User talk:Markifur

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Welcome!

Hello, Markifur, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome!

[edit] Your recent edits

STOP uploading Duplicate images. It is disruptive and I have warned you about this before.--STX 22:54, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wazzup?

I've been watching your edits to Ron Paul articles and think I need to point out a few WP norms to prevent further potential conflict. I too am a raving fan of Paul's, but as you are no doubt learning, Wikipedians do not take kindly to edits which are biased toward any one point of view. The reason you are accumulating a string of warnings from widely diverse editors is that it is necessary to learn the styles and methods before contributing to controversial articles. I see that you've already gotten some level-3 warnings and I am not willing to go to level 4 now (which says "you will be blocked next time"), because I see you are attempting to learn the methods. Here's a few things to keep in mind.

  • I haven't studied the blow-by-blow on the map at Republican straw polls, but I do see what appears to be you and Southern Texas fighting over the content. This is, or is close to, edit warring, and this kind of battle should be derailed immediately by discussion on the Talk page-- not in the edit summaries, which should remain neutral. The talk page is here and you can vent freely. Southern Texas and I have been the primary editors in the past and we are open to reasonable discussion, which usually is better at building consensus than repeating bold editing which has been reverted. See also the bold, revert, discuss cycle.
  • Wikipedians dislike duplicate images. Pick one filename for any given image, upload your changes to that one (with edit summary), discuss any disagreements, and delete all other duplicates. There is no need to create separate filenames for the historical versions of one image; the WP interface already handles that seamlessly.
  • Of course, images must be free. Please post a license with photos (I know this is hard to learn and can take some experimentation). Fair use rationales are occasionally acceptable but usually get shot down by someone with better knowledge of the procedure.
  • Content must be verifiable. If you have a pet theory about the Holocaust (I haven't read to see what your view may be), please find reliable, verifiable sources for that theory, and then give it the weight due to it when neutrally considering the weight of authority for any alternative theories. While I love original research personally, I agree with WP policy that this encyclopedia is emphatically not the place for it; original research belongs on blogs and press releases so it can bubble up into more reliable reportage.
  • If you think Paul won the most recent poll in a state, read everything carefully, he may not have. I saw that Paul's campaign mentioned his Iowa win a day or two after it happened. I declined to post that win here because I could not find any reliable report of it anywhere-- while I trust the campaign's one-line report as accurate, it cannot be presented here because it is not balanced by the scores of other candidates (see undue weight). After a couple weeks I finally found a report at RP Forums-- which is also debatable as a self-published source, but which did give a full report, and which included information contrary to Paul's interest, namely, that Huckabee won the next school poll the day after. The proper weighting and reporting against interest was sufficient for me to cite both Iowa polls. That may give Huckabee another #1 finish and the map honors for the moment, but I believe that Paul's position is best understood by reporting all the polls. I'm sure you can understand the difference between pro-Paul editing and neutral editing, and why the former will get you in trouble.
  • Common sense would suggest that, although you have freer rein to delete items from your talk page, it would be unhelpful to delete warnings without a demonstration of understanding the behavior warned against. Anyone can still find the deleted material through edit history (such as here and here). Take your time to learn the ways and you'll find yourself in much better stead.
  • I too have been accused of having a conflict of interest and single-purpose account. When those charges arrive, it's best to state on your user page, in good faith, the degree of any conflict and the degree of your intent to spread your edits widely. While there is latitude for editing in such cases, editors are watched much closer the less forthcoming they are, and more freely the more open they are.

I trust you will take a little time to study the links I've provided so that you can avoid bumping into the WP electric guardrails in the future. John J. Bulten (talk) 15:35, 19 December 2007 (UTC)