Ettrig

Welcome!

Hello, Ettrig, 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:

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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! Tim Vickers (talk) 15:17, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

simple:User talk:Ettrig

Cheers / Thanks

Thanks for cleaning up here and there. Feel free to share the love on any of my student's talk pages or articles. Some have a great deal of assistance- some not as much. You can get an idea by looking at the Wikipedia:WikiProject AP Biology 2008 to determine if they have assigned mentors. Just jump right in and share your perspective - nothing formal required. Wikipedia can be overwhelming for the inexperienced. A few really need a helping hand. --JimmyButler (talk) 23:05, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Your project is an admirable initiative and a pattern that deserves to spread. I am very happy that the second project of this type that I come about is in my favorite subject (biology rather than medicine). I will certainly lurk around, but do not want to promise to mentor a particular article. --Ettrig (talk) 20:31, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

This is a bit belated, but... Thanks for stopping by the Banker horse article and helping out with some of the more nit-picky aspects. During FAC, I was so wrapped up in my own article that I never noticed that you have jumped around our class's project quite a bit. Your presence has been encouraging...sometimes it's nice to know that someone other than ourselves and JimmyButler is reading our work. :D --Yohmom (talk) 19:39, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I am a big fan of the project. Your Banker article is a beauty, as many have already commented. This feed-back is very much appreciated. I am sometimes afraid that you mostly find me irritating. There is a way to check how many times an article has been accessed. --Ettrig (talk) 19:48, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for reviewing my page and giving me some advice. It is greatly appreciated. However, I have a couple of questions. How do you make a redirect page? You told me to say where a drawing is from in the image description, is there a particular format for this?--Grander13 (talk) 03:40, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I think, based on what you said, you're not looking for a redirect. You're looking for how to make what we call 'piped links'. Wikilinks by default show whatever is in the square brackets, so [[Wikipedia]] links to Wikipedia. But, and this is the fun bit, if you put a pipe (the | character) after whatever is inside the brackets, you can write something else, and that is what will be displayed. So you could write [[Wikipedia|The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit]], but what you will see is The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Hope that helps. //roux   03:49, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

My answers are in the article talk page. --Ettrig (talk) 19:13, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Genetic drift

I'm glad to see more attention given to this article, and certainly welcome a solid copy edit to the article. But some of your edits go too far. For example, the error you say "was already fixed", which you've now restored, reads, "According to the law of large numbers the effects of random sampling are smaller for larger populations. This implies small genetic drift for large populations and large genetic drift for small populations." This is an erroneous statement. In a large population, there is no implied drift whatsoever, neither large nor small, from the law of large numbers. The law of large numbers implies that the allele frequencies in a large population will be constant from generation to generation, a tendency defined in the Hardy Weinberg equilibrium and described later in the section. Hardy Weinberg has such significance that it's the default position--any change in the allele frequency in a suitably large breeding population, any large or small shift in the frequency, is usually assumed to result from selection or other non-random factors. And the law of large numbers does not imply a large change in small populations. The only probabilistic "implication" of small populations is toward eventual homozygosity. (Btw-law of large numbers speaks only of the tendency toward the true mean when the sampling is sufficiently large, and says nothing with small sampling.) The discussion wasn't in good shape before, but overly abbreviating it is simply adding to the confusion. I'm going to propose some changes I think would help on the talk page. Please join me there. Thanks. Professor marginalia (talk) 19:07, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I missed this point. The problem is deeper than I realized. Yes, let's continue this discussion on the genetic drift talk page. --Ettrig (talk) 19:14, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. The article's grown even more misshaped over the last several months, it looks like. For example, the lead says now that drift is one of just two mechanisms for change in gene frequencies. There are actually four identified by the classic modern synthesis. I've only a few minutes left now but I hope to get to the talk page tomorrow. Thanks again.Professor marginalia (talk) 20:12, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for undoing the junk that someone thoughtfully put on my user page! I'm sure you noticed that I replied on my talk to your earlier comment on my talk. See you in the evolution articles! Johnuniq (talk) 00:27, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

March 2009

Welcome to Wikipedia, and thank you for your contributions. One of the core policies of Wikipedia is that articles should always be written from a neutral point of view. A contribution you made to Evolution appears to carry a non-neutral point of view, and your edit may have been changed or reverted to correct the problem. Please remember to observe our core policies. Thank you. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 08:09, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

R U sure U got this right??? I moved a section that was in Evolution. First to another article, then from the top position to within a subsection. How can that be POV? I still hope your action is a mistake. That hope is nourished by your comment when removing from the species problem, "original research". If that comment is about the passage that you removed, then we are in rather close agreement. --Ettrig (talk) 12:10, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Harp Brothers

I suggest you just go ahead with the merge, if you feel up to it. It seems that Harpe Brothers is older, so its history should probably be preserved. However, Harp Brothers seems to be written better currently. Do you know which spelling of the name is actually correct? Martin^msgj 11:39, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

No, I just stumbed into this and felt it should be flagged. I will not work on the issue. But since you think the newer is better written, I will flag the old one as well. --Ettrig (talk) 15:33, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Copy/Paste mentality.

Thanks for calling them out on the copy/paste approach. It's exactly why I stopped doing research papers. This strategy of lifting a section - then changing a few words has become a standard approach in high school and I suspect college as well. It is a cat and mouse game between the teacher and the students - in my case I was armed with anti plagiarism tools such as turn-it-in.com. Your suggestion to avoid such a problem is excellent - I would like to copy/paste it over to the Project's talk page. Maybe we can steer them away from "editorial laziness". JimmyButler (talk) 15:06, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

You are not asking for permission, are you? None such is needed. I would like to point out that these students pointed out their sources clearly, so I have no suspicion that they tried to cheat. --Ettrig (talk) 15:34, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I was asking permission. The students specific to your commentary are more likely suffering from a lack of clarity over the term "paraphrasing" than attempting to beat the system. That strategy will emerge in the group that waits until the last minute to begin editing. My statement was more a generalization with the problem as whole in the high school.JimmyButler (talk) 15:59, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Spell checking

It is clever to use the search to find commonly misspelled words. I had a quick look for relevent and found a few hits, I got a lot more for receive. I reckon a spellchecker in the wiki editor would help. Just now I've found a big list of misspelled words in wikipedia. You possibly know about it already. I didn't.
Pnelnik (talk) 09:18, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you!

As a part of the AP Biology project of 2009, I want to thank you for correcting some mistakes in our pudu deer article. Your corrections are valued greatly by the class.Lisa Anne893 (talk) 03:40, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

R1a

Hi, thanks for taking an interest in R1a, but your isolated remarks have created a bit of a stir of competing edits, continuing a theme of competing visions about how to work on this article. [1]. I think more comments would be extremely useful. The discussion there sorely needs someone to give an outside perspective (although calling for GA review was frankly not appropriate in my opinion).--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:57, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Nice job!

The article's looking good!

		The Bio-star
		In recognition for solid improvements to the Genetic drift article! Professor marginalia (talk) 17:02, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! But ... You made most of the work. --Ettrig (talk) 22:00, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Delichon

Oops, my bad. I've had it sitting at GAN for ages, wondering why noone was reviewing, I obviously forgot to tag. Many thanks for remedying that. Yes, this will complete the GT, and I hope eventually to get this article to FA (Common House Martin is FA, and the two others are GA} A genus wouldn't be my first choice for an eventual FA, but there's too little on the Asian species. Thanks again, Jimfbleak - talk to me? 19:39, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Round Two?

Second semester ... most of the same kids (except Pudu group). Other than Bog turtle; the rest are feeling a bit dejected. I'm thinking of unleashing them all on a single article. Maybe an obscure seashell!? Just to make a point. Cheers.--JimmyButler (talk) 01:13, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Ecology length

Hi Ettrig - thanks for some of the changes to ecology and your notes. The discussion on the length of the article was taken up in the discussion pages. If you compare the length of ecology to other articles - which was already done - you will see that it is smaller than other similar articles that achieved FA status. For such a comprehensive topic - the article is not too long. I thought I would mention this to you because I see in your edits that the length of the article is a concern. For comparison - check out Lions - a featured article that is much longer.Thompsma (talk) 20:26, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Follow-up on suggestions for 'Homologous recombination'

Back in September 2009, you made some useful suggestions about how to improve the article on homologous recombination. I've tried my hand at fulfilling your suggestion to include information on viral HR (and how it relates to influenza evolution in particular) with a new section titled "In viruses". What do you think? That was one of the few things on my mental "to-do" list before taking the article to WP:FAC. If you have any other suggestions, please let me know. Thanks, Emw (talk) 04:28, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

A very good addition. I am awed and happy to take a miniscule part in this process. --Ettrig (talk) 08:26, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Comment on the Clan of Ostoja article

Greetings,

I saw You revieved the article and left a comment. Do You have any suggestions how to improve or what You generally think? I would be gratefull for any input.

Best regards, Camdan (talk) 12:17, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but no, I will not work any more on that article. I was drawn there in my search for common misspellings, in this case the search function found the word "challanged" (sic). I noticed some more superficial errors and corrected them. I also had the impression that there are many more problems with spelling and grammar. This is as it should. I think you are carefully describing this family and thereby providing information that will be valuable for the Wikipedia readers. The superficial mistakes in formulations can be corrected by others. --Ettrig (talk) 12:53, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Campaign against "sometime during..."

