User talk:Trisreed

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[edit] Unilateral removal of the history section in ABC article

Hi Trisreed

We have an unpleasant situation about to develop over this action by one "cyberjunkie" ("cj"), who decided all of a sudden that he'd move the entire History section of the ABC article to a new daughter article, without replacing it with a summary. The history section was almost entirely written more than a year ago.

Since this action on 12 September, the section has languished with no text at all under its title, save a link to the daughter article.The action has, in effect, gutted the article, leaving what appear to be insubstantial fragments without a core. It's must be odd to the newcomer to be denied a summary of the history and to move straight onto a chunky section on "funding and relationship with government" without knowing where how the institution arose.

Now, it's not that I disagree with him that the History section was written in greater detail than you'd normally expect in summary style. (A related issue is that the rest of the article may need to be fleshed out in the opposite direction to achieve satisfactory summary coverage of the topic—perhaps the optimal balance needs to be debated on the talk page.) What I do object to is

• (1) his failure to raise the matter on the talk page beforehand, and
• (2) provide replacement text with the summary style that he's using as his stated rationale for the removal.

The edit comment for the removal was "split (will summarise later)", whereas I'd have been pleased to see a summary written before the removal, for immediate replacement.

I've raised the matter on the talk page, and Cyberjunkie has responded negatively:

I think a total blank is worse than a long history. Please create a summary soon. Your action has resulted in damage to the overall article, IMV. Tony 11:16, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Whereas, I disagree. --cj | talk 12:41, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I can see that this is getting nowhere. I wonder whether you agree that he should either undertake to write a summary section in the near future (I suggest three or four paragraphs) or reinstate the text and raise the issue on the talk page.

I'd appreciate knowing your opinion. The ABC's talk page is here. Tony 14:02, 12 November 2006 (UTC)