User talk:Zeng8r/Archives/2007/December

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

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History of Ybor City

Each major city has it's own history page e.g. History of Los Angeles, California or History of Miami. The History of Tampa was started about a couple of years ago, but the quality of the article was poor until you came along to help me tremendously with the quality. Thanks Zeng8r! Since Ybor City has an extensive (and quite unique) history as Tampa itself, I also made an separate article, just in case the Ybor City article gets to lengthy. A great thank you for halp improving the Tampa articles. Cheers! --Moreau36 22:55, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I dunno if you'll get a notice that I replied, but... ok, it's not a big deal, but it seems like the same thing over and over again. You're welcome; I enjoy it AND I'm actually planning on writing a book based on the history I already knew plus the research I gathered... Zeng8r 23:09, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I just got the message. The best of luck with your book. Judging by your edits, you'll do an outstanding job with your book. I'll definitely buy it. --Moreau36 23:47, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Wow, that's two copies spoken for - you and my mom. It'll be a Tampa history-lite, for kids and busy adults. Over the last few years, I've put together a booklette on local history for my 5th grade classes since there really isn't anything for that audience in print right now. So I'm building on that. Zeng8r 00:59, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Peace

Hi. Sorry to have stepped so solidly on you toes. I should have chosen my words more wisely. One thing that I have discovered at WP is that few people are going to read long statements on talk pages. It's just a fact, sad but true. Best of luck and here's to happier times working together. --Kevin Murray 02:17, 22 September 2007 (UTC)


No hard feelings; it's not personal, it's just wiki. My outrage was fueled by the irony of being asked to help redesign the county's local history curriculum on the same day that excerpts from my bigwig-impressing manuscript are being (unjustly, imo) criticized on this site. Zeng8r 02:34, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
My passion is sailing and that's what I came here to write about. But I got both barrels of the critical shotgun on my first major article, which was about Catalina Yachts. I was accused of being a shill for the factory etc. My pictures were deleted because it "looked too much like a catalog." Another article about a major design team who had designed America's Cup boats was deleted as "vanity spam". No good deed goes unpunished. Please don't lose interest in the project. --Kevin Murray 15:40, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Kind reminder

After seeing your edits to a few South Florida related articles, I saw that you are a great writer (to be expected of an English teacher). However, the tone you are utilizing in writing does not really fit in with the proper tone of an encyclopedia. Brittanica, World Book, and Encarta do not use terms like "heydey" or phrases such as "Sometimes, big things grow from unlikely beginnings." While this is expected of prose, it is not expected of encyclopedia articles.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 07:58, 29 September 2007 (UTC)


Thanks for the compliments. I have serious misgivings about the way many wikipedia members forget the 5 pillars of wikipedia (not to mention standards of quality writing) and instead become fixated on their fuzzily-understood concept of "encyclopedic", which they obviously think means "so dry and boring that nobody would read it unless their teacher made them."
Looking though wikipedia, I have yet to find any policy, guideline, or rule which my writing violates. I have found plenty of poorly organized collections of garbled information posing as coherent articles. Those are the entries that need the attention of editors, not articles that are written "too well" (an actual quote from an email I received).
Honestly, I wouldn't want to be part of a project that is devoted to foisting more mind-numbingly dull prose on the world. But, nonwithstanding the opinions of some, I don't think that's the objective of wikipedia at all. Zeng8r 11:54, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Cuban sandwich

Hi! I see you've gotten kinda wound up about the Cuban sandwich article after trying to deal with a difficult editor. I how frustrating it can be, but I'd encourage you to try to keep your WP:COOL. Getting your dander up almost always makes the problem worse, especially with newcomers like the anonymous editor presumably is. Best regards, William Pietri 03:56, 4 November 2007 (UTC)


Yep, you're right. It's frustrating dealing with someone who keeps repeating the same (inaccurate) edit w/o discussion, especially on a topic near and dear to my stomach, er, heart. Thanks for taking a look. Zeng8r 04:03, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
The Original Barnstar
Zen, your knowledge of the history of our metro area is impressive. Nice articles! Blaze33541 (talk) 05:25, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I...I...I don't know what to say... except that I'm off to get some cafe con leche with Cuban toast to celebrate! Zeng8r (talk) 12:56, 24 November 2007 (UTC)


Wikipedia Sabbatical Over (kinda)

A column in today's Tampa Tribune apparently referencing wikipedia's Cuban sandwich article caught my eye, so I came back to check it out. Thankfully, I guess somebody else also saw it and repaired the inaccuracies before I had to do it (again).

