Wikipedia:Editor review/Alison

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[edit] Alison

Alison (talk · contribs)

Some of you may know me by just "Ali-oops" from my sig. I've just successfully completed the username change process!

I focus much of my editorial effort on pharmacological articles as well as articles on psychology and Irish language and culture. The rest of my time is spent on fighting vandals and administrivia :) I can tend to be a WikiGnome and spend time chasing citations and generally prettying-up crufty articles. I'd love some feedback on how I'm doing and maybe what I can do to improve myself as an editor, especially around de-POVing and formatting. I'd also like to know if my talk page edits are appropriate as sometimes, I feel I can be a bit snippy and that's not a Good Thing so I primarily want to make sure that I'm being fair. Alison☺ 17:18, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Reviews

  • Speaking as the other editor involved in the dispute over the citation style on the Steve Stanton page, with my 20-20 hindsight (obviously much better than my sight at the time) I would say that you handled the dispute the best that you could at the time. My only regrets regarding your actions then was (1) that you didn't stick around to sort out the misunderstanding, & (2) a certain action taken on my user page (since reverted). But on the other hand, I can well understand why you didn't stick around at the time, given what must have seemed to you as a reaction on my part that was way over the top. By way not of excuse (there is none), but rather of explanation: I was under the misapprehension that you had initiated the changes to the original citation style I began the article with, & only far into the process called for a consensus on citation style. Turns out -- it was another editor who'd made those first changes to style. Even had you been the one, it would have behooved me to be less testy & reactive. I'm sorry. I hope that we can find a way to clean the slate between us & put the dispute behind us. In the end, I think that in spite of anything you did to escalate, the fault lies more with me than you. I've been glad to see you coming back again as an editor on that page -- your edits from the get-go have significantly improved the article, & you've taught me a few valuable things in the process. Again, my apologies for our earlier misunderstanding. Best wishes. --Yksin 04:27, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Thanks for your insight, Yksin. What you say is true; I should have really stuck around until the issue was entirely resolved, rather than leaving it hanging like that. I'd like to apologise for doing that and, may I say, you have done a top-notch, excellent job on the Steve Stanton article. It was largely down to your stellar editing that it went on to become a DYK feature. I really appreciate your feedback here and look forward to working with you again. - Alison☺ 04:59, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
  • From what I've seen of you, you're a friendly user. You don't mind giving help to other users; you've been active at AIV and RFC/U; created a WikiProject; you keep cool during conflicts; you contribute greatly to the subjects you're interested in; and you will have 7000 edits very, very soon. (Probably within the next few minutes or so.) If you ever decided to become an administrator, you would make great use of the administrative abilites. Acalamari 19:16, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Thanks for that! Sorry for the delay in responding but I've ... ummm ... got something else taking up my time right now ;) - Alison☺ 04:59, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
      • This is late as well, but you are very welcome. :) Acalamari 23:05, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Comments

Questions

  1. Of your contributions to Wikipedia, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?
    I'm very pleased about setting up Wikipedia:WikiProject Irish Maritime as it was kinda crying out to be created. This has given us Irish seafaring and waterways folks a forum for collaborating on articles related to our island nation. I'm planning on expanding it to have an Article of the Week for us all to hit up, as well as a mechanism for reviewing and rating existing articles and maybe bringing some up to FA standard. In all this, the payback I get is from the close collaboration I experience with the other editors as we help each other out on stuff of mutual interest. That's where it's all at for me. Throughout my time here, there have been a core of editors that I have become friends with and we seem to work well together (I'm thinking especially of pharmaceutical and LGBT articles here).
  2. 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 had some conflict recently with another editor over the Steve Stanton article, which we both contributed to extensively. Our disagreement came from our differing citation styles. At a point through the article development (which, incidentally, went on to become a DYK feature) I realised that we were editing in conflict. I brought it to the talk page and reverted my own previous edit as I didn't want to cause offence. Well, the idea about broaching it on the talk page was to kinda nip it in the bud and allow us to work together. It didn't work out and instead, escalated. I left somewhat amicably as I felt it prudent and I didn't want to fall out with the other editor. What did I do wrong here and where is there room for improvement in future? Was I fair/unfair in this instance? I'm not looking for comfort here, just answers :)
  3. Who are your main role-models on Wikipedia? The Transhumanist   20:45, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
    Thanks for the questions :). Well ... there are a number of administrators that I'm in awe of right now. I don't want to mention names, but their tireless work has been only astounding. And, sadly, it's often thankless. In articlespace, I'm impressed with the work of User:Fvasconcellos who has been invaluable to the wiki in regards to pharmacological work. Specifically, they hit an article, tidy and clean it up and provide proper, primary source references to their input. This latter component is oft overlooked in editing of technical articles (like drugs for example).
  4. What areas or aspects do you believe Wikipedia needs the most improvement in? The Transhumanist   20:45, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
    Definitely articles - especially specialist/technical ones - need to cite primary sources clearly and consistently. This is so often not the case. I'd like to see more use of {{citation required}} and have it applied in a sensible manner. This makes it a lot easier to pinpoint both POV and reader confusion and makes my job easier as an editor in hunting down the references that people want the most.