Wikipedia:Newbie treatment at Criteria for speedy deletion/Riana

Riana's experience

Century of humiliation (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I created this account under the username 莲乸 (talk · contribs), which is an approximate transliteration of my name in Mandarin. I deliberately selected a non-English username, as I've noticed some bias against users with foreign usernames (and, I freely admit, I have fallen prey to this on one or two occasions). Not an attempt to trap NPPers, just a bit of a twist in the experiment.

The account's contribs clearly indicate that I haven't waited the requisite 7 days - not even 24 hours - but I think the experiment's played itself out as far as possible.

The term is valid, an extremely important element of Chinese nationalism and Communist Party historiography. Cursory Googling reveals as much, and even more results under different names ("century of national humilation", "hundred years of humiliation"... you get the picture).

Overall I'd class my experience as extremely positive. The article was tagged at the ubiquitous 2-minute mark by Wuhwuzdat (talk) under A1 (insufficient context), despite the article not meeting this standard at the time, in my opinion (as someone who both writes the occasional article and deletes a fair share of speedies). I received the automatic {{firstarticle}} and speedy tag that Twinkle provides. I added a {{hangon}}, which was removed along with the speedy tag by JohnCD (talk) within 7 minutes of tagging - a very decent response time IMO. He didn't move my comments to the talkpage, but I don't think they needed to be.

As JohnCD was removing these tags I was writing a message on Wuhwuzdat's talkpage asking him not to delete my article. Here comes the only negative aspect of my experience - Wuhwuzdat removed my message without responding to it, merely citing the "violation" (strong word!) of some "rules" on his talkpage.

1. If I were a newbie, I would not have known about the removal and would have remained confused about the speedy tag, given that I would not have utilised the convenience of a watchlist, or known how to track my contributions.
2. At least 2 of the "rules" I ignored - not beginning with a section title and not leaving a signature - are rules I occasionally flout even as an old-and-mouldy user. Were it not for Mediawiki's section title reminder, I would probably leave tons of messages without a heading. While this probably speaks to my early-onset dementia, I am about 80% sure that Wuhwuzdat would not have blanket-removed a message from, say, me.
3. The lack of response was obviously rather rude.

Apart from this the experience was, as I say, extremely positive. Skomorokh (talk) did a wonderful rewrite as the above event took place, continuing to do so over the next several diffs. He misunderstood my English and inserted an error at one stage, which I notified him about, receiving a kind response and a further rewrite. I received more help from Msrasnw (talk), pointing to some links in another article (some of which I'd added myself, days ago, under my main account! ;) ).

DGG (talk) also noticed the article, placing a {{NPOV}} on it. While I would have liked to have seen a note on the talkpage (which the tag requests but admittedly does not explicitly require), I agree with the addition. I requested clarification from Msrasnw, who left me some very helpful pointers.

I'm generally very happy with the experience. Wuhwuzdat's treatment left me a little cold, but everyone else involved went above and beyond. I frankly wish people would be this helpful when I write articles on topics I'm not too sure about! :P

The only thing I wonder is whether an actual newbie would have been as persistent as I was in requesting help and clarification. ~ Riana ⁂ (lián-nǎ), 03:36, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Posted clearly near the top of my talk page, in bold text, is this; "I reserve the right to delete any postings from people unwilling or unable to obey these simple requests.". If deliberately flouting the rules posted at the top of the page gave you an experience you did not like, I would strongly suggest reading any such headers posted on users talk pages in the future. WuhWuzDat 06:32, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd say having a list of rules on your talk page is pretty DICKish to begin with, and removing comments – especially from newbies – that fail to comply with them highly uncivil. If I, as a Wikipedia oldtimer, ever had occasion to leave you a message on your talkpage and encountered those rules, I probably simply wouldn't bother leaving you a message at all. +Angr 07:33, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I am glad to note that your incivility extends to all. Equal opportunities are ideal.

On a less sarcastic note, do you really think new editors read headers like that? It's an overwhelming amount of information to have to read. I have a similar list of "rules" on my talkpage but I certainly do not remove comments that don't comply with them, I merely refactor them. I find your actions yesterday, and your attitude today, extremely worrying. ~ Riana ⁂ 11:39, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree that simply removing posts from a well-intentioned newbie isn't exactly welcoming. It's fine to have ground rules set for your talk page, but please try to have a bit more tolerance. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 19:55, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

You did a brilliant job of (a) deception - I was aware of this experiment, but never for a moment suspected your article, (b) choosing an important and under-represented subject, and (c) writing it in such an inarticulate and POV way that it seemed to beg for deletion. I will admit that when I removed the speedy and hangon tags my intention was to move your message to the talk page and then PROD the article as OR; if I had succeeded in doing that I would probably have gone on to do some searches and then removed the PROD, but after a couple of edit conflicts Skomorokh had started his rewrite, I had found the "see also" link I added, and it became clear that others were taking an interest and the article was going somewhere. There no longer seemed any point adding your "hangon" message to the talk page. What I didn't do but should have done is give you a message saying not to worry about speedy deletion and giving some advice; you had edited again and so would have seen that the speedy tag had gone, but could probably have used some encouragement. JohnCD (talk) 11:25, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I think you handled it very well, John. Kudos :) ~ Riana ⁂ 11:39, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I would probably have prodded or AFD'ed it; as User:JohnCD said, it was written "in such an inarticulate and POV way that it seemed to beg for deletion." To generalize: If you knew some language x and were a new user, how likely would you be to start a page on an x-language web site where you put 4 words in your own native language as part of the definition of the subject of the page? Bwrs (talk) 12:54, 14 November 2009 (UTC)