A.Z.

A.Z. (talk · contribs) I would like an editor review to get feedback from other Wikipedians. Please, tell me if you like my contributions, and whether I am helping Wikipedia, in your opinion. I'm open to suggestions and criticism, but I expect you not to refrain from complimenting me if you think I am a good editor!

Reviews

• You've made a massive 43 contributions. It appears your aim here is to become an administrator, a bad thing. Your suggestion that every user should be able to block is, frankly, absurd. Your unnecessary interrogation of me was unhelpful and borderline trolling. Please help by editing the encyclopedia instead. Majorly (hot!) 22:14, 28 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Some wikis do allow everyone to block. On en.wikipedia, at one point everyone with some amount of experience actually could too. At the moment it might be somewhat impractical, since we're having trouble figuring out how to teach people when to block, and when not to block --Kim Bruning
    • That's my point Kim. Majorly (hot!) 01:14, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• I think A.Z. is an intelligent young man, who has good intentions and sees Wikipedia as a place to exchange ideas and opinion, principally through debate. However, these ideals are not consistant with the primary goals of Wikipedia, and as such he is finding it a challenge to work within the spirit of our policies and practices (User talk:A.Z.#Abuse being a perfect example). Since it is near impossible to review the quality of contribution based on 43 article-space edits, my advice to A.Z. is to spend more time adding content to the encyclopaedia and less time debating what Wikipedia should be and how it is run. Its also worth remembering that other editors not here to debate with you (though some may choose to in the appropriate talkpages), they are here to contribute by adding encyclopaedic material and conduct janitorial tasks to facilitate the running of the project. While it may interest you, debating the merits of every standard janitorial action is not constructive to the running of the project. Rockpocket 00:02, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• I am very concerned by your harassment of Majorly. I am also troubled by your views of the blocking function and will very strongly oppose any RFA by you until I am sure that understand and accept the community's policies and standards for application of blocks. You stated that you would block Majorly if you could, this would have been an abusive administrative action. Furthermore, your comments that you would like to have all users given access to the block function and your explanation of how you think this would work (everyone, including vandals, block and unblock each other) reflects a seemingly bizarre fixation on the block function and a failure to understand the absolute mayhem and disruption this would cause. You have one thousand total edits but only 43 are to the mainspace. 43 mostly (very) minor mainspace edits in 12 months is absolutely unacceptable for an admin candidate. If you plan to have another RfA in the future, I would advise you to start making serious contributions to the mainspace and learning how Wikipedia works because your contribution history frankly looks like you're here for the wrong reasons (i.e. not for helping to build an encyclopedia). Sarah 01:01, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• I am here to help building the encyclopedia and to help on the reference desks. You don't need to edit articles to do that. Jimmy Wales hardly edits any article, for instance, and without him there would be no Wikipedia. I note something incorrect in your post, and I want to clarify things: you said that I said that I would block Majorly if I could. I actually said "I would block Majorly if they continued doing this sort of thing". By "this sort of thing", I meant not discussing with anyone any definitive action that they do. By "definitive" I mean that, once a request for administration is closed, it is closed, and you can't revert it (at least that was what it looked like to me back then, because Majorly told me that this was how things worked, pretty much lying about the whole thing, since my request was restored after all. End digression). By doing this sort of thing, not discussing with anyone any definitive action that they do, even when good faith editors tell Majorly that he is wrong, Majorly would surely be disrupting Wikipedia and wasting everyone's time. I would not block Majorly the first time, nor the second nor the tenth time that he did this, but after one hundred times that Majorly just erased any and all discussions about his behavior, simply refusing to talk about it, I would feel that it is better to block Majorly for a while, to protect Wikipedia. A.Z. 23:48, 4 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • You aren't a good faith editor though. Your aim is to become an administrator, and I was not wrong to close your RfA. You are the disruptive one :) Majorly (hot!) 13:47, 5 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• You are so disruptive that you actually scare me. Don't you people see it? Majorly comes here and accuses me of a lot of bad things. OK, that's fine, one would think that I could still either defend myself or just tell Majorly that he has no proof and evidence and arguments supporting his opinion, or I could choose to voluntarily ignore Majorly. The problem is that, if I choose to discuss this with him, he'll just say "You're a troll! I'll remove your attempts to engage in conversation with me to my page of removed stuff. Hey, but you get a