User talk:Gyanvigyan1

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Brother, its time for a counterattack[edit]

First of all let me congratulate your over your unending efforts @ Kayastha article.

I have been watching the fall of our community and the efforts of a few to further accelerate our journey to nowhere. WE need a common front and a strong organiztion so that our kids might proudly say that they are our kids and not feel marginalized. If need be we shall ask for reservation for the wrongs done to our brothers in Bengal and insults infilcted on us. Every group is fighting for its right and at such a time we cant stand aloof. I am not a castist/racist but yes I am a Kayastha and mighty proud of it.

I have fished out references to our high lineage from various sources, old and new, but something gives me a feeling that a few moderators are grouping against us and only allow the insults to be posted on the Kayastha article.... Now its time tp fight back, I shall support you and expect the same from you. If you are ready for it, reply back.

To check my credentials please visit my contributions page and also read about the references @ Kayastha Research Wing: http://chitraguptvanshi.wetpaint.com Kayastha Shiromani (talk) 13:21, 26 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome[edit]

Welcome!

Hello, Gyanvigyan1, 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 {{help me}} before the question. Again, welcome! Aboutmovies (talk) 06:53, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A bowl of strawberries for you![edit]

Hi. Please be very careful not to violate WP:NPA, WP:CIVIL, WP:3RR, WP:SPA. etc. This is a genuine friendly advice. Please delete it if I am being assumptive. I am saying this because the atmosphere around caste articles has been very "chop-chop" type for some months now. One needs to be very careful....Regards. MW ℳ 07:28, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your advice. I would appreciate, if you correct me, if I do fall on the slippery slope (of caste wars :-)). I want to conduct this discussion without breaking the Wiki codes, however, since, there are people with vested interests in misprepresenting facts, and because facts have been misrepresented even in published texts written by some westerners, its likely, that I may make a mistake. I'd correct my mistake, if warned. Regards ...(Gyanvigyan1 (talk) 07:40, 12 September 2011 (UTC))[reply]

Your recent edits[edit]

Hello. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. You could also click on the signature button or located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your username or IP address and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you. --SineBot (talk) 08:28, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

username[edit]

First thing I would say is "Do not create a new account". If you do that, you will be open to accusations of sockpuppetry. And it is quite easy to find out, and difficult to hide. So, please don't do that. Saying this just as a note of caution. Not that there is anything to show that you have any intention to do so. Now, you will find all you need by studying Wikipedia:Changing username. Please read it. I will also help you get it done. But just now, real life calls. So, I must ask for leave for some time. Please pardon me until I return.-MW ℳ 11:09, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

new name[edit]