I reverted your change to Marine Midland Building with edit summary "the 'sometime' here isn't redundant, it means 'at an unknown time' and explains why we don't say 'at 8:30 in the evening' - we don't know." So, the word "sometime" does impart some information, the fact of uncertainty -- at least in this case, and probably in others. Cherers, CliffC (talk) 14:25, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

As you hint, I have made a large number of such changes. Your's is the second reversal. The first one I understood and accepted. I take the small number of reversals as an indication that I am on the right track. Another one is that the large majority of the articles this campaign takes me to are poor also in other ways. In the specific case I have answered in the article talk page. --Ettrig (talk) 15:17, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Alejo Carpentier page

Hi Ettrig! We are 'handing-in' our Alejo Carpentier article on Monday, April 11th, and were wondering if you had any suggestions on what we could add/edit in order to bring it up to Good Article status. Thank-you for your ongoing help so far! We look forward to hearing from you soon! Katie322 (talk) 06:07, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Several of the comments in my first batch are still unprocessed. From this I drew the possibly false conclusion that there is no point in adding more comments. I suggest that you comment my comments, saying that yes, this is changed or explaining why you think there should be no change. Then I will read the article again. --Ettrig (talk) 08:34, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi Ettrig! We (unexperienced wikipedians) are confused with why our article picture can't be used. Please refer to our comments on the Alejo Carpentier talk page. Thank-you! Katie322 (talk) 19:17, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Re: Lost film

Hello, Ettrig. You have new messages at Talk:Second Choice.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Referencing

Ettrig, I thank you for your support in trying to help me include Websters as a reference for the definition. I know it is not the best reference possible for Macroevolution and Microevolution's definitions, but the other reference is merely to the origins blog of Talk Origins.. I would appreciate your editorial support in the above articles.--Gniniv (talk) 02:46, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Women and Children Last

Indeed that was how it was done in the quote from the interview, wasnt sure wither or not to correct it. HrZ (talk) 21:07, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

MacDaid block

No mistake - checkuser confirmed sock of Mattisse (talk · contribs) who, while she has done some excellent work, was banned for very good reasons. Steve Smith (talk) 12:37, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

History of botany

Hi Ettrig - I am gradually working through the whole article again (nearly finished) making it more readable. I think your recommendation for more citations is still valid. In a couple of days when I've gone through it could you possibly manage to read the article just once more, inserting citation tags where you think they are needed and then I think it should be ready to submit for GA again. Sorry all this has taken me so long. Granitethighs 00:24, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

No, I don't think I asked for references. Yes, references are included in the GA criteria. No, you should not apologize. Your work in Wikipedia is highly laudable. --Ettrig (talk) 20:22, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

GAC comments on Saadanius

I have addressed the specific concerns (re: fossil dating) you listed on the GAC for Saadanius. Please revisit the review at your earliest convenience and let me know if you are happy with the changes. Thank you for your time and comments. – VisionHolder « talk » 14:59, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

It should be noted that

It is interesting to note and should be noted that I give two-thumbs up on removal of that kind of crap. How do people get in the habit of using trite phrases like this, trying to pad the word count on high school essays? Cheers, OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 20:13, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

My thanks, as well, for deleting this nonsense phrase. Coemgenus 22:03, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, that was a good edit in demarchy. Should be noted was redundant. Nice to see constructive edits. Shabidoo —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shabidoo (talk • contribs) 17:26, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I, too, have been working on WP:NOTED - but my productivity is much smaller. Carry on. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:41, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

US/UK English

Are you going round changing words to US spelling on British pages? (dependant to dependent) WatcherZero (talk) 22:34, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I am going around changing words. No, I am changing from incorrect to correct. The ADJECTIVE is spelled dependEnt on both sides of the Atlantic. See for example Wiktionary. --Ettrig (talk) 05:00, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Your changing some nouns where in British English its the correct spelling. WatcherZero (talk) 16:38, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I checked the recent ones after your last post. Couldn't find any problem. Please give an example. --Ettrig (talk) 16:41, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Quote

I just wanted to point out that your edit changed a quote by a person. The manual of style does not apply to quotes, because we cannot edit what someone else says. It's not a big deal, but be careful in the future. Spidey104^contribs 18:13, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

You are right of course. My fault. --Ettrig (talk) 05:08, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Help?!?

Hello, Im working on the little tunny article for my biology class, and Im really behind....I was just wondering if you knew of any good sources that may be helpful, and Im not really sure what the template is for like citing sources...any advice? well thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kimberly fitzgerald (talk • contribs) 01:09, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

The bad news is that there is no short-cut. The good news is that an honest effort pays out. Mr Butler gave you a really good suggestion for sources the other day. Look at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject AP Biology 2010#Alternative toGoogle Scholar. It had the solution for a problem I had struggled with for a while. As for format, check out some articles that have references and see how it is done there. Look at them in edit mode. You can also copy from there and change the actual content. --Ettrig (talk) 07:25, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Okay, well thank you, that does help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kimberly fitzgerald (talk • contribs) 21:36, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Introduction to Evolution and more...

My students are still not grasping the reality of what lays ahead - if they have any hope of reaching FA. I was contemplating re-nominating the Introduction to Evolution for FA. The process of its demotion was convoluted at best... difficult to explain; but it was a one man show in which the original was blanked - rewritten completely - then was de-listed. The original has since been restored - minus the star - and hopefully improved upon. What are your thoughts on its current state of the article and would it serve as an example of the FA process for the students? as always your insights and involvement in our project over the years is appreciated.--JimmyButler (talk) 16:01, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

It's mysterious to me what you do to inspire your students. But the results are spectacular. That said, I think this idea would not be an efficient way to reach this objective. I think if you want to help your students with the articles it would be better to do that directly. As you know much better than me, I have never done it, achieving FA is enormously time consuming. --Ettrig (talk) 11:42, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you're right, it would more likely frighten them... but it would break the boredom as I wait for them to step it up.--JimmyButler (talk) 20:41, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Talkback re Population

You have new messages

Hello, Ettrig. You have new messages at L.tak's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

What is a megafossil?

I noted your change to Evolutionary history of plants. The reference cited (Tomescu) describes the fossils concerned as a "macrophytic cyanobacterial mat". So is a fossil "macrophyte" a "megafossil"? I would say, yes, since in many other contexts macro = mega (macrospore = megaspore, etc.). So I think that the original wording did agree with the reference, and your insertion of "there were also" is not quite supported. But this is a very fine distinction. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:16, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for this. Would you care to make that passage more explanatory. It seems I am not able to. --Ettrig (talk) 12:38, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Cyanobacterial mats are not plants. So why do we spend time on them in a history of plants? --Ettrig (talk) 16:29, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for objecting to "destructive edits"

I couldn't agree more. It seems that many people jsut want to be wikilawyers and don't care much about much else. Geofferybard (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:35, 18 March 2011 (UTC).

Sounds nice. Thanks. But I don't understand what this is about. --Ettrig (talk) 07:45, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Adding evolutionary sections/material

(moved to talk:Xylem) --Ettrig (talk) 20:10, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Archery and loosing arrows

Hi, just to let you know that I rewrote one of your edits - there seemed to be some confusion between loosing an arrow, which is what the release aids do, and losing one in the long grass. I hope you found my edit helpful. Richard Keatinge (talk) 15:37, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, my confusion and thanks. --Ettrig (talk) 18:49, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Evolution

I have always supported Thompsman's editing. She has added a great deal of content which I have never deleted, although she has supported the deletion of just two sentences that I had introduced with a reliable source.

I appreciate your talking the time to write on my talk page but my view is that we must always endeavor never to make this about the editors, and only about the edits. If someone, even a friend, has violated a policy, we should say so. I learned a long time ago that worrying about what people think about what we think about them only ever impedes progress in improving an article, and that the only right course of action is to comment on someone's edits and not on the person.

I still believe NPOV and NOR support including the Menand citation, although as I have consistently stated I have no objection to someone rephrasing whatever we include in the article so that it accurately (and concisely) reflects Menand's point. Why don't you talk a leadership position, rephrase the line (or two) so they accurately reflect the quotes from Menand's book, and addit back into the article? Slrubenstein | Talk 15:46, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Biology Project

Hello, my name is Marissa. User:NYMFan69-86 has suggested that I get in touch with you when tackling the Wikipedia project. Our teacher, Mr. Butler, has told us that several Wikipedia members have caught on to the project and will often help other students. I'm not sure if you have noticed in years before,or if User:NYMFan69-86just knows you are very good at Wikipedia. My teacher also said that we will need all the help we can get. I am a bit intimidated at this point, with all the formatting and what not. But any help I can acquire now or down the road I will be more than happy to accept. If you are willing to help, I will get back in touch once we start the articles if I seem to be stuck. Thank you for your time reading this! Marissa927 (talk) 03:38, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

Thank you for the suggestions of articles on the AP Biology page. That was very helpful!

