User talk:Adam Black

Hello

I came here from the RFA, I do not want to carry on there if that is ok. Regarding your message on the RFA talk page, I notice many RFA candidates delete their user pages or remove information. When someone starts here they are excited and they overshare. Then they decide they want to be an admin and they realize that declarations about religion, sexuality and medical issues will influence voters. Even I deleted my user page.
Savvy editors are able to see historical snapshots of a user page so erasure is futile. A userbox can be a virtue signal and can give insight into an editor's motivations. In the past there have been userbox controversies. You said the hobbies question does not "add much to the RfA process, but [is] quite harmless." And I think that is why it is allowed. Hope you have a great weekend. Lightburst (talk) 19:45, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your level-headed contribution

I feel like that discussion is already overburdened, so I’ll try for it here:

I think notifying two ‘western’ countries (likely the US (?) and Germany), would effectively address the balance issue. I estimate (based on gut feeling) that Christianity is about neutral, Judaism and Islam are biased about how one of would expect them to be, and Arab and SA remain as ‘problematic’ notifications.

I would therefore choose Germany and the USA due to their link to the country of Israel, my expectations of their bias being about opposite of the countries notified, and their perception on the international stage. Would you consider that unreasonable? FortunateSons (talk) 17:40, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

I wouldn't agree with you that notifying WT:WikiProject Arab world is particularly problematic, as my understanding is most Palestinians consider themselves Arab. Again I'd say it was overzealous, just notifying WT:WikiProject Palestine would have sufficed. The link with WT:WikiProject South Africa, though, is tenuous at best and a notification was unnecessary, perhaps bordering on inappropriate. As was pointed out, there is a section on South Africa's comments on the Israel and apartheid article but I don't think that's enough of a justification.

I don't think notifying any more projects is going to do much good and I think you'd be running the risk of being accused of canvassing notifying the US and Germany projects, rather than addressing bias and balance issues. Those would definitely be tenuously linked to the subject. Any good closer is going to balance the weight of arguments based on Wikipedia policies and guidelines, rather than sheer volume of support so bias shouldn't really be an issue. Remember, Wikipedia isn't a democracy so decisions aren't made solely on the basis of how many people !vote on any given matter.

I think you're definitely right to want to balance both sides of the argument, but in this case I think the best move might be to just leave it at that and assume the next closer acts reasonably. Adam Black ^{talk • contribs} 18:03, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

That does make sense.

I know I should probably just trust the next closer, but it (irrationally) feels like it guarantees that the outcome of an RfC will at least be altered by the unbalanced views of those notified.

Thank you for taking the time, I appreciate your patience :) FortunateSons (talk) 18:07, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

No worries. I try my best to be as impartial as I can when it comes to Israel and Palestine. One of my closest friends is from Israel and my ex is a Muslim with very strong opinions on the matter so I've had a lot of experience sitting in the middle of tense debates.

On an unrelated note, I was going to mention to you that the diff links you've been posting (such as at your AE report) point to the mobile site. Nothing wrong with that inherently, but some editors on the desktop site find it annoying; en.wikipedia.org links automatically go to en.m.wikipedia.org on mobile browsers, but en.m.wikipedia.org links don't automatically redirect to en.wikipedia.org on desktop browsers. Personally, I just find it mildly distracting but I've noticed some really don't like it. You might want to use the {{diff2}} template instead. It uses the edit ID and produced a link that looks like a wikilink instead of an external link:

• {{diff2|edit ID}} or {{diff2|edit ID|description}}
• {{diff2|1227099021}} → [1]
• {{diff2|1227099021|your last edit}} → your last edit

Adam Black ^{talk • contribs} 18:35, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

I have experienced some of those debates myself (and negatively contributed to them as well), so I empathise with the desire to be an impartial voice, and believe that you are succeeding.

Regarding the edits: you’re right, mobile diffs are definitely not ideal, and you’re not the first person to remind me of this, so mea culpa.

So for the future, just using the {{diff2|random number}} would fix it? The number is identical, no matter what device I use? FortunateSons (talk) 18:44, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, the number is identical on desktop and mobile. Each edit is given an ID by the MediaWiki software to uniquely identify it. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&diff=prev&oldid=1225315602 is the diff for the latest edit to the main page and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&diff=prev&oldid=1225315602 is tied to the same edit. Because it's a unique ID you can actually put anything you like into title and the database will return the correct diff, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Random_page&diff=prev&oldid=1225315602 or omit the title altogether, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=prev&oldid=1225315602 Adam Black ^{talk • contribs} 18:52, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Oh, that’s quite interesting.

Thank you for the computer science crash course, I will try to do it properly in the future. FortunateSons (talk) 18:57, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry about it too much. Links to the mobile site are still valid diff links, and it only takes a few clicks/key strokes to get back to the desktop site. I just brought it up because I've seen it does inexplicably bother some editors. Editing on mobile browsers can be quite fiddly and time consuming so if it's going to take you significantly longer to use the diff2 template I'd say don't waste your time. The more time spent on pernickety issues like this, the less time spent making other useful contributions. But it's there as an option. Adam Black ^{talk • contribs} 19:10, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

It’s definitely productive advice. While it will take more time (as you accurately described mobile editing), there are good use cases were being easier to deal with is beneficial in the topic area. Thank you. FortunateSons (talk) 19:13, 3 June 2024 (UTC)