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Revision as of 04:32, 30 June 2007 editWhatamIdoing (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers122,149 edits ←Created page with '{{boxboxtop|Education}} {{user Grinnell|alumna}} {{user:Blast san/userboxes/User IQ|annoyingly high}} {{User:Scepia/bibliophile}} {{boxboxbottom}} {{boxboxtop|Gram...'  Latest revision as of 05:27, 5 January 2025 edit undoWhatamIdoing (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers122,149 edits →Article ideas: Created by Anonymous1261Tag: 2017 wikitext editor 
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{{boxboxtop|Grammar}}

{{user singular they:No}}

{{user totootwo}}

{{user theretheir}}
If you want to leave me a message that I will actually see,
{{user its}}
click on the "talk" or "discussion" tab at the top of the page,
{{user youryou're}}
and leave your message there.
{{user comma-splice}}

{{user apostrophe abuse}}

{{boxboxbottom}}


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{{User:WhatamIdoing/Userboxen}}
Hello, World.

== Article ideas ==

* ], perimenstrual changes in symptom severity (e.g., asthma, lupus)
* ], general category in which problems (e.g., ], ], ]) can't be solved through individual action
* ]
* ], assuming sufficient sources exist
* ] (possibly a section in ])
* ] {{doi|10.1111/1750-3841.16439}} {{doi|10.1016/j.ijgfs.2018.08.001}}
* ] or ], because change is bad
Essay idea:

* On the ], and editors who are very confident that they are very accurate at figuring out who is an undisclosed paid editor

== Policies and guidelines you can ask me about ==

* The ] section of ] – after ] in 2008; see ] or the shorter version at ].
* The ] section of ] – in 2011 after some and ].
* The ] section of ] – after discussion in 2011.
* The ] section of ] – after ] ] in 2011.
* The ] section of ] – after ] and ] discussions in 2008.
* The ] (aka CONLEVEL) section of ] – although some of the language dates back to , the separate section was in 2009, and the key example behind this and ] is ] in 2010.
*The ] section of ] – in 2011; see related discussions ], ]
**NB that the about preferring the status quo in articles was ''not'' added by me, because I could not find evidence that it was true.
*The ] section of ] –
*Most of ], which I merged with ].
*

