User:Wasted Time R

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So named after the Eagles' striking "Wasted Time" and "Wasted Time (Reprise)" from Hotel California. And a metaphor for WP editing?

Contents

[edit] Not a waste if I'm an 'influencer' or 'protector'?

[edit] Advice for editing history articles

Find source material that isn't on Google. You'll have the field to yourself.

[edit] Advice for editing political articles

Don't.

[edit] Why it is or isn't a waste, Part 3

34,000+ This user has made over 34,000 contributions to Wikipedia.

[edit] Advice for new editors

Look before you leap.

[edit] Early history

Starting in January 2005 I made around 1,000 edits as anons User: 68.197.107.71 and User: 67.108.122.62, never feeling committed to the idea that WP converges to quality or that anyone reads these articles. I'm still not sure on either account ... a page view count mechanism would be really helpful. In May 2005 I began using this account; within a little more than a month I had another 1,000 edits. Too much!?

2008 update ... a page count tool is finally here!!

[edit] Why it's a waste, Part 1

The biggest problems in WP articles, especially those dealing with popular culture:

  1. Excessive detail in the wrong places, such as an article's intro
  2. Inconsistent levels of detail within an article or across a set of articles
  3. Just plain too much detail

<time passes>

Regarding convergence to quality, I think it can happen for articles on subjects important enough to warrant attention but obscure enough to not get too much attention. Political subjects or contentious history, forget it. Popular culture that attracts a lot of people, forget it. Enough if you get these kinds of articles right, someone else will come along and mess it up. Even if you and a bunch of other editors hammer out differences and get it right, in a short while other people will come, ignore your agreements, and mess it all up. Even if you watchlist these articles and fix the mess ups as they happen, eventually you'll get tired, the hordes won't, and down it will all go.

Regarding if anyone is reading, one sanity check is to Google a subject and to see how high the WP article shows up. If it's not in the first two pages of results, chances are good no one's going to find it. I have a feeling a large subset of WP articles are only read by editors, not by "real" readers looking for information.

<time passes>

The first article I ever edited is also just about the worst article in Wikipedia, List of best-selling music artists. Missing or bogus data, pov agendas, pure vandalism, heavy churn, perpetually under VfD. The edit was this: [1]. I picked this article because I could tell it was pretty worthless, so if I blundered it totally, no harm done. The same still applies.

<time passes>

[edit] Proper usage in music articles

[edit] Quotes and italics

Popular music article writers, please memorize Wikipedia:Music#Albums, bands, and songs. Albums go in italics, songs go in double quotes, bands are just proper nouns, and only the first reference to the title subject of an article (and any alternate names of it) go in bold. How hard is this to understand? Yet there are jillions of music articles that get this wrong in every which way.

[edit] Tour names

It's not in a style guide (yet), but tour names are being done throughout Wikipedia as regular proper nouns, not italics or quotes. See Talk:Zoo TV Tour#Tour name conventions for the rationale.

[edit] Punctuation

Another common fault is placing punctuation inside the double quotes used for song titles, such as:

Her biggest hits were "Fool to Love," "Cry Every Day," and "Tears for Years."

Take a look at Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Quotation marks. Song titles are clearly the case where the punctuation is not "part of the sense" of the thing being quoted, and therefore should be outside the double quotes. Thus the above should be:

Her biggest hits were "Fool to Love", "Cry Every Day", and "Tears for Years".

I've seen more than a few cases where people make the same mistake in their coding with italics:

Her most popular albums included ''No Love Supreme,'' ''Sorrow Tomorrow,'' and ''Love is Pain.''

which is really ridiculous – do the titles on the real album covers include commas and periods?

It is true that other publications (New York Times, Rolling Stone) put punctuation inside the double quotes in the first case, but Wikipedia standards are clear that you don't; see WP:MOS-T#Punctuation for another statement to this effect.

[edit] Barnstars

Not sure I really believe in this metaphor, but ...

