User talk:Mikeblas

While I appreciate your efforts to clean up Wikipedia, your first mass nomination of these "List of events at [stadium]" pages failed simply because it was a mass nomination. That happens to most mass nominations. It's unfair, but that's how it is.

You then went ahead and renominated all of the pages individually, on the same day. This is basically equivalent to a mass nomination, in that it overloads the AfD queue and results in very little input from !voters.

Here's a technique I learned from an experienced editor: 1. Nominate one or two of the articles individually. This way, you can properly argue why each article is not notable, and editors have enough time to search for and assess sources. 2. Once those discussions are closed as delete, then mass nominate the rest, citing the individual noms as precedent.

Hopefully this results in more productive AfD discussions and uses editor time more efficiently. Best, Toadspike [Talk] 09:55, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop. If you continue to blank out or remove portions of page content, templates, or other materials from Wikipedia without adequate explanation, as you did at Zionism, you may be blocked from editing.

Hi Mikeblas. I don't often template editors, but this is not the first (relevant edit), second (edit), third (edit), fourth (edit), or fifth (edit) time, just this year (I didn't check any earlier archives), that somebody has raised this exact issue with you. And given that you're an admin with almost 20 years' experience, seeing edits on my watchlist like 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, and seeing that this same issue has been raised by five people before me just this year alone, and that you've also recently done this elsewhere (6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11), is absolutely alarming. These edits are very close to vandalism, and very close to dishonest: you know there's a citation, even if it's an incomplete one, because you removed it. Removing a citation and replacing it with {{cn}} is the kind of thing new editors would get blocked for on sight.

So even though the template says it, I'm not even going to say "please" for this next part: stop removing undefined references and replacing them with {{cn}} tags.

As I know you know, it's possible to find the missing reference in the article history or elsewhere, and there are bots that do that. By removing the undefined reference, you make it significantly harder for somebody to find the reference later.

We have a template for incomplete citations, it's {{full citation needed}}. If you see an undefined reference, and you want to tag it but you don't want to look in the article history or elsewhere to find the reference, then add the {{fcn}} template instead of removing the incomplete citation and/or replacing it with {{cn}}. But do not remove the reference, as it's crucial information for verification of the content, and for someone to later complete the citation.

I'd appreciate if you would respond to this message by confirming that you will stop removing undefined references and/or replacing them with {{cn}} tags, and that you will go back and replace the ones you have removed. Levivich (talk) 22:06, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but I'm not completely sure what you're talking about. The text parameter in the {{cn span}} template keeps the text visible but highlights it as needing a source. In the Zionism article, no prose was removed and broken citations were replaced with tags to highlight the unsupported claim made. In each of the edits you reference (the numbered ones, from your watchlist), the same seems to be the case. The broken citations were broken and unusable -- not incomplete, so {{full citation needed}} does not apply. A broken reference does not provide any ability to verify anything.

As for the spelled edits, some of these do remove unreferenced text. The first five look like they undid more recent additions that didn't have salvageable references. Per WP:BURDEN: Any material lacking an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the material may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source. And so removing the unsupported claims from the article is not anything like vandalism. Instead, it's policy. In many cases, including some that you linked, other viable and working references were available and left undisturbed. In these cases, I don't "know" there's any citation because all that exits is a broken tag. There isn't always a reference available in a previous version of the article. There usually isn't, by my experience.

When references are salvageable (for example, available in another article after a copy-paste, or a previous version, or deducible because of a typo, or ...), I fix them in place. If you review my edit history, I think you can find thousands of cases where I've made such repairs. -- mikeblas (talk) 22:54, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Let's look at one diff: do you see how you removed {{sfn|Penslar|2017|loc=Staging Zionism}} and replaced it with a {{cn span}}? Don't do that.

You know that what you tagged with {{cn}} had a citation -- a citation to Penslar 2017, "Staging Zionism", so removing that {{sfn}} and replacing it with a {{cn}} was disruptive, somewhat dishonest (to say a citation is needed when you removed the citation that was there), and almost vandalistic (it does not improve the article, but makes it significantly worse). The only thing that makes this not vandalism is that you intended for it to be a good faith improvement, but you're wrong about that, and at least five other editors have brought this up just this year alone. I'm the sixth.

What I'm looking for here is for you to commit to not doing this again in the future, and to fix the ones you already did (including diffs # 6-11 and any others you can fix). Levivich (talk) 23:13, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's strange that you're telling me what I know, particularly when it's incorrect. There's no Penslar reference from 2017 in the article and there's no reference with a title of "Staging Zionism". What I *know* is that there's no usable reference here.

I feel quite certain that an article using standard templates to explicitly identify points where references are needed is an objective improvement over an article with visible errors for undefined references that can't be used for any verification. The template dates the issue so that future editors know how long it's been a problem, the text is annotated with a clear indication that a citation is missing, and the article is added to an error tracking category.