I left an explanation on User Talk:MangoWong explaining how to make an easy name change request. If you have questions, let me know. Qwyrxian (talk) 12:02, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ya. Qwyrxian has left good pointers there. That should get you through with the process of username change.-MW ℳ 13:02, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I would also suggest that you take an interest in some other articles/areas too. If you edit on one article only, you could be accused of being a WP:SPA. I had found one ed facing SPA allegations on the basis of the one single edit that the ed ever made. I myself was being made into an SPA even when I was taking interest in a number of articles and areas. So, you need to be careful about that too. It is all very dispiriting, but accusationavalanche is commonplace on caste article eds. Just so that you know...MW ℳ 05:36, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks dude. I can see that there is quite a lot of politics on wikipedia, but you have learnt your way around. Nice.(Gyanvigyan1 (talk) 08:08, 13 September 2011 (UTC))[reply]
NP :-) On caste articles, you are always on choppy waters -- no matter how clear the skies may appear to be. It is a sink or swim situation. So, you have to learn quickly. Actually I agree with part of what Qwyrxian, MatthewVanitas and Sitush are doing. Lots of users keep dumping unsourced glorificatory material on these articles. WP is an encyclopedia. It is expected to have information which would impart some valuable information. Article space (or any other WP space) is not meant for promotional purposes. I agree with them there. We should have only encyclopedic information. Where I disagree with them is when glorificatory material is replaced or countered (neutralized) by defamatory stuff. I hold that both these types of material are equally unencyclopedic. Encyclopedias should only impart information which would increase the readers knowledge in a meaningful way. I see no need for an impulse for either glorificatory / defamatory material, unless it is encyclopedic. I also hold that the varna issue is irrelevant in the present Indian context. In the present Indian reality, only the SC/ST/OBC status of castes is relevant. So we should note only that instead of focusing on varna. Anyway, cheers and enjoy...:-)MW ℳ 09:47, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I totally, totally agree with you -- both about what you say about the need for proper non-propagandist encyclopedic material in Wikipedia and about the (ir)relevance of caste system in today's India, which is just as well.(Gyanvigyan1 (talk) 10:23, 13 September 2011 (UTC))[reply]
What I think is a great drawback about Wikipedia is its reliance only on what it calls 'reliable published work.' This limits its capacity to do justice to knowledge, if that is the goal here. I understand the need to be careful, however, it can't be at the cost of knowledge. This is especially a problem with articles related with non-western topics. Like you rightly said that Wikipedia is a global forum. But it is still controlled by western thought process and editors with little ground knowledge of the non-west (and a lot of biases as well) -- and its not only about the caste issue. These topics either do not have enough published material, or have materials written through western mindsets/ theories/ conceptions, that often distort the reality.(Gyanvigyan1 (talk) 10:33, 13 September 2011 (UTC))[reply]
IMO (IMO=In my opinion) the WP policy is correct in this regard. If we start allowing original research, we will have chaos. All sorts of people will start claiming "I know this is true". We have no way of establishing what is true or not, or who is saying the right thing or not. So, we have to apply the restriction of "reliable sourcing". I see it as a good policy and support it wholeheartedly. If we do not have a reliable source for something, we don't need to note it, whether it is true/correct or not. Please see WP:V and WP:TRUTH. The alternative is chaos. We want to be a reliable source of knowledge, not a forum of amateurs saying things based on their hunches. If we don't have enough sources on non-Western topics, we need not note it. Unreliably sourced info is not an option. And WP is not a global forum. It is a global encyclopedia. It is not even a forum of any sort. Please see WP:FORUM. We discuss what we discuss only if it is relevant to article development. Otherwise, we need not discuss the topics just for the fun of it. Yes, we do have a bias. But it is probably more correct to characterize it as an "anglophone" bias. i.e. English speaking folks get more coverage. Even the articles related to non English speaking countries from Europe would suffer from an Anglophone bias. The way to correct it is to have more eds from all around the globe, including eds from the Anglophone countries. WP is constantly trying to do it. But perfection is only an ideal. We have to learn to deal with the practical.:-)MW ℳ 11:24, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I just want to say that I agree completely with MangoWong here. I wish there were a way to include other types of "truth", but it's simply impossible to do that while still having any sort of standards. If we allowed "unreliable sources", then anyone who, for example, hated the Yadav caste could make a blog post about how bad they are, and then insist that that's legitimate knowledge. Or some ultra-conservative Christian could insist on adding some nonsense about how everyone in India is going to burn in hell for not following Jesus...heck, they could insist that every article on Wikipedia include Bible references, since that's obviously an ideal (heck, the only) source for them.
I actually do expect/hope for a change in the future, but it's going to be quite a ways in the future. As print media in general declines, we'll have to start shifting over to other sources; plus, as we expand world-wide, we're going to have to rethink how we handle other types of sources...but, one thing I will say, that probably has relevance for the two of you, is that if a change does occur, it will occur as a result of already respected members of the community pushing for it. Not because a mass of oustiders come and try to push a change (I've noticed that Wikipedia takes some pretty strong steps to prevent what it sees as "interference" from outside, interested parties), but because key editors see the world changing and recognize that we have to change with it. Qwyrxian (talk) 12:11, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think our sourcing policies are fine as they are. It is assumptive to think that I may want them to be relaxed. I would oppose such a move. Actually, I would want WP:V to be more demanding than it is now.-MW ℳ 12:36, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I'll clarify: I think that MW is 100% correct in the way xe describes policy as it currently stands. We disagree on what WP should do in the future :). I actually know I'm in the minority on this issue, but I still have hopes for the future (and by future, I mean I'm thinking 5-10 years in the future). Qwyrxian (talk) 12:49, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I may be mistaken here. Do you mean that you want the WP:V to be relaxed??MW ℳ 13:38, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think that in the future, if we don't relax WP:V, we're going to run out of things to cite, because traditional news sources are going to disappear and most news sources will be cloud-sourced (like Wikinews), so if we want current news, we're going to have to find some way to distinguish "good" SPS from "bad" SPS. Similar problems will occur as more and more books are self-published and fewer and fewer are backed by "reliable publishers" (especially as they go digital, at which point it may even start to be unclear what a "reliable publisher" is). Also, as a feminist, I would like some way for personal knowledge (bodily knowledge, intuition, oral histories, etc.) to find a place in Wikipedia, though I don't actually envision that as being as simple as putting personal stories on the same "level" as academic journals. Heck, I don't even know how it would work...I just know that insisting that all knowledge come from sources which are dominated by privileged people (often, white, male, upper class) is harmful to subaltern, colonized, colored, and other non-dominant people. It may well be that this desire of mine simply cannot ever be done in Wikipedia, and would be more important for a separate project. Finally, just to be clear--until such time as we do change WP:V (if ever), I will always edit to support it as currently written. In fact, I enforce it more strictly than many other editors, because I believe that our