Otherlleft (talk · contribs) I'm a writer by avocation, and I'm still looking for better ways to do so collaboratively on Wikipedia. I believe my biggest strength is my grasp of written American English, and the area I'm most unlikely to grow in is anything code- or programming-related. That being said, I am interested in knowing how I can become a better contributor, and whether or not that quick self-assessment jibes with how others judge my work. otherlleft (talk) 02:50, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
Reviews
- Review by Useight
- First a disclaimer: I am always frank and objective, this review will be no exception. The first thing I noticed going through your talk page is that, on a regular basis, you are asked to be more careful when reverting, especially when using Huggle. I have not yet reviewed your contribs, so I can't yet say whether I agree, but that will come shortly. However, I can already tell that you are willing to admit error and improve. I must echo J.delanoy below, when you notice you make an error when Huggling, revert yourself immediately. If someone else beats you to fixing the error, immediately go to their talk page and thank them for doing so.
- Huggle errors
- I looked at each of your last 237 Huggle edits (that's the number of Huggle edits you've made out of your last 500 total edits), I found these errors. If numbers 9 and 10 each count as two mistakes, I see you have 20 mistakes out of 237 edits, so that's an 8.4% error rate. This is too high. I now completely agree with my colleagues, you need to slow down with Huggle. Look closely at each edit. If there is even the slightest chance that it could be considered a good faith edit, do not use Huggle to revert it.
- Did not remove all vandalism - Another editor fixed 7 hours later.
- Reverted good faith edit
- Reverted good faith edit
- Reverted good faith edit
- Reverted good faith edit
- Reverted good faith edit
- Reverted good faith edit
- Second good faith revert of same edit
- Reverted Sandbox and warned for it. But at least you removed the warning, so that was good.
- Reverted Sandbox, and warned. Did not remove warning.
- Reverted good faith edit (3 times now on same edit, I believe you were warned on your talk page about this instance)
- Reverted good faith edit
- Reverted good faith edit (4 times now)
- Reverted good faith edit
- Reverted good faith edit
- Reverted good faith edit
- Reverted good faith edit
- Reverted good faith edit
- Mainspace work
- I found your mainspace work to be very excellent. You do quite a number of various tasks. Fromfinding and adding references, to copyediting, to adding categories, you do excellent work in the mainspace.
- Wikipedia namespace
- AFD work looks good; comments are well thought out and you participate in discussions. This comment demonstrates that you believe consensus trumps your personal opinion.
- AIV work is excellent. I went back through every single report you made to AIV (through Huggle or otherwise) and each was subsequently blocked. I think you have a thorough handle on what constitutes blockable behavior.
- You created a WikiProject earlier this month and it already has ten members (and I see you have a goal to get that to twenty), so excellent work there, too.
That's my overall review. If you have any questions, contact me any time. Useight (talk) 01:17, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
- Review by J.delanoy
- From what I can see, you are doing a very good job here. I see a lot of Huggle reverts, but also many thoughtful AFD comments and involvement in other areas of the project space. You have also done quite a bit of article writing, with a couple DYKs thrown in! That kind of variation is, IMHO, amazing. How do you do that?
- As far as behavior goes, from just a short look at your talk page, you have evidenced that you are levelheaded, thoughtful, and not afraid to admit when you are at fault. Those characteristics, especially the last one, are invaluable, and they will both be an asset to you, and they will make you a real plus for this project as a whole. Actually, they will help you everywhere, in both cyberspace and meatspace, so I thank you for being willing to lend them to this site.
- The one small thing I see is that Huggle is apparently living up to its reputation as an untamed beast. Don't be too discouraged by your errors, just try to take a second and ask yourself if you really want to revert an edit, and if you make an error, immediately self-revert.
- Over all, you are doing a lot of good work. People who contribute extensively in as many areas as you do are somewhat rare, and frankly, they scare me. That much variance is just, wow. Anyways, aside from that one small issue, I don't see any problems. Keep up the good work! J.delanoygabsadds 05:29, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
- I was going to make a comment about you nomming me for deletion, but I think I'll be nice. For now...... ;-)
- Yet another review by RockManQ
Hello there, Otherlleft. Heh, just like to thank you for your review. In no way should you view this as a favor in return. I thought about reviewing you before you reviewed me, but you beat me to the punch :) Anyways, without further ado, let's start the review (nice rhyme me).
- Huggle
By no means should you let Huggle errors discourage you. We all make mistakes, myself included. I don't want to seem lecture-y or talk about this in too much detail, but when I make a mistake what I do is:
- Immediately revert my mistake
- Go and delete the warning (if issued)
- Apologize to the editor in question
- Reflect on why I thought it was vandalism
You are quite the Huggler. 1,000+ edits with Huggle is something to be proud of, you are a true Wikidefender. :) You seem to be an otherwise anti-vandal expert (funny, when I'm huggling you never seem to be :P). You're also approaching the editing speed and editcount of a bot, much like J.delanoy above.
- General Editing
Your mainspace contributions are excellent, throwing in two DYK's as well. Your talkpage shows one of a level headed, thoughtful person. You seem to have done patroling as I can see from SQL's tool, but you don't have NPWatcher. If you do a lot of patroling, using it (or Huggle, I personally prefer Huggle, but NPWatcher is good too) can be even faster. I could write a lot more about you, but I mostly echo the comments above. I look forward to collaboration on the Halloween Wikiproject, which you created! Managing a wikiproject can be tough and demanding, but you seem to be doing well. I also look forward to assessing more articles for the project :) RockManQReview me 02:53, 2 December 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?
- Headless Horseman Hayride is a page I found looking like this. I know the place and was surprised that such a stubby, ad-type page hadn't been deleted. I have contributed heavily to it since to make it a much more encyclopedic article.
- I expanded Elting Memorial Library and created Survival of the Shawangunks, both of which got DYK notice.
- I have done a fair amount of gnome work on Jason West.
- 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?
- While participating in the discussion at [recent bow tie AfD] I got extremely frustrated with posts that seemed bad faith to me and had to distance myself. I did talk to the nominator about my concerns regarding his position, and pointedly avoided being much of a presence in the DRV because I quickly saw that the same tone continued (by both sides), and I just didn't want to be involved in that sort of discussion. Threatening to recall an admin for making a decision is a little over the top in a case like that.
- Someone got mad at me for bold edits, and I decided that to only revert vandalism on that page. There appeared to be a suggestion of consensus that the Heroes page was way to friggin' long, but I'm not here to fight. My response to the anonymous posting was, erm, not the friendliest, but the post was pretty offensive in the first place.
- I annoyed another editor by prodding Hugh Kearney because it didn't assert notability. He copied a page from somewhere else on the web to prove notability, and I put a COPYVIO tag on it, since that's what it was. I explained that I wasn't attacking him, and he calmed down, and despite the fact that I'm convinced the article still doesn't assert notability (the references are all things the guy wrote himself, or press releases about him), I didn't go to AfD with it. I've come to realize that actions like that are pretty vindictive, and that just because the article sucks doesn't mean I need to see to it that it's ground into dust. I guess the bow tie debate taught me something!