== Stories I tell on wiki ==

* ]
** On demanding an endless parade of sources, especially when sourcing isn't the main problem
* ]
** Whatever the game, whatever the rules, the rules are the same on both sides.
* ]
** Articles that omit subjectivity usually violate the ] policy. An article about an international trade dispute, for example, should explain the situation from the viewpoint of both countries – not just one or the other, and not just universally agreed-upon information.
* The three umpires, on the differences between reality, perception, and definition:
** Three ] are talking about their profession and the difficulty of making accurate calls in borderline cases. One says: "Some are strikes, and some are balls, and I call them as they are." The next feels a little professional humility is in order and says: "Some are strikes, and some are balls, and I call them as I see them." The third thinks for a moment and says: "Some are strikes, and some are balls, but ''they ain't nothing until I call them''."
* On the ] source:
** During a bout of library censorship ("]"), ] recommended that schools "should strive for a well-balanced library, not a well-balanced book". The English Misplaced Pages agrees with this viewpoint and therefore does not ban sources based on their viewpoint or for "being biased". If one wants to write neutrally about a subject, one usually wants a source that argues strongly for a particular side, and a source that argues equally well for the other side. When you are trying to meet the policy requirements of ], a source that says viewpoints differ is not nearly as useful as a pair of sources each arguing cogently and clearly that ].
* On the definition of cure, which is different from feeling better:
** We all hope for people with cancer to be cured, but most of us don't know how to tell when someone has been cured. The scientific definition involves plotting ] curves and ]. For the more common kinds of breast cancer, you're usually cured if you have been disease-free for three years. So this means that if you have breast cancer and have no detectable disease three years later, then you're cured. And if breast cancer is detected in subsequent years, it's a ], not a recurrence of the old one. The numbers vary by disease (e.g., 15 years for some lung cancers) and by the exact type, but it's fundamentally a calculus problem. But normal people don't think that way. More to the point, they don't ''feel'' that way. They'll say that they ''were'' cured when they ''felt'' cured. This might be when active treatment ended, or when the first test gave good news, or when a troublesome side effect wore off, or when a personally significant milestone passed (e.g., a birthday), or at any other time, for any reason that appeals to them. Or they might that they're still not cured, even though their doctors say they are, because they just don't feel it. Feeling it isn't everything, but where humans and their behaviors are concerned, the objective mathematical facts aren't everything, either.
* ] (1987, "College Admissions", pp. 202–203) has a beautiful description of how not to write a Misplaced Pages article:
** "Sociologists want to be considered scientists, so they spend most of their time translating simple, obvious observations into scientific-sounding code. If you plan to major in sociology, you’ll have to learn to do the same thing. For example, suppose you have observed that children cry when they fall down. You should write: 'Methodological observation of the sociometrical behavior tendencies of prematurated isolates indicates that a causal relationship exists between groundward tropism and lachrimatory, or ‘crying’ behavior forms.' If you can keep this up for fifty or sixty pages, you will get a large government grant."
* {{anchor|publicity}}On the belief that all publicity is good publicity:
** Some editors want only "worthy" subjects to be mentioned on Misplaced Pages, because being mentioned in Misplaced Pages is (in their own personal, subjective opinions) more like a glorious prize to be earned by the meritorious than an enduring ] visited ] many . It reminds me of a story that ] told about a Texas politician she despised: If you start with a personal belief that all publicity benefits the subject, then of course you will be appalled to see "unworthy" subjects getting any coverage at all in Misplaced Pages, even if the coverage says that they run on all fours, suck eggs, and have no sense of humor.
*{{anchor|Google}} On the number of editors needed to make a decision
**Google used to put prospective candidates through 12 interviews. However, the answer rarely changed after the fourth interview. The opinion of just four interviewers was enough in 95% of cases. Do we really think that we normally need more editors to answer a question about an article than a business needs to decide whether to hire a job seeker?
*We've got to get the article content right.
**And we need to stop worrying so much about how fancy the sources are. According to {{doi|10.1145/3366423.3380300}}, readers don't use the sources nearly as often as experienced editors do. For 99.7% of page views, the readers don't click through on a single ref. About once out of every 300 page views, one reader will click through to ''one'' source. If there are 10 refs in the article, you have to have more than 3,000 page views before anyone will try to read the ref you just added. ''Once''.
**Another way to put this is: readers are at least 300 times as likely to read the sentence you wrote than to read the source you cited. Make sure that sentence is right – fair, accurate, up-to-date, and representative of the whole body of the relevant literature – before you worry about polishing up the citations. Citations to high-quality sources are the means to a good article, not an end goal.
*If you want to understand Misplaced Pages's community: {{Isbn|9780060971656}}.
**On the six usual responses: "In practical terms we have the usual six options. One: do nothing. Two: issue a statement deploring the speech. Three: lodge an official protest. Four: cut off aid. Five: break off diplomatic relations. And six: declare war." (p. 49)
**On how to avoid doing things that you don't want to do: Claim that it's too soon. Agree that something should be done, but question whether this the right thing to do. Now is not the time. There are technical, political, or legal problems. And now it's too late. (p. 93)
**On how to discredit a source: "Hint at security considerations... it might be misinterpreted... it's better to wait" for another, stronger source, especially if no such better source is likely to be forthcoming. (p. 258–259)
**The five standard excuses: I can't tell you because ], but trust me. The problem is too few resources. "It was a worthwhile experiment", even if it turned out to be a disaster in practice. "It occurred before important facts were known, and cannot happen again". "It was an unfortunate lapse by an individual which has now been dealt with under internal disciplinary proceedings". (p. 338)
**Dressing things up in incomprehensible ] lets you tell people things while minimizing the risk that they will understand you. (p. 465–476)
*Using a ] as our primary way to to teach people how to edit is a bad idea. In the 1980s, when the internet was much smaller, we used to tell this story about communication:
<poem>In the beginning was The Plan, and the Assumptions;
And the Plan was without form, and the Assumptions were void;
And darkness was upon the faces of the implementers.

