[WikiEN-l] Well, that was a mistake (was: Re: Feeling encyclopedic but uncreative? Hit WP:AFC)

[Steve Bennett]

On 5/29/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> I was feeling encyclopaedic but uncreative. I looked at recent
> changes, and came across [[Penny Dreadful Players]], moments before it
> got {{db-spam}}'ed. I think I rescued it.
>
> This was a sample of one articles, with one bad result detected. Is it
> always like this?

Gee, talk about having "assume good faith" backfire. Here was the
sequence of events:

1) User:PennyDreadfulPlayers shows up and writes an article about their group.
2) I remove some non-encyclopaedic elements (use of first person, some
boasty claims like having experience "in every area of theatrical
arts", cheesy stuff like "affectionately known as PDP".
3) Another user db-spams it, edit conflicting with me.
4) I remove the db-spam, leave them a note. They apologise.
5) I leave a note to U:PDP, thanking them for their contribution and
explaining the changes I'd made, welcoming them to wikipedia.
6) U:PDP and another user re-appear, removing most of my changes, and
turning it back into a myspace page, with "For more information,
please visit [http://www.uiuc.edu/ro/pdp] or instant message us on AIM
at pdplayeroffice ."

I must be really burnt out and jaded, but this pissed me off. Throw
someone a lifeline, trust them not to do something stupid like
actually justify a label of db-spam, and what do they do? Ignore your
help and do their best to be obnoxious little facebookers.

Grr.

Steve