person wrote something different from what they actually wrote.

Altering someone else's signed words is forgery and misrepresentation. Even if you feel that someone else's words are objectionable, this does not convey to you the right to make it seem that they said something different from what they actually said.

--FOo 22:19, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

What he said. I've removed this text:

Edit their words to remove the insulting part—rephrase it as a simple statement of their beliefs, for example. Then answer the rephrased comment. If the insult is completely content-free, delete it.

From the article, as it goes directly against rather important parts of our code of conduct; the last time I looked, changing others' comments was considered a significant offense. -- Kizor 12:09, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Merge

Since it is not official policy, I have requested that SCEGH be merged into Wikipedia:Words of wisdom. →Iñgōlemo← ^talk 03:42, 2005 May 24 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the reason. There are many pages that are not policy in the Wikipedia: namespace. — Saxifrage ✎ 10:00, 28 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can we rename or merge this page?

It seems awfully out of place compared to other policy pages, despite containing some useful information. NEMT 16:21, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There are a lot of odd names in the Wikipedia namespace. For example, consider the target of WP:NFT. I actually rather like the long, descriptive names of some of these, especially since the shortcut redirects mitigate their unweildiness. — Saxifrage ✎ 23:38, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

May I?

Hello, may I murge the 2 pages together? General Eisenhower 00:04, 25 March 2006 (UTC)Eisenhower official[reply]

What two pages? — Saxifrage ✎ 00:15, 26 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nitpicking

This is a guideline re-stated as an essay. I can not see the point. I merged the text into Wikipedia:Etiquette, so given that is a "guideline" and this is an "essay", you should check that article to see I've stuffed up any further! You might also notice that article repeats almost word for word much of the content of this article, and both articles have the same message.

As for the merge not having support, 4 sections of the talk page call for a merge with no real objections (though I chose Wikipedia:Etiquette myself as there seem to be a number of pages essentially saying the same thing, and that was the most official / fully developed version). I notice you have not objected to the calls for a merge!

I have objected three times. Random people doing drive-by calls for mergers (as I must assume they were doing as none ever answered my questions) don't carry any weight. — Saxifrage ✎ 09:20, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If this page has to stay, at least you have put the essay template on here. There are a number of pages that link to here which imply it is something more. I don't have a problem with essays, but I think ones which simply regurgetate existing policy or guidelines, while not advancing any new arguments, serve only to clutter up the Wikipedia namespace. If this page was about the merits of being civil, or even uncivil, then it would have a place. At the moment it simply states ways to get along with fellow editors, and pushes the POV that it is good to be civil (Note: I am not saying that pushing a POV here is bad, I just think that it should only justify the POV) Also, I feel essays should be marked as such and "feel" like an essay - this feels like a POV semi-official-semi-guideline. Wikipedia:No angry mastodons gets this right - though it also tells us how to be civil (which is repeated elsewhere). Because it is an essay, I always intended to leave it alone! Gareth Aus 08:16, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No angry mastodons is a great essay, yes. This one is a bit rougher, but the fact that it's linked from so many places is significant. The first edits are in 2002, giving this page a lot of history and currency. Perhaps it's become redundant, but I think a merger should be done with due process and without any rush so that people who are attached to this page can weigh in or refine it. — Saxifrage ✎ 09:20, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support the merge

I support this merger, as long as the cucumber pictures as included. You've just got to love those pictures, absolutely hilarious

GreatKing 23:09, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]