And they spake unto their manager, saying:
:"it is a crock of $#@%, and it stinketh".

And the manager went to the department manager, and he spake unto him saying:
:"It is a crock of excrement, and none may abide the odor thereof".

And the department manager went to the director, and he spake unto him saying:
:"It is a container of manure, and it is so strong that none by abide before it".

And the director went to the Vice President, and he spake unto him saying:
:"It is a vessel of fertilizer, and none may abide its strength".

And the Vice President went to the Senior Vice President, and he spake unto him saying:
:"It contains that which aideth the growth of plants, and it is very strong".

And the Senior Vice President went to the CEO, and he spake unto him saying:
:"It promoteth growth, and it is very powerful".

And the CEO went to the Board of Directors, and he spake unto them, saying:
:"This powerful new project will promote the growth of the organization".

And the Board of Directors looked upon The Plan, and they saw that it was good.</poem>

== Why Misplaced Pages doesn't standardize everything ==
Misplaced Pages doesn't standardize section headings for citations because the real world doesn't. There are four major style guides that are heavily used in universities, and articles using each one can be found on Misplaced Pages. Each requires a different name above the list of sources that were used to support content in an academic paper:

* '']:'' "Center the title Bibliography about one inch from the top of the page" (used by fine arts and historians)
* '']:'' "In APA style, the alphabetical list of works cited, which appears at the end of the paper, is titled 'References.'" (used by sociologists and psychologists)
* '']:'' "Center the title Works Cited about one inch from the top of the page." (used in humanities)
* '']:'' "Center the title References (or Cited References) and then list the works you have cited in the paper; do not include other works you may have read." (used by scientists)

Misplaced Pages hasn't chosen one over another because nobody wants to be stuck telling the English people that they have to follow scientific conventions, or the history folks that they're required to follow the English manual.

== That, which, and who ==
* The relative pronoun ''that'' is used for restrictive clauses: The car that is red is broken. (The other cars are other colors, and whether they are broken is not stated.)
* The relative pronoun ''which'' is used for non-restrictive clauses, such as a description: The car, which is red, is broken. (There's only one car, and I thought you might like to know what color it was painted.)
* The relative pronoun ''who'' is correctly used in either of these manners, so long as the antecedent is a person. In some situations, such as describing a marginalized group of people, some people may object to the "de-humanization" of the antecedent if ''that'' or ''which'' are chosen instead of the personhood-affirming ''who''. However, ''that'' and ''which'' are grammatically correct, and their use in older and formal English is well-established. For example:
** John 11:25 (KJV): "Jesus said unto her, 'I am the resurrection, and the life: he '''that''' believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.'"
** Luke 16:10 (ERV): "He '''that''' is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much: and he '''that''' is unrighteous in a very little is unrighteous also in much."
** '']'': "He jests at scars '''that''' never felt a wound."
** '']'': He '''that's''' content, hath enough; He '''that''' complains, has too much.
** ]: "He '''that''' would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression."
** ]: "He '''that''' is down needs fear no fall..."

== Smiles ==

*
*
* ]
* ]

== Memory hole ==
*
* {{IETF RFC|2119}} on words like ''should'', ''must'', and ''may''
*
*
*
*
* on cockroaches and dictators
* ]
*
* Evidence that the Draft: namespace is where articles go to die: ] and ]
* Varying reasons for which journal articles get cited
* On ] about a subject (or Misplaced Pages's internal workings) as a potentially valuable form of diversity

