User talk:Seamusdemora

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The Wikipedia tutorial is a good place to start learning about Wikipedia. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. By the way, you can sign your name on Talk and discussion pages using four tildes, like this: ~~~~ (the software will replace them with your signature and the date). Again, welcome! Doug Weller talk 13:12, 25 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

June 2020[edit]

Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, we would like you to assume good faith while interacting with other editors, which you did not do on Talk:Elaine massacre. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. Doug Weller talk 13:12, 25 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Please do not remove content or templates from pages on Wikipedia, as you did to Elaine massacre, without giving a valid reason for the removal in the edit summary. Your content removal does not appear to be constructive and has been reverted. If you only meant to make a test edit, please use the sandbox for that. You deleted well-sourced information. The sources are in the article and the infobox and do not have to be repeated in the WP:LEAD. It's disturbing that you didn't even bother to check, as has been noted on the article's talk page. Doug Weller talk 13:15, 25 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that good faith is a good thing. I'll admit that I do feel the article is biased, but mostly I felt it was inaccurate - certainly unsubstantiated in at least one critical aspect.

As far as not giving a valid reason - I felt I did! However, I submitted edits for two articles at more or less the same time, and for the same reason. I can't locate my "reason" for either page, but IIRC it was tied to my statements on the Talk pages.

And I certainly intended it to be constructive. Your comment about the sources is not clear to me, as I did check the sources.

Rather than drag this out Q&A style, I have submitted a follow-up on the Elaine massacre Talk Page. Please review & advise.

Seamusdemora (talk) 15:32, 28 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Doug Weller: I have checked the records, and I did give a valid reason for removing the passage in my edit. Perhaps you did not understand my reason? In response to your messages, I augmented the reason for my edit by posting a detailed explanation on the Talk page for the Elaine massacre, but have received no reply or acknowledgement from you since then. Perhaps you do not see replies I post here? Perhaps you are no longer following these articles on Elaine, AR or the Elaine massacre?

I've left other comments on the "Talk" page for the Elaine massacre since your message. I'm not getting much feedback from the other editor (Jacona). As it is now, I feel the article is mostly a one-sided smear - no effort is made to present the information in a balanced way. Consequently, when you admonish me for not acting in good faith, I cannot help but wonder what that means. Let me just say this: I am a frequent Wikipedia user. I have always believed that one could count on Wikipedia as a fair and objective source of information. I believed this strongly enough that I encouraged my children to use it from an early age. I do not feel the article on the Elaine massacre measures up to what I have come to expect from Wikipedia. I could cite several passages from this article to support that, but this doesn't seem the right place to debate that.

Perhaps I have aggravated you and/or Jacona? If I have, let me extend my apologies for doing so, and offer my assurances that it was not my intent to aggravate. One of your messages to me included a link to something called the "Arbitration Committee". I have read part of their charter - to adjudicate "... serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve". Your tone leads me to wonder if you feel my actions fall under that classification. Without hearing from you, I can only guess, but I will be happy to submit this to them for review. I am not saying I haven't made mistakes - editing on Wikipedia is rather complex - but I do not feel I have acted in bad faith.

I'll leave things as they are for a few days. If I've not heard from you by then, I will reach out to one of the Committe's clerks, and ask their advice.

Best Regards, Seamusdemora (talk) 00:09, 30 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what link you refer to, but nothing you have done is anything that would concern ArbCom. I've been a clerk and a committee member, so I speak with some experience. Doug Weller talk 18:11, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That's great. You're an experienced insider, and I'm not. I get that, and trying very hard to respect your position. But I find that difficult when you lead off with, "Welcome to Twitter, stop acting in bad faith, you deleted well-sourced information and It's disturbing that you didn't even bother to check". I think it's disturbing that you jump to judgment so quickly. And I did give a reason for my change - a valid reason I believe. You scolded for that, and never responded to my claim that I did provide a reason.

"What link?" It was the link to a page that featured the Arbitration Committee. Perhaps it was inserted by the system, and not by you? I don't know why it was there - all I know is that it was. I didn't even know there was an Arbitration Committe until I saw that link.

What I'd like to do is put this behind me. I hope you can do the same. I'd like to focus my time on working through some of the questions and issues I see with the "Massacre" page - starting with the unfounded "estimates". I'll look forward to your responses to the input I posted earlier today.

So, with that sort of an opening Doug, I hope you can appreciate it's not the way one would like to get started.

