User talk:ToBeFree

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Grammar

^{Note: This is not a recent discussion; the last message was written 6 years ago. However, I will keep it at the top of the talk page because I hope that 75.110.241.177 might come back and see it one day. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 16:56, 16 July 2018 & 22:44, 8 May 2019 (UTC)}

My personal interpretation of Special:Diff/856857493 is that the user may already be aware of this message. I guess I will archive this section when the timer above shows "36 months ago". ~ ToBeFree (talk) 02:10, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Previous discussion; already read by 75.110.241.177

Main discussion This section has been moved to the bottom of the talk page and merged with an update created under a new heading. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 15:30, 1 May 2018 (UTC) ...Yes, the reason I edited the page was to "change the meaning of the words." I effectively did just that. Grammarians do not talk about modifying sentences, which you said I should have been doing. It is always words which are modified. Despite this, you found my edit wanting in some mysterious fashion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.110.241.177 (talk) 14:33, 27 April 2018 (UTC) (This specific message is probably about the following edit: [1] ) ~ ToBeFree (talk) 01:37, 28 April 2018 (UTC) Before continuing to answer this question, it might be helpful to copy link to a possibly relevant discussion between you and another editor about a similar issue: Talk:Gloria_Union#Japan_only Note by ToBeFree, 02:00, 11 May 2018 (UTC): I have removed the original quotes from this section, because I had a look at this conversation a week later, and directly quoting this discussion was not a nice thing to do. Both editors have been attacking each other, and it would be bad taste of me to actively mirror that in my talk page archive forever. I had originally quoted the messages from 16:11, 27 April 2018 (UTC) and 16:38, 27 April 2018 (UTC). Even when quoting the discussion here, taking that aggressive section out of its context is not a good idea. This seems to be especially relevant because you declared yourself, literally, to be "Grammar police" "knocking" on other editors' "doors" to correct them. You do even "insist" native English speakers to "stop editing articles for grammar" because you say that they have a "very poor grasp of the English language". The reason why I made this edit is that you have not simply fixed grammar errors. Instead, you have changed the meaning of the words without modifying the overall sentence, resulting in a logical error. This specific edit is not related to grammar, it is related to logic. If you believe this to be a grammatical correction, I am afraid that other editors' reactions to your other edits might not have been entirely made up out of thin air. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 01:37, 28 April 2018 (UTC) Once again, you can't "modify a sentence" because no such thing is possible. You may as well speak of "modifying DNA to transform a human into an ape". That is the state of it. You must not edit Wikipedia for grammar if you are unaware of how grammar is to be constructed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.110.241.177 (talk) 14:00, 1 May 2018‎ (UTC) Bad taste Note by ToBeFree, 14:59, 1 May 2018 (UTC): This seems to be about User talk:ToBeFree#Grammar and User talk:75.110.241.177 I find it in bad taste for you to dredge up discussion that I've had with other people, and then make remarks about them on my talk page. Clearly this is something you're set on doing. When you remark that I said a user should stop editing, you are wrong. I said this user should stop editing for grammar. You PROBABLY should know better than this, but English may be a barrier here, because you admit on your page that you speak only "advanced" English, and not near-perfect or professional (the other categories). In any case, if you think that you have the right to correct me in the fashion that you have, then you are mistaken. You are not a moderator here.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.110.241.177 (talk) 14:55, 1 May 2018‎ (UTC) Please sign your posts: "~~~~" ~ ToBeFree (talk) 14:59, 1 May 2018 (UTC) I hope I was able to address the quote problems pointed out by you. See diff. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 15:25, 1 May 2018 (UTC) Main discussion, continued This does not seem to actually answer the problem; I'll try to explain it differently. before your edit after your edit considered to be "German" considered at the time to be not fully German You say that this is a grammatical correction. This might be the case if the quotation marks around the word "German" are actually meant to say "not fully German". I do not believe this to be the intention behind these quotation marks. The quotation marks, in this sentence, are not implying incompleteness; they are used to quote a word. If you do not like this usage of the quotation marks, a grammatical fix would look like this: before your edit after your edit considered to be "German" considered to be German Any other change can not be justified by grammar. It adds your personal interpretation to the article; it changes the meaning of the sentence, and you did so without providing a source. This, and only this, is why I have undone the edit. I have received a "Thank You" from another experienced editor* for this edit some hours later. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 17:05, 1 May 2018 (UTC) *Clarification for later readers: I am not talking about Khajidha here, who has joined the discussion afterwards. The "Thank You" has been sent by an uninvolved editor who likely had the article on their watchlist. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 23:18, 1 May 2018 (UTC) Hello, here is the quoted sentence from the article. It hints and suggests that some of the people weren't German enough, due to them not using the full black-red-gold colors. The Frankfurt Parliament had declared the black-red-gold as the official colours of the German Confederation, with the red in the tricolour most likely referencing the Hanseatic League, and the gold and black symbolizing Austria as its empire, considered to be "German", had an influence over (what would become) southern Germany. The person who wrote it (not sure who it was) probably thought "gosh, Austria isn't Germany, I should point out this fact" but he or she was not able to do it appropriately. As far as his or her view goes, I cannot defend a prejudiced view. I only know to correct the grammar where I see it lacking. It may require a citation needed tag. --75.110.241.177 (talk) 18:42, 1 May 2018 (UTC) For someone who claims to be a part of the "grammar police" and to have studied grammar, you have the most abysmal understanding of it. User:ToBeFree has explained it perfectly to you in the above post. The sentence you quoted means that the reason Austria used the gold and black was that they were German. German in the cultural and linguistic sense and not in the sense of a German nationality or citizenship. The quotation marks around German are to indicate that it is to be understood in that sense of "German, but not of Germany". It's another way of saying "ethnic German". And yes, you can modify a sentence. I have NO idea where you got that particular dictum of yours from. --Khajidha (talk) 19:22, 1 May 2018 (UTC) Wait, let's not resort to attacks again. Since the last few hours, I'm researching about this, reading a lot about the historical circumstances and refreshing what we learned in our history school classes. From what I have read so far, simply removing the quotation marks is indeed a valid correction, and - whether the author has meant that or not - it is relatively likely that Austria has actually been considered to be German in this regard. Your point about it having been viewed as "ethnic German" is especially nice, because this might really be what it means, and I lacked the words to describe this. Please, at the very least on my own talk page, edit the source of this page and add <s> at the beginning of your previous message. Then add </s> after the first period, before "User:ToBeFree". Alternatively, you can re-word the sentence to be less aggressive. The rest of your statement seems to be very valid, and I thank you for taking the time to explain what I would have required more research for. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:32, 1 May 2018 (UTC) Oh, and yes, a Citation Needed tag might be good to have there! The whole discussion might not have been needed if there had been a valid reference clarifying the meaning. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:38, 1 May 2018 (UTC) I am a part of the grammar police. There's no need to put it in quotes, dubiously, and darkly, as the person who wrote German on the page did. You can see, from this, that indeed the purpose is to make the word German seem reprehensible, disreputable, and questionable. For all that he proved my point indirectly, you can safely ignore Khajidha. He is a resident troll on this website. --75.110.241.177 (talk) 20:13, 1 May 2018 (UTC) All of this is your personal interpretation, which I do not share. I have added a "citation needed" tag, as you had nicely suggested, and will completely remove the relevant sentence if no reliable citation is added in the next few weeks. Please do not personally attack other editors, and remove the last two sentences from your latest message on my talk page. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 23:08, 1 May 2018 (UTC) You're free to be wrong about grammar, but you should not edit any pages for grammar. Thanks for nothing. --75.110.241.177 (talk) 10:01, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Apology to 75.110.241.177: Please read this if you ever come back