=== Essays I've written ===

* Content
** ]
** ], also on the difference between "secondary" and "independent"
** ]
** ]
** ], in re writing about math and statistics
** ]
** ]
** ] (significantly expanded by others)
** ]
** ], a shorter version of ]
** ]
* Wikijargon
** ], on the difference between "actually likely" and "could conceivably someday maybe"
** ]
** ]
** ], on trees falling in forests, and when to avoid jargon
** ], on which things to call pseudoscience and which to call bad science
* Community
** ]
** ], because how we talk about our own actions is kinder than how we talk about others who do the same things
** ]
** ]
** ], about the minimum expected rate of mental illness among editors
** ] – What will Misplaced Pages look like when we're gone, and what can we do now to make its future better?
** ]
* Disputes
** ]
** ]
** ]
** ]
** ]
** ]
** ]
* Processes
** ]
** ]
** ]
** ]
** ]

== Boring links ==

* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]

==Notice==
{{#babel:en|de-1|es-1}}

From June 2013 until September 2023, I worked for the ] in the Community Relations team to answer questions and report problems about some wiki software, especially ] and ], but this is my personal account. Edits, statements, or other contributions made from this account are my own, and may not reflect the views of the Foundation. If you want to reach someone at the Wikimedia Foundation in an official capacity, then send e-mail to info{{@}}wikimedia.org

'''Misplaced Pages editors are unpaid volunteers.''' '''I do not write Misplaced Pages articles for pay.''' If someone has asked you to pay for an article, or if you are trying to figure out how to get your article on Misplaced Pages, please see ] and ].

=== How to verify an editor's identity ===
Scammers will call you up and claim to be from your bank. If you want to be sure you're talking to your bank, you should hang up on them, pull out your bank card, and call the phone number on the back of your bank card – not the "special" number that the scammer gave you. That way, you know you're really talking to your bank.

We have the same problem with Misplaced Pages. Anyone can ''claim'' that they're a Misplaced Pages editor or admin – but how do you find out if they really are? If you receive an e-mail message, text message, or other off-wiki message in which someone ''claims'' to be a Misplaced Pages editor or admin, ask for their username. Then think up a specific 'password' and ask them to post it temporarily on their userpage from the account they claim to control. It doesn't really matter what the password is; maybe you'll pick something like "It really is me" or "Bananas" or "Test edit" or "Hi, friend", or maybe you'll pick something related to the reason they contacted you, like "I am posting this to prove to a potential client that I really am this Misplaced Pages editor".

After they've posted it, then (this is super important) look at the top of the page where they posted it for the tab marked "View history" (sometimes shortened to just "History"). Find their username in ], and at the start of the line, click the "prev" button to see what changes that particular line records. If you see something like:

* (cur | prev) 02:19, 6 February 2024‎ Their_username_here (talk | contribs‎) 14,685 bytes +24 Test edit

with a recent date, and clicking on "prev" highlights the words you told them to post, then it's probably someone who actually has that account. But if they refuse to post anything, or if you see a different username in the middle (or just a series of numbers and letters, like "198.51.100.21" or "2001:db8:249b:13e:122e:2249:18:1397"), then you'll know that they're scammers who are lying about whether this is really their account.

Alternatively, if you ] and add an e-mail address in ], then you can use ] to send e-mail to most experienced editors. Send them a message like "Someone claiming to be you on <link to other website> is asking me to pay money for a Misplaced Pages article. Is that really you, or is this a scammer?"

When in doubt, especially if they are asking for money for anything related to Misplaced Pages, you can send e-mail to <code>paid-en-wp{{@}}wikipedia.org</code> and ask one of the volunteers. Remember: '''Real Misplaced Pages editors don't charge the subject of an article for creating it, editing it, reviewing it, or anything else!'''

Latest revision as of 05:27, 5 January 2025


About me
GThis user is an alumna of Grinnell College.
This user is a female contributor.
This user is happily married.
This user does not appreciate tobacco smoke.


Technology
This user contributes using a Mac.
This user learned to type on a typewriter.
This user killed her television.
This user believes Daylight Saving Time increases residential air conditioning use during the summer.

Hello, World.