Marissa927 (talk) 03:41, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi Marissa, thank you, but I find this contradictory. Apart from this response, my comments on topic your topic selection have been completely ignored. I suggest that you choose something that will be valuable for the readers and which will make you learn something that is valuable for you and that will put you in interaction with other editors. Granted, this will make it more difficult to reach GA and FA, but that should not be an issue with the new evaluation system that is used by Mr Butler this year. But again, I see no counter-argument. These aspects, that seem so important to me, are just ignored by you. --Ettrig (talk) 08:22, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

I apologize, I did not mean to ignore your suggestions. I was a bit overwhelmed with all the arguments about topics at that point and wasn't used to wikipedia yet! I hope you are willing to get past that. I have been trying to address your latest concerns on my eagle ray article. thank you! Marissa927 (talk) 03:24, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Spotted Eagle Ray

Thank you for your efforts on the Spotted Eagle Ray article. Your suggestions have been helpful and are appreciated! Marissa927 (talk) 03:21, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Plagerism

Transcribed from Wikipedia:WikiProject AP Biology 2011. I am sorry I am so delayed in this response... no excuses, I just over-looked it. Yet more evidence of teachers shirking their duties. Paraphrasing is a concept difficult for students to grasp. My first concern would be "Was it cited?". If not, then this would be an automatic fail. If it was cited, then the issue becomes more of understanding, how much restructuring is necessary to avoid the use of quotations. This problem could be avoided if they would take notes on the basic information, then construct a sentence a few days later without the original in front of them. I agree, the composition is too similar to the original. I will review the article to see if this is a trend. --JimmyButler (talk) 06:57, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

No need for excuses! The problems that recently have occurred in other similar projects show how good you are. --Ettrig (talk) 08:17, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

We had an extensive class discussion on plagiarism. The problem seems to be a lack of understanding over syntax. The students have learned that changing words (Diction) and adding or deleting modifiers is adequate for a paraphrase. We have focused on the importance of word order as well. Thanks, hopefully we will improve in that regard.--JimmyButler (talk) 16:35, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Maybe I sound too sharp at times. My focus is on being clear. But I'm your supporter and not your police. I'm sad that you plan to end this project series. It would be very interesting if your describe the main causes somewhere. --Ettrig (talk) 16:40, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank You!

Thanks for the help on the spotted eagle ray! It helped me get to the GA status! Marissa927 (talk) 02:31, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

The honor is due you. (And one or a few of your class mates.) Good job! --Ettrig (talk) 19:37, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

If you are planning to nominate vital articles

Please don't nominate Richard Nixon, level 4 VA, I'm saving that for his centennial day, January 9, 2013. That being said, I'm very sympathetic to your concerns.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:30, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. As a matter of fact, I wasn't aware of that one. I find the process surprisingly complex, and am learning gradually. At the present it feels that the process is creating hurdles instead of ensuring the the most important among the best articles are presented. But yes, in the future I will start on the article talk. Hopefully that will make the process a bit more harmonious. --Ettrig (talk) 19:53, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

On a related note, please ping relevant WikiProjects if you're nomming a vital article with that little notice? Solar System didn't hear about Saturn, for example. (Nothing at you personally; it's just that my inner perfectionist is screaming a little about not getting to help in the wash, scrub and polish before sending off to the Main Page; eg. I'd have asked my mate who does giant planet atmospheres to have a look & check the literature refs if it hadn't been the weekend, etc etc...). Iridia (talk) 01:03, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I'm a n00b in this business. But please check my latest contributions. That may give you hope. --Ettrig (talk) 06:01, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I like the template I saw on the Nixon talk page, but it reads a bit oddly "Richard Nixon has been listed as a level-4 vital article in People." As "People" is non-clickable, it looks odd (Magazine? who need People?) Also consider adding a graphic. I suggest something impressive and slightly in your face. Something which implies it is fundamental. I am going to have to think about this one. TCO knows people who are good at graphics.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:29, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I will most likely not use it again. I only disliked that it wasn't in the list of non-TFA vital FA's. --Ettrig (talk) 20:39, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Access levels

You are now a reviewer and a rollbacker, please read here. If for some reason you don't want them, drop me a line or any admin and we'll remove them.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:32, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. --Ettrig (talk) 20:39, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Merging South Asia and Indian Subcontinent

The [merger discussion] is getting nowhere due to lack of participation. Since you had shown interest in the past, will you take a look at the discussion? Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 04:31, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

This discussion seems too difficult. --Ettrig (talk) 19:47, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Samples

Ettrig, I was putting together some samples for you of issues that might not be reflected in your data, which I lost by hitting the wrong button after gathering a lot of data. Then Raul (rightly) archived the talk page. I'm out of time today, so will put that together later. My intent is to show you what has happend to high page view articles on broad topics because of the Siegenthaler incident (which actually goes directly to her point in the Sue Gardner "holy shit" slide). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:14, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I am very interested in this. --Ettrig (talk) 19:46, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm going out for the rest of the day, and there's a boatload of stuff going on, so if I don't get to that by tomorrow morning, that would be because I forgot-- would you mind pinging my talk page in the event I do forget? Give me, say, 24 hours, and I'll re-do even more data than I lost ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:48, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Ettrig, I'm not in favor of a strict limit. I think we have an appropriate rule of thumb: If it is much over 100K, it starts to get questioned (besides, it's hard on reviewers). What I fear is that we would approve an article, and then the nom packs 30K of stuff he took out for FAC back in. It has happened. There's a list of longest FAs someplace; most of that had stuff added after FAC. Some shortly after FAC.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:05, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Could you provide some of your motivations? I did express some. --Ettrig (talk) 20:25, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

FA statistics

Hi,

I mentioned you at the discussion (which you initiated) at Geom. guy's page, I hope you do not object.

Sasha (talk) 01:56, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

AP Biology

I wanted to leave a parting statement of appreciation as we pull out of the Wikipedia business at Croatan. Your support from the inception of this project has played an important roll in the student's success. It is my intent to retire from education (not Wikipedia) so I hope that collaborative opportunities will present themselves in the future. Until then, continue the good fight. Jim Butler / Croatan High School.--JimmyButler (talk) 19:58, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

		The Special Barnstar
		For patience and perseverance on Croatan's Educational Projects. JimmyButler (talk) 19:58, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

I am proud to have played a small by-role in your grand project. --Ettrig (talk) 20:32, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Bird phylogenetics

I agree with it, sure, but it is original research and therefore not usable in an article (I know it's OR because I participated in creating it ;) ). Maybe it would be better to simply adapt a cladogram from another article with a source. I'll look around for an appropriate one that can be easily simplified. MMartyniuk (talk) 14:30, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

bird

Hi Ettrig: When you added your new clade diagram, it seems to have messed up the display of pictures in the bird article. I'm seeing stacked pictures/diagrams now. Can you please check and do whatever's needed to avoid that? Thanks! (I have my "default picture setting" at 300px, in case that helps diagnose things...) MeegsC | Talk 16:59, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Image in Alternation of generations

Hi, you were quite right that the article needed an image at very top right, but it could not just be moved, because the paragraph where it was talks about it. So I've now made a slightly different one and put it at the top right. What do you think of this? Peter coxhead (talk) 09:18, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for breaking the association between text and illustration. Yes, your version is a definite improvement. Two minor quibbles: Why are these not thumbs? Or rather, why is there no visible explanatory text? I understand (now) that the actual article text explains the figure. But what about the one at the top? --Ettrig (talk) 15:19, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

The first image probably should have some text, though I'm not quite sure what to put, beyond a mere statement of what is in the diagram, which is redundant for most readers, and not enough for those relying on reading software. I'll add something; see what you think. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:03, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Clever avoidance of "note"

I think this phrasing: "The many variations found in different groups of plants are described by use of these concepts later in the article" is a very clever way of not offending WP:NOTED while making the point that the reader needs to take note! I shall remember it for future use. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:00, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Artificial consciousness

> It is a very important problem for Wikipedia that people who could have become productive editors are turned back by unwelcoming behavior by established editor. The behvaiour by you that Looie comments in this thread appears to me a clear case of such unwelcoming behaviour. I think most people would find it discouraging to get their contributions deleteded. The motivation at the time and the explanations here do not correctly represent what happened. The edits that were deleted were not complicated or difficult to refine. Please try to live and let live. --Ettrig (talk) 10:50, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry but i don't agree. The changes proposed by that editor had to be made clearer and made more concise, the way they are now in the article. I did not reject the changes by that editor, only said that they should be better and gave him/her a chance to change the article again. As apparently instead of making changes that editor complained about me, asking for help without talking to me and with no need, i added to the article the points he wanted to make, together with the two references. I think there was nothing wrong in what i did.

It is not fair to say about me that i don't let others to live, the case there was clearly a misunderstanding by that editor, something which also may happen elsewhere in life, not only in Wikipedia. New editors should be treated with respect, it should be understood that they don't know well enough how to edit Wikipedia, but they should not assumed to be immature. With fully understanding the problems of the new editors, what about the old editors who leave Wikipedia? Wikipedia needs editors, so i think at least somewhat some should care of the old editors as well. Thank you.Tkorrovi (talk) 00:24, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Please don't change the original definition by Igor Aleksander written in his paper. Please read about the definition on the article's talk page. One should not add original definitions to the article, one can change definition only if one finds a source for new definition, and the definition has to be an exact text from that source.Tkorrovi (talk) 00:44, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

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Invitation to WikiProject Breakfast

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Precious

biology
Thank you, fiery Swedish user, for quality contributions to quality articles such as Biology, serving millions, for gnomish work in stub sorting, page moves, corrections, fighting waste of space, for clarification, for joy and missing, - you are an awesome Wikipedian!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:59, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you SO much! It's amazing and surprising how good it feels to see that someone has looked carefully and approves. Ettrig (talk) 13:42, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

A year ago, you were the 794th recipient of my PumpkinSky Prize, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:12, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Two years ago, you were recipient no. 794 of Precious, a prize of QAI! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:00, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Five years now! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:15, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Thank you! I really think that this work that you do is valuable. I still come and go, but much more in Swedish than here! Don't really know why. --Ettrig (talk) 20:46, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

thank you, and six now --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:50, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

