User talk:Dannysullivan

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Welcome!

Hello, Dannysullivan, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! - Jehochman ^Talk 23:33, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note from Jehochman

		Ready to swab the deck!
		Another motley scallawag has joined the crew. In other words, I've become an administrator. Arrrgh! - - Jehochman ^Talk 03:49, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jessie Stricchiola

In regard to your comments on this page, please note that one reason not to post additional comments to a closed AfD page is that, within a few days after closing, hardly anyone is likely to see those comments and thus posting there does not attract attention. I just happened to see your comments there today. If you want to challenge the deletion of Jessie Stricchiola, you can follow the procedure at Wikipedia:Deletion review. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 04:53, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is in regard to your edit at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Metropolitan90&diff=462180286&oldid=462179981 (your last edit to my user talk page). First of all, I am explicitly now requesting that you not quote anything from this message on your blog or anywhere else outside Wikipedia itself. I don't have any effective way of enforcing that, I just hope you will accept that as a courtesy.

Second, have you ever heard the expression "No good deed goes unpunished"? In Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jessie Stricchiola (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Jessie_Stricchiola), I was one of those who wanted the Jessie Stricchiola page to be deleted. On November 10, you left a message on the Articles for deletion page to ask for it to be reinstated. Apparently nobody contacted you for 12 days. (However, someone did quote your message to the administrator who performed the deletion in the edit at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Mkativerata&diff=next&oldid=459936028 -- his response was "Your next avenue to try to have the page restored is to appeal the deletion at deletion review." http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Mkativerata&diff=next&oldid=460056614 )

Then, on November 22, I happened to be looking at some of my past Wikipedia edits and noticed that you had put your request on the Articles for deletion page. Keep in mind that your request was to do the opposite of what I had supported -- I had wanted the article to be deleted, and now you wanted it reinstated. So maybe I should have ignored your message and not contacted you to tell you how to get the page reinstated? That way, you would never have known I had seen your message, you never would have trashed me on your blog, and the Jessie Stricchiola page would probably never have been reinstated. Instead, I decided to let you know how to accomplish what you wanted to do -- even though it wasn't something I agreed with. And your response was to post a rant on your blog directed mainly at Wikipedia in general, but also at me. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:44, 24 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Huh

You don't want me to quote anything I'm told on a public page on Wikipedia? Crazy. If you wanted to send me a private message, why didn't you use the contact form at my site. Easy to do, far easier than how Wikipedia makes things.

Sure, I won't quote you.

If you hadn't sent me my message, all that would have happened is that eventually, I probably would have been frustrated enough with Wikipedia being so bureaucratic that I still would have done a post.

Sorry you got caught in the cross-fire. But if you believe in Wikipedia, the right thing to do would have been to put in the review delete request yourself. Because you know Wikipedia. You know the procedures. You, I assume, believe there should be a fair and just debate with as many of the facts as possible.

Instead you, and the person who deleted it, both saw an entry listing a lot of easily confirmed facts that should have caused you to reconsider why Wikipedia -- in 2011 -- decided out of the blue to deleted a page it created for someone years before. Your reaction was effectively to say "not my problem."

You both should have done the review request. That would have been supporting the Wikipedia mission. The fact that neither of you did underscores the incredibly dysfunction within the Wikipedia system. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.90.30.223 (talk) 17:29, 24 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Danny, I think s/he's saying something like "Please don't use your far more powerful platform and much greater social status to personally slam me, where I can't even reply and defend myself, just because I was trying to be helpful (even if I didn't act perfectly according to your view of what I should have done)". Which is not "crazy" at all, taking the entire context into account. It would be legal for you to do such a thing, but that's not the end of all consideration. Note I'm not saying you did intend to do a personal slam. Remember, s/he doesn't know you, that you're not abusive, not someone who gets a thrill from taking cheap shots at people who can't fight back - and the bogosphere is full of bullies. Thus it's entirely reasonable for him or her to be concerned. By the way, I agree with you regarding the dysfunction which is Wikipedia. However, part of the problematic dynamic is that any lower-ranking person can only be asked to help fix it by working even harder (for no pay), which is problematic. I favor connecting this dysfunction to the higher-up who benefit from it, rather than the digital-sharecroppers "caught in the cross-fire" -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 16:36, 25 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Subject experts?