Article ideas

Essay idea:

  • On the Dunning–Kruger effect, and editors who are very confident that they are very accurate at figuring out who is an undisclosed paid editor

Policies and guidelines you can ask me about

Stories I tell on wiki

  • Misplaced Pages:Bring me a rock
    • On demanding an endless parade of sources, especially when sourcing isn't the main problem
  • Hoyle's Law
    • Whatever the game, whatever the rules, the rules are the same on both sides.
  • User:WhatamIdoing/Subjectivity in Misplaced Pages articles
    • Articles that omit subjectivity usually violate the WP:YESPOV policy. An article about an international trade dispute, for example, should explain the situation from the viewpoint of both countries – not just one or the other, and not just universally agreed-upon information.
  • The three umpires, on the differences between reality, perception, and definition:
    • Three baseball umpires are talking about their profession and the difficulty of making accurate calls in borderline cases. One says: "Some are strikes, and some are balls, and I call them as they are." The next feels a little professional humility is in order and says: "Some are strikes, and some are balls, and I call them as I see them." The third thinks for a moment and says: "Some are strikes, and some are balls, but they ain't nothing until I call them."
  • On the WP:BIASED source:
    • During a bout of library censorship ("Think of the children"), E. B. White recommended that schools "should strive for a well-balanced library, not a well-balanced book". The English Misplaced Pages agrees with this viewpoint and therefore does not ban sources based on their viewpoint or for "being biased". If one wants to write neutrally about a subject, one usually wants a source that argues strongly for a particular side, and a source that argues equally well for the other side. When you are trying to meet the policy requirements of WP:YESPOV, a source that says viewpoints differ is not nearly as useful as a pair of sources each arguing cogently and clearly that their side should have won the 1985 World Series.
  • On the definition of cure, which is different from feeling better:
    • We all hope for people with cancer to be cured, but most of us don't know how to tell when someone has been cured. The scientific definition involves plotting disease-free survival curves and figuring out when the slope goes flat. For the more common kinds of breast cancer, you're usually cured if you have been disease-free for three years. So this means that if you have breast cancer and have no detectable disease three years later, then you're cured. And if breast cancer is detected in subsequent years, it's a new primary, not a recurrence of the old one. The numbers vary by disease (e.g., 15 years for some lung cancers) and by the exact type, but it's fundamentally a calculus problem. But normal people don't think that way. More to the point, they don't feel that way. They'll say that they were cured when they felt cured. This might be when active treatment ended, or when the first test gave good news, or when a troublesome side effect wore off, or when a personally significant milestone passed (e.g., a birthday), or at any other time, for any reason that appeals to them. Or they might that they're still not cured, even though their doctors say they are, because they just don't feel it. Feeling it isn't everything, but where humans and their behaviors are concerned, the objective mathematical facts aren't everything, either.
  • Dave Barry's Bad Habits (1987, "College Admissions", pp. 202–203) has a beautiful description of how not to write a Misplaced Pages article:
    • "Sociologists want to be considered scientists, so they spend most of their time translating simple, obvious observations into scientific-sounding code. If you plan to major in sociology, you’ll have to learn to do the same thing. For example, suppose you have observed that children cry when they fall down. You should write: 'Methodological observation of the sociometrical behavior tendencies of prematurated isolates indicates that a causal relationship exists between groundward tropism and lachrimatory, or ‘crying’ behavior forms.' If you can keep this up for fifty or sixty pages, you will get a large government grant."
  • On the belief that all publicity is good publicity:
  • On the number of editors needed to make a decision
    • Google used to put prospective candidates through 12 interviews. However, the answer rarely changed after the fourth interview. The opinion of just four interviewers was enough in 95% of cases. Do we really think that we normally need more editors to answer a question about an article than a business needs to decide whether to hire a job seeker?
  • We've got to get the article content right.
    • And we need to stop worrying so much about how fancy the sources are. According to doi:10.1145/3366423.3380300, readers don't use the sources nearly as often as experienced editors do. For 99.7% of page views, the readers don't click through on a single ref. About once out of every 300 page views, one reader will click through to one source. If there are 10 refs in the article, you have to have more than 3,000 page views before anyone will try to read the ref you just added. Once.
    • Another way to put this is: readers are at least 300 times as likely to read the sentence you wrote than to read the source you cited. Make sure that sentence is right – fair, accurate, up-to-date, and representative of the whole body of the relevant literature – before you worry about polishing up the citations. Citations to high-quality sources are the means to a good article, not an end goal.
  • If you want to understand Misplaced Pages's community: ISBN 9780060971656.
    • On the six usual responses: "In practical terms we have the usual six options. One: do nothing. Two: issue a statement deploring the speech. Three: lodge an official protest. Four: cut off aid. Five: break off diplomatic relations. And six: declare war." (p. 49)
    • On how to avoid doing things that you don't want to do: Claim that it's too soon. Agree that something should be done, but question whether this the right thing to do. Now is not the time. There are technical, political, or legal problems. And now it's too late. (p. 93)
    • On how to discredit a source: "Hint at security considerations... it might be misinterpreted... it's better to wait" for another, stronger source, especially if no such better source is likely to be forthcoming. (p. 258–259)
    • The five standard excuses: I can't tell you because WP:BEANS, but trust me. The problem is too few resources. "It was a worthwhile experiment", even if it turned out to be a disaster in practice. "It occurred before important facts were known, and cannot happen again". "It was an unfortunate lapse by an individual which has now been dealt with under internal disciplinary proceedings". (p. 338)
    • Dressing things up in incomprehensible jargon lets you tell people things while minimizing the risk that they will understand you. (p. 465–476)
  • Using a telephone game as our primary way to to teach people how to edit is a bad idea. In the 1980s, when the internet was much smaller, we used to tell this story about communication:

