User talk:Safety In Obscurity

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Happy editing! I dream of horses ^{(Contribs) (Talk)} 03:20, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

February 2025

Hi Safety In Obscurity! I noticed that you recently made an edit and marked it as "minor", but it may not have been. "Minor edit" has a specific definition on Wikipedia: it refers only to superficial edits that could never be the subject of a dispute, such as typo corrections or reverting obvious vandalism. Any edit that changes the meaning of an article is not a minor edit, even if it only concerns a single word. Thank you. Doug Weller talk 12:16, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Hi Doug, the article's meaning remains unchanged. Was this an automated comment? Safety In Obscurity (talk) 12:22, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Hm, maybe. But your edit to Human interface guidelines changed the meaning, as did changing "the" to "an" in another article where you even pointed out in your edit summary there was more than one answer. Best to avoid using it I think. Doug Weller talk 14:21, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm overusing the minor edit tag, understood. Criticising its use for "the" to "an" feels rather nitpicky though.

I understand maintaining high standards is important, but your message is undermined if examples don't clearly violate good practice.

There are much more egregious examples of my misusing the "minor edit" tag to better punctuate your point. Safety In Obscurity (talk) 14:49, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

I actually thought that was fairly major - "the" means one, "an" means more than one. Doug Weller talk 16:44, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

It corrected a common grammatical mistake.

"the incorrect answer" is trivially incorrect compared to "an incorrect answer", especially in maths where there may be infinite incorrect answers.

So common as to essentially be a typo. Safety In Obscurity (talk) 17:09, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

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Quantum computing

If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics

— Richard Feynman

I'm sympathetic to your concern about the article because it is difficult to understand. But it is counter-productive to try to force through your version by edit warring and bludgeoning. The best way forward, I suggest, is to take one section at a time at the talk page and get consensus a nibble at a time rather than in one huge bite. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 10:27, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

That obvious huh?

I know I was too forceful to begin with but this hasn't exactly been a constructive process. To my eye there are very obvious and straightforward improvements to be made, but the baby keeps getting tossed out with the bathwater. Safety In Obscurity (talk) 11:35, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

It is a big baby and a lot of bathwater, so that's why you need to take it a section at a time.

(If my Feynman quote came across as a "you don't know what you are talking about", that was completely intentional and only occurred to me now. I meant only that it is a very difficult concept and even more difficult to explain in lay terms.) 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 12:56, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

I really tried breaking it down into the most sensible individual edits possible, but that got fully reverted too.

The Shor's algorithm bit has been particularly frustrating (yes I was wrong about Diffie-Hellman), because that section is incontrovertibly wrong but my improvement was removed seemingly just because there is a vague cloud of disagreement. The article is being treated like it's protected.

(hope you mean unintentional) Safety In Obscurity (talk) 13:22, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Oops, not fully reverted I see. Safety In Obscurity (talk) 13:24, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Continuing to change the article while a BRD is in progress is explicitly deprecated. Get consensus for the change first, then apply the agreed text. And to accuse another editor of lack of good faith or WP:OWNing an article when they challenge your edit is not a good move. You really need to be more diplomatic if you want to secure agreement - and you need to show willing to acknowledge your errors (such as you did above, so do it at the talk page too). Doing so earns you respect. I probably preaching now so here endeth the lesson. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 16:44, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

My understanding of Wikipedia:BRD is that is an optional strategy for conflict resolution and is not enforced for the article in question.

Broad consensus isn't the goal of BRD. It explicitly says that you should attempt to reach agreement with "that one person".

Even then I followed the BRD process. I discussed it with the reverting editor and attempted to understand their concerns. I sincerely feel that the editor was not constructively engaging with the discussion and they explicitly said they were unwilling to continue discussing it further. Considering this, I made new changes that addressed the concerns they had clearly expressed (which BRD explicitly allows, even if discussion has not concluded).

I agree that I was undiplomatic, but I do not feel I have been the instigator here. Safety In Obscurity (talk) 17:28, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Yes, it is a conflict avoidance and resolution strategy, not a tablets of stone rule. But those who use it are far less likely to get blocked for edit warring and refusal to engage in consensus building (which is a cornerstone of Wikipedia).

Yes, you partly followed the BRD, but you don't seem to have read as far as the bit that says "don't persist in editing the controversial section while discussion is ongoing". Doing so implies that you aren't really willing to resolve the difference amicably.

As to "instigation": your first edit was entirely within the spirit of WP:BEBOLD, but the reversion was equally legitimate under the same policy. The edit summary might have been a bit more forthcoming but then edit summaries are terse by space limitation and don't help lower the temperature. What then should have happened was that one or other of you (but preferably you because you are not a newbie) should have opened a discussion topic. For you just to have reapplied the contested change was "unhelpful".

It is also important to note that QC was once a wp:Featured Article, so most of it is going to be of a very high standard and significant changes will be questioned. (Your experience is not unusual. It is not rare for substantial edits of any article to be reverted as "undiscussed change" because there are just too many differences to be able to make sense of what has been done and why. FA and GA articles are particularly likely to be defended like that.)

I trust that you can see how the salami slice technique gets more editors involved, it ceases to be a one-on-one and low-key concessions can be made to get to a consensus position.

After all that, I still agree with your assessment that, as it stands, the article is not intelligible to people who are not recent physics graduates. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:39, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

I think it is for you now to accept the compromise wording for the opening sentence, although it obviously has consensus. Doing so now will give you "the moral high ground" for the more difficult debates ahead. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:49, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

You don't seem to have learned from this experience? If you make a change and it is reverted, such as at the intro to viruses article, then let the talk page discussion play out. Counter-reverting while discussion is in progress will make dispute resolution much more difficult. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 08:52, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

I am glad that you are trying to reduce the temperature of my interactions with other editors but I believe this case was much more clear.

My understanding is that the editor legitimately believed that child virions are structurally identical to their parent, which was the reason for their revert.

Given this is provably false, I felt safe to restore the change. Safety In Obscurity (talk) 09:12, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

It's also unhelpful to call my actions edit-warring when I have only reverted once with good reason. At worst I have been rude and performing the prelude to an edit war. Safety In Obscurity (talk) 09:15, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

No, you counter-reverted, that was the problem. And you did it concurrently with the discussion and that compounded it. But from the discussion at the article talk page, I gather that that you now understand the 3RR rule so we don't need to pursue this further.

I do recognise your good faith, your contributions are good and worthwhile so I really don't want you to run into the sand due to process issues. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:44, 24 July 2026 (UTC)