It looks like you and Doug connected later on Talk:Elaine massacre, but just so you know, the welcome message at the top of the page and the notice at the top of this section are standard messages that use templates, sort of like form letters where some custom text can be added to clarify the specific problem. Some Wikipedia editors watch lots of pages for vandalism or other inappropriate edits, or patrol all recent changes. Since they are changing and commenting on hundreds or thousands of pages, they might not come back later to any given page, including your user talk page, looking for a response from you. It's not that they're specifically ignoring you because you've angered them or anything. You may find it helpful to use the ping feature to bring your response to the attention of another editor in this or any other situation.

If it's not become clear already, I'd also like to mention that the work of editing articles is not really coordinated behind the scenes like it would be at a commercial encyclopedia where a boss might dole out assignments to underlings. Articles are generally edited by whoever randomly decides to pitch in, and there's no one particularly in charge of anything. What coordination does happen is the conversation on talk pages and in edit summaries, and sometimes via WikiProjects where people interested in a particular topic or type of problem (like neutrality or grammar) randomly decide to pitch in (but there's almost never enough labor to completely cover all articles a project might want to in a systematic and timely way). There is more coordination for site-wide guidelines and behavioral enforcement, as you can see on the pages dedicated to those efforts, but those are also driven almost entirely by self-organized volunteers. -- Beland (talk) 19:33, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No, Doug and I never "connected". It's clear to me that Doug's mind was made up before we started, and nothing was going to change it. Likewise, the other primary "contributor" to this article with whom I exchanged notes was committed to perpetrating elements of the story with no factual basis. The editorial rules here seem to be that if someone said it before, then it must be true. Claimants are deemed "reliable sources" in spite of their failure to provide any shred of physical or evidentiary proof of their claimed "facts". This bill (https://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/Bills/Detail?ddBienniumSession=2017%2F2017R&measureno=SCR6) sponsored by Rep. Flowers of Arkansas is a prime example: I called the Arkansas legislature's offices to inquire about the sources for the figures in this bill (100 to 237 African-Americans killed), I was told that Rep. Flowers' "proof" was held privately by her, and that it has never been viewed or vetted by the Arkansas legislature. Is this how a "reliable source" supports their claims? Is it "fair", is it "accurate", is it a "just the facts" style? I don't believe it is. Wikipedia's definition of a "reliable source" has been compromised such that it is meaningless in the context of this article.

I learned something from this experience: challenging deeply-held beliefs on the subject of race relations is a fool's errand. The bottom line is this: There is no evidence, nor any reliable account from any eyewitness that supports the numbers claimed in this Wikipedia article: "As many as several hundred African-Americans and five white men were killed." That is sensationalism - not fact; furthermore it is most certainly not a fair representation. Wikipedia is supporting unfounded accusations against a community in which no one is alive to challenge these accusations. This is the epitome of misinformation; repeating a lie over and over does not transform it into fact. As I said when I engaged in this waste of time, "What happened in Elaine was bad enough without having to further disgrace the event by inflating the numbers." (or words to that effect).

If you wish to provide cover for Doug's behavior, that is your concern. But please don't attempt to convince me that Doug had no bias - I would have to take that as an insult to my intelligence. I have no problem with a system that allows roving editors to choose randomly where they spend their effort. What bothers me is that Wikipedia supports the propagation of beliefs over facts. The innuendo and misinformation Wikipedia and editors like Doug have chosen to publish here are as heinous as the ones spread by the NYT and the Gazette in 1919. Do today's lies in this Wikipedia article re "hundreds of Blacks killed" sound nicer than the lies told in the white-controlled media over 100 years ago? Does it make you sleep better? Does it make you feel better about yourself to push this concoction on your readers? The truth is that we don't know how many people were killed - but that is not what the article says! The editors - Doug in particular - are hell-bent on inflating the numbers well beyond what was reported by eyewitnesses and written contemporaneous accounts based on eyewitness interviews. Why is that?... to increase notoriety, publicity and promote racial demonization? Wikipedia's failure to live up to its policies decimates their credibility; pandering to racial bias is reprehensible - no matter which race is being slandered.

I can't even guess what prompted you to address me over comments that I made here - what, 2 years ago? I was a huge Wikipedia supporter before I saw how the sausage was made. I'll guess this is not what you wanted to hear... what is it they say about "sleeping dogs"? At any rate, I hope I've been clear wrt my opinion on how Wikipedia lives up to its claims in 'Wikipedia:Purpose' - at least in this article. And as long as you're here, perhaps you'd like to opine on whether or not this article meets Larry Sanger's stated policy: "Wikipedia has an important policy: roughly stated, you should write articles without bias, representing all views fairly."

Seamusdemora (talk) 08:44, 28 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]