User talk:RowanElder

Welcome!

Hi RowanElder! I noticed your contributions and wanted to welcome you to the Wikipedia community. I hope you like it here and decide to stay.

As you get started, you may find this short tutorial helpful:

Learn more about editing

Alternatively, the contributing to Wikipedia page covers the same topics.

If you have any questions, we have a friendly space where experienced editors can help you here:

Get help at the Teahouse

If you are not sure where to help out, you can find a task here:

Volunteer at the Task Center

Happy editing! I dream of horses ^{(Contribs) (Talk)} 18:12, 7 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! RowanElder (talk) 18:15, 7 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A cup of coffee for you!

Thanks for the help on Michael Peterson (geographer) page! GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 01:28, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! RowanElder (talk) 04:19, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Notice of discretionary sanctions on caste and related articles

This is a standard message to notify contributors about an administrative ruling in effect. It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date.

You have shown interest in South Asian social groups. Due to past disruption in this topic area, the community has authorised uninvolved administrators to impose contentious topics restrictions—such as editing restrictions, bans, or blocks—on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, expected standards of behaviour, or the page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic.

For additional information, please see the guidance on these sanctions. If you have any questions, or any doubts regarding what edits are appropriate, you are welcome to discuss them with me or any other editor.

Ekdalian (talk) 18:16, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I'll be careful since I don't know the ground well. This edit happened somewhat accidentally, when I was checking a spurious link from a mathematics page and I saw some easy-looking light copyediting to do on the incorrectly-linked page. RowanElder (talk) 22:36, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Aside

Hi RowanElder,

If you want to stop editing math articles and interacting with people who do edit math articles, that is of course entirely up to you (and it would be entirely at your own initiative, since no one else has asked you to do that, as far as I can see). But it is certainly sending mixed messages to keep adding to the same conversations after saying you're going to walk away from them.

You have not asked for my advice, but since you obviously have the potential to be a constructive math editor (and we need more of those), I am going to offer it to you anyhow: you should disengage from the specific conversations that are making you feel bad (and perhaps all of Wikipedia) for a couple of days. Have a pleasant weekend, maybe go for a hike or something. Then come back and re-engage, trying to keep in mind that people can disagree with you about whether a particular edit is an improvement without it being personal.

If you'd like to talk more, I'd be happy to do that, in a couple of days. --JBL (talk) 00:22, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, thanks for the offer and advice, though I said nothing about intending to walk away from the conversations, just the article editing for the project, so I'm not sure why the message is mixed. I'd consider it pretty rude of me to just walk away without an explanation because people have strong feelings about this stuff and I respect those strong feelings. It's clearly lonely work and I'm making it a little lonelier by going, which is rough and I'm sorry to be doing that to people clearly motivated to be making the world a better place (and making it better especially for poor and isolated kids, in a way that's close to my heart). I thought it was important to say why I was leaving, i.e., the project was unwelcoming, and to give a sense of why. I intend to keep following that through unless you really think that's the wrong idea.

I'm kind of unhappy about the particular past frustrations here and there, for sure, but I'm not taking it personally. Honestly that's actually part of the problem! The impersonality isn't welcoming, it would have been a relief to have had more to take personally. I'm emotionally fine, and I'm trying to be a good citizen by "seeing something and saying something." Most people seem to just do "quiet quitting" here on Wikipedia but I don't think that's kind so it's not what I'm doing.

Re advice, for what it's worth, I've asked math Wikiproject participants for general advice many times and I was generally happy to get advice except when it involved people impolitely jumping to conclusions about who I was or why I was doing what I was doing. Please consider yourself asked and welcomed to give advice. RowanElder (talk) 00:43, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, I've had a good weekend but I did find time to look over your recent history, and I'm no longer interested in your advice. The insulting jump you made in assuming I was quitting over a single edit war doesn't seem atypical of your behavior elsewhere. You jump to pretty insulting accusations pretty quickly. I think maybe for someone who has real trouble with their temper, the advice to go cool off for a few days does make really good sense. However, that was not my problem and I don't think you'll have much insight into my problem.

