User talk:LBDon

Welcome!

Hi LBDon! I noticed your contributions to Timothy D. Snyder 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:

Learn more about editing

Alternatively, the contributing to Wikipedia page covers the same topics.

If you have any questions, we have a friendly space where experienced editors can help you here:

Get help at the Teahouse

If you are not sure where to help out, you can find a task here:

Volunteer at the Task Center

Happy editing! _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:48, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Tim Snyder

Heya! I noticed your substantial contributions to Timothy D. Snyder. I really appreciate your work, and think it's largely very helpful. I did, however, revert one of your recent edits to the lead: [1]. I hope that my edit summary makes sense, and if not I'll be happy to discuss on the article talk page. As you may know, being reverted sometimes is a normal part of the editing process. If you haven't read it yet, I'd suggest checking out WP:BRD. Cheers, Generalrelative (talk) 01:04, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

thank you very much! I am extremely new to this myself and if I've made mistakes I will try to clean them up tomorrow I hope I didn't undo something you tried to do to fix what I had done see you tomorrow 70.188.188.248 (talk) 01:07, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

OK, I get the gist but I may need your indulgence on some specifics. What I gather is that I added too much, content wise, for the opening section, and also that the text I added sounds promotional/like advocacy.

I skimmed the guidelines but wondered if you could tell me specifically where I seem to have gone out of bounds. I am afraid I can only guess at it and I don't want to exhaust you with a 20 questions style interaction.

Please don't be afraid to be direct. I am new at this. LBDon (talk) 01:14, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

No worries, and thanks for engaging. There were three problems with that text. First, per MOS:LEAD, any content in the lead section needs to *summarize* content already discussed in the article body. Second, we need to be careful to present a balanced view of the subject of our articles, rather than focus exclusively on praise per WP:ADVOCACY. Finally, and building off that, we need to make sure our articles come across like encyclopedia articles, rather than journalism or essay writing, per WP:TONE. That often involves less use of quotation and less reliance on evaluative statements. In a sense, as one of our colleagues recently suggested, a Wikipedia article should sound like it was written by a Vulcan. Generalrelative (talk) 01:19, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Also need to confess I couldn't figure out, with all the panels, what comment specifically, or text you deleted or suggested moving.......... LBDon (talk) 01:16, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Ah, I included this little link: [2]. That kind of link is called a "diff" around here. It's the permanent record of an edit. Generalrelative (talk) 01:20, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Also, I should probably ask since it seems you've been focusing exclusively on Tim Snyder: Do you have any personal or professional connection with him? If you do, you're supposed to disclose it. It doesn't mean you can't edit his article, but best practice would be to suggest any edits on the talk page, per WP:COI.

I say that not to imply that you necessarily do! I'm a fan of Snyder's work and would be motivated to improve his article for its own sake. But when someone focuses exclusively on one narrow topic, especially a biography of a living person (WP:BLP) this questions tends to arise. Generalrelative (talk) 01:25, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

I admire Snyder's work and he inspired me in my own research and political activism in a way that other public figures have not. There is no relationship or other motive and I definitely want to conform to all wikipedia standards LBDon (talk) 01:28, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Just read your most recent message VERY helpful indeed, I really appreciate your explanation of "strong claim," it will be a learning curve, but I get what you are saying

I'll look at this again tomorrow..........In the meantime, I was thinking about your question about personal connection and want to be 100% squeaky clean in terms of ethics and so on. I am probably what you would call a super-fan (so, cause for caution, I suppose) Ihave introduced myself to Timothy Snyder at his talks, but have never socialized with him, and certainly have no professional or financial relationship.

If I have continued questions about what is appropriate after more reflection, is this (like my interaction with you here) an appropriate place to hash these questions out? LBDon (talk) 01:42, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Awesome. Sounds like you're here for all the right reasons. And yeah, having met someone or being their fan is never a problem per WP:COI. If you have questions about editing, the best place to go is WP:TEAHOUSE, which is a venue set up for just that. Every once in a while you will run into a grumpy person there (please don't be discouraged if you do) but most of the time you can count on people there being super helpful. Generalrelative (talk) 01:47, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

OK I will reflect on this and try to get with the vulcan program. I understand the distinction.

Was it mainly the section describing the Guardian article and Snyder's fulfilled predictions that jumped out? Are you able to tell me in your own words what jumped out? I def. get the editorial tone idea.

Also, do you have some step by step instructions for how to reuse an exisiting citation? there are a few that are duplicated, and I tried youtube and wikipedia for a step by step and keep bombing out/not finding it.

I am not able to understand this: "Ah, I included this little link: [2]. That kind of link is called a "diff" around here. It's the permanent record of an edit. Generalrelative (talk) 01:20, 10 April 2023 (UTC)" Is that where I would find what got deleted. LBDon (talk) 01:25, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

With regard to your last question: that little number is a link. If you click it you will see a summary of the edit where I removed the content I'm talking about. This edit summary page is called a "diff". We use these "diffs" whenever we're discussing specific edits.

With regard to how to reuse an existing citation in the editor, there are a few ways. Unfortunately not all articles have the same system. But generally you can copy the ref with ctr+c in the visual editor and then ctr+v when you'd like to duplicate it.

With regard to WP:TONE, that one takes practice. But yeah, basically the idea "he made lots of predictions, and many people discounted them at first, but he's been proven right in the end" is a very *strong* claim, so we'd generally want more than one journalistic source in order to consider that claim encyclopedic. The Guardian piece is a great source for less potentially controversial statements, and we can probably justify including that idea as an *opinion* (i.e. with attribution), but stating it "in Wiki-voice" would require a lot better sourcing. See WP:YESPOV for a bit more on that.

I definitely don't want to discourage you here with all these ALLCAPS links to policies and guidelines, but there is definitely a learning cure to editing Wikipedia, and you've just run up against it by making substantial changes to the BLP of a significant figure. Let me know if you have any additional questions! I'd be happy to help if I can. Generalrelative (talk) 01:39, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Sorry if this question is in the wrong place, I am very rusty on Wikipedia

Hi, need advice on using a photo that the owner says is open for use, but I don't feel right saying it is mine, that I own it.

It is of Timothy Snyder and Olena Zalenska> and it was posted on the website for the Yalta European Strategy Conference.

I could not figure out the instructions for uploading it so some other place on Wikipedia or elsewhere, but do know how to upload it from my own environment to Wikipedia, if I say I "own" it, which I do not, but I have permission.

Please advise.

https://yes-ukraine.org/en/photo-and-video/video/yes-war-room-maybutnye-virishuyetsya-v-ukrayini-den-2/ztsilyuyemo-ukrayinu-reabilitatsiya-ta-psihichne-zdorovya-olena-zelenska-timoti-snayder

ALSO: I believe this proposed text meets the exceptional standards for allowing an X "tweet" as an external link. Please advise

Olena Zelenska, First Lady of Ukraine, expressed her pleasure at a second meeting with Snyder in September of 2023 to discuss the mental health of Ukrainians, mutual understanding and happiness of people around the world.Olena Zelenska on X, September 10, 2023 LBDon (talk) 00:08, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Hi I just remembered that the tea house exists and in the spirit of full disclosure, put these questions there too. We'll see........... LBDon (talk) 00:36, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

teahouse fixed me up. Thank you! LBDon (talk) 18:00, 22 September 2023 (UTC)