However, I'm still a bit soured on the wikipedia experience and my time is still limited, so I'll only be making limited contributions and edits for the foreseeable future. Zeng8r 01:53, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Tomorrow Never Knows

Thanks a lot for your review of the Fabs song. Could you take it off the Good Article Candidates list? Thanks again. --andreasegde 01:25, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

No prob. I put one on the list, thought I should review one on a subject I kinda knew.... Zeng8r 01:29, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Strategy for Ybor City

02-Dec-2007 (From Wikid77): After reading the latest additions to the talk page (for "Ybor City"), I realize there are difficult opponents. I've found that the best hope is typically to focus on the History article (created by User:Moreau36). It's really amazing how much can be put over there with little objection/revision: just compare the history/revision-log of Ybor City versus the other article. Most wannabe experts just don't gut history articles as often.

Any city/town article seems to attract the "factoid-fans" who tend to gut everything towards becoming a fact-sheet, listing simple things, such as a list of city monuments, or a list of nearby schools. Those factoid-fans seem to think by removing paragraphs about a town's past, they allow more space for the "important" lists of stuff in the article. In fact, months ago, several editors, in the style of a group attack (a "cliqueopedia"), had even pretended to me that they were implementing a "new Wikipedia standard" for the infobox and layout of all city/town articles. On the contrary, there are several (competing) groups that have multiple styles & infobox tables for how to structure and condense city/town articles for various states/nations. The general problem with putting interesting text in a city/town article is that those articles (such as "Ybor City") attract those factoid-fans from the masses, en masse, so they win edit wars by the mass attack.

As you have clearly seen, the Wikipedia process is fatally flawed, with no measurement for when an article is "good enough" to leave intact (without gutting). Other editors, besides yourself, have questioned massive rewrites of their articles, so I have seen multiple articles hacked (when "good enough was good enough"). The Wikipedia policies are so poor that I had thought that, obviously, there should be other wiki encyclopedias where I could take my articles for better protection, but most other wiki projects are even worse for crazy policies. Wikipedia is big, with enough resources to become something good, some day, by improving edit-policies in the future. The strategy today is to "hide" valuable writing, such as in history articles (which bore the hacking masses), until the day that Wikipedia policies mature more to deal with controlling the hacks in today's complex world. Wikipedia article-management is a joke: you find Microsoft hiring people to alter/spin computer articles to their favor; Jewish slanting is systematically removing the word "Jew" from certain articles. Any real encyclopedia, or even tourism website, is tempted to hire hacks to gut Wiki articles about Florida's tourist destinations. They can easily continue making Wikipedia look like a joke, while offering better articles about tourist spots in Florida on their websites.

For now, put the best writing in history articles. For editing "Ybor City" when someone hacks or inserts false text, tag it [with "{{fact}}"], and then it can be removed in a week or so. Meanwhile, readers will see "citation needed" and think, "Humm, that statement is probably false." Multiple hackings can be reverted in that manner, but it takes weeks to slip all the changes back in. Fortunately, most people who fight obstinately, on their initial edits, will lose interest in only a few weeks, and the text can be returned as before. I feel certain that Wikipedia policies will improve soon, because the wild masses now have joined the editing, and many wiki managers have realized that "too many KOOKS spoil the broth" (or the article). Hang in there: there is real hope for a sensible future in Wikipedia. -Wikid77 11:55, 2 December 2007 (UTC)


Thanks for the support. This site has become so important as a world-wide repository for information, but it’s frustrating to see how easy it is for just a few misguided (or, even worse, malicious or manipulative) users to distort, destroy, and misrepresent accurate material contributed by users who actually know what they’re talking about. Zeng8r 16:30, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Civility warning on Talk:Ybor City, Tampa, Florida

