User talk:Doktor Züm

A belated welcome![edit]

Here's wishing you a belated welcome to Wikipedia, Doktor Züm! I see that you've already been around a while and wanted to thank you for your contributions. Though you seem to have been successful in finding your way around, you may still benefit from following some of the links below, which help editors get the most out of Wikipedia:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Again, welcome! Dhoru 21 (talk・contribs) 15:49, 24 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the warm welcome, Dhoru 21! I read a copy of MediaWiki: Wikipedia and Beyond by Daniel J. Barrett before starting to edit, and it helped enormously. Still much to learn.

Cookies, yum. -- Doktor Züm (talk) 16:43, 24 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

you welcome! Dhoru 21 (talk・contribs) 16:44, 24 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Use of semi-automated editing tools[edit]

Hello. Please make sure to double-check the edits you make with semi-automated tools. In this edit at DSB class MR, you incorrectly changed lowfloor to low-floor without realising that it was the parameter |lowfloor= inside an instance of {{infobox train}}, and thus not a spelling or grammar error. Thanks. XAM2175 ^(T) 15:31, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for letting me know. -- Doktor Züm (talk) 17:49, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Just to be clear, I genuinely appreciate you taking the time to explain so clearly. Thanks again! -- Doktor Züm (talk) 06:41, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No worries! I figure it's always good to note these kinds of problems before it happens to something that a lot more people will look at. Cheers. XAM2175 ^(T) 10:28, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Y U B RUDE 💀[edit]

My edit is good and I explained it like you asked so stop reverting it 2603:6011:5400:5DC1:C4AE:A7F7:B64F:7FE2 (talk) 04:47, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, @2603:6011:5400:5DC1:C4AE:A7F7:B64F:7FE2.

I assume you're referring to my edit here. (Sorry I didn't leave an edit summary; I tried, but the tool I was using behaved unexpectedly, and I missed the chance.)

The procedure for removing maintenance tags is explained here. Basically, you have to fix the flagged problem before removing the tags.

Remember that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and articles must strive for a certain standard. Many people think it's a place where they can write whatever they feel like, but that's not the case. Your explanation for removing the tags doesn't meet those standards: Bruh wdym I literally explains it thoroughly. It is notable enough in my opinion, and my opinion is fact, ergo, I’m removing this banner offensive banner.

See here for what Wikipedia means by notability.

I'm happy to help if you have further questions. Cheers. -- Doktor Züm (talk) 05:21, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi[edit]

Hello. 😁 PlaneCrashKing1264 (talk) 18:34, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, @PlaneCrashKing1264. Anything I can help you with? -- Doktor Züm (talk) 07:56, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Recent Reverts[edit]

Hi, Doktor Züm. I have been looking at your recent edits reverting changes to various articles, and they don't really make sense. One of the changes makes the sentence unintelligible (Manar al-Athar), and there doesn't seem to be a clear thought process behind others; you make several edits reverting unsourced content but then others where you re-add deleted, unsourced material. Is there a reason for this? Please be more careful with reverting in the future. Thanks, Medarduss (talk) 15:19, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, @Medarduss. When patrolling new edits, my goal is to catch dubious edits, in real-time, before they slip through and potentially remain undetected for significant lengths of time. Now, in the example you give, I saw an edit from an unregistered user, with no edit summary, ie, no explanation of why the edit was made. That's a smell of possible vandalism. A quick look at the revision differences (in wikitext) didn't indicate why the edit was made.

Certainly, in this case, I could have spent a minute or two going over the article's edit history and deducing what had happened. But doing that with every unexplained edit wastes time, which I believe is better spent catching other bad edits as they're occurring. Time being a limited resource, I choose quantity over quality in such cases. Bottom line: editors should append an edit summary to avoid confusion and potential reverts.

Typically, I find that editors who believe they've made a useful edit will resubmit with an edit summary, and will continue to do so in future. Please let me know what other edits you think are confusing. Thank you for the feedback; I see I need to do better in writing my edit summaries. -- Doktor Züm (talk)

PS: I use Twinkle for reverts. The "vandalism" button doesn't seem to allow edit summaries, which is why some of my reverts are unexplained. That's annoying for me. I'm learning to use the other buttons instead. -- Doktor Züm (talk) 17:57, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I understand why you revert these edits - and generally what you are doing is very helpful for the encyclopedia. However, I don't think you can expect all users to add an edit summary (especially unregistered users, who probably don't know much about editing) and revert them if they don't do so, which is what your message above seems to suggest. I see your point with quantity over quality but if a big portion of your edits have to be subsequently reverted by someone else, this is not very productive for anyone involved.

I am not confused about certain edits of yours, but rather your policy with regards to unsourced material; in some instances (such as here), you revert edits which remove unsourced material, and in other cases you revert edits which add unsourced material (such as here).

Anyway, I did not mean this to come across in a rude way, so I'm sorry if it did. I just wanted to bring this up because it will save time if someone doesn't have to go back and redo your reverts etc. Medarduss (talk) 11:32, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Medarduss, thanks for your note.

We disagree on how much of a brain stretch it is for newbies and regulars to add an edit summary to their edits, but I admit you're not Robinson Crusoe in the position you hold. (Edit summaries are soooooo useful when glancing at a chunk of wikitext, looking for possible bad edits.) It may not surprise you to learn that I think all users should be registered, as well as compulsorily use edit summaries. Raising the bar that bit higher, I believe, would significantly reduce vandalism, admittedly at the possilbe cost of good drive-by edits from casual readers. I believe this discussion has been had before, and I assume my side lost.

Thank you for showing that I was inconveniencing other editors. I used a slow (but relaxing) patrol tool, Hatnote, and most of the bad new edits had been reverted by other editors seconds before I got to them. So I got to see how many bad edits were being made by unregistered users on a minute-by-minute basis. From this mindset, I may have been underestimating the number of good edits that I was reverting, and the resultant annoyances. I apologise for that. (Again, if there had been edit summaries, it would have been much easier to make the calls.)

Regarding unsourced material: it's a tricky situation. I'd love to see references on every single WP paragraph, or even every sentence, but that's just not gonna happen. So my "policy", such as it was, was to generally allow through a well-written paragraph and let subject experts determine its veracity, but to revert a poor one (grammar, spelling), with an explanatory edit summary. I hope that explains your first link. As for the second link, it appeared that an accusation of criminality was being made without quoting a source, which is ABSOLUTELY unacceptable and gets an instant revert from me, no further questions, your Honour. I should have been clearer in my edit summary.

Again, sorry for the confusion regarding my reverts. I see things are trickier than I had been assuming. I've decided to give up patrolling and go on with other WP projects; there's always so much to do. Cheers. -- Doktor Züm (talk) 13:49, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

PPS: Help:Edit summary says: Summaries help other editors by [...] saving the time to open up the edit to find out what it's all about [...].

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