Looking at this one month later I'm sorry for my initial hostile reaction. I have been clearly uncivil here, and I should not have let this incident stress me out. I had originally quoted a personal attack towards you, which is definitely not okay, and I had even originally marked it in bold to emphasize which part of the quoted discussion I considered to be "relevant". Before you had read the text (I hope), I quickly removed the bold text from the quote and reworded it to be less aggressive. I have also added an explanation of my edit on this occassion -- something I should have done as the very first thing, and in a much more polite way. About two weeks later, I decided to remove the insulting quote from my talk page. Especially as I had complained about personal attacks between you and Khajidha in the discussion, my quote casted an embarrassingly bad light on the otherwise very friendly atmosphere I'm trying to establish here. That was a good first step, I think, but I feel that it has not been enough. I have noticed that you have not edited since this discussion, and that your last edit has been made one month ago to my talk page. This is worrying me, because I might have discouraged a well-intending user from editing, something which I had ironically been complaining about to you above. I hope that the sudden stop of editing from your IP address, 75.110.241.177, has only been caused by a change of IP address, or by registration of a username. Today, I would like to invite you to give Wikipedia, a huge project that can only continue to exist because of contributions like yours, a second chance. Specifically, I sincerly hope that you would like to give me, personally, a second chance as well. I'm sorry for having been rude in our discussion, and I will honestly do my best to prevent something like this from happening ever again. If you would like to come back, please take one of these cookies: They're still warm while you're reading this. No matter when you're reading this. They'll be waiting here, they will not be archived, and it would make me happy to hear from you again whenever you see this message. I sadly can't reach you via e-mail by leaving a message on your talk page, but maybe you're still reading Wikipedia as 75.110.241.177, and maybe you'll be looking at my talk page one day again. When you do, please let me know, even if you choose to refuse my apology. I know that I have messed up. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 23:56, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Hello

