User talk:Bloodofox

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Hello! I don’t know if you’re active, but I need help!

Hello! I’m a very new user (and a minor) and I made my account to try to fix a problem; I was looking for some details on Nanna (the Norse goddess) and I only found a very faulty wikipedia page for her. I couldn’t find the full one (through which I found you) so I took it upon myself to fix it up a little, since it had misinformation (like that Nanna was the goddess of the moon? I think they had her confused with the Mesopotamian Nanna) the grammar was awful, but I’m not one to talk. While I was looking for a good image to add, I found the full page. I’ve been trying to find someone more experienced to fix it for about five months now, and by fix it I mean delete the faulty page since it’s not needed. I couldn’t figure out how to delete it and couldn’t figure out how to contact an admin, and the few people I did get a hold of were not experienced with Norse myths and weren’t willing to make such a drastic change. In the last five months, over 400 people have viewed that faulty page, and those 400 people might not get all the info they need because the full page is buried! I also noticed Google’s Ai was pulling its info from this page and saying she was the goddess of the moon. This page is causing problems and was probably spreading misinformation for years before I caught it, but I still can’t figure out how to fix it. You seem very experienced and I saw your discussion on the full page from years ago, so I hope you can help. https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanna_(Norse_deity) (Edit; I stopped to pause and read your whole bio and the list of things you worked on. I really love the Norse mythos (It’s my special interest!) I’ve read and bookmarked so many of the articles you’ve helped with, I’ve poured over so many over and over to the point Safari suggests them as frequently visited pages. You seem like a really cool person and I appreciate everything you’ve done these last 20 years. I don’t think I’ll ever touch this account again after this page is fixed, I might even forget it exists, but it’s helped me appreciate the work that goes into maintaining Wikipedia and the people like you who run it. Thanks so much for everything you do! Harmful Crow (talk) 13:05, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Hello and thank you for your message. Yes, Simple Wikipedia is often terrible. I've altered the page there. If you see anything else that could use some assistance, please let me know. :bloodofox: (talk) 23:25, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

So, I was thinking it could be removed? Or is that not possible? My concern was that it’s burying the Nanna (Norse deity)#:~:text=In Norse mythology, Nanna Nepsdóttir,associated with the god Baldr.

more complete page? I don’t know if it’s pages can be deleted, but if so, the small one needs to be deleted, not just corrected. Harmful Crow (talk) 13:43, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

@Harmful Crow:, the article is needed. I would focus instead on improving the content and adding it to your watchlist there, if you so desire. :bloodofox: (talk) 12:20, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

What? No, there’s a real article for it. You edited the real article once, 11 years ago. I linked the real one, the one that’s getting buried under a now two sentence page that is apparently “related” to a page about a really gross wound, can openers, and a form of dance? I would not say this article is “needed” unless I misunderstood? Can’t you delete it or merge it with the proper page? I get you’re busy, but it seems like you don’t care. It’s been spreading misinformation for years and it’s gotten hundreds and hundreds of readers in just a few months. None of those people are seeing the real, proper information they’re looking for, the information you helped provide.

This little article doesn’t need to be improved when there’s already an article that has all the information. I don’t know how to fix it or get rid of it, I want your help. I don’t understand all this formal language, I’m a reader not an editor, I just hate to see people seeking real answers not finding it because someone 13 years ago made a bad article that’s been poisoning search results ever since.

I’m sorry if I misunderstood what you meant or came off as mean, but it just seems like you don’t care. Harmful Crow (talk) 21:32, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

I can see how this can be confusing: I was confused by what you meant. But here is what is going on: You are viewing Simple Wikipedia via a mobile address (you can tell by the "m" in the URL: [https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanna_(Norse_deity)]). When I view this, I also see "related pages" with the articles "ulcer", "can-can", and "can opener". These articles are not displayed when viewing the desktop version (https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanna_(Norse_deity)). I don't know why Simple Wikipedia does this but it is not something we can modify from editing the article body. :bloodofox: (talk) 22:04, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

The problem isn’t the related articles, it’s that this page doesn’t need to exist. There is a complete article for Nanna, you have worked on it, but it’s buried in the search results because of this smaller article.