OER inquiry

Hi Ettrig, I'm sending you this message because you're one of about 300 users who have recently edited an article in the umbrella category of open educational resources (OER) (or open education). In evaluating several projects we've been working on (e.g. the WIKISOO course and WikiProject Open), my colleague Pete Forsyth and I have wondered who chooses to edit OER-related articles and why. Regardless of whether you've taken the WIKISOO course yourself - and/or never even heard the term OER before - we'd be extremely grateful for your participation in this brief, anonymous survey before 27 April. No personal data is being collected. If you have any ideas or questions, please get in touch. My talk page awaits. Thanks for your support! - Sara FB (talk) 20:39, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Sexual dimorphism

Hi Ettrig: Just wondering why you're removing links to the sexual dimorphism article from so many articles. It's useful for readers to be able to understand why species are sexually dimorphic, and you're removing their easy ability to do so. Would you mind explaining your rationale? At the moment, I'm strongly tempted to revert the deletion. MeegsC (talk) 23:48, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

In all the cases the text is saying the same thing twice, that the sexes are different. The use of the technical expression sexual dimorphism does not add information. But it adds to the difficulty of reading the text (and obviously to the time it takes to read it). But you are right that there is some value in the link itself. I will add that back.--Ettrig (talk) 04:05, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Ettrig! That looks like a reasonable solution. MeegsC (talk) 23:48, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:50, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Merger discussion for Guanín (bronze)

An article that you have been involved in editing—Guanín (bronze) —has been proposed for merging with another article. If you are interested, please participate in the merger discussion. Thank you. Anomalocaris (talk) 21:08, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Xylem and plant water relations

Hi Ettrig. I was looking at the xylem article thinking that the entire Main function – upwards water transport section should really be spun out into several daughter articles when I realised that you had transpirational pull into that article in 2011. And I just thought that I should try and get a sense of why you did so before trying to spin any of this out. Thanks. Guettarda (talk) 16:09, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

This seems to be about subjective views. My main view of this is that a description of the main function should have a prominent place in any article about an organ. Looking at the article now, I don't think it is too long for such an important topic. In your view, what would be the optimal size? I note that many featured articles are more than three times as large as this one. If you want to trim the article, then I think that the evolution paragraph is the one that is more oversized. --Ettrig (talk) 09:12, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't clear. Not, there's nothing wrong with the length of what's in the xylem article. But I think that we could use a stand-alone article about xylem transport, as a complement to what's in the current article. Guettarda (talk) 15:27, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

OK, I have no objection to that (of course). I don't remember making the changes. But my guess is that I remarked that this material was relevant but missing in Xylem. The easiest way to get it was to copy. As we then had two copies, it seemed best to remove one of them. In general, I think it is best to expand the general article until a passage gets too long, then break out and leave an abbreviated version. But that is details. If you want to write about xylem transport, the please do that in the way that you think best. It is an important and interesting subject matter. --Ettrig (talk) 16:01, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Cool. And yes - I agree with you that it's better to expand higher-level articles than to create a whole lot of low-level ones. But we have a hole when it comes to an overarching article on water relations. Maybe this will inspire me enough to get back into the swing of editing. Guettarda (talk) 16:05, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Evo-devo

Hi, I've reread your comments (multiple times) and still find it hard to work out what exactly you want: each time I read it, I feel you are wanting one thing, and then I get to the end and feel you want something different. (For example, are you strongly in favour of the current section headings that I have chosen, or strongly against them?) In the spirit of co-operation, therefore, I wonder if I could trouble you to describe to me informally what you would like to see? Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:00, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Let me start with an off-topic compliment: You show clearly on your personal page that you have been involved in a lot of high quality work. This is obvious. What is obvious to me, but probably not to most editors, is that you to a very large extent have chosen to work on subjects that are of interest to vast amounts of readers and are difficult to write about. I appreciate that a lot. But it is not a common approach by those who concentrate on creating high quality articles.

I am weakly in favor of the high level headings. They are OK. I want the statements to be more strictly (correctly?) sorted into those headlines. As I wrote, I think this is an obvious requirement on an encyclopedic article. Sorting into correct articles and headlines is how we help the reader to find the information she is looking for.

Secondarily: The article Evolution of development redirects to Evolutionary developmental biology. So in this article I think there should be a description of how the developmental processes evolved, maybe also about how "body" plans changed over time. From this perspective, I find the current article very fragmentary.

I found the same phenomenon in Developmental biology, lack of overview, lack of fundamental mechanisms. The only time I got involved in creating a GA was a long time ago, with genetic drift. That topic is not as complex, but entails conceptual difficulties. If you want to, you can see there how we endevoured to clarify the fundamental concepts using extremely simple examples. In the two articles I discuss here, there does not even seem to be an interest in identifying the core mechanisms.--Ettrig (talk) 07:30, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Many thanks for the reply, and for the praise. We are, it seems, "in violent agreement" on my section headings, then.

I wonder if Evolution of development is correctly redirected: it seems to me it could well be a worthwhile topic on its own, describing the projected phylogenetic history (over geological time) of how embryos have evolved. It would be a huge project, as there is a great deal of evolution to describe: Lewis I. Held, Jr.'s splendid book How the Snake Lost its Legs (CUP, 2014) sketches out the picture, in 150 closely-packed pages or so! Evo-devo obviously sheds much light on that, as do rare fossils of embryos, but it's really an output of the science of evo-devo, rather than evo-devo itself.

As you say, Developmental biology looks sadly unloved; obviously, it would benefit from being reworked with an emphasis on evo-devo, and dare I say it some history. Some references wouldn't hurt, either. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:52, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Plant development split

Read up on Wikipedia:Splitting. You want to have the edit summary state that you are splitting off content into another article. And then you need to place the Copied template onto each pages' talk page. Good initiative though. Brightgalrs (/braɪtˈɡæl.ərˌɛs/)^[1] 04:28, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Expand language tag

From what I can see, you haven't attempted to get any consensus support for your personal view that Expand language tags don't go on the top of articles as they always have. So other editors aren't under any obligation to accede to your demand on the matter. It's not how it works, here. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 14:05, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

I made the change in the instruction. (Normal procedure) One editor challenged. (Normal) We discussed the matter. (Normal) The challenger stopped challenging (explicitly) (Normal). So yes, that is how it works. But you are right in that other editors aren't under any obligation to accede. But no, this is not a demand. To me it is obvious though that the posibility to translate from a french stub article is not the highest priority information that we should give the readers. --Ettrig (talk) 14:19, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

Hello, Ettrig. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Fixing articles with blatant propaganda

I saw you edited a article on the Indian state of Kerala to remove propaganda. I have found another article on the state of Kerala that needs to be fixed. I unfortunately lack the depth of knowledge to fix it, I tried to contact the guy who made the first article but unfortunately he did not respond. My question is would you mind helping me edit it to make it uphold wikipedia standards. Dogblock (talk) 03:00, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

No promise, but a couple of advice: (1) If you want me to look at an article, provide a wikilink in your question, like this: Kerala (look in edit mode). (2) If you see propaganda, remove it. There is no need for in-depth knowledge about a subject to do this. --Ettrig (talk) 06:15, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Teleology in biology

Hi, I'm not sure if you saw that this article is in the GAN queue. I feel uncomfortably constrained with respect to your repeated edits as they'll very soon be interpreted as instability if not edit-warring. However I do think it a bit strange to add a whole paragraph, in the lead section, before the first paragraph introducing the topic itself, ... introducing a topic (teleology) not the subject of the article. Perhaps it was a very sunny day or something, but this really isn't on, surely. Perhaps your paragraph would fit in the article's teleology section, but if so it would need citing. I'll leave you to think about it, and will decide what if anything to do about it, but right now it has severely damaged the article's structure. I know you mean well. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:29, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Let me first repeat my sincere praise. I really think you produce an enormous lot of good stuff. I especially admire your choice of articles to work on, to a very large extent the most important articles (given the constraint to biology).

I came to this article because I saw it in GAN. I took extra interest because I am currently reading Daniel Dennet's book on The evolution of minds. I did consider the stability requirement and chose to edit because I think there is need to edit. The current text does not merit to be stable. Before writing, I consulted several books. The most helpful of those I found is Evolutionary Biology, Douglas J. Futuyma, 1998, approximately 1000 words on teleology on pp 341, 342. I obviously do not expect my version to remain unedited. But in my view my latest addition solves several important problems. It shows that teleology is not and adaptation. It tells the reader about two very different kinds of teleological thinking in biology. It points out that one is false and the other one true but easily misunderstood. It explains what teleology is (Teleology does not do this in an accessable way.). It is really important to point out that teleology is a way of thinking that is false (in biology). The current text is in deep need of rework. In this rework the aspects mentioned here and solved in my (peculiar) edit must be considered and solved.

It is indeed nice and sunny in Stockholm today. But I suspect that this is an expression that I don't know. English is not my mother tongue. --Ettrig (talk) 17:03, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. All right, I'll think about it and maybe do some editing after I've slept on it. It seems we agree that the additional text needs to be edited. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:16, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Please stop repositioning language templates immediately

Hello,

I recently noticed that the {{Expand French}} template on Casa Batllo was missing from the top of the page, and then I realized that you moved the template to the bottom of the page some time ago. I wondered about this, and then noticed that part of the user documentation for the Expand language template has a new instruction about adding the language template to the *bottom* of the article page that was not in the doc before.

In looking into it, it turns out that you added that new instruction to the template yourself. But this has never been the practice or consensus, and is not the consensus now. Other users then restored the template documentation to the way it was before, but you overrode that, changing it again and yet again to your preferred version. You need to gain consensus for such a change first on the Talk page. Please stop altering the template documentation to your taste until you gain consensus for this change.