Thanks for the effort, but I recommend some self-work before giving more people advice. RowanElder (talk) 01:29, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Generally, I'm just going to stop counting on Wikipedia to have any functional policing of good faith, politeness, or welcoming. Unhappily, the majority of regulars appear too deranged to see themselves clearly enough to do that sort of work effectively (especially when deranged by resignation). [edit: "Deranged" means "wildly miscalibrated." Stuff like "there are smells that have been around so long that the regulars can't smell them anymore, so they look semi-crazy, like they're 'denying the obvious,' even though there's good reason for it." Ways that regulars seem generally resigned to just take for granted that they can't do anything about usual and known unwelcoming behavior. This is a sad thing to be reminded of I'm sure, but it's not obviously unfair to me and it's not just meant as an insult or bad faith. It's more or less what I see described in WP:BITE, which I was helpfully made aware of a couple days ago.] RowanElder (talk) 01:35, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would strongly recommend you avoid insulting other Wikipedians, even on your own talk page. –jacobolus (t) 02:29, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how to call what I just said an insult given what else doesn't get policed here. I didn't name any names re "deranged" and the rest seemed par for the course that I've been experiencing. RowanElder (talk) 02:32, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is a rough place, we all have to learn to have a thick skin, no? RowanElder (talk) 02:37, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Here are a few quick things I find more insulting than what I just said, by which I am trying to calibrate my thicker skin and better understanding of what is and is not an insult on Wikipedia:

https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Talk:Principal_component_analysis&diff=prev&oldid=1253762693

https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard&diff=prev&oldid=1253769997

https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=User_talk:WhatamIdoing&diff=prev&oldid=1253764987 RowanElder (talk) 03:00, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And for good measure, for any readers "stalking a talk page," here is what JBL had sent me elsewhere shortly before opening this topic here:

https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics&diff=prev&oldid=1253397779

No one said a thing about this in support of my contention that this crossed a line, there, so I am inferring that it met the Wikipedia standard for politeness and assuming good faith. Until proven otherwise (i.e., until at least one Wikipedian agrees with me explicitly and directly that this sort of thing does not meet that standard), it will be the standard I expect and follow while I edit Wikipedia. RowanElder (talk) 15:31, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I am at a loss about what you are trying to accomplish here (in this thread or on WT:WPM). I made a mildly acerbic characterization of your behavior, thought better of it, and removed it before you or anyone else responded. Most people I know understand withdrawing an acerbic remark to be a concilliatory gesture; even moreso when the person making the remark does so on their own initiative. (There is of course no need to respond, but if you do I suggest you follow jacobolus's advice, since your comments about me here are way over the line; making some of them more broadly about "the majority of regulars" does not actually bring them inside community norms, believe it or not.) --JBL (talk) 23:31, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(1) Regarding WT:WPM: I decided I felt unwelcome editing math articles and I decided to say so as I left instead of ghosting. I wanted to create a short window to talk about it for any who cared. I didn't want to play any games about being convinced to stay: my lines got crossed and I decided I'm out. In saying something, I did expect to be jumped on in the way your acerbic comment jumped on me and I did in fact appreciate your conciliatory gesture of deleting, so I didn't immediately mind that too much. I wasn't angry, though I was mildly stung.

(2) After reading some more things around the encyclopedia, particularly your post history, I realized that I had no intuition for the line of civility that is being held on Wikipedia. My experience hadn't felt civil to that point, and your recent post history seemed especially uncivil to me. I fully own this is likely a "me problem" from Wikipedia regulars' perspective, and indeed, in response to a version of this concern about "the civility so far" on WT:WPM, I was told by jacobolus that wiki editing required a thick skin. I thus tried -- apparently against policy, though I didn't know then that "don't take the bait" and "become the unbaitable editor" were policy that pretty explicitly discourage what I was doing -- to engage more like I was being engaged. I've reconsidered that after seeing the official policies.

