Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-01-01/Recent research

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It's amusing to read the sample discussion and see that

1. It is a lame dispute about whether it should be "a herb" or "an herb"
2. That the usage had been flipped before
3. That the first three editors were Usernameistoosimilar, Deli nk and Jytdog who have all been indefinitely blocked for their sins.

So, the main problem is not where we stand on the tactical hierarchy of argument but whether we should be arguing at all. Wikipedia is infested with dysfunctional and unproductive editors – griefers, grinders, obsessive pedants, fanatics and more. In making mountains out of molehills, they are operating at a different level and this analysis fails to capture this more fundamental issue. As usual, further research is needed...

Andrew🐉(talk) 21:39, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

@Andrew Davidson: While the dispute certainly is lame, the correct reference for the conversation used as a sample is Talk:Fenugreek#A_herb/an_herb_2, which was started by Jytdog off of that previous discussion you linked to, and grew quite a bit more involved than that one (though no more productive, AFAICT). Neither Usernameistoosimilar nor Deli nk seem to have participated. It was basically just Jytdog and Porphyro going back, and forth, and back, and forth, and... well, it's long, is the point. FeRDNYC (talk) 14:37, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

That further discussion takes the lame to another level. And then there's a part 3 in which an edit notice is requested. And now, of course, we are digging deeper with this further derivative discussion...

Looking at the actual article, I notice that it doesn't mention that fenugreek was one of the ingredients in the original herbal formula of the famous Lily the Pink. I must edit the article myself and see what further mayhem ensues. WP:INTODARKNESS...

Andrew🐉(talk) 18:06, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

RIP Andrew Davidson, died on An Hill, 3 January 2023. He will be missed.

FeRDNYC (talk) 06:16, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

I fixed that link to the source discussion. Thanks! Regards, HaeB (talk) 12:15, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

So, I edited fenugreek to add some details of its use in Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound. I had researched this reasonably well, finding a book about the history of the compound which detailed the recipe. I cited this but the entire addition was reverted with the edit summary, "Nonsense and WP:FRINGE". This seems to be name-calling at the bottom level of the hierarchy but so it goes. The next step may be to start an RfC... Andrew🐉(talk) 16:51, 7 January 2023 (UTC)