Then I checked your Contributions and I see that you have been changing hundreds, perhaps thousands of articles in the same manner, moving the {{Expand French}} templates from the top of the article to the bottom of the page, without making any other change to improve the article. (N.B.: {{Expand French}} is a subset template in the {{Expand language}} series of templates, and there are many other similar ones, such as {{Expand Spanish}}, {{Expand German}}, and so on.)

A quick scan of your last 500 contributions makes it seem like 90% or more of them are solely about moving language templates around. This behavior of rapid-fire editing of hundreds of articles in order to force them to conform to your point of view makes it look like you are on some sort of rampage to fix things according to your whim, as opposed to improving articles and building an encyclopedia.

Until you gain consensus for the changes you wish to see in the documentation and use of the Expand language templates, please:

• stop changing the template documentation pages, you don't own them; and
• immediately cease your disruptive behavior of repositioning language templates to your preferred placement on the page.

For the time being, I've changed the template doc back to the way it was before. If you change the documentation again without consensus, I won't revert you, but I will raise an incident at the WP:ANI about you and seek a remedy of having you blocked from editing any template relating to language, or their documentation pages. In addition, please stop repositioning templates on article pages. If you continue to do so, I will raise an incident at WP:ANI and seek to have you narrowly blocked from editing articles merely for the purpose of moving language templates around.

Before you got onto this recent tear, I see that you are a long-term editor of many years and have made many improvements to the encyclopedia, with hundreds or thousands of good contributions in a wide variety of subjects. Please go back to improving the encyclopedia, as you did before; we will all be the better for it. Cordially, Mathglot (talk) 04:21, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

I have worked with this problem as normally as I can. That is, I have discussed the template on its discussion page, then changed it. If there was a consesus about the placement it was always weak. In Template talk:Expand language it was challenged in the first comments. Since my change of the instruction was not challenged for a long time, my view is that it is the new consensus. This is also supported by the fact that the hundreds of changes that I have made have gone unchallenged. In short: you are wrong about what is the current consensus. Concerning the substance: Compare with how the template for marking stubs is handled. This template marks a deficiency. It is smaller and placed at the bottom. The expand template does not mark a deficiency. It does not mark a problem at all. It marks a situation that is not grave in any way. It marks an opportunity. Therefore it should not take such a prominent place in the article. --Ettrig (talk) 05:57, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

I did make the revert that you suggested, to trigger a more thorough discussion of this issue. But I don't have time to take part in such a thorough discussion right now. So I reverted my own revert. I will be back in about one month. --Ettrig (talk) 06:48, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict)The place to discuss changes to consensus about the Template is on the Template talk page, so I won't respond here to your points above about what the template does or doesn't say. If you wish to discuss the appropriateness of the documentation wording or the proper positioning of templates, take it up on the template talk page. If you don't get enough responses for clear consensus, publicize it on WikiProjects, or initiate an Rfc.

User pages are for discussing user behavior. As a long time user, you know perfectly well that some pages have high traffic and others don't, so non-response is no indicator of consensus. Furthermore, your comment of "no response" does not wash, as your changes were reverted by other users, and you continued to obstinately insist on your own path, regardless of others' views.

Achieving consensus is Wikipedia's fundamental model for editorial decision-making. Your comment that a "new consensus" about usage of a template is supported by the fact that no one has reverted your changes to hundreds (or thousands?) of obscure articles is absurd on the face of it. You think volunteers have nothing better to do than follow you around and correct your mischief? From 10:30 to 11:00 on May 4 you made 41 edits of this nature, for an average of over one per minute, to the exclusion of any other edit on your part. How does this help improve the encyclopedia? Since the 19th of April, you appear to have made about 500 such edits; how far back have you been doing this? What are you here for?

You are smarter than this, and better than this. Nobody believes that your behavior supports the current consensus, and what's more, you don't believe it either. I can only guess that you are, or were, trying to amass as big a pile of changes favoring your position as you possibly can, before you are stopped. Otherwise, I'm at a loss to explain your behavior. If you have a disagreement with other editors, don't just be a lone cowboy, follow the dispute resolution recommendations—that's what they're there for.

As for what's happening right now, I notice that you haven't resumed altering articles in this way since your reply above; if that's an intentional change on your part then bravo for that, we are moving in the right direction. There will be all the time in the world to take up those changes again at some later date, once you have achieved consensus for your proposals for the template usage.

As for the Template itself, I see that you have made two further edits to the template doc since my previous message. The first at 06:06 to change it once again to your preferred wording (this being the 4th time now that you've done that). But subsequently you apparently thought better of it, and self-reverted at 06:44. So, "Oops," on the first edit, and "Well done," for the second. Now let's leave it that way.

Feel free to take up the arguments in favor of your way of seeing things at Template talk:Expand language. There's no rush about this, and you'll have all the time in the world to go back to moving templates around on hundreds of articles again, once you gain consensus for a change. In the meantime, you'll have tons more time available to you for improving other articles, so best of luck with that. We might even end up collaborating on some articles, wouldn't that be more pleasant? Cordially, Mathglot (talk) 07:55, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

P.S. I saw your self-revert before the edit conflict, but not your second comment. The self-revert was the smart move. Sure, a month or whenever. There's no rush, after all. Mathglot (talk) 07:56, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

I realize that this discussion may require a lot of time and patience. But as I wrote above, I cannot spend that time on Wikipedia right now. --Ettrig (talk) 08:30, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Hello Ettrig,

Welcome back from your break. I see that you have been back for a few days. But I am disappointed to learn that you have returned to your previous efforts of moving the positioning of the template unilaterally. According to my count, since you got back on 30 May, you have made 473 edits, all or nearly all of them involving moving the {{Expand language}} template to the bottom of the page, to the exclusion of any other effort on your part to improve the encyclopedia.

Won't you please stop doing this now as we discussed earlier, until a consensus has been achieved? In the worst case, you could be sanctioned if things do not go your way, and you might even be requested to move all the templates back to their original position in the article pages that you have changed.

Please stop making these changes now, and wait for consensus before continuing. Mathglot (talk) 09:44, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Do not threat. Start discussing in a civilised manner. --Ettrig (talk) 10:46, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

There are no threats here. Moving templates around on article pages like you are doing at a very fast clip, against consensus, and while a discussion is happening about the topic, may be seen as disruptive editing.

Mentioning possible sanctions just above is not a threat, as I an not an admin and have no way to carry them out even if I wished to, which I don't; rather, it is friendly advice about what might happen if you persist in your one-track approach, as I've seen it happen before. The ANI is the proper forum in which to raise issues about user behavior, and imho your behavior now falls under that category. Please stop now. Mentioning ANI is not a threat either; in fact, if and when an incident concerning someone is raised at ANI, it is a requirement to let them know on their talk page about it. I hope it doesn't come to that, but you must immediately cease your behavior of moving {{Expand language}} templates around on articles that have them.

Before you left temporarily on May 5, I had the impression that you had agreed to halt this behavior for good, but I see that I was mistaken about that. Will you now agree to stop moving templates around, until a discussion can be held about this? Please respond. Mathglot (talk) 19:44, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

There is no consensus on this issue and there was no active discussion. I tried to discuss, but there were no answers. Let's hope the discussion that just started can come to a conclusion. --Ettrig (talk) 20:27, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

There is indeed consensus, or at least, there was, and there has been no indication that it has changed, with the exception of your very vociferous opposition. It is very clear is that you do not agree with the consensus. That is fine: the talk page exists in order for you to try and establish a new consensus. But while you are doing that, it would behoove you to act responsibly and stop altering articles to your preferred style. At the same time, you should credit others here with good faith. Continuing to do whatever you please shows contempt for your fellow editors. Saying that "I tried to discuss but there were no answers," when there were answers but you didn't like them, shows contempt for your fellow editors. I know you feel very strongly about the proper position of the template, otherwise you wouldn't be spending massive amounts of time to alter over a thousand articles now. One of the core principles of Wikipedia is that achieving consensus is fundamental to editing here. You may yet gain consensus for your preferred point of view. Until that happens, please set aside your personal feelings, and stop editing articles for the purpose of repositioning the templates. You used to be a great contributor, with contributions in the areas of birds, India, math, computing, genetics, flora and fauna, sports, history, video, sociology, and more— what happened to get you to drop all that for this strange mania? It's really perplexing to me. Cordially, Mathglot (talk) 06:10, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

I see that since the discussion about proper template positioning began six days ago at WP:MOS/Layout, you have moved the position of the templates in an additional 164 articles. Is it your intention to continue doing this while the discussion is taking place? You are violating the core Wikipedia principle of achieving consensus and working with other editors by acting unilaterally to push your own viewpoint, most especially while a discussion about the very topic is taking place. Please stop. Mathglot (talk) 09:48, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

There is no consensus. What has happened is that there has been protests against the placement of this template. Those protests have been ignored. This means there has not been a conclusion. There is no current discussion taking place. The one that started a week ago died out almost immediately, without any substantive arguments for the placement at the top. The manual says that maintenance tags should not stay up for long. All the templates that I have moved the latest two weeks or so violate that instruction. They have been up for more than two years. Maybe I should have just removed them from the article altogether. But I thought that would be too drastic and unnecessary. A large minority of the 1200 that I have moved so far point to articles that are marked as stubs (in french). These tags are definitely not warranted. But again, I have chosen a less drastic solution. --Ettrig (talk) 09:56, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Please stop playing the fool like you don't understand what I'm saying. Your English is excellent, and you know what I am saying. You cannot act unilaterally on your own here, you know this perfectly well. Discussing your point of view at MOS/Layout is the right thing to do, but discussing there while continuing to move templates around at the same time is against all notions of dispute resolution and consensus, so please stop pretending you don't understand this. Mathglot (talk) 10:35, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

It is not good manners to accuse me of "playing the fool". Start discussing in a civilized way. You need to distinguish between two discussions. (1) Where should the Expand french template instance be placed. (2) Is it OK for me to move the instances now. On (2): The instances I have moved lately were instances that could just as well have been removed completely. All of them because they had been up far too long (in violation of the instruction for maintenance tags). A large majority because they point at articles that are stubs. --Ettrig (talk) 15:40, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

You are very convincing in your theater of pretending to not understand what I am saying, and it takes someone exceptionally intelligent to play the fool convincingly, and to come up with a myriad of ways to avoid addressing the question of your disruptive editing, but you don't fool me. Your diversionary non-reason offered for moving the templates is that they "could just as well have been removed completely," but you didn't remove them, even though that would have been easier (but disruptive in a different way, so please don't do that either).

