Ptvydanh

John Derbyshire

Thanks for your recent edits. It is best for your first edit to an article on yourself (as evinced by your use of "me" in your edit comment) not to be a complete rewrite. In particular, there were numerous style issues (perhaps unique to Wikipedia) that needed correction. They were so numerous that the previous version of the page really seemed better.

It is probably best to make your edits piece by piece. You might also be interested in WP:COI. WhyDoIKeepForgetting (talk) 19:11, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Your article in Taki's Top Drawer

An article appeared in Taki's Top Drawer with your name attached to it. The article mentions that you rewrote your Wikipedia page. I am writing this response assuming that article in Taki's and this username are both actually yours. On the internet, it's easy to pull the wool over people's eyes; this is one of the reasons why lesser-trafficked Wikipedia articles are so unreliable.

I was the editor who reverted your changes to your own article. Your bemusement by the article about you on Wikipedia is understandable. The section header you mentioned was pretty amusing, though I am in no position to assess your Angry Asian Male/sexual/racial jealousy hypotheses.

You expressed dismay that there was no way to reply to the message I left you above. If you click on the bold blue "edit this page" words at the top of this page, you can enter a reply below mine. The editing format is the same as that used for editing the article about you.

You also seemed troubled by the fact that the style issues were not spelled out. In fact, they were spelled out in the "page history", though new Wikipedia users may not understand the importance of this page. Before I reverted your edits wholesale, I tried to revert just those parts that don't meet Wikipedia's standards for verifiability and neutral point of view. After it seemed clear that most of your new version would need such major revision that it would be simpler to start from the old version, I reverted it wholesale.

To see these edits, you can click on the "history" link at the top of the article about you. In case you find that too hard to navigate, I will provide you a link with my lest edit before reverting to the old version. You can click "← Previous edit" near the top of these pages to peruse the edits I made for style reasons.

Getting used to new technology can be tricky. Sometimes it's tempting to just give up.

In case you have some trouble with navigating the links above, I will explain, briefly, some of the style issues that Wikipedia follows. From what (little) I have seen of your other work, it seems you are used to writing in a more colloquial style. Your new version of the article here had funny asides, self-deprecation, and personal anecdotes. The Wikipedia community (which I am not a leader or administrator of), has decided that these do not constitute encyclopedic content. In reverse chronological order, the more important edits I made to your new version were:

1. to remove the statement that you claim to have invented "bleg". At the time, we had no way of being sure that this account was actually you, and there was no citation to any such claim that one could verify came from John Derbyshire, whether in a speech, or on your website, or in hard copy.
2. to remove a claim that the phrase "Onomastic Cringe" is used widely by others. I could find only 201 Google hits. Most were just links to articles by you.
3. to remove a claim backed only by a citation to unpublished personal conversation
4. to remove words more appropriate in a personal essay than an encyclopedia, like "tasteless" and "extravagant"
5. to remove the sort of broad, vague language that seems more like commentary than verifiable fact: "was considered an outrageous expression of sadistic warmongering by liberal commentators". Which ones? Did any not consider it sadistic warmongering? Maybe those ones just kept quiet. (A better way to put this for Wikipedia writing is, "this was characterized as 'sadistic warmongering' by liberal commentator Joe Smith [citation here]")
6. to remove unverifiable "top Google hits were like this for some months". This simply can't be proven or disputed as such. We'd need a link to a page at archive.org showing this to be true. If you simply asserted it in one of your columns, we could put it here as "Derbyshire claims that top Google hits . . . "
7. to remove the language "transsexual militants". That a person is a transsexual militant and dislikes a theory must be backed by some sort of citation.

If you wish to rewrite a Wikipedia page from scratch, it is usually best to put up a draft copy first. It can then be edited before being "published" on the page. Do put up a draft copy, simply navigate to a page like John Derbyshire/draft by the man himself and start editing. When you are done, put a note on Talk:John Derbyshire that a draft is available.

It's tricky to get used to a new style of writing. Just below the edit box in which you entered your new version of the article about you, the page says "Encyclopedic content must be verifiable." That link should include most of the information necessary to understand what needs a citation, as well as what sources are considered reliable.

WhyDoIKeepForgetting (talk) 06:58, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

How Wikipedia works

You, or a commenter posing as you, thinks I am Wikipedia or a representative of Wikipedia. I am not. You did not get "a message from Wikipedia" any more than a phone call from your neighbor is "a message from AT&T". My standing at Wikipedia is exactly equal to yours.

Furthermore, no Wikipedia central committee checks every edit to ensure it is accurate. They didn't approve, dismiss, vet, or inspect any edits to the article about you.

I know that the internet is tricky to understand sometimes. I assure you that you are one of very few adults who thought Wikipedia was "authoritative". The note at the top of the front page, "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit," tipped everyone else off. WhyDoIKeepForgetting (talk) 21:56, 3 August 2009 (UTC)