I genuinely aimed at a line of "acerbic but not uncivil" but the problem in the first place is that I have no insight into the local standards for civility (the default already seemed very uncivil to me), so even trying to aim at a line like that or to learn the line by active negotiation of it was evidently a mistake. Initially I aimed to match your "mildly acerbic" (which seemed to include provocative things like sarcastically groaning about others' actively stirring up drama and conflict in the diffs I linked above, though again: I don't understand it and I'm not trying to cast an aspersion, there, your comment may be perfectly civil in some sophisticated snarky way; I'm not making an attack but crying out for anyone to explain to me what the actual line is since what I am seeing is /extremely/ confusing to me). Again: I reconsidered this after learning the official policies.

(3) I have realized I was in the wrong on (2) by policy, but then I have no idea how to square those policies with what I see actually prevailing on the encyclopedia generally. Realizing that no promising approaches for figuring out the local standards look feasible for me in the short term, I decided to just become a ghost editor for now. Whatever the policies around civility and incivility there are here, whatever the common knowledge about "enforcement and nonenforcement" and "which bait or personal attacks get recognized as such and which don't," I've personally found this totally unintuitive and kafkaesque as a newcomer. I'm just not going to pretend I'm welcome anymore.

(4) On Wikipedia generally, I am ~~just~~ mostly trying to figure out how to channel the energy I would otherwise put into a crossword habit more prosocially, without having too many negative interactions. RowanElder (talk) 02:13, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I see I accidentally used the word "just" above where it doesn't belong, a minor bad habit I have broken better in speech than in online text. I also have a few other secondary goals I am pursuing. I'm generally interested in learning about Wikipedia's behind-the-scenes, for instance, since it's become an important institution, and I've learned more that has been interesting to my friends and family more quickly than I expected. RowanElder (talk) 02:30, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In appreciation

		The Copyeditor's Barnstar
		For your work improving Jin dynasty (1115–1234). Hope you enjoy your next weeks of editing more than the last one. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:18, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! I'll be doing my best. RowanElder (talk) 16:29, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Senussi

Thanks for your edits; I altered some because it's in BritEng and because we only link something once. I read your comments about Wiki being unwelcoming, which I had not known, so welcome to Wiki, the milhist section in particular ;O) If you are unsure about anything, I'll try to help and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history is very useful. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 16:23, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, I'll look at your edits to learn from my mistakes. And yeah, I'll change the bio soon. I'm learning the warning signs to avoid the issues I was having, and generally I am appreciating that history areas on Wikipedia have been more welcoming / easier to figure out how to contribute to. RowanElder (talk) 16:47, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have learned since becoming an editor in 2006 that the admins are (with some noble exceptions) a law unto themselves, who treat dissent as insubordination rather than an opportunity for them to account for themselves. If you have tangled with generic managers in real life you will know what I mean. I keep away from articles that advert to the US empire and its Satrapies, the BBC and anything to do with Palestine. I find that articles on medicine are usually reliable but mired in DocSpeak, a characteristic of many science articles too. History articles tend to reflect the sources that the editor is familiar with so are usually OK but have not always incorporated current thinking. As for grammar and syntax, I write according to the 1978 O-level English Language curriculum and am generally regarded as antediluvian. ;O) Keith-264 (talk) 17:33, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I know well what you mean, and as a sometimes-manager myself, I tend to be both more sympathetic to and more sensitive to the behavior than usual! It can be a nasty rut to fall into for all parties concerned, but it is genuinely difficult to keep clear of it. Finding one's own comfortable niche does seem to be the way to go here and I'm continuing to work at it. RowanElder (talk) 00:05, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2024 Elections voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2024 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 2 December 2024. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2024 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:52, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Guild of Copy Editors December 2024 Newsletter

Guild of Copy Editors December 2024 Newsletter

Hello, and welcome to the December newsletter, a quarterly digest of Guild activities since September. If you no longer want this newsletter, you can unsubscribe at any time; see below. If you'd like to be notified of upcoming drives and blitzes, and other GOCE activities, the best method is to add our announcements box to your watchlist.