You are quite right about one thing, which is that there are two separate issues under discussion. Your point (1) is a content and guideline/policy issue, and the proper forum to discuss that is on the talk page of the guideline. You'll notice I haven't addressed (1) at all here, so your comments in the paragraph above about whether the templates you moved should have been rather deleted instead are irrelevant; that is a content and policy question and you can take it up at the guideline page. Your point (2) is a user behavior question. That is what we are talking about here on your user talk page, and this is the correct forum for user behavior issues. The title of this section names that behavior and sets the topic of this user talk page discussion, namely, your large-scale repositioning of language templates. And the answer is: your behavior is disruptive; it is not okay to move them, certainly not on the massive scale you have been doing, and for the trifecta, especially not while a discussion about it is taking place. Are you keeping count of these moves, so you know when you are done? I think you are over 1,500 template moves now, but I kind of lost track; I'm sure you know better than me.

I don't know how to make this any clearer and I find I'm repeating myself, so unless there is some positive response on your part, I don't see the value in continuing this discussion here, unless you have something new to bring to bear? Cordially, Mathglot (talk) 20:05, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

I think I am improving the encyclopedia. I have explained why I think so. Your answers refer only to rules, without touching on the substance of the issue. Your behaviour is not supported by the fifth pillar of Wikipedia, WP:5P. It says that there are no firm rules. It seems I need to repeat myself, as you do: Start discussing in a civilized way. My own estimate is about 1400 (I don't count, but the tools show me). --Ettrig (talk) 05:02, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Only another 200 template moves today, since you wrote that last message? You must be slacking a bit. But still, that's a rate of 1,000 per week if you take Saturday and Sunday off; not bad. I think User:Abrahamic Faiths thought there might be around 10 or 20,000 of these templates? At this rate, you'll be done in around three or four months. Impressive. I wonder if they'll make you put them all back. That wouldn't be fun, would it? Enjoy your monomania; I'm outta here. Mathglot (talk) 02:28, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

FYI, I started a discussion about these unilateral moves at WP:ANI. Calliopejen1 (talk) 00:29, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Drama drama drama

So, are we cool to stop moving stuff until we get a consensus at the RfC? I mean, there's really not much point anyway. If the decision is to put them at the top, it's just as likely that someone will put together a bot to reposition them anyway.

To any talk page stalkers who are unaware, feel free to discuss at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Layout#Placement of expand language templates. TimothyJosephWood 12:27, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

I was rather unaware of the common resolution procedures (as seem to be o couple of other people involved). I did not see a consensus. But i did see that protests have been "voiced" and ignored. My objective was to ensure that this issue was not ignored this time. It is very difficult to get a proper discussion going. But this will have to do for now. --Ettrig (talk) 16:48, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Umm... It's really not that difficult if you carefully follow WP:DR. There's always the option to start an WP:RfC and just let the cards fall where they may. And basically, if you revert someone, you should probably try to start a discussion regardless. If you happen upon the dozen or so of our most active admins that contribute in controversial topics, you'll find that this is a matter of course for them, even for reverts that sometimes seem fairly uncontroversial. At the end of the day, I agree with you, but if the community disagrees with us, then our readers are still not going to be terribly inconvenienced by it, not to the point that they would think less of the project.

But I encourage you to make your best argument at the RfC. I'm decidedly not, since I opened it, but the defense probably deserves a good attorney. TimothyJosephWood 23:08, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Ettrig, would you be willing to contribute to moving banners back to the top of articles per the RFC result? The effort is being coordinated here. Thanks, Calliopejen1 (talk) 23:46, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

No. --Ettrig (talk) 05:59, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

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IUCN

Hi there! I reverted your edit on Grey jay where you removed the IUCN acronym from its first definition on the page. Our style guide advises that initialisms should be defined when they are first used on the page, in the way that it was in the article before your edit. This aids in readability for users who cannot click on a wikilink, such as readers viewing broken Wikipedia mirrors, printed versions of Wikipedia, and visually-impaired readers using screen readers. I see you've made that sort of change on a number of other pages. Would you please consider reviewing and reversing those edits? Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:02, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

You might also be interested in this discussion on this specific initialism in birds articles. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:08, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Help! A WP bully on the Radical centrism page

Hiu Ettrig, - I am writing you because of your caring edits on the Radical centrism page a few weeks ago. That page is being attacked by a WP bully using IP addresses, and I am at a loss as to how to proceed. Can you / would you do something? Alternately, do you have any advice?

The guy (I am sure it's a guy) entered 68 unexplained "edits" in one fell swoop on 22:34, 17 October 2017‎, using the IP address 80.183.63.236, most of the edits useless o not in keeping with the style of the article, or actually in violation of the MOS (his caption changes, for example). I spent many hours going over them. Yesterday, at 15:13, 18 February 2018‎, using the IP address 80.183.54.254, he struck again, in much the same way, with 50 unexplained edits in one entry, as arbitrary or as destructive as before (see, e.g., what he did with the Jane Jacobs caption before I reverted his changes).

You will notice that, right after making his 50 -edit entry, he made a minor (and pointless) stylistic entry under the name HanotLo. Clearly that was done to foil WP editors who lack the expertise to know they can only undo a substantial edit by first removing the subsequent edit or edits. (I did not know this on 17 October, when he played a similar trick on me.) If you doubt that HanotLo, who joined us two weeks ago, is connected to the IP user, look at the mass of reversions on HanotLo's User Contribution page.

I am not equipped to handle this. Can you? If not, what do you suggest? I will look for your answer here. Thanks in advance! - Babel41 (talk) 00:42, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Hmmmmm. Yes, this is difficult. I had a qick look at the one big edit by 80.183. This is definitely not vandalism. Some of it is definitely improvement. But there are big deletions of sourced passages that seem dubious. On the other hand I do think the article is a bit unwieldy. If you want to work on this, one way would be to look carefully at the deletions and see if they should be put back again. --Ettrig (talk) 08:27, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for this. I will look again after a few days. But I am surprised by your reaction. Surely the manipulative subsequent "HanotLo" edit, and the many reversions on HanotLo's User Contribution page, is a giveaway. And so is 80.183's refusal to isolate, let alone explain, any of his 50 edits. Labeling all 50 of them as "Switched" goes way beyond failure to observe WP protocol, it is deliberately deceptive. It is a lie. And I disagree that the article is unwieldy - in fact, I find it unusually coherent given all the ground it covers. But even if it is unwieldy, none of 80.183's edits address that aspect of it. Anyway, as I say, I will look again. Thanks for responding. Best, - Babel41 (talk) 06:41, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Race and intelligence

Please review WP:BRD. When your Bold edit has been Reverted by another editor, the next step, if you continue to think the edit is necessary, is to Discuss it on the article talk page, not to re-revert it, which is the first step to edit warring. During the discussion, the article remains in the status quo ante.

Currently, you are edit warring, restoring your edits to the article after they have been removed by an editor in good standing. This is unacceptable. You must open a discussion on the talk page and present your arguments there, where a WP:CONSENSUS of editors can decide whether your edits are improvements to the article or not. If you continue to edit war, you will be reported to the edit-warring noticebaord, where your refusal to wait for a consensus will weigh against you. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:52, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

I see you just re-reverted

Pot calling the kettle black, as the old proverb runs. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:03, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I did, after considerable mulling. It seems to have worked. I interpret your recent "censoring" as saying that your behaviour was not good. That is fine.

