Yousephf

Nouman Ali Khan

Wikipedia requires citations to reliable and authoritative third-party sources. Two good sets of Wikipedia guidelines that I have found really useful can be found HERE, regarding verifiability and HERE, regarding the need to maintain a neutral point of view. George Custer's Sabre (talk) 14:16, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for writing on my talk page. You didn’t do so in the right place, so I can see you’re new to Wikipedia. I’ll try to answer. You can’t delete or change information on a Wikipedia page unless you are going to add reliable sources of your own to show why your own information should be preferred. Your own opinions, in that sense, don’t matter. Moreover, if you want to allege that something is true or untrue, you will only be able to do that with evidence, not merely assertions. Try explaining on the Nouman Ali Khan Talk page what you find objectionable, without removing any evidence on the bio page itself, so other editors can try to understand what you object to. I hope this helps. George Custer's Sabre (talk) 14:32, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, I appreciate the help. I'll try the talk page and make additions to the page for now in other sections. Yousephf (talk) 14:35, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Yousephf my advice is don’t make any additions to the Nouman Ali Khan bio page at all until you’ve learned how to add evidence in the form of Reliable Sources. Maybe spend some time on Wikipedia first learning how to edit safely. In the meantime, explain on the Nouman Ali Khan Talk page the additions you want to make. If they are reasonable, constructive and referenced, experienced editors will help you add them. I’ll be glad to try to help you myself with mastering the basics of Wikipedia. George Custer's Sabre (talk) 14:40, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

The proportionality of the controversy

Dear friend, I was interested in your observation that the NAK page seems unbalanced and is mainly about the controversy. Yes, currently it is. But that is because, aside from the controversy, which featured widely in reliable and published third-party sources, few of NAK’s other accomplishments have been similarly covered. If they had, the information would be there. For example, aside from that issue, he hasn’t received much mainstream media coverage and he doesn’t appear to have written works that have been reviewed in journals or to have made noteworthy speeches. He’s not a scholar (in any regular sense) so this is understandable, but I’m wondering what you think is missing in terms of the Wikipedia biographical information. If it exists, and it’s notable, editors will add it. All good wishes, George Custer's Sabre (talk) 14:02, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Dear George Custer's Sabre, I had in mind scraping articles such as this one https://www.dailysabah.com/feature/2016/08/27/better-late-than-never that he was mentioned in to try to fill out his wikipedia article as much as possible. I was upset when I first read his wikipedia article because of how the controversy was the only thing people would know about him when he was searched up and would then harm the legitimacy of his content, which young Muslims in America really need, so I intended on trying add a lot into the article to try to distract from the controversy section, and reworking that section a little so it was easier to understand the situation for first time readers.

In the process I read a lot about wikipedia and how edits happened, and then I was shocked to discover that were 958 edits for the NAK article over the last 7 years. All of that has amounted to 4 paragraphs essentially. I looked through hundreds of the edits to see what could be the issue and I have found nothing but disappointment. It would seem that reworking articles doesn't tend to stick and there seems to be no method of restructuring blocks of text without editors becoming upset. Even with additions, which people seem to be more tolerant of, the equal authority of every user poses the issue that edit wars can happen, and who wins in the end is the users who are most determined to enforce their version of the article. I don't know if I'm the type of person determined enough to stick with an article for so long just to make some mild changes for the sake of the guy. It seems like editing articles is an uphill battle due to the lack of a dominance hierarchy, and ends at who tires out first. Open source code works because there's a right enough way to implement a function or system, and when deciding whether or not to add it to the open source project, there is a threshold where code works well enough, it's not worth changing, but at least with the code you do change, its objectively better, however, I don't see how that would work on Wiki entries about interpretable, controversial content. I guess the system works well enough, as represented by the many great entries of Wikipedia, but that just means there's enough dedicated editors willing to deal with the occasional frustrations of editing articles. I've learned a lot in the process and I appreciate the help, but I've become a little upset with the reality of large scale collaboration. --Yousephf (talk) 16:09, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Yousephf, I often feel discouraged too, even though I’ve been editing daily for over a decade and have made almost 60,000 edits. As a Muslim I feel upset every day by the denigration of people of one sect by the followers of another. Even on Wikipedia we are sectarian. But I persevere in the belief that neutral editors with no axes to grind are necessary to help keep Wikipedia accurate, well referenced and useful to truth-seekers. It is an encyclopaedia after all. Don’t give up. George Custer's Sabre (talk) 17:02, 10 July 2020 (UTC)