First of all, there is the problem of identification. While i might agree the Danny Sullivan (technologist) of that article is a reliable expert in the field of search engines and fighting click fraud, how could i be sure that the User:Dannysullivan that makes changes to some page is that same person? What if it's any of the other Daniels? What if it's a vandal that registered using your name precisely to impersonate you and post using a fake authority?

Basically, Wikipedia doesn't remove any walls for its subject experts, since it currently doesn't have any such experts.

Second, there's the problem of changing your mind. If you don't publish your current opinion anywhere, what you say now on Wikipedia cannot be Verified later, unless you sourced it from somewhere while adding it to the article. Wikipedia itself doesn't count as a publishing place since it's not made to have articles entirely written by a single person.

The Verifiability requirement is much more evidently needed when editors work anonymously, either from dynamic IPs (one may actually forget to login) or from semi-meaningless usernames.

Third, this review process you found arcane is the current state of the technology known as Wikipedia. Thousands of contributors see it as a working tool and use it. Should you wish to improve the workflow, to make it less arcane and more open, i believe you're free to do so. But you'll find out that such changes require much architecturing, and case study.

Now for your specific issues:

Deletion review was clearly a link to where you should've went, even though it was not to the correct page. DELREV is for cases where the "closer" made a mistake in taking the particular decision. In your specific case, it wasn't a mistake, since the sources at that time were not enough to pass WP:Notability.
SEMPO doesn't seem to be notable in itself yet, or even if it is, noone cared enough to write an article on it;
Unless you specifically write about her (book?) being #7 / #22 on Amazon on the 23rd of November, 2011, i highly doubt that this particular piece of information will still be available a few months from now. Amazon might be a giant, but it isn't required to keep such historical data on their site forever.
The email clearly said "See [url] for all changes since your last visit." That's why it was a revision comparison. There is no email-like style of viewing messages.
Also, to contact an editor, you might want to take a look at their page. That's where they might mention if (and how well) they understand English, if they feel familiar with different subjects, and even if they might prefer other means of contact than their User Page. But after getting this information, the proper place to "leave a message" is generally made clear through that template at the top of the page.
On the "helpful friendly way to leave a message" you are correct - there is none. Wikipedia didn't consider chatting important enough to develop in a friendly way.
And the final problem that you encountered, the segregation between DELREV and UNDEL, appeared only because the current case doesn't fit either. The most common "restore article" route is to rewrite from scratch, with the new and improved sources included, to prevent other future deletions.

Unfriendlyishly yours, -- Jokes Free4Me (talk) 13:32, 26 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

PS These are just my 2c, and they have no intention to represent either Wikipedia as a whole, or any other Wikipedian.

Tildes and backets

Please type out four tildes (the shift + accent key to the left of the cardinal number 1), which creates a signature and tells everyone who and when you wrote what you wrote. To create blue hyperlinks, please type in two brackets [[like this]]. Bearian (talk) 19:05, 29 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OMG

Thank goodness you took the time to ensure that there was a link to the Wikipedia entries for what the Shift Key and Cardinal Numbers are. Phew.

Honestly, this type of thing -- make sure you use tildes, do this to do hyperlinks -- just continues to illustrate all that's wrong with Wikipedia. What normal person does all these things, to make a comment. I should be able to comment without having to go into a Wordstar-like mode that makes me feel like I'm back in 1989. Dannysullivan (talk) 19:29, 29 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I was trying to be helpful. I wish that I could type out my lecture notes for class with hyperlinks so that the curious students could click the definitions, and others could just read on. Please remember, I'm on your side; I am trying to help you. Bearian (talk) 22:20, 29 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Help Wikipedia

I know you're trying to help me; I do. And I do appreciate the effort you're putting in. But I don't need that help. Wikipedia needs the help. That's the core point in all this. It's not that I or Wikipedia outsiders are broken and just need to get up-to-speed on Wikipedia. It's that Wikipedia is this incredibly dysfunctional system. Seriously, just how we're conversing. This messaging system isn't a messaging system; it's archaic.

Help Wikipedia, that's what needs it.

Just so you know

Hello Mr. Sullivan, I am just writing on the suspicion that you might be interested to read a story in the Wikipedia in-house newspaper, the Signpost about your experience and the responses it inspired. You can read it here:

The closed, unfriendly world of Wikipedia

Regards, Skomorokh 22:51, 29 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

thanks, i did see it and found it a really nice balanced summary Dannysullivan (talk) 23:04, 29 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]