User talk:Cg23sailor

Hello Cg23sailor, and Welcome to Wikipedia!

Welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you enjoy the encyclopedia and want to stay. As a first step, you may wish to read the Introduction.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me at my talk page – I'm happy to help. Or, you can ask your question at the New contributors' help page.

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Cg23sailor, good luck, and have fun. – Student7 (talk) 15:52, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Student7 (talk) 15:52, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Ballistic Missile Submarine

Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your comments of September 8 in referencing to abbreviations not being acronyms. You might consider reposting a version of this on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships and/or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history after explaining why you are doing so. There may be problems with other ship types as well. Student7 (talk) 15:52, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Expert editors and assuming good faith

I've noticed that you have edited sporadically over the last 6 years or so, and most of your edits are talk page comments in which you attack another editor for their ignorance, while youtout your own expertise as a Navy veteran. You've written "But what do I know. I was only an Electronic Warfare Systems Tech (EW) in the US Navy" three times now. You should read the essay Wikipedia:Expert editors. Expertise doesn't give you special authority on Wikipedia, which motivated the creation of Citizendium back in 2006, to give verified experts more editing power than anonymous Wikipedia editors. That didn't work out and now only Wikipedia remains. It's frustrating when Randy in Boise is telling you things you know to be wrong, and you have to treat that guy as an equal. But that literally is how Wikipedia works. It's what the Assume good faith policy is all about.

Expertise and experience are valuable, but they are useless as a bludgeon to intimidate other editors. Instead, use your expertise to find sources to verify facts. Nobody needs to even know who you are; it's enough to present verifiable citations. Keep in mind that we all make mistakes. We can't expect others to gracefully admit the evidence weighs against them if we ourselves aren't willing to do so. Your statements that the Navy never broadcasts ship positions with AIS, for example. When you have tied your personal identity to a certain fact, then admitting the fact is wrong sort of looks like giving up your identity and your self-worth. You stake your reputation on it, and for what? It's so much easier so say, "I read this on page 12 of this book" and if somebody else shows you evidence that that book is incorrect, you can just shrug it off and say, "Fine, I didn't write the book" or "No problem, books disagree with each other."

People are happy to change their minds about what some book says, but if you decide to stake your reputation on a fact, then you've committed to die on that hill for no good reason. (Lots of us are veterans, with experience and expertise, but we're not talking about it out loud because it doesn't help.) --Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:16, 27 June 2017 (UTC)