In the beginning was The Plan, and the Assumptions;
And the Plan was without form, and the Assumptions were void;
And darkness was upon the faces of the implementers.

And they spake unto their manager, saying:
"it is a crock of $#@%, and it stinketh".

And the manager went to the department manager, and he spake unto him saying:
"It is a crock of excrement, and none may abide the odor thereof".

And the department manager went to the director, and he spake unto him saying:
"It is a container of manure, and it is so strong that none by abide before it".

And the director went to the Vice President, and he spake unto him saying:
"It is a vessel of fertilizer, and none may abide its strength".

And the Vice President went to the Senior Vice President, and he spake unto him saying:
"It contains that which aideth the growth of plants, and it is very strong".

And the Senior Vice President went to the CEO, and he spake unto him saying:
"It promoteth growth, and it is very powerful".

And the CEO went to the Board of Directors, and he spake unto them, saying:
"This powerful new project will promote the growth of the organization".

And the Board of Directors looked upon The Plan, and they saw that it was good.

Why Misplaced Pages doesn't standardize everything

Misplaced Pages doesn't standardize section headings for citations because the real world doesn't. There are four major style guides that are heavily used in universities, and articles using each one can be found on Misplaced Pages. Each requires a different name above the list of sources that were used to support content in an academic paper:

  • Chicago Manual of Style: "Center the title Bibliography about one inch from the top of the page" (used by fine arts and historians)
  • APA style: "In APA style, the alphabetical list of works cited, which appears at the end of the paper, is titled 'References.'" (used by sociologists and psychologists)
  • The MLA Style Manual: "Center the title Works Cited about one inch from the top of the page." (used in humanities)
  • Council of Science Editors: "Center the title References (or Cited References) and then list the works you have cited in the paper; do not include other works you may have read." (used by scientists)

Misplaced Pages hasn't chosen one over another because nobody wants to be stuck telling the English people that they have to follow scientific conventions, or the history folks that they're required to follow the English manual.