system works by consensus, and thus it is our responsibility to follow the policies and guidelines as written. In a certain sense, this is where I basically come back towards your position: for now, at least, WP:V is necessary because we don't have any other way to sort good from bad, so I strongly support applying it, and applying it quite aggressively. Qwyrxian (talk) 14:10, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Your views are quite impressive!!! I do not much worry about the harm caused to "subaltern, colonized, colored, and other non-dominant people", etc. due to our sourcing policies. We mean no harm to anyone certainly. We are just trying to be practical. We can't say things out of thin air. Rather than the prospect of chaos, I am coming around to the view the WP:V is necessary because we want our material to be trustworthy. That is why we need to be able to show reliable sources for whatever we say, and that is why our sources need to be verifiable. I think the future academic sourcing problem would get solved even without any publishers. We would need to find out how many universities are using which book. And that would be an indication of the reliability of academic books or authors. I hope there is also a market for reliable news. So, maybe the future would show some way of locating reliable news. And we too will follow the same way. Anyway, I think I am beginning to get into speculative territory now. So, I stop here. This was an illuminating conversation for me!!!MW ℳ 16:22, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As you can see, being new, I don't want to say much, though, I am definitely very opinionated about this discussion :-), although, I do recognize the issue about the need to avoid chaos. But, still there are a lot of material on the net, which is e.g., from registered bodies or institutions, and whose work does seem trustworthy, due to the sheer amount of research work that they have put into it, or mayb e b ec u a se, they are the authority on the topic ... I dunno. (Gyanvigyan1 (talk) 18:47, 13 September 2011 (UTC))[reply]
There are times when online info can be reliable (in a Wikipedia sense). A first question would be whether or not the organization who published it is notable--that is, do they have a Wikipedia page. If not, it's unlikely their page will qualify, though it just might. The second question is how they decided to include or not include info--i.e., what is their editorial judgment. So, for example, a hypothetical group entitled "Yadav's United Against Discrimination" is highly unlikely to be reliable, since they clearly have an agenda to push and thus can't be trusted to provide neutral, reliable info. On the other hand, information published by the Indian government (or one of its local entities) is probably reliable (although, even there, we have to be careful; e.g., info coming out of a single politicians office is not likely to be reliable since they have other motives than producing honest text). Other factors will go into the evaluation; in tricky cases, we can take the site to the reliable sources noticeboard and ask for the opinion of more uninvolved editors. I mean, raising it on the talk page is a good start, but, especially when people disagree, RSN is a better source of "final" judgment. I know I passed judgment on some of your sources pretty quickly at Talk:Yadav; if you want to revisit those in more detail, I would be happy to explain why I felt those aren't reliable, and maybe you have info to explain why they might be. One key indicator, though, is if we can't even tell who the author is, then there's no question that it will be unreliable; a second key factor is that if the info is for biographical info about specific living people, then pretty much all self-published sites are automatically out. Qwyrxian (talk) 01:25, 14 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I know I passed judgment on some of your sources pretty quickly at Talk:Yadav ... No you didn't. I'm pretty new here, and never been at talk Yadav :) (unless you mean talk Kayasth). Although, you might want to look carefully at the sources, I am busy accumulating for the talk page on Kayasthas. Perhaps, when deciding which online source is reliable and which isn't one can look at the authority they wield on the subject in real life. E.g., Brahmins, are the deciding factor of varna issues in India. They were the ones that gave varnas to communities, they are the ones who took it back from some, and they are the ones who have the authority to redefine varnas. And this works without there being a central authority of Brahmins. The majority view (in this case of Brahmins) prevails. That is how Indian culture/ religion/ communities work, although, it may seem chaotic to a westerner. A research based website of learned Brahmins, which enjoys credibility amongst other Brahmins, maybe taken as a reliable source, if there is even a slight door open under the wikipedia rules, to do so.(Gyanvigyan1 (talk) 05:23, 14 September 2011 (UTC))[reply]
I have yet another wild thought about Wikipedia :), and I'm sharing it just for the sake of it, I know there is no way it can be accepted, or even practicable. The idea of letting people edit articles on an encyclopedia is a wonderful and powerful one, because, there are a lot of people out there with a lot of information, which is genuine, even rare, and which for various reasons, (a) has not been tapped/ reported by the established system of gathering knowledge (established scholarly university's, published works etc.), (b) or, they have not been analysed in a proper perspective because, e.g., the biases (including cultural or religious biases) of the researchers clouded their perception of the topic. In the olden days, people had the power of knowledge. You and me, had the power to gather knoweledge on our own (sometimes people are exceptionally gifted to understand particular topics -- like Kabir), and to share it too, without having to have it validated by an authorised body of nominated people (university, church, etc.), and without having to have it tow the line of a standard set of principles/ codes, etc. The people would judge the validity of the knowledge. Now, some people would obviously abuse this freedom, but then, even authorised bodies (like science and churches) can and have been abusing knowledge and misrepresenting them -- even on purpose. The positive side of this was, that a lot of genuine knowledge did reach people, some (a lot?) of which, today is otherwise, throttled, and only that knowledge that suits those in power, gets to see the light of the day, because the others are invalidated and rubbished (for not following the standardised norms). Just like organised religion takes away the power of the individual to connect to god one to one, without having to become a member of the church, organised knowledge also takes away the power of the individual to comprehend and share knowledge on his own.
There are already huge numbers of encyclopedias, including on the net, that are based on "reliable published" materials. In my humble view, you don't need the ordinary, non-academic people to edit such information. Wikipedia can easily employ researchers to do the job, i.e. to scan the published works and make a summary. Wikipedia has any use, only, if it can tap the knowledge that people have, that the established institutions have failed to accumulate, and which, may go waste, otherwise. In fact, even today, due to the fact that ordinary people with extra-ordinary knowledge have been able to share it on Wikipedia (in my opinion, sometimes not strictly following the rules, which I think have been much more relaxed, at least on non-western topics, till now), that makes the knowledge at wikipedia much more useful and interesting, rather than just like reading the dry summary of already published works. To make this idea practicable would be quite a challenge, in order to have a system that gives individuals freedom, yet, filters out the unreliable information/ sources. But that would be the real beauty of Wikipedia.
Think about this too ... till now outsiders had gone and researched the indigenous people/ tribes, etc, formed an opinion about them and reported them. Wikipedia gives those indigenous people a chance to present knowledge about them, in the way they see it, and not how the outsiders see it. It's a wonderful and enligthening phenomeon in its own way. But, this opportunity is lost if we strictly have to go by publised works by reputed unviersities, which in case of natives, often rely only on western sources, also becuase these universities are not the traditional source of authoritative knowledge for the natives, and they themselves do not invest in getting their way of seeing things to be published by such universities.