doughnut, because you are more than a mere troll: you are definitely the winner of my Worst Troll Competition!" I really wished to respond to what you just said on my own editor review, Majorly, but I just can't, you see? A.Z. 17:45, 5 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Please do respond, I'd love to hear your thoughts. I was on the verge of resigning that night. I've closed probably close to fifty RfAs before; you're the only one who actually made me feel like leaving Wikipedia. Isn't that a great achievement? Majorly (hot!) 19:02, 5 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• It is best that I send you an email, so other users don't block any of us if someone starts to be incivil. Do you accept it? A.Z. 19:28, 5 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• I'd rather you wrote it here to be honest. However, you can email me if you wish :) Majorly (hot!) 20:20, 5 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Wow, A.Z. is very very polite indeed, and possibly diplomatic as well. There might be some interesting things for A.Z. to do in the near future. Before then, I would like to see this editor actually write in some more articles, before I recruit them for fun things. :-) --Kim Bruning 01:12, 29 April 2007 (UTC) On the other hand, there might be other wikimedia wikis that are not encycopedias, where A.Z. could help too?[reply]
  • On the other hand, maybe not so great judgment at times. (see comments by Friday). --Kim Bruning 14:28, 7 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I just created a page to deal with this problem. I'll link it from my user page. I'll leave my posts (and the edit summaries) there for 24 hours before I post them, so I do fewer stupid things like that again. A.Z. 19:48, 10 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • The page doesn't work. My posts on talk pages were supposed to be there for 24 hours before I posted them elsewhere, so I could prevent bad edits. But I soon realized that I would be unmotivated to contribute, if I had to wait 24 hours before posting. A.Z. 01:14, 17 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Making an effort to become an admin is not where it's at. If you wish to help out in that capacity, just start doing it. Act like you'd act if you were an admin, and if you do a reasonably good job of it, someone will nominate you soon enough. Friday (talk) 02:35, 2 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• I echo some of the above sentiments: (a) good intentions and sees Wikipedia as a place to exchange ideas and opinion, (b) finding it a challenge to work within the spirit of our policies and practices, (c) ... would like to have all users given access to the block function ... reflects a seemingly bizarre fixation on the block function and a failure to understand the absolute mayhem and disruption this would cause, (d) I would advise you to start making serious contributions to the mainspace. For myself, my perception, and that is all it is, is that A.Z. often engages in attention-seeking behaviour for its own sake (as distinct from, say, becoming noticed and achieving credibility in the eyes of other editors via well-thought out and constructive edits to mainspace articles). His nomination to become an admin, despite very little experience of editing the mainspace and virtually no experience being involved in debates about articles, is an example of this. For what I assume are noble motivations, he seems to want to change some of the fundamentals of Wikipedia, without having had the requisite experience to have a good handle on how they work here. (He wants to change the bricks and mortar, without knowing very well what the building looks like or how it functions). He appears to have a very good grasp of written English, significantly better than a lot of native speakers, but often refers to his difficulties with this language. This may explain why I often struggle to understand what he writes and what his purpose behind his words is - and I acknowledge I may have misunderstood him from time to time, which no doubt has a bearing on my perception of his purpose for being here. I wish him well, and I strongly advise him to get a lot more involved in the guts of Wikipedia (editing or creating articles) , and a lot less involved in what often seems to debating for its own sake about things that are not going to change. With great respect, I refer him to the Serenity Prayer. I'd even suggest he avoid, for the time being, contributing to the Ref Desk, a place that might encourage his apparent natural tendency to debate, rather than accept, the views of others. JackofOz 03:11, 2 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Your recent revert warring, complete with rude edit summary is unacceptable. If you're unable to contribute like an adult, consider taking a break for a while. Also consider getting some article editing experience before trying to tackle a guideline- your contributions there have often been less than helpful. Friday (talk) 14:21, 7 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I take it by "like an adult" you mean "like a mature person". Of course I do regret my "unacceptable" comment --which I would not have made if I had thought about it for more than 10 seconds-- and I apologise to the other editors. However, I don't think the edit summary meant at all that I am altogether immature and incapable of contributing constructively. I do recognize the mistake it was and I'll strive not to make it again. I'll try to refrain from editing the guidelines right after someone provokes me, so I don't make unhelpful contributions like that one.

