Wikipedia:Editor review/YechielMan

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[edit] YechielMan

YechielMan (talk · contribs) I have been present at Wikipedia since Fall 2005 and more active in the last couple of months. As a long-term goal, I am considering to seek adminship. Currently I contribute at WP:AFD, WP:RFA, and WP:DEAD. At RFA I see people opposing candidates because they don't leave edit summaries or whatever. Usually this kind of behavior is considered undesirable regardless of whether one is running for adminship or not, but if you're not, nobody cares. So I'd like to see if my edit summaries are clear enough, if my AfD participation is helpful, if I need to notify authors when I nominate their articles for deletion, and if I need to branch out into territory I haven't dealt with yet. YechielMan 09:48, 6 February 2007 (UTC)


Reviews

  • review by delldot:
  • I noticed your great article contributions! Some article writing suggestions: When writing an article, give it a good lead sentence. Also, try to link it to as many other articles as are related, so it doesn't become an orphan or nearly orphanned page.
  • Looks like your edit summary usage could improve some. You may want to change it in your preferences so it prompts you if you go to save without one. Edit summaries help other users (like when they're doing editor reviews!). When posting an article for deletion, it's helpful to link to the article in your edit summary [1]
    • Update: sorry, I wrote this when I was looking through your article contributions linked to on your user page, which are older. Lately your edit summary usage has been pretty perfect, though as I mentioned, sometimes not the most informative. But really this is a minor point. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Delldot (talk • contribs) 14:14, 22 February 2007 (UTC).
  • You're apparently very committed to Wikipedia, which is good for us, and maybe not necessarily good for you. I noticed on your talk page that your therapist recommended taking some time off. Maybe you should enforce a limit on yourself! I'm torn: I want what's best for the encyclopedia, but I also don't want to take too much of a toll on your life. You risk burning out if you do too much, you know? Anyway, ultimately this is up to you, but I want you to know that no one will resent it if you take the time you need for yourself off of the project. You'll still be as valued a contributor as ever. Case in point: I took 6 months off to write my thesis, and made maybe only 100 edits in that entire 6 months. And I just passed my RfA with something like 100% support (not that RfA is like the end-all-be-all of Wikipedia, I'm just using it as an example that no one in the community appeared to resent me taking the time I needed for myself. No one even brought it up, in fact). So take the time you need.
  • I thought this was a little curt. I'm sure you didn't mean to bite, but some newcomers are very shy and easily scared off, so it's best to be very friendly. I always link to Wikipedia:Introduction in messages to new users, to give them a way to get their bearing.
  • Looks like you've had a ton of activity in the past two months, and not much before. As you probably know, you probably haven't been editing seriously (making lots of edits) for long enough to pass an RfA. You're probably aware of this, since you said RfA was a goal for the future, not necessarily soon. If you do decide to try for RfA at some point, I'd suggest scoping out WP:RfA and comparing yourself to the other candidates: can you answer the questions that they get? have your contributions been similar? If you're most similar to folks who aren't passing, I'd wait a while. Of course, you probably know all of this; I read some of your reviews of other users and they were very well-informed on that front.
  • You have an insane amount of project space contribution and you're obviously well versed in policy (which I can tell from that and your other editor reviews).
  • You used to be a vandal? Or were you just testing? Anyway, it's great that you've come around! I'm always psyched to see casual users turn into real contributors!
  • All in all, I'm quite impressed by how fast you've picked up policy and the ridiculous amount of project participation you've done. I think the biggest problem is that sometimes you're a little blunt with other editors, which can come across as more mean than it's intended, since we don't have the voice and facial cues that exist in real life to show you don't mean any harm. I'd suggest looking before you save to see if there's any way to soften your wording (though I'd never advise holding back comments that could be productive and helpful). I think you're doing a great job and would hope that you keep up the good work (without burning yourself out or taxing your real life too much!) delldot | talk 05:22, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Comments

Questions

  1. Of your contributions to Wikipedia, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?
    I listed some contributions I am pleased with on my user page. I am especially pleased with the one on endgame tablebase - it started before I looked at it as a poorly written few paragraphs, and with help from User:Bubba73, I've turned it into a good article candidate, with relevant external links, and a variety of sources from the two chess magazines (EG and the ICGA) that deal with computer analysis of chess endgames. I also created Category:Awdal, Somalia and cleaned up articles in that category
  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?
    My user talk page refers to [2]. There I nominated the article without doing due diligence, and Kevin Murray criticized me for it. I responded with some kind of justification, and life went on. (The debate ended as "no consensus.") I've never been in an edit war, nor have I made substantive changes to a controversial article because I don't want to get into fights. I will continue to avoid conflicts, and resolve them if they occur, by assuming good faith, communicating openly, and requesting third-party help if that doesn't work.