(Gyanvigyan1 (talk) 05:23, 14 September 2011 (UTC))[reply]

I'd say, the editing process itself, as seen on the talk pages, is a great source of knowledge which is otherwise not so visibly recorded. It tells about the real issues that people face on those topics in real life -- both, positive and negative.(Gyanvigyan1 (talk) 05:23, 14 September 2011 (UTC))[reply]
I admit I too have had bouts of thoughts like these. I have also seen others say similar things... :-)MW ℳ 05:42, 14 September 2011 (UTC) Instead of trying to change the system etc. it may be more fruitful to try out some more practical ways of getting where one wants to get. You can often find WP RSs to say what you want to say. Even for the most utterly impossible looking points. And they would often say it better than how you want them to say it ... And (above a certain standard) what constitues an RS is almost always a debatable issue. It would depend on how well you can make your case. MW ℳ 05:52, 14 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thank god ... I thought sharing these thoughts would present me in a negative light here. :)(Gyanvigyan1 (talk) 05:57, 14 September 2011 (UTC))[reply]
NP. And if there be some biased sources saying some biased things, you can destroy them by finding some other source to say that the preceding sources are ill informed/ narrow minded/ racist/ motivated, etc. If you find something like that, don't take down the biased sources. IMO, you should simply add what the other source saysri and attribute the bias on them. Don't take them down.-MW ℳ 06:29, 14 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Point taken.(Gyanvigyan1 (talk) 06:45, 14 September 2011 (UTC))[reply]
Gyanvigyan1. I have been giving a cursory look at the Kayastha page, and I think this point may be same or relevant to the point which you are trying to make there. The sources must be saying only research based things. The other things which they say is worthless for wp purposes IMO. Please see Wikipedia:No original research#Reliable sources