Election news: The Guild's coordinators play an important role in the WikiProject, making sure ~~nearly~~ everything runs smoothly and on time. Editors in good standing (unblocked and without sanctions) are invited to nominate themselves or another editor to be a Guild coordinator (with their permission, of course) until 23:59 on 15 December (UTC). The voting phase begins at 00:01 on 16 December and runs until 23:59 on 31 December. Questions may be asked of candidates at any stage in the process. Elected coordinators will serve a six-month term from 1 January through 30 June.

Drive: In our September Backlog Elimination Drive, 67 editors signed up, 39 completed at least one copy edit, and between them they edited 682,696 words comprising 507 articles. Barnstars awarded are here.

Blitz: The October Copy Editing Blitz saw 16 editors sign-up, 15 of whom completed at least one copy edit. They edited 76,776 words comprising 35 articles. Barnstars awarded are here.

Drive: In our November Backlog Elimination Drive, 432,320 words in 151 articles were copy edited. Of the 54 users who signed up, 33 copy edited at least one article. Barnstars awarded are posted here.

Blitz: The December Blitz will begin at 00:00 on 15 December (UTC) and will end on 21 December at 23:59. Sign up here. Barnstars awarded will be posted here.

Progress report: As of 22:12, 7 December 2024 (UTC), GOCE copy editors have completed 333 requests since 1 January, and the backlog of tagged articles stands at 2,401 articles.

Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators, Dhtwiki, Miniapolis, Mox Eden and Wracking.

To stop receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.

Message sent by Baffle_gab1978 using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:49, 7 December 2024 (UTC).[reply]

ANI Dicussion

There is currently a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is User:Jwa05002 and User:RowanElder Making Ableist Comments On WP:Killing of Jordan Neely Talk Page, Threats In Lead. The discussion is about the topic Topic. Thank you. Akechi The Agent Of Chaos (talk) 06:20, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Contentious topic alert

You have recently made edits related to post-1992 politics of the United States and closely related people. This is a standard message to inform you that post-1992 politics of the United States and closely related people is a designated contentious topic. This message does not imply that there are any issues with your editing. For more information about the contentious topics system, please see Wikipedia:Contentious topics. TarnishedPath^talk 09:10, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

On break

I am taking a break from editing for a while. RowanElder (talk) 23:49, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am now returning to editing. RowanElder (talk) 16:06, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Guild of Copy Editors 2024 Annual Report

Guild of Copy Editors Annual Report

Our 2024 Annual Report is now ready for review.

Highlights:

Introduction
Membership news and election results
Summary of Drives, Blitzes and the Requests page
Closing words

– Your Guild coordinators

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:37, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A caution

Good evening sir,

I appreciate your contribution to the discussion on the COVID-19 Lab leak theory page.

I write to you to warn you that defending your side is frowned upon on that page and trying to have the rules fairly applied in that page is extremely dangerous. I myself have just been topic banned from editing anything related to Covid-19. You can decide for yourself if my comments have really been so uncivil and in bad-faith that I truly deserve a ban from all editing on the subject, even discussion, or if there are other factors at play.

A lot of good-faith editors have been permanently banned for trying to edit that article. I warn you you could be next. Powerful people are very protective of that article. Don't think just by following the rules as they're written you can escape punishment. I certainly thought that.

Cheers BabbleOnto (talk) 14:11, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,

I sympathize with what I imagine to be your feelings and motivations for writing this but I do see things differently. Your contributions at AN/I here look like they "took the bait" in the sense forbidden here, WP:BAIT. I had my own similar problems with this earlier as a newcomer as you can see on my talk page above, arising from conflicts at the much less contentious page Series (mathematics), so I don't think this is really about COVID-19 as much as an aspect of Wikipedia's civility norms that often doesn't make sense to people without extensive experience on Wikipedia. You didn't become uncivil by my own standards, but by community standards I think you did.