The article you wanted to change has a special place in my heart. It is the only case where I decided to make an article GA and it happened. It happened faster than I expected because a couple of other people added their efforts almost at the same time. The reviewer wrote I must say I'm impressed with the readability of the article, and I think it serves as an excellent introduction to the topic. In my view, the order of presentation is very important for readability. Actually, I think that is obvious. So I was very frustrated when you wanted to change that carefuly constructed order because of a rigid rule that doesn't exist. --Ettrig (talk) 15:06, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

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Careful with ref names

Hi! Your edit here introduced a duplicate ref name error. (Search for 'error:' in the revisions before and after your edit.) I have since fixed this error. --Palosirkka (talk) 09:49, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

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Your edit to Duralumin

Hi, can you please add references to the information that you have added to Duralumin, then move it to the “history” section, and make sure you are not repeating things that already mentioned in that section. For now I undid your edit but feel free to undo my “undid” once you have references. FuzzyMagma (talk) 13:03, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

To me your action seems to be a trivial mistake. Let me explain: The intro is not to contain any information that is not in the following article proper. The intro is just a summary. That is a very general rule in Wikipedia. Thus, the references shall be in the article proper, and not in the intro. I have not added anything, just provided the summary that was asked for. --Ettrig (talk) 20:19, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

@Ettrig i see your point. I will term the lede as per MOS:LEDE and to avoid duplicate information FuzzyMagma (talk) 08:14, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

April 2023

Hello, I'm SanemAyhan07. I noticed that you added or changed content in an article, Lisa Hartman Black, but you didn't provide a reliable source. It's been removed and archived in the page history for now, but if you'd like to include a citation and re-add it, please do so. You can have a look at referencing for beginners. If you think I made a mistake, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you.  𝘚𝘢𝘯𝘦𝘮𝘈𝘺𝘩𝘢𝘯07   10:52, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

The maintenance template instance asked for a longer intro. So I added to the intro and removed the instance. You, on the other hand removed from the intro. That is, you recreated the problem. The intro is to be a summary of the article. My addition to the intro is that. If it is not OK to make a summary of the article, because of its low quality, then it should not have that template. Although it is still true, it asks for an action that you forbid. I think it is still OK to summarize, but I will let you choose in this case. But your action here is obviously inconsistent.--Ettrig (talk) 11:01, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

I appreciate your editing; you were on Wikipedia long before I was and are improving it. Since this article is about a living person, it is important to put every detail into context, so I undid the changes when I realised it had no supporting source. If you wish to help this page get better, it would be a pleasure. To prevent errors from being made by other editors, all I want to say is that you must include the source while making changes in BLP. You are correct that I reinstated the maintenance tags even though you complied with their request; this is due to the fact that when the article's intro grows in size but newly added content without context is reverted, the maintenance tags appear. If you still think I made a mistake, feel free to undo my edit. Regards! 𝘚𝘢𝘯𝘦𝘮𝘈𝘺𝘩𝘢𝘯07   11:47, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

But I didn't add content. I just made a summary of the article as it was. If you think that it isn't OK to make that summary, then it is a contradiction to ask the others to enlarge the intro. This is because the intro is to be exactly that, a summary of the article. So I think that logically you need to choose between removing the template instance and accepting that a summary is added.--Ettrig (talk) 13:53, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm putting an end to this conversation by setting your edits while keeping this discussion in mind. You are aware that disagreements over edits on Wikipedia are typical and should be resolved unanimously in accordance with ethics. Your time is greatly appreciated.- 𝘚𝘢𝘯𝘦𝘮𝘈𝘺𝘩𝘢𝘯07   14:56, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia. It might not have been your intention, but you recently removed maintenance templates from Ave Maria, Florida. When removing maintenance templates, please be sure to either resolve the problem that the template refers to, or give a valid reason for the removal in the edit summary. Please see Help:Maintenance template removal for further information on when maintenance templates should or should not be removed. If this was a mistake, don't worry, as your removal of this template has been reverted. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia, and if you would like to experiment, please use your sandbox. Thank you. –DMartin 20:36, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Damn if I do, damn if I don´t. See the previous discussion that you peculiarly added to. I did give a valid reason for the removal. An intro is a summary. The article does not provide acceptable references. A summary would therefore introduce unreferenced material. This would not be OK. The template instance therefore solicits unacceptable behavior. Therefore it needs to be removed.--Ettrig (talk) 20:46, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

The article having other problems does not negate the fact that it also has too short of a lead. The section title is generated automatically by Twinkle. –DMartin 23:16, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Adaption

Adaption is a legitimate word, not a spelling error, see https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/adaption . There is no reason to mass remove it. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:15, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Hey, what you are saying here is definitely not a reason for reverting. Googling: Adaption: 60M; Adaptation: 990M. This is probalby a language change in the making. But adaptation is still clearly the standard form.--Ettrig (talk) 21:22, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

It doesn't matter. What you are making is called a WP:COSMETIC edit, which is of little value. Even if someone wasn't familiar with the variant, the similarity with the more common adaptation means that the meaning would be obvious from context. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:38, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

You are right. I apologize. I did think this was a spelling error and I thought I had checked. But you have argued solidly. I meet arguments like my previous one, now and then, and then I find it very irritating, Sorry and thanks.--Ettrig (talk) 06:05, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Your (longer intro) edits

Please stop. If you continue to make non-constructive edits to Wikipedia using a large language model (an "AI chatbot" or another application using such a technology), you may be blocked from editing. memphisto 21:17, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Hey, these are very strong threatening words! I have gotten several thanks for these introductions. The only criticism has been that some of the statements are not sourced (when the corresponding article text is not sourced). There is no concrete criticism in your comment. So what is the problem here? --Ettrig (talk) 05:23, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

The issue is that you are using a large language model to make semi-automated contributions to wikipedia, which plainly add nothing of value to the articles and in some cases make them objectively worse memphisto 10:18, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

There is still very little substance in your criticism. semi-automated contributions is a suspicion that you harbor. Even if it was true, it wouldn't be a problem. add nothing of value to the article is substantial. But it is non-sensical. The intro is NOT to add any content. Its purpose is to summarize, and summaries is what I have provided. To repeat, I have received several thanks for these summaries. make them objectively worse is not substantial. Specific examples would be. But note, we are all fallible. A mistake here and there is NOT cause for blocking.--Ettrig (talk) 11:57, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

I haven't seen you deny that you are using a large language model (or something similar) to aid in the creation of your (longer intro) edits? memphisto 09:14, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

I am not interested in discussing "large language model" with you. Do I need to? Why?--Ettrig (talk) 09:45, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

He just wants to know if you're using such technology, it sounds like it's against the site's policies.--Harryhenry1 (talk) 07:52, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

But it isn't. See Wikipedia:Large language models.--Ettrig (talk) 08:07, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

The page notes at the top that it's still just a draft, and that "references or links to this page should not describe it as policy, guideline, nor yet even as a proposal".--Harryhenry1 (talk) 07:58, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Shhhh... Do use LLMs, but be slow and cautious. Edit a ton on that rough draft and make sure to check the facts in the content before publishing. The problem here is that you make a superhuman level of edits and that leaves little room for you and others to check your content. Don't do a User:Doug Coldwell moment. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 03:48, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

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Automatic Curriculum Learning moved to draftspace

Thanks for your contributions to Automatic Curriculum Learning. Unfortunately, it is not ready for publishing because it has no sources and it needs more sources to establish notability. Your article is now a draft where you can improve it undisturbed for a while.

Please see more information at Help:Unreviewed new page. When the article is ready for publication, please click on the "Submit your draft for review!" button at the top of the page. BoyTheKingCanDance (talk) 08:41, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes, it does have a source, and the source is not primary. Ettrig (talk) 08:56, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: Automatic Curriculum Learning (June 4)

Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reasons left by Apmh were: Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit after they have been resolved.

• If you would like to continue working on the submission, go to Draft:Automatic Curriculum Learning and click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window.
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Detroit–Windsor tunnel

By whom? Who requested a longer opening for Detroit–Windsor tunnel? this is generally not how pages at wiki are done; it's kind of discouraged. In this particular case, too, you're repeating a lot of information already present in the body. The opening is supposed to give you a short, concise description of the subjected matter. The sections of the article is where you fill in the technical detail. Criticalthinker (talk) 18:19, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

There was a ao-called maintenance maintenance template saying that the intro is too short. YES, this is how articles are to be structured according to the guidelines (see link in that template instance). That is, the intro SHALL be a summary of what follows. --Ettrig (talk) 18:57, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

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Wikilinks?

I'm puzzled as to why you aren't adding any to your intro summaries, which are otherwise useful? Crowsus (talk) 12:01, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

My very rough estimate is that that would require 200% more time. In other words: I would then produce one third as many summaries. I would then feel less productive. This work is extremely boring. What makes me do it anyway is that I feel I get a lot of work done. --Ettrig (talk) 13:34, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Yeah but that's not a good way to do it. Nobody asked you to rush through them. If you don't add the links to Nico Williams (which is the article I watch out of those you updated, what other editors do in their area of interest is up to them so I won't get involved) I will revert it as incomplete, then you will have wasted 100% of your time on that one, which would be a shame. Crowsus (talk) 19:06, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

No that is not the right attitude. The question is not if a change makes the article complete. The question is whether the change is a step in the right direction, is it an improvement? You don't want to reverse an improvement, do you? I stated that for me it would require 200% extra time to add the wikilinks. That means I have contributed one third of the needed work on the summary. What you suggest is to remove that work. That would be destructive behaviour. It would therefore be directly against the spirit of Wikipedia, which is a cooperative effort.--Ettrig (talk) 19:17, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Your time is not any more important than others. Please stop this.

At some point, people look at this kind of attitude and resulting behaviour and ask, "Are this editor's contributions worth all the disruption and aggravation". If other editors conclude the answer is no, then there are sanctions. Often they include an indefinite block.

However you may feel about your work, based on others' comments and the current WP:ANI report, you're close to getting the long goodbye from Wikipedia.

—A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 16:44, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

July 2023

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.Cerebral726 (talk) 14:21, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Blocked

You have been blocked from editing Wikipedia because your contributions are a net negative to the project. It is extremely clear you are using AI chatbots to add very poor quality edits to the project. These edits are resulting in many editors having to spend a lot more time than you spent clicking some buttons to clean up your edits. Because you are solely responsible for your edits, you are solely responsible for the time and effort you're costing other editors to bring your edits up to standard even when they are correct. This all amounts to your edits being a net negative to the project. So while you continue to make such poor quality edits, whether you use AI powered tools or not, and cost other editors time you will not be permitted to edit. Canterbury Tail talk 19:11, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

You have been blocked indefinitely from editing for abuse of editing privileges.