I am not connected to Kieran Simcox please google him and you’ll see he’s a professional cyclist thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cyclopedia1997 (talk • contribs) 20:17, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Kieran Simcox

Heading converted to subheading~ ToBeFree (talk) 21:12, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Just google the person, I’d seen a video of him racing the the Elite Circuit series — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cyclopedia1997 (talk • contribs) 20:52, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Hi, my answer can be found at User talk:Cyclopedia1997. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 21:12, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

David & Mary Thomson Collegiate Institute

Hello ToBeFree,

             To be honest with you, this is my first time editing a page. I don't understand what you meant by conflict of interest. I literally took 1-2 hrs to add credible information in the page. However, I think you deleted all of that editions. Why? I was trying my best to help others with the credible information. Why did you delete this information? WHYYYYY? I was trying to help parents gather information, so they can see what the school offers. This was a helpful act I have done. But you, who lives far away, don't understand what I have written. The information comes from the school's website and the school's book. How credible is that?

I won't edit anymore. VERY DISSAPOINTED WITH HOW WIKIPEDIA WORKS.

BYE. Kevgeorge275 (talk) 14:12, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Hello Kevgeorge275, it was never my intention to disappoint you, and I'm sorry to hear that this first editing experience has been a negative one.

There are two main problems with the text, one of which I noticed too late:

• The additions have not been written from a neutral point of view; the language was promotional. It contained, for example, the following marketing phrases:

• "strong visual links"
• "safe"
• "strong and welcoming"
• "fun activities"
• "positive habits"
• "proud to offer this unique […] program"
• "smooth transition"
• "opportunity to actively enhance […] leadership skills"
• "fellow students"
• "unique classroom experiences"
• "opportunities"
• "empower by developing leadership skills"
• "recognized by international universities as one of the best/flexible programs"
• "richer, deeper, and more demanding"
• "university- critical thinking"

This alone was reason enough for me to completely undo your additions for being "not encyclopedic".

• The additions have, at least in part, been directly copied from (an)other website(s), such as taylorsmyth.com. This is a copyright violation; you must use your own words instead.

Regarding your potential conflict of interest (COI), if you are connected to the school in any way, please avoid writing about it.

Editors with a COI are sometimes unaware of whether or how much it has influenced their editing.
— Wikipedia:Conflict of interest

Best regards
~ ToBeFree (talk) 15:06, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Quick question about adding more citations

Hello and good afternoon!

We have a page currently in line to be reviewed. We recently received some new press and wondered if we should add them now? Or wait until we hear back from Wiki? We did not want to lose our place in line. Thank you very much in advance for your help and advice!

Sillaro Valley (talk) 16:17, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Hey Sillaro Valley, nice to meet you again. :)

Feel free to click "edit" and add anything you like. This will not change the position in the queue. You can always freely do this. Adding links to detailled news articles is indeed a very good thing to do, at any time.

I am a bit confused about your usage of "we" and phrases like "we received new press", as it sounds to me as if you are connected to the article subject. This would be fine, but you should then openly clarify this connection on your user page (the red link in your signature).

You're welcome; have a nice day and good luck with the article.

~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:48, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Code usage on userspace page

Hey ToBeFree, recently I've taken the content on your dashboard page, moved it over to this page in my userspace, then changed up all the links to meet my purposes. I used your page as the template, then changed the content due to the formatting and design done on it and how it was already set up to be a link holder page. If you have any problems with me using this, just tell me and I'll CSD it for you. Redactyll Social pub of talking 17:51, 28 August 2019 (UTC) at 17:51, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Hey Redactyll, nice to meet you again!

It made me very happy to see the page creation appearing in an IRC channel, pinging me because it had my username in the edit summary. I greatly value Wikipedia's licensing policy, and not only do I consciously release all of my contributions under a free license because I have to: I'd always do so because it makes me happy whenever someone actually reuses my contributions.

Enjoy your dashboard! ~ ToBeFree (talk) 18:37, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Dashboard

Hey,ToBeFree I like your dashboard. Could you please make one such dashboard for me?Andrew Base (talk) 03:39, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Hi Andrew Base, thank you very much, I'm glad you like it!