Is there a way to delete the small article or merge it with the complete one? There is no point in editing the small article when a better one already exists. Harmful Crow (talk) 15:47, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

Simple Wikipedia and 'normal' English Wikipedia are two different wikis with two different systems. I am not sure what the process is to create a deletion request on Simple Wikipedia but I think you'll run into resistance when attempting to delete it: it's an article that Simple Wikipedia will need as long as Simple Wikipedia exists. My suggestion would be to improve it. :bloodofox: (talk) 18:00, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

Can you improve it? I don’t know how, I’ve never edited before, and I have a hard time mimicking the tone of Wikipedia. I only made my account to find someone to delete it. I don’t understand how all this works, and I’m on mobile so it’s really difficult.

If you’re not able, I’ll try my best. I really don’t like how many people have been misled by this page, and I want to do something about it. Harmful Crow (talk) 20:33, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

Canvassing

As was mentioned at WP:FTN by User:FactOrOpinion, your notification of an active RM was clearly non-neutral canvassing so I've replaced it [1]. Please don't leave such non-neutral notices again. While it's the norm for editors to describe a problem as they see it when they are encouraging editors to help fix a problem, far greater care needs to be taken when there's an active discussion they're encouraging editors to join, especially if it's a formal discussion like an RM (or RfC). It doesn't matter how many fringe editors there may be at FTN, our WP:Canvassing guidelines say it's a problem to use non-neutral notices. (It's also a problem to be non neutral in where you place notices but it's well accepted FTN is a suitable board for things which deal with fringe issues or which are at least fringe adjacent so placement at FTN isn't the problem. I.E. Audience is fine, but the message still has to be.)

For example, if there is naming dispute largely between Malaysian and Indonesians on some article, it's reasonable for an editor to notify both wikiprojects (but likely not only one). However if the notice is something like "Indonesians are trying to change the name of the Malaysian food xyz to yzx" or "It's clear from sources that the common name for xyz is is xyz, but there's still a push to rename it from yzx" on both wikiprojects, this would still be a canvassing violation. While the placement of notices was neutral, the content of them wasn't. Or per the canvassing guidelines the audience these notices were directed at may be appropriate, but the messages were not appropriate,

Your notice at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Folklore wasn't as bad, but it still came across as non-neutral so I replaced it [2]. Unless you're sure you're able to write neutral notifications yourself, you really should just use the standard notification templates and frankly from what I've seen I don't think you should be sure.

I'd note that such non-neutral notices are not only a canvassing violation but they're also just silly. If what you're saying is so obvious, than anyone who actually checks out the RM should quickly come to the same conclusion and !vote accordingly. By canvassing, all you're risking is for the RM to be disrupted and need to be re-run sometime in the near future because it was damaged by canvassing. If you're trying to call defenders of what's "right" to defend against some other side you see as trying to do something which isn't policy compliant, that precisely why it's a problem because. Instead of just encouraging uninvolved editors who respect our policy and guidelines to read the discussion and come to their own conclusions and give their view on what option is supported by said policies and guidelines, you're instead encouraging editors to go to the discussion and support what you're saying is the correct thing. It come across as if you're trying to help your "side" win the formal discussion which isn't acceptable.

To be clear even if you're unlikely to succeed it's still not acceptable to canvass. For example, it would be dumb canvassing for someone to only post on Wikiproject Indonesia (and non Wikiproject Malaysia) about my earlier example "Indonesians are trying to change the name of the Malaysian food xyz to yzx, let's stop them" but it would still be canvassing in two different ways.

Nil Einne (talk) 08:08, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

Is there a reason you've decided to refactor those posts but not Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Indigenous_peoples_of_North_America#Proposed_title_change_of_article_Pow-wow_(folk_magic)_to_Braucherei? :bloodofox: (talk) 09:11, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

Two reasons. One that happened 12 days ago. Any harmful effects of that are likely already over by now. There's simply no way to fix it. That's one reason why non-neutral notices/message are such a problem. They're impossible to fix after the fact. Even in this case, especially at FTN given the activity there I got to the message late enough that it's quite likely a lot of harm was already done.

Two is while that did seem to be encouraging editors to join an existing discussion so IMO was a canvassing concern, at least it wasn't a notification of an active RM. For better or worse, it's accepted to call editors to arms to try and fix some perceived wrong in some article. It happens all the time in FTN as I mentioned in my first post. The problem as I said, is when instead of just trying to fix some perceived wrong, the editor seems to be trying to canvass editors to some existing discussion (which this was), to encourage them to !vote in a certain way. It isn't uncommon at FTN and BLPN, there are existing discussions and and it's rare that editors bring up canvassing concerns. A big factor IMO is when there is existing discussion but these aren't formal discussions, they are sort of hit a weird intersection where calling editors to fix some perceived problem could be seen as canvassing but we normally just let it slide as part of the way noticedboards work.

