Wikipedia:Editor review/Merkinsmum
Merkinsmum (talk · contribs) Hi I would like an editor review out of curiosity as to weaknesses people perceive in me, and I would appreciate it very much.:) Merkinsmum 00:52, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Review by delldot:
Hey Merkinsmum, sorry you've had to wait so long for a review. Some thoughts:
- Interactions with other users - I think you're doing a great job. I noticed friendly interaction even with people you obviously disagreed with. I like your use of humor and apparent willingness to laugh even when confronted or criticized. There's not much activity on your talk page, pretty amazing for someone who definitely doesn't shy away from the drama, so maybe this suggests you're doing a good job. I like that you add a 'lol' to make statements sound less harsh. It also looks like you spend a fair amount of time reaching out to other users, from the thank you messages I see on your talk page. Which is awesome.
- You participate in some heated areas, always with very sensible comments from what I looked at. With some of your posts, it was a little hard to tell if you were being sarcastic or rude, but I saw nothing like outright incivility. You seem like a very sensible contributor. I also like your thoughts about the risks of getting drawn in to 'titillating drama'.
- Your philosophy from Q2 is very sound, and it looks like it's been working for you. Although it might be handy to consider the possibility of wrongdoing on your own part as well, rather than relying on the other person to see the error of their ways. Don't worry, this is purely a response to your answer, not to any actions I saw on your part.
- Knowledge of policy: Poor. Your user and talk pages had me lol-ing all over the place: Don't you know humor is not permitted on Wikipedia? XD But really, you seem quite familiar with policy from everything I saw you posted.
- Writing - Doesn't look like this is what you spend most of your time doing, just from counts, I could be missing big edits, though. Nice work on User:Merkinsmum/Self-discrepancy theory. What's holding up the move to the mainspace?
- Very nice work on Gillian McKeith. A few nitpicky things: About this sentence, McKeith is a popular author; her book You Are What You Eat reportedly sold just under one million copies... I'd recommend just stating the facts, rather than saying she's popular. Show don't tell: the reader can figure out whether or not she's popular from the facts. I don't know if you even added this, though. Here's another one: why's the citation in such a weird place in this sentence: ...produced television programme that was[1] broadcast... Another one: their new regime of diet, exercise and abstinence for eight weeks is this the kind of abstinence I'm thinking of? Maybe should specify (see, I'm from the US, where the Christian Right has a thing for this word). Kind of pointless for me to go on nitpicking the article here, but maybe you could give it a copyedit for wording stuff like this.
- Thoughts on RFA - You've definitely got the time and familiarity with policy, but your edit count is a little low for the edit count types. Also you might get trouble for lack of artile writing.
- Other - Helpful hint: You know you can link to a category (rather than including a page in the category by putting a colon in front of it within the links [[:Category:Raving lunatics]]. You can link to a page on another wikimedia project by including the prefix that comes before 'wikipedia' or 'wikimedia' in the URL. For example, [[commons:Image:Cat.jpg]] produces commons:Image:Cat.jpg and [[:es:gato]] gives es:gato (gotta use the colons or it will include it in the lefthand languages box, as I just remembered by failing to). On an unrelated note, you know we can't use fair use images in the userspace, right? Just asking because of your comment about using an Ali G image in a userbox, pardons if I've misunderstood.
- Overall contribution - You're clearly an asset to the project. I'd love to see more article writing. Your humor and lightheartedness adds positively to discussions. Hope to see you around more in the future. delldot talk 19:53, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
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- Thank you! The Gillian McKeith hasn't been edited by me for some time, but I like to think I started improving it a little. And the userbox is by User:Major Bonkers. I learned that the policy for fair use images is very strict, usually being just the image of the subject of an article in its article I think, at least with photographs of people. Which is a shame for our articles and entertainments- but can't be helped I suppose.
update yes I have been gripped by ANI lol but hopefully I'm getting back to a bit of article writing in a way. Oh I'd forgot about self-discrepancy theory- a requested article I think. What's held me back is a confidence thing, as it's not a subject with which I was familiar before I started to research it for wiki. Also I get my attempts in proportion from seeing the articles produced by those such as User:Mattisse. Her articles are so long and in depth when she adds them to mainspace. I suppose I shouldn't be ashamed to just put a stub or brief article up- at least it's a start upon which others or myself may improve. What editing in article space I've done recently has been from hitting 'random page'- hence my sig, apart from it being a self-reference.:) Then, I enjoy merging or trying to delete what I view as non-notable articles, I must admit.:) My edit count may look a little lower if you view it through some counters, because I also enjoy AfD and quite a few articles I've edited have gone the way of all flesh. They were poorly, I like to think, before I started on them.:) Anyway now I've made myself sound evil lol, so I'll have to go and do something adorable to some articles.Special Random (Merkinsmum) 22:20, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
- lol, you go and do that :-) I know what you mean about the confidence thing with adding articles to the mainspace. I wouldn't worry about stubbiness, since as you say, the sooner it's there the sooner it can be improved on. But if you're concerned about accuracy, then absolutely err on the safe side. You might consider leaving a note at the relevant wikiprojects for expert review before moving. Also consider using {{workpage}} if you're not sure how accurate it is. Keep it up :-) delldot talk 22:52, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Comments
- View this user's edit count using Interiot's 'Wannabe Kate' Tool
Questions
- Of your contributions to Wikipedia, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?
- Although I didn't get it to GA status or keep at it for long, I like to think I played a part in getting the Gillian McKeith article to where it is, as when I came across it it was a poor, unencyclopedic lampoon. Also getting the The Goblin Trilogy and related articles AfD'd, they were so misleading. And I strive to keep articles NPOV, and think I'm generally an o.k. person on wikipedia. I've written some small articles, and am quite good at finding sources I think.
- Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or do you feel other users have caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?
- I've tended to just move on, or luckily other editors have been alongside me and shared my view of the problems/people and helped overcome them, so it's not really been that bad. An admin annoyed me once with her POV issues, luckily or unluckily soon after that she left wikipedia as she lost her temper over something else, then felt embarrassed. Don't know if she's come back yet. I like to think that nowadays I try to keep to policies such as NPOV etc so I can't go that wrong because I'm following the rules. Hopefully my 'opponent' is merely mistaken about wikipedia and inexperienced, and after learning more about wikipedia allows their articles to improve, and/or accepts things.Merkinsmum 01:06, 18 December 2007 (UTC)