At User:Andrew Base/Dashboard, feel free to customize it in any way you like. For example, the de.wikipedia link may be irrelevant, but you may have a personal idea for a replacement. Some of the red links can automatically be filled by Twinkle (CSD log, PROD log) if the tool is configured to do so (Wikipedia:Twinkle/Preferences).

Happy editing! ~ ToBeFree (talk) 04:33, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

ToBeFree Thank you very much.Andrew Base (talk) 04:37, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

No COI for my recent edits

Hi ToBeFree. Thank you for your concern but I have no COI when correcting the URLs on the page New Zealand Diplomatic Missions, other than that I used to be employed by NZ MFAT but have been retired for more than two years. The previous URLs by each NZ Embassy, High Commission or Consulate/Consulate-General linked to Wiki info on the city where the mission is located, rather than the implied mission's official website, which is much more useful and interesting for a reader seeking detailed information on the mission in question. If I have misunderstood the reason for the links, then my apologies. Kev.bonnici (talk) 12:46, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Hey Kev.bonnici, nice to meet you, thank you for the explanation and your edits.

I have to admit that I figured as much: The (previous) employment is exactly what I assumed when I saw the edits. This does not inherently make these edits problematic, but it makes the COI information page a (tiny) bit more relevant for you than for completely uninvolved editors. This does not mean that you do have a conflict of interest, and it does not mean that you are restricted in any way from editing related articles. The amount of conflict here seems to be pretty low, but it has interestingly lead to a situation where I had to undo your good-faith improvement efforts on List of diplomatic missions of New Zealand. For me personally, that's not a problem and involved only a few clicks. There had also never been any noticeable damage to the article, the edits just did not conform to Wikipedia's external link guideline, which advises against the addition of external links to an article's text body.

Generally, if a Wikipedia article exists about a topic, Wikipedia should link to that article. If none exists, Wikipedia can link to the non-existing article, and the link will be red instead of blue. Anyone can then create the missing article; this is how the encyclopedia grew in the first place. If no article exists and the topic is not notable, then no link at all should be added.

The only correct usage of external links in an article body is using them as references for information. Simply adding links, even in form of "references" without adding actual information cited from them, may seem to be useful and interesting, but is actually adverse to the free encyclopedia's interests.

No worries, Kev.bonnici; I hope you do enjoy editing Wikipedia despite this first experience. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 13:08, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Can you edit the mistakes on the page where you've undone all my edits

Heading converted to subheading ~ ToBeFree (talk) 15:08, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Hi again,

I think I'll pass on editing Wikipedia as it's all a bit restrictive - saying one has a potential COI just because one had extensive knowledge of the subject due to previous hands-on experience is a little off-putting. Surely Wiki should welcome subject-matter-experts.

However, it would be good if you could correct the following errors on the List of New Zealand Diplomatic Missions:

- in the NZ context, there are NO honorary consulates: the term 'honorary' qualifies the person performing the role. All NZ consular missions are 'consulates or consulates-general [note correct plural] headed by either a career diplomat or an honorary consul / honorary consul-general'.

- why do photos of certain NZ diplomatic missions figure indiscriminately under the paragraph 'Africa'? I had created a separate paragraph 'Photos of NZ diplomatic missions', but this got wound back to the original layout.

- you should remove the brackets containing (Embassy), (High Commission), (Consulate) etc. after each country where NZ has a diplomatic mission because, as I mentioned in my previous message, a normal English reader would expect the link to take one to more information on the diplomatic mission concerned, not to general Wiki information on a geographical city. In fact, I don't know what purpose this list of country flags and links to cities serves, as a simple paragraph under each region stating 'NZ currently has diplomatic and consular missions in the following countries: ...' would suffice. It would be preferable to somehow link to NZ's official government department, MFAT, to ensure this list is up-to-date. I think I noticed in the history paragraph of this topic that NZ closed its mission in Vienna - you'll find on MFAT's website that there is currently a mission in Vienna!

Thanks and good luck with encouraging people to do this onerous editing in their free time 😉 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kev.bonnici (talk • contribs) 13:53, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Hi Kev.bonnici, thank you for requesting these edits.