Hello Zeng8r, I'm quite concerned about your comments on the Ybor City talk page. You seem to be trying to exert an extreme sense of ownership over this article; I would ask that you keep in mind that no one owns any article. Please also remember to assume good faith in your dealings with other editors; operate from the standpoint that people are trying to help the article, not hurt it. Your comments are bordering on personal attacks, which is why I chose to leave you this message. Please be more civil with your statements in the future. Thanks. GlassCobra 08:44, 3 December 2007 (UTC)


Since you're repeating the same words as the person I'm debating on that article, I assume you haven't read that entire talk page. (Can't blame you, it's far longer than the article itself...)
In a nutshell, the issue is that a couple of editors have completely rewritten an article on a subject about which they admittedly know nothing due to an (inaccurate, imo) claim of "tone" problems. As someone who helped to write the original article and who knows quite a great deal about the subject, I objected. The only "attack" was me 1) repeatedly stating that they had no grasp of the topic and were making errors of both fact and omission in their edits and 2) quoting the wikipolicies they cited and pointing out that they clearly did not justify their actions.
In response, one of the users in question suddenly changed the reason for the extreme edits from tone to a "lack of references". When I pointed out that it already had many references, he began to nitpick sentence by sentence, stating that pretty much every phrase needed a citation, to the point that it was obviously a facetious and unconstructive attempt to prolong an invalid argument.
I was done arguing at that point and told him so. I guess reporting me for "incivility" is a way to try to continue the debate. I don't see how that would be productive, since it's very hard to assume good faith under these circumstances.
Oh, almost forgot to mention... a "tone" banner was placed on the article back in early October and was removed after discussion. But the same editor put it back on a few weeks later, restarting the debate and quickly editing the text before any knowledgable users besides myself noticed what was going on. Zeng8r 12:39, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I have read the entire talkpage; you are assuming bad faith when you assume that I would not fully acquaint myself with the situation before involving myself. Contrary to what you apparently believe, I am repeating what those who disagree with you have said because they are quite correct. Plain and simple, Wikipedia does not allow peacock terms, and whether or not they are "common knowledge" does not make them compatible with the neutral point of view policy. You would do very well to read the most recent section on the Ybor City talk page. GlassCobra 23:33, 3 December 2007 (UTC)


I assumed you didn't read the talk page because 1) I've seen more than one instance in which a 3rd party took a side in a dispute on the word of one person without actually reading the entire discussion and 2) I disagree with both your assement of both the article and my behavior and thought perhaps it was do to a lack of context. In any case, you do deserve some credit if you did read all of that pontificating...

I don't believe I crossed any lines in that discussion, but if I did, I followed in the footsteps of other participants, one of whom began the "discussion" by making accusations of plagerism in an edit summary. And it certainly seemed obvious to me that one in particular (skunk-something) is a whole lot more interested in endless argument that in collaborative encyclopedia building.

Also, I am aware of wikipedia's "peacock" policy. The original article did not violate it. While you may not agree, my viewpoint is shared by other users on the relevant talk page. I wouldn't have made a peep of protest about minor adjustments, however, and could have easily clarified any details with more cited facts if requested.

What a couple of users actually did, however, was rewrite huge chunks of text, blindly removing and over-condensing and questioning basic info despite a total lack of knowledge of the subject. That's the issue I have with the edits. And, by the way, I actually did fix some of the introduced errors several days ago. The repairs were wiped out in a wave of further edits, which is why I do not intend to return to the article until the flurry passes.

Again - did you catch that this new argument was a resumption of a recently closed one? The previous "tone" banner was discussed and removed about a month ago. As you can see from the page history, it wasn't me who removed it - it was someone else who agreed that the article was fine as-is. Is it acceptable to repeatedly slap a warning on an article and restart the debate until you get the result you want? It's unconstructive to the greater good of this whole project, imo - editors should move on and find one of the thousands and thousands of article that actually need help. Zeng8r 02:25, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Greetings Zeng from mikeL.

Thanks for your response to my latest comments on the Ybor page. They were meant for this page but I got muddled. My point is that you are always vulnerable to fools because of the way Wikipedia works. You can not alter that. My attitude is patient resignation mixed with mild contempt.