But one thing that is clear, when there's formal discussion like an RM or RfC or AfD then the notification needs to be neutral. Arguments for or against this formal proposal should be kept at the appropriate place.

And this is where we hit a difference between your notification and the earlier one. There wasn't at the time of the earlier notice a formal RM. Formal discussions are supposed to be a way to check what existing participants feel but more importantly get new editors who haven't already offered their views to join and try and achieve consensus one way or the other. It's imperative that these editors aren't prejudged into which "side" is correct. To be fair, RMs (and AfDs) are a bit different from RfCs since the first comment editors read doesn't have to be neutral, still all editors should see the same arguments rather than some editors seeing some separate arguments because of how they came to be informed.

More importantly, we should go back to the basics of what canvassing concerns itself with. Frankly FTN is a bit of a red-herring here IMO. Fringe isn't really the concern of the RM whatever we call the article. However your notifications are the sort of notifications which seemed design to call editors who care about commonname to "fix" what you see as editors trying to violate it. You might feel this is okay since commonname is core policy, but we shouldn't select editors to join a discussion based on their views over the interactions of various policies and how they apply to a specific case. To be clear, the same and more applies to the discussion you highlighted, it definitely would not be an acceptable way to notify a wikiproject of an RM.

I'd note that the significance of formal discussions shouldn't be downplayed. It sounds like editors tried to get that article moved without an RM. I assume they used that earlier informal discussion as evidence. This was (IMO) rightfully rejected in favour of a proper RM, you're not allowed to just call a bunch of editors to !vote without telling anyone else and expect everyone to accept it. You could make an argument that what happened in the past has contaminated that RM, and frankly I'd agree with you. But it's impossible to fix that now by removing that earlier notice as I said at the beginning. And frankly this gets back to what I was saying earlier if we go down those lines there are a lot of stuff that happens at FTN that would likely fall afoul of the same thing.

This gets into the other point. If something the subject of an existing discussion at FTN or whatever later evolved at FTN, we just have to accept it as the way things happen. Again it happens all the time where a formal discussion, especially an AFD but also sometimes a RfC, starts off after (and possibly even largely the result of) some decidedly non-neutral discussion at FTN or BLPN or whatever else. For better or worse, we accept this as the natural evolution of discussions and don't remove the existing discussion even if it may seem like canvassing.

However note even in this case, it would be wrong to canvas when notifying of the start of this formalised discussion. Formal discussions tends to be where we draw the line at noticeboards where any notification definitely has to be neutral. For example, if someone were to post on that page, "an RM has started, let's go and fix it", that would definitely be wrong. As I said, if any doubt always use the template for any such notifications. They were developed for a reason, no one can question the neutrality of the message if you use them (and only them). They might question the neutrality of selection of locations, but that's a different thing. Editors should IMO also consider a new thread if the existing one is decidedly non neutral and I've seen it happen on BLP and I think FTN. That said, I can see arguments either way and ultimately the existing thread is there so it's only likely to make a small differences.

BTW as a specific example of harm, I would have opposed the RM but am not going to because I don't see any way I can be sure I wasn't influenced by your canvassing. Canvassing always puts me in an uncomfortable position and a lot of the time I avoid !voting unless I either feel I have something to add which has been missed or I'm voting "against" the canvassing but I don't think it's been as a result of the canvassing. Most editors aren't as strict as me, still from comments I've seen left I know I'm not the only one who feel uncomfortable about what to do if we've been canvassed especially if we might reasonably have found out or joined the discussion without the canvassing.

Nil Einne (talk) 10:46, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

Just noticed that precisely what I suggested did happen once the RM started, a new thread was started with a reasonably neutral message informing them. Again we could debate the harms of the earlier stuff, but that happens all the time on FTN too so this probably isn't the place for it. However we can see even in that case, it was recognised that once the RM had started things were different and a neutral notice was required. Nil Einne (talk) 10:52, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

I'm seeing some inconsistency here. If you are concerned about canvassing in these situations, you might expend the same effort communicating with the numerous editors on the article talk page who arrived to combat "cultural appropriation", call-to-arms language they mirrored in their votes. :bloodofox: (talk) 11:01, 21 March 2025 (UTC)