The Minor Barnstar
For making minor edits to improve the quality in the Il Divo article I award you this Barnstar Rosameliamartinez 09:10, 12 March 2006 (UTC)


Keep up the good job with the many concert [tour] articles. I'd award one of those stars, but there's some silly administrative debate on the appropriate star to hand out for WP:MUSIC contributions. --Madchester 21:20, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


The Editor's Barnstar
I, Eseymour, award you this Editor's Barnstar for your fine work in leading the dismantling of Hillary Rodham Clinton controversies and integrating the content into appropriate separate articles. Awarded on the 13th of November, 2007.


The Barnstar of Good Humor
Thanks for the laugh from the Britney Spears comment at WP:GAR. I’m envious that your life is so carefree as to allow you to place concern on train wrecks troubled pop stars. ;) Ɛƚƈơƅƅơƚɑ talk 17:54, 7 January 2008 (UTC)


The Waste of Time Barnstar
For putting up with all the garbage that goes along with political articles and for being able to keep cool for 3 years without running away like many of us have considered. I will waste some of my time to give you this waste of time barnstar. STX 19:23, 6 February 2008 (UTC)


The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
This barnstar is for your tireless efforts in creating and improving the Hillary Clinton article, please keep up the good work. Thanks! Dwilso talk 04:04, 18 March 2008 (UTC)


The Resilient Barnstar
For being able to listen to criticism, and improve in your ability for NPOV writing a very informative section on the Cultural and political image of Hillary Clinton. Kudos!! ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 03:11, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


The Original Barnstar
To Wasted Time R, on the occasion of press coverage of your wiki work. Few have represented Wikipedia so well and at its highest level of excellence. As others have said, well done. Congratulations! -Susanlesch (talk) 00:33, 4 April 2008 (UTC)


The Special Barnstar
To Wasted Time R on a very special occasion, in recognition of outstanding contributions to Wikipedia. Susanlesch (talk) 02:40, 4 April 2008 (UTC)


Image:Starhalf.png The Half Barnstar
For incredible collaboration to get John McCain up to GA status. Keep up the good work! Eustress (talk) 19:37, 18 April 2008 (UTC)


The Working Wikipedian's Barnstar
For going above and beyond the call of duty to deal with the Hillary Rodham Clinton FAC when the nominator didn't follow up. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:41, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
For this, I, J.delanoygabsanalyze, hereby award you this Tireless Contributer Barnstar. I don't think I have ever seen such dedication anywhere, let alone on Wikipedia. Congratulations, and keep up the good work! J.delanoygabsanalyze 03:16, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Why it's a waste, Part 2

Too much wasted time has taken its toll. Have wiped my 1000-item watchlist and only put back a few obligations and obscure things I care about. Edits should be few(er), once I finish some things I started.

From December 2006. Didn't work.

[edit] Why Trivia sections are bad

All sorts of articles, mostly popular culture ones but some other kinds as well, have picked up sections named Trivia. This is not a good idea!

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a catchbin for every factoid about a subject, as some non-Wikipedia popular culture web pages are. Wikipedia articles should have a cohesiveness of content. If a "Trivia" item is really important, it should be put into one of the mainline sections of text in the appropriate spot. If a "Trivia" item is somewhat important, it can often be pushed down into a subordinate article (such as an album or song article for a musical artist, rather than the main article). If a "Trivia" item isn't important, it should be left out of any article! It's that simple.

Trivia sections are the lazy way out; they represent no organisation, no structure, no cohesion. They should all be gotten rid off, something I've tried to do when I've encountered them in articles I've worked on.

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Music/MUSTARD#Trivia for a guideline against Trivia sections in music articles.

And Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections in articles for a guideline against Trivia sections in all articles.

[edit] Why it's mostly a waste, Part 4

Content of Wikipedia, November 2007.citation needed HT:User talk:JzG
Content of Wikipedia, November 2007.citation needed HT:User talk:JzG

/testarea /trackarea