• After the message "External links in article text" on User talk:Kev.bonnici, but before my reply above, Special:Diff/913663685 happened. I'll undo it, assuming that you had not seen the former message and only received a notification after saving your changes.
• Thank you very much for the requested correction; I was not aware of this distinction. I have removed the text "excluding honorary consulates" together with its inaccessible (dead link) reference. The addition of new text requires a new reference (WP:V).
• Regarding the photos, the "separate photograph" was an empty one with no text, and the section below the new heading is not mainly about photos. Please have a look at Special:PermanentLink/913660100 for the incorrectly formatted result. I could have converted the headings "Africa" etc. to subheadings, but there was no reason to do so: The "Africa" section is no a photo section, it is a list of diplomatic missions. The photos just happen to appear next to it; to actually fix this problem, the photo selection could be modified to match the actual article content: The "Africa" section could contain photos from Africa, for example. I do not believe that there is a need for a separate gallery if the photo selection is improved.
• The article is a list of diplomatic missions and should ideally contain (internal, not external) links to other Wikipedia articles about these missions. In its current form, I completely agree that the list is a suboptimal list of countries, not missions. However, the way to fix this is not the removal of the only information that is actually relevant to the list. We would probably rather remove all country links instead of removing the text in the brackets. That said, if something in the list is factually incorrect, please remove the factually incorrect content, but do not add any new text in the process. Afterwards, if you do want to add new text, please do so in a separate edit and provide a reliable reference that supports your addition, using the "Cite" button of the editor.
• The "History" paragraph of List of diplomatic missions of New Zealand does not mention "Vienna". Is there something factually incorrect in the History paragraph? Feel free to remove it.

Any further content-related requests about articles should ideally be made at the talk page of the article. To do so, click "Talk" above any article you'd like to discuss, and "New section" to add a discussion topic. If you are explicitly requesting a specific change, you may like to use {{request edit}} to notify experienced volunteer reviewers about the request. The edit will then usually be implemented or discussed with you within a day or two. You are not required to do this, but it can't hurt either. If you choose to do so, please also click the red link in your signature, which points to your user page, and take a moment to explain there that you likely have no conflict of interest but have worked for New Zealand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in the past. This avoids confusion, as it clarifies that the connection is a relatively distant one, contrary to those who edit Wikipedia on behalf of their employer.

If there are any questions left about Wikipedia and/or editing in general, feel free to ask here; if there are questions left about article content, feel free to ask on the article's talk page. Do feel free to inform me about new discussions; I will happily have a look. Thank you very much in advance. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 15:08, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Adam Jones (American football)

Not sure what is going on but the same edit was made several times yesterday by another IP [1]. ?? S0091 (talk) 18:40, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Oh, with two "s". I see. Well then, a good reason for the removal is "unsourced" per WP:PROVEIT. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 18:43, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Quirks and Quarks Edit

Thanks for your message - I was unaware that a citation was required. However, I am the son of the creator of the series and my mother doesn't know how to edit Wiki entries so I offered to do it for her. The reference was 100% correct but if a citation is required I'll go figure out how to add one and redo the edit.

- R.F. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.79.137.185 (talk) 05:44, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Hi 70.79.137.185, you're welcome. Please note that, according to your message, you may have a conflict of interest. Please take a moment to have a look at the WP:Conflict of interest guideline, and please mention your conflict of interest in the edit summary of each edit you're making about this topic. Thank you very much in advance. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 16:01, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

I'm adding the link back in for John D. Liu

This is his organization, I don't understand why you removed the link. — Preceding unsigned comment added by WriterlyKi (talk • contribs) 15:48, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

I don't understand why this is not an appropriate link

This is HIS group and as he currently has no website, why is this link not allowed? It is absolutely verifiable. WriterlyKi (talk) 15:55, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

The second removal wasn't even done by me, WriterlyKi.

The reason is simple: Wikipedia does not have external links in the article body. We prefer links to other articles if they exist, links to non-existent articles if they should exist, or no link if neither is the case. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 15:57, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

So you are saying someone needs to create a separate page for this organization on Wikipedia, and link to it instead?

The user who deleted the last edit just deleted themselves, after deleting the edit. Great community you all have.

This is his organization, and they are trying to grow. Do you have suggestions then, should they write their own Wikipedia page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by WriterlyKi (talk • contribs) 16:04, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Hi WriterlyKi,

Deleted themselves? If you're referring to the red user page link, you can safely ignore that. Serols is an active, experienced editor. You can contact them on their user talk page, User talk:Serols. Nobody "deleted themselves".

No, they should not write "their own" Wikipedia page, as they have a conflict of interest regarding the topic, and as the topic may not be notable yet (see WP:42 for an oversimplified explanation). If the organization is notable, an uninvolved editor will write about it sooner or later. If you have any connection to the organization, you should not do so yourself. See also: Wikipedia:FAQ/Organizations.

Wikipedia is not a platform for advertising; if an organization is trying to grow, they must not use Wikipedia to do so. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 16:25, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Request for protection page

Hy can you protect this page Religion in Pakistan an IP user changing information without sources & reference