If you think there are good reasons for being unblocked, please read the guide to appealing blocks, then add the following text at the bottom of your talk page: {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}.

Direct link to Administrators' noticeboard/incident

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1135#User:Ettrig mass addition of longer leads. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Memphisto (talk • contribs) 11:20, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

From my experience with Perplexity AI (a conversational search engine based on OpenAI GPT series) and ChatGPT rival Google Bard, textual content generated using large language models might contain misinformation as these models tends to hallucinate or in other words, BS even though they look genuine on the surface-level, but there are not when viewed below the surface. Therefore you should only ever use LLMs for brainstorming and/or overcoming writer's block when comes to editing Wikipedia, not as a substitute for lack of experience. 2001:448A:3070:EDD9:571:1317:62D3:B823 (talk) 04:47, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Unblock

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).

Ettrig (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

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Request reason:

The motivation given on my talk page is quantitative. The gist of it is: These edits are resulting in many editors having to spend a lot more time than you spent clicking some buttons to clean up your edits. ... your edits (are) a net negative to the project. I call this trivial improvements. More on that below.

There is more serious criticism on the Administrators' noticeboard. There is a lot of words expressing value judgments there, but very little concrete criticism. It is expressed best in this quote: This falsely states Gerald Micklem either competed in the Walker Tournament 3 times in one year, or competed in the Walker Tournament 3 times total (which is false, it was 4 times). This is the exact kind of subtle falsehoods that make this type of editing so problematic. I will call this kind real problems. I divide them into the categories FAULT, what is stated is wrong, and DIFFICULT, it is unreasonably difficult to read.

Maybe there is a third category: Problems with the pre-existing article that cause problems also in the summary. I call this blaming the summarizer.

Back to trivial improvements: This criticism has several strong weaknesses. It is logically false. It does not follow from the fact that other editors spend more time improving the text that my contribution was negative. The intro was required (by a maintenance tag) so it has to be done. It may be that the other editors would have needed more time working from scratch then working from my summary, even if my contribution is smaller.

The argument compares the time I use with the time others use to improve the summary. This is not reasonable. The relevant comparison is the time it would take to make the summary without using the method that is criticised. The argument is quantitative, but no (reasonable) calculation is made. Here is a trial at that: I have used ChatGPT based on GPT4 to make 1400 introduction summaries that were requested with a maintenance template. I measured how long it takes me to make 10 of these summaries from scratch. I takes 26 minutes on average (8 - 36). Modifying 10 summaries made by ChatGPT based on GPT4, which I used, took me 6 minutes (3 - 11). If my times are representative, then I have accomplished 1400 X (26 - 6) minutes of work. That is, 450 hours, leaving 140 hours of improvement for others to do. Other editors may be slower or faster than I am. The relative times should still be about the same. So with a large margin, ChatGPT and I have made a substantial contribution in this way. My subjective experience is also that although neither task is particularly taxing, creating a summary from scratch takes much more concentration than making the trivial improvements. I see this for example in the need to take pauses (that are not included in my figures). So the difference in effort is larger than the difference in time.

A large part of the changes that the criticisers think are needed in the ChatGPT texts are trivial, non-essential and idiosyncratic to Wikipedia. ChatGPT creates prose that is (to a very large extent) readable and that gives a good overview of the article. This is true even when names are not written with the special font that is common in Wikipedia or when wikilinks are missing.

A missing wikilink is not a fault. It is an opportunity for improvement. And even if it was a fault, this fault has not been introduced by me. Before my edit, the whole intro was missing. Including that wikilink. Do we delete the whole article because the intro is missing? No, of course we don't. We let the readers use the article as it is and hope that someone will improve it later. The same principle is applicable to "missing" wikilinks and other idiosyncratic Wikipedia formatting that can be done. In summary: The poor quality edits ... resulting in many editors having to spend a lot more time than you spent clicking some buttons to clean up your edits are a very effective way to get a task done that SHALL be done, according to a well established maintenance template, Template:Lead too short.

The real problems are not mentioned on my talk page, so let's go to the page where my blocking was discussed, Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1135#User:Ettrig mass addition of longer leads. There are a lot of words but rather limited factual criticism. Below I comment each such item. I need one more category: ABSURD.

1. removal of maintenance templates As criticism, this is ABSURD. When the the intro has been extended, the template SHALL be removed.
2. Parroting unsourced information in the body of a BLP This is unfair. The community has created a Catch-22 (logic). The maintenance template is a strong request to make a summary. When editors are responding to this request they should not be made responsible for weaknesses in the article being summarized. It may be a good idea to modify the instruction for the template to ameliorate this problem. I would for example think it is OK to just remove this template when other templates point at more serious problems. But currently the message from the community to the community is that a summary SHALL be made. Editors who do this should thus not be ostracised. This is category BLAMING THE SUMMARIZER.
3. Completely disregarding formatting, such as italics for titles of works This is TRIVIAL, discussed extensively above.
4. Refusing to add wikilinks This is TRIVIAL, discussed extensively above.
5. Bizarre non-phrases ... This is not concrete. Some specific cases come below.
6. [2] The film was criticized for being loud, busy, and dull, but Jim Carrey's performance as The Riddler was divisive. His iconic green spandex Riddler suit and his character have been recognized in Batman legacy, with references in subsequent Batman media and adaptations. The first sentence is not two contrasting phrases, so the "but" makes no sense. "Have been recognized in Batman legacy"...? This is two different problems.
7. But correctly replicates the meaning of the text it summarizes. The corresponding word there is nonetheless. This is category BLAMING THE SUMMARIZER.
8. Batman legacy" is wrong. The intention is Riddler legacy in Batman media". For the reader, this is a disturbance. But she is not misinformed, only momentarily confused. The explanation comes in the next phrase and in the corresponding part of the article. This is a TRUE FAULT.
9. [3] Includes a summary of an example in the article that becomes meaningless when described the way it was. I see meaning here. You don't. And note, this difference is not because I wrote it. I didn't. But it is difficult to read. There are lots of places where Wikipedia is very difficult to understand, especially in the realm of mathematics. Let's call it DIFFICULT.
10. [4] The game's weaponry is diverse, ranging from flamethrowers to acid guns, and weapons give off heat, making cooling upgrades crucial. Missiles and bombs, however, don't generate heat but have their limitations. In my view that summary is correct and informative. The exception is but have their limitations. That part provides no information and should be removed. This is not grave. Let's call it DIFFICULT.
11. They have made 1000s of edits in the same vein. The actual figure is 1400. So this is an over-estimate by at least a factor 2, hinting at several times the actual figure. #This edit contains the line He played in the Walker Cup three times and won the English Amateur for a second time in 1953; This falsely states Gerald Micklem either competed in the Walker Tournament 3 times in one year, or competed in the Walker Tournament 3 times total (which is false, it was 4 times). Yes, the figure 3 is false, it should be 4. ChatGPT has misconstrued the statement that he played 3 MORE times. This is the only real factual error that is brought up in this discussion. Luckily, this is not grave, since the correct figure appears both earlier in the intro and later in the article. Still, this is a TRUE FAULT.
12. That he played 3 times in one year is a peculiar and completely unnecessary misreading. This is a FALSE FAULT. That is, the criticism itself is erroneous.

In summary: apart from the problem of including problematic material from the article in the summary, very few non-trivial problems are mentioned in the discussion leading to this blocking. Two concern text that is difficult to read. Two concern real faults. One is a perceived fault that is not a fault. None of these run the risk of causing actual mis-information. 4 faults in 1400 edits cannot reasonably be cause for blocking. The number of trivial problems is large, but fixing them is in most cases not necessary and constitutes a much smaller amount of work than creating the summary from scratch.

A meta-comment: 14 editors have criticised this way of working on my talk page and/or the notice board. Their main argument seems to be that it is obvious that these edits are of too low quality. This is more than balanced by 20 editors who have thanked me using the button for this. Many of those have made a number of improvements to the edits. Ettrig (talk) 16:29, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Decline reason:

WP:WALLOFTEXT. Note also that the use of ChatGPT here is not appropriate. If you are attempting to justify that it is, you are going against community consensus. Yamla (talk) 13:18, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

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If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).

Ettrig (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

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Request reason:

I don't know what in my writing walloftext refers to. My previous unblock request is long. That is because I need to answer the criticism. The division into paragraphs was changed between preview and publish.

There is not a consensus against ChatGPT or other LLMs. I am aware of a policy discussion about this. But it has not completed. Even if there is consensus. I am not aware of it. I should not be blocked before that consensus has been demonstrated to me.

Making summaries is a special case where ChatGPT is especially good. Yes, my unblock reason shows this.

The criticism expressed in this case is very different from the causes for blocking described in Wikipedia:Blocking policy.

Ettrig (talk) 16:29, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Decline reason:

Frankly, whether or not you're using AI tools in your writing here is not particularly relevant, as you seem to think that your sloppy work is justified because you can do it quickly, and because others will clean up your mess. Please see WP:CIR, particularly where it reads "A mess created in a sincere effort to help is still a mess." You don't seem to understand what the problem is and so I cannot unblock you. While there may not be consensus against the use of ChatGPT or other LLMs to edit Wikipedia, there is clear consensus that you should not. If you keep trying to defend your use of ChatGPT anyway, your talk page access will be revoked. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 17:45, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

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If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

Always precious

Ten years ago, you were found precious. That's what you are, always. - miss you --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:58, 13 March 2024 (UTC)