Is your request really that I re-introduce errors to the article? What good do you think that does? -- mikeblas (talk) 23:45, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You knew there was a citation there because you removed it. It's an incomplete citation, but that isn't the same thing as no citation. You replaced an incomplete citation with no citation. That is not an improvement, it's making the article worse, which is disruptive. I'm not really interested in an extended debate about this. Are you going to agree to stop doing this or not? Levivich (talk) 23:56, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I will say, it was a pain to fix these because of all the markup and the variation in the markup (fact vs cn), not sure i even caught them all. A talk page post pointing to the references that didnt exist would have been a lot easier to correct. DMH223344 (talk) 00:08, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Why weren't the errors in the article enough to get your attention? Do you have them disabled somehow? But it does look to me like you did get everything straightened out, and that's great. -- mikeblas (talk) 00:18, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#User:Mikeblas replacing incomplete citations with citation needed tags. Levivich (talk) 21:28, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't commenting out the broken/orphaned ref while adding the (f)cn template solve the problem to the satisfaction of both schools of thought? (It removes the reddest warnings but leaves the info for future heating engineers) See for example [1] where you'll need to look at the source to see the ref-tags. Since nothing would be visible in mainspace it would probably be best to leave a message on the TP when doing this. -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 09:46, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be, and there are a couple of further alternatives. But Levivich demanded their specific solution and was not willing to listen to any alternatives. -- mikeblas (talk) 14:21, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This respects the letter (and probably the spirit) of what Lev asked you to do above (stop removing undefined references and replacing them with *cn* tags.) while still allowing you to gofast and not look to resolve the problem. It's worth noting that because a stink was made, all the references ended up being fixed (showing that IMO by going slower in the first place, the exciting goat rodeo which led to the precise references being restored could have been avoided entirely). -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 15:28, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There were many ways to avoid the goat rodeo. Quickly escalating to ANI was not one of them, nor was coming to my talk page with over-escalated claims and accusations. But again again that's not what Levivich demanded. (But also: do you have that album)? It's on my list forever, and I haven't pulled the trigger, yet.)

I just want to put this behind me, and I'm not going to edit much anymore. It's just not worth it because this is what happens when things don't go perfectly well. If Levivich gets away with what he did, that just further demonstrates Wikipedia isn't worth my time. -- mikeblas (talk) 22:48, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also, sorry -- I'm sure I sound pretty flip. I do appreciate your ideas, but it's just that this has been overwhelming, intimidating, demeaning, unwarranted, and entirely unproductive. I'm resigned. -- mikeblas (talk) 23:14, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's quite an ADJ-stack, good thing there isn't a "needled" hidden in there! Folks called me Flip for years, so complaining about the flippancy of strangers just wouldn't be right. I'd never heard that album! On a first listen "Trappings" was my favorite from the TDC (though some of the cello lines in "Your Coffee is a Disaster" remind me of Ma's Japanese Melodies -- one of my favorite CDs). I'm currently enjoying "Where's My Bow?" and want to thank you (!!) for that part of your message. -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 12:38, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Through the collaboration of nine editors, all seventeen refs at User talk:Mikeblas/Levich's list (drawn from Levivich's OP above and/or the ANI thread following up thereupon) have now been repaired, including the correct removal of one unreliable source. Folly Mox (talk) 13:41, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Folly, et al.! -- mikeblas (talk) 14:21, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I do hope (per above) you don't allow this unpleasant experience to drive you away from the site for long. ANI is pretty terrible, and it genuinely sucks that for a handful of bad edits that were fixed within days after sufficient publicity, a good editor gets humiliated, dragged through the mud, set on fire, and run over with a tank (metaphorically).

I leapt to conclusions there after not inspecting all the diffs, and I imagine others later in the conversation piled on with even less information (or, less focused information, and more other people's reactions).

Levels of participation vary over time. I got fed up with the Foundation after FRAMBAN and stepped away for a year. Last winter I had a stupid medical thing that also somehow bricked my phone, and got stuck in 2FA hell trying to get my email back so I could get my password reset, and kinda gave up on the site for a few months till something trivial drew me back.

Being the target of an ANI dogpile forty-three scrolls long certainly must have been stressful and demeaning as you mentioned above. Sadly or fortunately, almost everyone else will forget about it in a month or two. Future editors who have reason to wade through the whole thread will note that you repeatedly asked for clarification as to how to address these errors in the future, editors contributed who disagreed that all edits presented in the OP were truly problematic, and the thread was archived without action against you.

If this is the first time this sort of public flogging has happened to you in nineteen years here, I wouldn't be super worried about it happening again (i.e. this is not necessarily what happens when things don't go perfectly well). That said, you're very unlikely to get a public retraction from Levivich as requested in the ANI thread, although someone might take it upon themselves to compose an explanatory supplement somewhere on best practices for fixing broken citations.

TL;DR needing a break after a shitty experience like this is totally natural, and I'd be really sad if you long-term dramatically scale back your participation or retire permanently because of it.

Lastly, I can't commit to gnoming the maintenance cats you like on your behalf, but if you ever need help here or there fixing up some citations, please hit me up. I'd be glad to lend a hand and I'm usually around at least for awhile about six days a week.

All the best, Folly Mox (talk) 19:39, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You could have just deleted the references only and added a new one you didn’t have to delete the intercontinental tournament achievement just for you to added again so you can receive the credit. Agararol81 (talk) 13:58, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Are you referring to this edit? -- mikeblas (talk) 15:24, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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BGerdemann (WMF) (talk) 19:22, 23 October 2024 (UTC) [reply]

Hello, I'm Qwerfjkl (bot). I have automatically detected that this edit performed by you, on the page Hudson County, New Jersey, may have introduced referencing errors. They are as follows:

• A bare URL error. References show this error when one of the URL-containing parameters cannot be paired with an associated title. Please edit the article to add the appropriate title parameter to the reference. (Fix | Ask for help)

Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, Qwerfjkl (bot) (talk) 22:14, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page stalker) Thanks Qwerfjkl (bot). Fixed. Folly Mox (talk) 00:24, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]