I would recommend taking this as an opportunity to go back and reflect on the nature of civility, credibility, and contentious speech acts in general, for instance by reading Norbert Elias's The Civilizing Process, Stephen Shapin's A Social History of Truth, or Pierre Bourdieu's Language and Symbolic Power (or if you can get into Judith Butler's Excitable Speech, you may find that extremely helpful, but it has more intense prerequisites). I sympathize with you here but I couldn't agree that the ban is unwarranted or mysterious. The Anglophone world is undergoing a crisis of the breakdown of its norms of civility right now, not in the sense that "everyone is now uncivil" but in the sense that community standards for civility now are not shared: they are becoming less and less mutually comprehensible across community lines. This type of dynamic is typical of periods of political transition to authoritarianism broadly and fascism in particular, unfortunately: would-be authoritarians are knowingly stirring and muddying waters around issues like COVID-19 today in order to exploit this crisis of civility among their opponents, baiting them into attacking each other and discrediting themselves.

I'm sorry it looks like you've been a casualty of that dirty political struggle, here, and I hope it doesn't cause you to lose faith in the broader good of Wikipedia or in the norms of good faith and civility elsewhere in your life.

All the best, and I mean it. RowanElder (talk) 15:08, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Truly, if intentionally saying incorrect statements, hoping someone tries to correct you so you can ban them is just WP:BAIT and considered acceptable on Wikipedia, and in fact the people who relentlessly try and correct the falsehoods are the ones who deserve to be banned, then there is nothing left to save here. BabbleOnto (talk) 15:29, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, if that were what I believed were going on, I'd agree there'd be nothing to save. However, I think it's messier than that.

Remember that Wikipedia is often edited by the near-senile retired, people too mentally ill to hold down jobs but still able to edit constructively, frustrated people at make-work in dead-end jobs angrily distracting themselves, and the autistic. This is in fact its great strength! It allows everyone to edit, each edit judged only by its quality rather than the editor's personal life. It's not a weakness to be mocked or made light of or used to reject the project. Then consider that other editors don't need to be intentionally saying incorrect statements, just accidentally, and don't need to be intentionally uncivil, just accidentally, for the WP:BAIT dynamic to pervade the social side of the project.

Sure, this Wikipedia community is widely regarded as toxic off of Wikipedia, and editor retention is a huge problem, so the community side of "anyone can edit" isn't without its problems. But on the other hand, the site does exist, it does a lot of good, and the people you're talking to probably aren't monsters, just messy humans. RowanElder (talk) 15:48, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would recommend again against making this kind of extremely insulting characterization of Wikipedians (either individually or collectively), even on your own talk page. Declaring that other editors only disagree with you about this or that because most editors are mentally deficient due to mental illness, developmental disorder, neurodegeneration, or professional failure is not only very disrespectful (even if you qualify it with a "mental illness is awesome!" disclaimer), but is moreover entirely unconvincing as an explanation for whatever difficulties you might be having. –jacobolus (t) 21:43, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This was not an insult and I do not believe that other editors only disagree with [me] about this or that because most editors are mentally deficient due to mental illness, developmental disorder, neurodegeneration, or professional failure. That itself is an assumption of bad faith and I would recommend you immediately strike it. I will respond more fully in a moment. RowanElder (talk) 21:46, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Jacobolus chose not to strike their statement and has notified me they will not receive notifications of further replies, but I want to reiterate once more that this was an assumption of bad faith and a drastic mischaracterization of my words.