...In general, article statements should not rely on unclear or inconsistent passages, or on passing comments. Passages open to multiple interpretations should be precisely cited or avoided. A summary of extensive discussion should reflect the conclusions of the source. Drawing conclusions not evident in the reference is original research regardless of the type of source...(emphasis mine)

. Almost all of the varna debate in caste articles is OR. I regard OR, misrepresentation, off topic sources, cherry picked material, passing comments, confusing material, etc. as encyclopedic poison. Such a debate does not exist in reality and it also does not exist in secondary sources. Whatever the secondary sources say on this is from their gut feeling, and is not based on any comprehensive research. It is half baked knowledge. Worthless. I am placing this here so that you can decide whether it is relevant to your point or not. And WP:OR is a core policy for WP.MW ℳ 07:11, 18 September 2011 (UTC) There will be no hard feelings if you decide that this is not relevant to your point there. You know best what you are saying there.MW ℳ 07:18, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much for you valuable input -- I think, this is what I've been trying to say in perfect Wikipedia terminology. Actually, I just do not know my way around wikipedia properly, as I find the rules very complicated to understand and follow. This and other inputs are greatly appreciated.(Gyanvigyan1 (talk) 07:51, 18 September 2011 (UTC))[reply]
Knowing WP takes some effort. If you want to achieve results, there is no getting around this point. The policies have simple underlying principles. But the wording is complicated because folks keep trying to come up with convoluted arguments to get around the wording. As you know by now, the core policies are WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:NOR. Then there are policies and guidelines like WP:RS and WP:UNDUE. The behavioral policies and guidelines like WP:CIVIL and WP:TPG are also of prime importance IMO. It pays to know, and quote these and other policies and guidelines. If one is making a policy based argument, it is always better to quote the relevant portion. Otherwise, assuming that the other person will understand that you are making a policy based argument is a folly.MW ℳ 08:14, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