That, which, and who

  • The relative pronoun that is used for restrictive clauses: The car that is red is broken. (The other cars are other colors, and whether they are broken is not stated.)
  • The relative pronoun which is used for non-restrictive clauses, such as a description: The car, which is red, is broken. (There's only one car, and I thought you might like to know what color it was painted.)
  • The relative pronoun who is correctly used in either of these manners, so long as the antecedent is a person. In some situations, such as describing a marginalized group of people, some people may object to the "de-humanization" of the antecedent if that or which are chosen instead of the personhood-affirming who. However, that and which are grammatically correct, and their use in older and formal English is well-established. For example:
    • John 11:25 (KJV): "Jesus said unto her, 'I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.'"
    • Luke 16:10 (ERV): "He that is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much: and he that is unrighteous in a very little is unrighteous also in much."
    • Romeo and Juliet: "He jests at scars that never felt a wound."
    • Poor Richard's Almanack: He that's content, hath enough; He that complains, has too much.
    • Thomas Paine: "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression."
    • John Bunyan: "He that is down needs fear no fall..."

Smiles

Memory hole

Essays I've written

Boring links

Notice

Babel user information
en-N This user has a native understanding of English.
de-1 Diese Benutzerin beherrscht Deutsch auf grundlegendem Niveau.
es-1 Esta usuaria tiene un conocimiento básico del español.
Users by language

From June 2013 until September 2023, I worked for the Wikimedia Foundation in the Community Relations team to answer questions and report problems about some wiki software, especially VisualEditor and DiscussionTools, but this is my personal account. Edits, statements, or other contributions made from this account are my own, and may not reflect the views of the Foundation. If you want to reach someone at the Wikimedia Foundation in an official capacity, then send e-mail to info@wikimedia.org

Misplaced Pages editors are unpaid volunteers. I do not write Misplaced Pages articles for pay. If someone has asked you to pay for an article, or if you are trying to figure out how to get your article on Misplaced Pages, please see Misplaced Pages:Articles for creation/Scam warning and Misplaced Pages:FAQ/Organizations.

How to verify an editor's identity

Scammers will call you up and claim to be from your bank. If you want to be sure you're talking to your bank, you should hang up on them, pull out your bank card, and call the phone number on the back of your bank card – not the "special" number that the scammer gave you. That way, you know you're really talking to your bank.

We have the same problem with Misplaced Pages. Anyone can claim that they're a Misplaced Pages editor or admin – but how do you find out if they really are? If you receive an e-mail message, text message, or other off-wiki message in which someone claims to be a Misplaced Pages editor or admin, ask for their username. Then think up a specific 'password' and ask them to post it temporarily on their userpage from the account they claim to control. It doesn't really matter what the password is; maybe you'll pick something like "It really is me" or "Bananas" or "Test edit" or "Hi, friend", or maybe you'll pick something related to the reason they contacted you, like "I am posting this to prove to a potential client that I really am this Misplaced Pages editor".

After they've posted it, then (this is super important) look at the top of the page where they posted it for the tab marked "View history" (sometimes shortened to just "History"). Find their username in the list of changes made to that page, and at the start of the line, click the "prev" button to see what changes that particular line records. If you see something like:

  • (cur | prev) 02:19, 6 February 2024‎ Their_username_here (talk | contribs‎) 14,685 bytes +24 Test edit

with a recent date, and clicking on "prev" highlights the words you told them to post, then it's probably someone who actually has that account. But if they refuse to post anything, or if you see a different username in the middle (or just a series of numbers and letters, like "198.51.100.21" or "2001:db8:249b:13e:122e:2249:18:1397"), then you'll know that they're scammers who are lying about whether this is really their account.

Alternatively, if you create your own account and add an e-mail address in Special:Preferences, then you can use Special:EmailUser to send e-mail to most experienced editors. Send them a message like "Someone claiming to be you on <link to other website> is asking me to pay money for a Misplaced Pages article. Is that really you, or is this a scammer?"

When in doubt, especially if they are asking for money for anything related to Misplaced Pages, you can send e-mail to paid-en-wp@wikipedia.org and ask one of the volunteers. Remember: Real Misplaced Pages editors don't charge the subject of an article for creating it, editing it, reviewing it, or anything else!

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