For those unfamiliar with the situation, it's worth noting here that this is not unprecedented for jacobolus, as one can see here. I'm not as concise and well-spoken as Airship and I don't have anything like the same admirable track record, but I still don't think I deserved this either and I don't think I need to take on faith that, this time, jacobolus really had a strong point that I'm missing. RowanElder (talk) 15:37, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You're fine. That was an astonishing failure of good faith on his part, which you handled perfectly well, in true Wikipedian fashion. I didn't expect your clear and empathetic explanation of Wikipedia's civility norms to be illustrated by such a vivid demonstration of why we have them and how to respond when they aren't followed. -- asilvering (talk) 03:18, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, I really appreciate this and it's a relief to hear it. I've made mistakes and so I wasn't taking for granted that I was in the right this time. RowanElder (talk) 13:07, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, I've given myself a minute to reply here.

The context here is that someone else has just been banned and feels that they were not given an assumption of good faith. They feel they were treated uncivilly and then asymmetrically banned for responding in kind. I am disagreeing with them that that is what happened.

What I am suggesting, instead, is that they have misunderstood the nature of civility on Wikipedia. As I certainly did, and probably still do. I am suggesting that, in order to understand the norms on Wikipedia, it is necessary to understand that those norms are meant for a community that robustly includes even editors who ~~are mentally deficient due to mental illness, developmental disorder, neurodegeneration, or professional failure~~ are from among the near-senile retired, people too mentally ill to hold down jobs but still able to edit constructively, frustrated people at make-work in dead-end jobs angrily distracting themselves, [or] the autistic (using the twisted diction of "mentally deficient" here was a hasty error, see below). For that reason, civility requires having a thick skin and becoming the unbaitable editor. Off of Wikipedia, civility does not require having a thick skin or becoming unbaitable. This is not because every editor who disagrees with oneself is ~~are mentally deficient due to mental illness, developmental disorder, neurodegeneration, or professional failure~~ from among the near-senile retired, people too mentally ill to hold down jobs but still able to edit constructively, frustrated people at make-work in dead-end jobs angrily distracting themselves, [or] the autistic or should be assumed to be so. It is because some of them are and the community is structured for their inclusion. In good histories of civility, such as Norbert Elias's and Stephen Shapin's that I recommended above, there are in-depth studies of the development of different ways communities deal with "baiting" and "insult" and "competence" and the way the different needs to include one particular minority or another in social processes result in different total norms for all members regardless of minority status. The minority of key aristocrats and social processes of banquets, in Elias's history; the minority of particularly politically prickly gentlemen and the social processes of debate, in Shapin's.

I never assume that editors arguing with me are arguing because they ~~are mentally deficient due to mental illness, developmental disorder, neurodegeneration, or professional failure~~ are from among the near-senile retired, people too mentally ill to hold down jobs but still able to edit constructively, frustrated people at make-work in dead-end jobs angrily distracting themselves, [or] the autistic. Nor would that itself invalidate their criticisms in any case. However, I do always allow for the possibility that they ~~are mentally deficient due to mental illness, developmental disorder, neurodegeneration, or professional failure~~ are from among the near-senile retired, people too mentally ill to hold down jobs but still able to edit constructively, frustrated people at make-work in dead-end jobs angrily distracting themselves, [or] the autistic, and I do have a grounded, accurate view that many (not most, not all, just many) are. I do not use this to argue that they are unworthy of engagement. I use it to justify the community norms of engagement. RowanElder (talk) 22:11, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

On another note, though, the language of "mental deficiency" itself is extremely ugly to me here, and though I wanted to stay close to your words, I find it absurd to have jumped from what I said, which was the near-senile retired, people too mentally ill to hold down jobs but still able to edit constructively, frustrated people at make-work in dead-end jobs angrily distracting themselves, and the autistic to "the mentally deficient." I was deliberately choosing examples of people who have a hard time with some things but are not mentally deficient and are fully competent to edit the encyclopedia. RowanElder (talk) 22:19, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You just said that most Wikipedians are either "near-senile", too mentally ill to work, in "dead-end jobs angrily distracting themselves", or autistic, and that they are incorrect and uncivil but we shouldn't blame them because their incorrectness and incivility is just an "accident" (implied because of the senility/mental illness/etc.). That's (a) factually a grossly inaccurate summary, and (b) incredibly, incredibly insulting. Please cut this kind of nonsense out, anywhere on Wikipedia, including your own talk page. If you don't think this summary is insulting, then I don't know what to tell you except you have a disastrously miscalibrated concept of what other people are likely to find insulting. –jacobolus (t) 03:11, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

First: no, I didn't say that "most are." Please look again at what I said.

