[Wikimedia-in-blr] [Press] Bangalore Mirror : "Bangalore’s the place for Wiki"

Tue Jan 25 12:58:42 UTC 2011

Hi all,
         A relatively new Wikipedian sent me the personal mail
below. Initially I thought I will reply him privately, but later I decided
that my reply may possibly help someone else on the list, if at all, and
hence sending to the list.  I have removed person's details for anonymity
but bccing him in this mail. I am also taking a small liberty to use his
mail.

Dear Wikipedian,
             Before I try to clear your misunderstandings , I want to share
with you about my own experience. There was a time, very very long back,
when I even decided to quit Wikipedia because "my" article was marked for
deletion , and after a heated deletion discussion and lo, "my article" was
GONE ! I ,then , never understood the complexity of the establishment called
"Wikipedia" . I was tired, frustrated and angry like you! I cribbed that
Wikipedia admins and other "self proclaimed experts" are stupid aliens who
are out there to block Indians editing Wikipedia.

Ok, I took a small break then and later came back again investigating what
possibly went wrong. I have been mentored by several veteran Wikipedians. I
asked for advice and help whenever i was confused. And here I am now , with
52,000+ edits and an administrator on English Wikipedia.

Let us try to humbly explain what went wrong in your case.

Before that, a big thank you for creating 5 articles to Wikipedia. Good job
!

Unfortunately, we easily get irritated when somebody removes content that we
have added, it is just human nature.. But remember that all  Wikipedia
content is open to being edited collaboratively. No one, no matter how
skilled, has the right to act as if they are the owner of a particular
article. If you are not willing to see that the information that you added
is mercilessly removed, altered &  changed, ...never edit Wikipedia :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:OWN

Talking about the content suitable for an article on Wikipedia, first and
foremost, we should remember , Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Forgotten, the
five pillars of Wikipedia ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars

So what would you like to see on an encyclopedia ? Definitely not,
information about ATM, medical stores, hostels, eateries , medical stores
etc, which you had tried to add to the article on a place.  (I have checked
your edit history) These information is definitely useful, I agree, but they
find a better place on a city guide than an encyclopedia.
Remember that Wikipedia is not a web directory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_directory
and
also there is a difference between List articles with normal articles.

Arguments and differences of opinion on content on Wikipedia is natural.
Even now, there are times when I get personally very pissed off. :) But we
need to remind us a few things often : Observing Civility :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Civility and How to build a consensus
: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Consensus

I can see, that there are lots of good and encyclopedic information that you
have already added to Wikipedia. Excellent !

But I am happy to mentor and guide you more on Wikipedia.

I seriously wish that you would return back to Wikipedia and contribute
more.

Happy Editing !

Regards
Tinu Cherian

On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 1:38 PM, <name removed> wrote:

> Hi,
> I joined wiki in Aug 2010 and started contributing under the name of
> <name removed>. As a person, I am very passionate about sharing knowledge.
> I had so far created around 5 articles and made around 300 contributions. I
> had planned to add many articles based on financial institutions as I am
> currently doing my MBA from IIM.
>
> But I had a very bad experiencem today, with some editors cutting out my
> content without giving enough supporting evidence. One of them even said
> they cut it out because they thought it was not wiki worthy "based on my
> experience".
>
> Since you are very passioniate about growth of wiki in India, I would
> request you to please advise these experts to atleast explain their actions
> in detail and not just cut off. I have decided to leave wiki for good as I
> dont want to waste my time fighting with self proclaimed experts. Hope no
> one else faces same issue in future.
>
> Regards
> <name removed>
>
> On Sun, Jan 23, 2011 at 4:57 PM, CherianTinu Abraham <
> tinucherian at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>>
>
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