While making talk page comments, you may want to add footnotes in them. Doing that is easy. There is a special template for that. You can also put some parts of you comments in blockquotes. I am putting in examples of both so that you can see how it works and use them in the same way.[1]Now the blockquote example:

while using advanced formatting, it is always better to preview things before hitting the save button

. Using bulleted lists etc. is also helpful in making yourself clear. Using numbered lists will make it hard for others to ignore replying to your points :-)MW ℳ 09:38, 18 September 2011 (UTC) [reply]

References

  1. ^ this is the example for footnoting. The {{reflist-talk|close=1}} template can be put just below your comment.
Thank you Mango Wango, I've tried to use these formatting suggestions, and I think, I'm learning.:)(Gyanvigyan1 (talk) 14:56, 24 September 2011 (UTC))[reply]
With some practice, you can get the hang of it in no time!!! I am placing here a redlink User:Gyanvigyan1/Sandbox. You can create the subpage by clicking on it and following the instructions. You can use it to practice your editing skills. It will also contain another link to its own talk page and you can create that too and use it too. You can create more subpages if you need them. See WP:USERSUBPAGE. I noticed that you were interested in finding out ways of locating sources and in reading them. You can check out Wikipedia:List of free online resources. The googlebooks, googlescholar and www.archive.org are the ones which are used most often. But googlebooks and other sites have the limitation that they would only show you some books and would often show some parts of a book only. The archive.org would let you download full books, but only the ones which are out of copyright. So, these would be mostly a century or so old. You can also find full books on numerous other sites. There are various sites of this type. They are too numerous to name. You have to search for them yourself. To do this, you will need some idea of what search terms are more useful in finding books. Using their titles is a first step of course. Finding books will also take some time and practice. With some practice and experience.... Using websites, one should go through their terms of use etc.... :-) MW ℳ 10:23, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
One can also use [1] the Magnus' refmaker or the [2] googlebooks citation tool to format one's refs easily. With the second tool, one can provide direct links to the relevant page. In the Gbooks window, there would be a "link" tab on the right hand side. Clicking on it will give a direct link to the page in the window. One has to check the details provided by the gbooks citation maker because it often provides wrong data (publisher, ISBN etc.), and also because the data shows the editor as the author, while the actual author of the chapter one is citing may be someone else... MW ℳ 07:57, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Talkback[edit]

Hello, Gyanvigyan1. You have new messages at MangoWong's talk page.
Message added 07:49, 30 September 2011 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.[reply]

MW ℳ 07:49, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Some links for you[edit]

Links for Wikipedians interested in India content

Welcome kit

Register

Network

Contribute content

MW ℳ 05:23, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Very well, I'm a little pressed for time right now, but, I'd like to participate more in India related projects.(Gyanvigyan1 (talk) 16:26, 6 October 2011 (UTC))[reply]

Kayastha[edit]

Just a quick note: I've seen you recent comments at Talk:Kayastha but am a little bogged down with something else at the moment. Please do not think that you are being ignored! Best. - Sitush (talk) 18:46, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No of course not! Just take good care of yourself :-)(Gyanvigyan1 (talk) 19:06, 22 October 2011 (UTC))[reply]
Thanks. Can you do me a favour? If you get no response from me by, say, Tuesday or Wednesday then please drop me a note on my talk page. I am keen to see through some of the points that you have raised and have a gut feeling that your concern regarding Sadasivan is correct. He is one of those sources that keeps cropping up and with whom a lot of people are unhappy, but they seem not usually able to articulate the issue in the way that you have done. - Sitush (talk) 00:23, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No problem(Gyanvigyan1 (talk) 06:49, 23 October 2011 (UTC))[reply]
Minor note: yesterday, you left a followup on this issue for Sitush, but mistakenly put it on his user page (User:Sitush) instead of his talk page (User Talk:Sitush). I moved it over; I hope you don't mind. Qwyrxian (talk) 05:29, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Refactoring on talk pages[edit]