1. Wikipedia is often edited by the near-senile retired, people too mentally ill to hold down jobs but still able to edit constructively, frustrated people at make-work in dead-end jobs angrily distracting themselves, and the autistic.

"Often" is deliberately vague. I don't know exactly how often. I'm comfortable guessing "every day" because Wikipedia is edited a lot by a lot of people. If even a small minority are of the groups I mentioned, then that still creates enough edits for "often."

2. many (not most, not all, just many) are.

This, which I did say, was a direct contradiction of what you're saying I said. I explicitly said not most, right there. Again, there are a ton of Wikipedia editors, so "many" is consistent with a small minority.

Please strike your statement immediately. That was a serious aspersion.

Second: I also did not say or intend to imply they are incorrect and uncivil but we shouldn't blame them because their incorrectness and incivility is just an "accident" (implied because of the senility/mental illness/etc.). This was an assumption of bad faith, again, and I ask you to strike it immediately.

In fact, I believe that every accident is blamable and that competence is required, which is why I chose groups that are not mentally deficient as you -- very insultingly, by the way -- assumed those groups were. RowanElder (talk) 05:25, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, that out of the way, let me expand on what I actually did mean again. Though I do think the accidents are blamable, I also think how they are blamable is a matter of community norms. In particular, the community norms appear to allow for frequent accidental misreadings and incivility, relying on editors to have a thick skin and become unbaitable rather than letting editors rely on strict community policing of baiting and biting.

The community norms appear to allow for those accidents regardless of mental deficiency or poor character or whatever else. However, it is inarguable that they are that way, in part, because the community is committed to triaging difficulties of judging whether given incivility is accidental or intentional, for the reason that Wikipedia embraces contributions from people with messy lives and messy personalities (of all kinds, not specifically mentally deficient kinds: again, that was never my word) so long as they keep their article edits clean. I chose four examples of representative stereotypical "messy life or messy personality" groups to show how different those groups can be. I didn't think any of these groups was mentally deficient, just stereotypically prone to accidents of different kinds that the person I was talking to would find it easy to understand.

And I would not in fact argue that most of the accidents are due to mental deficiency or any other specific flaws in capability or character stereotypically associated with any of the four groups I described. My model is much more complex than that and instead of detailing my personal model of exactly why the norms are what they are in my earlier posts here, I recommended several books. I would have provided a counterargument to that "implied claim" if you had had the courtesy to assume good faith and ask me if that claim is what I meant before you instead assumed bad faith on my part. If you are willing to engage on the level of subtleties in differences between Bourdieu and Norbert Elias, I'm willing to go there, too. If you just want to rely on a shallow stereotype and misreading of me, then I'm going to have to take this to AN/I. RowanElder (talk) 05:30, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not going to have a philosophical debate with you, but I will advise you again: you should refrain from insulting Wikipedians, either individually or collectively, if you want people to take you seriously. (Trying to be more concise and less patronizing would also help.) –jacobolus (t) 05:49, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This was my concise answer: I did not make the claims you claimed I made. You misquoted me. RowanElder (talk) 14:18, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Anyway, I'm leaving now. You don't seem to be getting the message, and I have no desire to read off-topic walls of text. Please don't respond: I won't see it anyway if you do. Cheers. –jacobolus (t) 05:58, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for ceasing, even if you couldn't resist taking a Parthian shot. RowanElder (talk) 13:56, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You have recently made edits related to COVID-19, broadly construed. This is a standard message to inform you that COVID-19, broadly construed is a designated contentious topic. This message does not imply that there are any issues with your editing. For more information about the contentious topics system, please see Wikipedia:Contentious topics. Doug Weller talk 08:19, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]