I don't agree with you that my other contributions to the guidelines were less than helpful, though. If there is a specific contribution that you want to talk about here, that could be useful and welcome. Nonspecific criticism just doesn't help.

I don't really see how article editing would be required for me to be able to contribute to the reference desk guidelines. If you had suggested more reference desk editing, I would understand that. A.Z. 01:16, 10 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• I have deliberately refrained from contributing here because I adhere to the view if one cannot say something positive about another person one should refrain altogether from comment. However, this editor disturbs me, because I believe he has no proper understanding of Wikipedia and what the whole project is about. I find him argumentative and disruptive. The only comment I make on his personal attacks against me is to say that what he has posted below is completely untrue, and all remarks remain either on my talk page or his. He is, moreover, showing worrying signs of becoming unduly preoccupied with me as an individual, to the extent that this is personalising and colouring his contributions on the Reference Desk Guidelines Talk Page. Sad to say, I see in this a reflection of other, more malign, influences, rather than any original thought on his part. I'm sure he intends well, but his English skills need to be improved considerably, as indeed does the quality of his contributions, which are consistently second-rate, limited for the most part to arguments about arguments. His suggestion, moreover, that every user should be capable of blocking every other user would come close to destroying Wikipedia, as I understand it. His submission to an RFA was, in my estimation, premature in the extreme. I would also warn other editors that he has an unfortunate tendency to hint at suicide if contradicted or criticised. Perhaps he will in time begin to make a useful contribution, when he learns to reflect before writing, and think before reacting. Above all, he needs to think for himself, to reach his own conclusions, and not always seek the approval of a narrowly conceived clique of so-called 'friends.' Clio the Muse 17:53, 9 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• I just made the correction below. I thought the content had been deleted. A.Z. 00:50, 10 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• I have to wonder what the point of this editor review might be, as you do not appear to have any interest at all in improving. You continue to feed the trolls, even going so far as to stubbornly put back your unhelpful answer after it was removed. You've been asked many times to stop reverting, yet you persist. You often demonstrate pretty decent English skills, yet your comprehension mysteriously goes away in the face of criticism. Intentional or not, your participation has the effect of trolling. Friday (talk) 14:48, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• That post wasn't wrong, Friday, in my opinion. If you want to discuss this, let's discuss this. Just, instead of assuming that it is obvious that my post and my revert were wrong, admit that it may be not so obvious, and try to actually explain the reasons why you think it is. Your single argument so far was "sounds quite a lot like feeding a troll to me"... Well, that's not what I call an argument. What do you mean by that? That I am intentionally trying to disrupt Wikipedia by chatting with people who also want to disrupt it? By answering their questions at the reference desk? I don't know, and I won't know until you tell me. Your behavior looks like the behavior of a troll, and a disruptive user, who is reverting other's edits without an argument for doing so, and without discussion. That looks like vandalism, and your comments on my talk page look like trolling. But I don't think you are a troll and a vandal. I think we both want the same things, and we disagree on the means to achieve them, which makes us both look like vandals and trolls to one another. I tried to explain to you why I wrote my post; your only explanation for reverting it was "looks a lot like feeding a troll to me", which I don't know what means, though it looks like an accusation of intentional undermining of the project. A.Z. 02:05, 26 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

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Questions

1. Of your contributions to Wikipedia, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?

   I am pleased with my contributions to the talk page of the reference desk and my (little) work on the reference desks. I also liked it when I had the chance to suggest improvements to the article on Pericles. My idea about every user being able to block other users is something I am proud of. You can find this at the talk page of user StuRat, linked below.

3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or do you feel other users have caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?

   Other users have definitely caused me stress, quite often. Mainly Clio the Muse, Rockpocket and Friday. The first one made me cry when she told me that she didn't care about who I was. Then she apologised and now she deleted her apology from her talk page. Rockpocket is an administrator and has given me a warning out of the blue, for nothing. Friday... I don't know, I'd have to think about it, but probably her (or his) constant appeals to the policies instead of discussing stuff really bother me. I have not figured out a way of dealing with any of this yet, but I am glad to have friends like Lewis and StuRat.