Hi ThisDirect! I noticed your contributions to Barrett Watten 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:
Hi Typhoon. I have actually edited at Wikipedia from about ten years back, but have established a new nom-de-plume. I am a professor of English and former academic editor at University of California, Berkeley. I have edited and published over a hundred volumes in various formats; therefore, I am no amateur when it comes to editing, though I have not mastered all the techniques. I am interested in building up pages of contemporary writers whose pages have suffered from neglect, lack of decent bibliography, and at times flames. ThisDirect (talk) 01:55, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
avoid editing or creating articles about yourself, your family, friends, colleagues, company, organization, clients, or competitors;
propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (you can use the {{edit COI}} template)—don't forget to give details of reliable sources supporting your suggestions;
In addition, you are required by the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use to disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution which forms all or part of work for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation. See Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure.
In this case, when faced with inaccuracies that have been on the site for over five years, I needed to act. Other editors have been similarly involved. The objections I am raising are serious; and I would be happy to present them to an oversight entity. I am a professor of English and professional academic editor; I know a great deal about objectivity and citing sources. At the same time, the Wiki community has let biased and defamatory content persist on this site for the aforementioned five years; it is out of date and irrelevant; it should be taken down. ThisDirect (talk) 02:05, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'll make a further objection: why was the link to FIRE's intervention removed? It is a public document, elucidating important aspects of the student mobbing campaign. Removing it is sheer bias, and a good argument for why the entire issue cannot be adequately or appropriately discussed on Wikipedia. ThisDirect (talk) 02:11, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
FIRE is an advocacy organisation and not considered a reliable source. Their opinion must be reported by an independent reliable source like a newspaper or academic journal before it can be included in your article. There is a discussion on the BLP Noticeboard about your article that echoes this that StarryGrandma had already linked to.[1]Morbidthoughts (talk) 02:24, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That again is opinion. FIRE publishes news, and can be cited as source just as much as the New York Times. What they print is subject to the same criteria as any other publication. / On the other hand, the student complaints were recently published by the communist party journal People's World and removed as defamatory. The published notice reads that the material was "unverified and unverifiable." Search the name "Barrett Watten" on their site. A co-author was a former graduate student, removed from the WSU program, who falsely claimed to be a professor. / The point is that what appeared in 2019 in the Chronicle has been intensively contested, including by testimony under oath, and is false. Wikipedia should not be citing it. ThisDirect (talk) 02:44, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Please do not attack other editors, as you did at Talk:Barrett Watten. Comment on content, not on contributors. Personal attacks damage the community and deter users. Please stay cool and keep this in mind while editing. Do not call other editors names. You should strike or remove that content from your talk page comment [2]. – notwally (talk) 21:38, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
ThisDirect, I am an administrator. No personal attacks is policy. When you accuse your fellow editors of mob action being undertaken by a cohort and accuse those who disagree with you of being merely a clique of like-minded editors and Yahoos, then you are violating that policy. An important behavioral guideline is Assume good faith. Do not assume bad faith just because other editors disagree with you. Please comply with that policy and that guideline. Cullen328 (talk) 19:38, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
See my response on my talk page. This is a content issue, and "mobbing" is a term of art with content as well. If you look at the view stats on my page, you will see two instances of that phenomenon. / The actions taken on the BW page were without merit, and need to be contested. I will continue to do so, and other editors are engaged with that as well. / There was also an instance of retaliator editing on the Carla Harryman page by the above editor and morbidthoughts. Please check it out and you will see the issue. ThisDirect (talk) 19:47, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Please stop attacking other editors, as you did on Talk:Barrett Watten. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing. Comment on content, not on other contributors or people. If you are going to make accusations of sexism, then you better provide diffs or strike your personal attacks. Next time rather than sending you another warning, I will take your behavior to the administrator noticeboard. You have also already been warned by at least one administrator over your behavior towards other editors. – notwally (talk) 22:17, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Work on other Wikipedia pages
Hello,
I know we've had some rough interactions on the Barrett Watten page, but I'm excited to see academics taking an interest in Wikipedia. There are some things you could do to make the project better while avoiding any COI that I think many people overlook. The biggest one is on Wikimedia, which lets users upload images that are made accessible to everyone through the creative commons. You could add pictures of notable academics you've taken at conferences, for example. Another project is called Wikiquote. Based on what I think I know about your background, I'm sure you could have several contributions to this project by adding to or creating pages for notable poets. Just wanted to let you know these places exist, as they are great ways to contribute to the collective knowledge and resources of humanity. I hope you'll consider work on these and other poets pages besides just the Watten page. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 01:12, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I do take an interest in Wikipedia, a critical interest. Some time ago I wrote on a question of whether the equal signs would be preserved for "Language writing," as I believe they give a distorted view. How would the question be answered collectively? It turns out many of the Language writers have backgrounds in digital media; many think, in fact, that Language writing predicted the way that information would be accessible in digital media. ThisDirect (talk) 02:26, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