The wartime servicemans phrase "don't let the bastards grind you down" and Groucho's (well it should have been his) "is this a private fight or can anyone join in ?" come to mind. Remember most of these unadjusted clowns have an intolerent need to assert themselves and Wikipedia gives them a way to do so. Pity that they completely ignore the purpose of Wikipedia in the process.

Anyone who battles against all this is an ill-advised hero. So take it easy(?easily?),

enjoy your daughter and I hope in a small way my best wishes from mikeL

...now sinbot (little cutie) can sign this for me I think it makes him happy —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.97.161.230 (talk) 09:37, 5 December 2007 (UTC)


Thanks again for the reassurances that this whole place isn't a completely lost cause. I was pretty steamed at first, but now "patient resignation mixed with mild contempt" is an apt description of my current attitude as well, perhaps with a little pity thrown in.
Have you noticed the latest edit summaries (and edits) on the Ybor City article? Jeez. Just... jeez. Know any good admins? They (I suspect sockpuppets are involved, but whatever) have the article locked down right now with instant reverts. I'd like to actually restore it at some point, but I'm not going to waste my valuable time if every contribution starts a new edit war. Zeng8r (talk) 12:50, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Ybor City

Hey. I saw your note on the WP:Florida page and I took a look at the Ybor City article. I'd like to offer a few friendly suggestions. First of all you have to aproach things calmly. It's really easy to get really emotional about things especially when you're dealing with something that's close to you as Ybor apparantly is. Most people aren't trying to piss you off intentionally. They just want what's best for wikipedia. TSecondly, I suggest you read up on the guidelines you've been cited. Understanding how the policies work will help you argue your points effectively. Now, this one is specific to the last discussion on the talk page. What wikipedia policy ammounts to is that you can say that someone considered Ybor a "hip place to be" but you can't say that Ybor is a "hip place to be". Do you understand the difference? And yes you'll have to use reliable sources to back things up. Even if you feel it's trivial and even if you have to use the same source more than once in the same paragraph. The reason is that people will challenge you. If it's backed up then it's backed up.

I got most of my experience in these matters working on articles for WP:AFRO. Nearly every article we work on is contentious. Outside of religion and politics they're some of the most contentious articles on Wikipedia. What you're dealing with is nothing. Trust me. But if you're patient and you are willing to make adjustments to your content to fit with Wikipedia then it'll be fine.

I'll try to keep an eye on the Ybor article so there can be a bit of balance. Good luck. CJ (talk) 20:10, 7 December 2007 (UTC)


Yeah, I was rather pissed by the discussion-opening edit summary, but I've been relatively calm (if a bit sarcastic) since then. My main concern was that users with absolutely no knowledge about Ybor/Tampa were rewriting and ruining pretty good article. Now that it seems that they're balanced by a number of local editors, I can sit back, relax, and let the editing process happen.
Anyway, thanks for the advice and the input. Zeng8r 21:01, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Hey look, here's the deal, right now because you're the only voice of dissent the merger is probably going to go through. I know you don't agree with it but if you keep working on the entire Ybor city article and size becomes an issue (it gets over something like 30kb) the history can be split back out. Please don't take it personally. It's just how wikipedia works. A lot of the concerns have nothing to do with content or knowing the content. It's about organization. And the quality of the work won't be affected. CJ (talk) 11:53, 10 December 2007 (UTC)


To merge or not to merge isn't the question, imo; it's the info that's important. My goal is to push the new version of the History of Ybor City to Good Article quality or better, which would probably make it too long to be a section in another article. But I really don't mind if it's merged or not as long as a comprehensive history is on here somewhere.

And thanks for your concern; I'll be ok... ("deep breaths, deep breaths") :-)

Seriously, the thing that ticked me off there were those non-locals judging the article and taking stuff out out of sheer ignorance ("Errybody in Florida has alligators in the yard!"), then arrogantly arguing that they were better judges than I to decide what should be included or not. Zeng8r (talk) 14:49, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Invite

Century Tower

As a current or past contributor to a related article, I thought I'd let you know about WikiProject University of Florida, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of University of Florida. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks and related articles. Thanks! ~~~~