Hi, I have not yet checked subsequent events but apologise if the explanation of my revert of your refactoring (changing of existing comments) at Talk:Kayastha was either or both of rude or lacking in detail.

As a basic rule, you can change the content of your own contributions to talk pages but should not change those made by others. My own interpretation of the latter bit is something that others may not agree with: I quite regularly find myself fixing the indenting of other people (but not the actual words that they use, or their spelling/grammar etc) in order to keep the layout of the discussion orderly. I may be wrong in doing even that but there have been plenty of admins involved in the various articles & none has yet queried it.

Anyway, to the point in question. Yes, you can change your own comment. However, if you do so after someone has replied to it then it has the potential to create confusion because the visible version of your comment is not the same as that to which others had replied. There are ways round this, most usually either

  • use the striking method, which involves putting a <s> at the front of the bit that you want to retract and a </s> at the end of it, preferably noting in the edit summary that you have striked something; or
  • just starting a new message to clarify the issues that you now prefer "not to be said"

Obviously, fixing minor typos, links etc after someone else has replied is not a problem. But if you even start moving your paragraphs around then it has the potential to change the entire meaning of the message and it places those who replied to it at a "disadvantage" (a poor choice of word, but it is late here).

So, I again apologise but hope that the above makes a little more sense than my blunt edit summary did. - Sitush (talk) 00:14, 29 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

PS: I now see that you think that there may have been an edit conflict. I am sure that you are correct in saying that we were both entering stuff at more or less the same time, but I am somewhat surprised that with a four minute gap between actually committing our edits to the page you did not get a warning about the conflict & a suggestion that you review the difference etc. Edit conflicts are a pain in the backside but they do happen and we do have to deal with them in an appropriate manner. - Sitush (talk) 00:31, 29 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, that is what surprises me -- that neither of us got a "conflict" warning.(Gyanvigyan1 (talk) 05:33, 29 October 2011 (UTC))[reply]
I would not have got the warning because my edit was committed to the page before yours. You should certainly have got one because at the point when you clicked "save" the software checks to see if the content has been modified in the interval & warns you if that is the case. If two people commit their edits in the same few seconds then that check sometimes fails. But there was a four minute gap - you got the warning, as far as I am concerned, but probably ignored it. If it was otherwise then I think that it needs to be reported as a bug - feel free to do so. - Sitush (talk) 13:20, 29 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, failure to get an edit conflict is a fairly common bug. I think I remember someone estimating that on high traffic pages like WP:ANI, the edit conflict detection can fail up to 5-10% of the time. It's been better for me personally lately, but I don't know if it's actually really "solved". Some people have actually recommended that on high traffic pages, that if you do get an edit conflict, that you copy and paste what you wrote, then back out all of the way to the page itself and start a new "edit" session. Qwyrxian (talk) 00:29, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There is another way? That is what I always do, unless I explicitly over-ride Anomiebot, knowing that it will come round again in due course. - Sitush (talk) 10:21, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

ANI[edit]

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. JanetteDoe (talk) 16:45, 29 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you![edit]

The Original Barnstar
I like your edit on the Kayastha page. Lets form a solidarity group against those who malign the article and its subject matter. I propose the folloing name for the group.

United intellectuals' front of Kayastha ethinicty against racist or castist abuse (UIFKEARCA) Khufiya Vibhaag (talk) 19:36, 16 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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