User talk:131.203.251.134

September 2016[edit]

Hello, I'm Serols. I wanted to let you know that I reverted one of your recent contributions —the one you made with this edit to Breezeway— because it did not appear constructive. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thanks. Serols (talk) 18:34, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If this is a shared IP address, and you did not make the edits, consider creating an account for yourself so you can avoid further irrelevant notices.

July 2021[edit]

Please do not use styles that are nonstandard, unusual, inappropriate or difficult to understand in articles, as you did in Junkers Ju 87. There is a Manual of Style, and edits should not deliberately go against it without special reason. Please do not emphasize the letters that make up an acronym or abbreviation per WP:EXPABBR. BilCat (talk) 20:44, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If this is a shared IP address, and you did not make the edits referred to above, consider creating an account for yourself or logging in with an existing account so that you can avoid further irrelevant notices.

October 2021[edit]

Please stop your disruptive editing. If you continue to violate Wikipedia's no original research policy by adding your personal analysis or synthesis into articles, as you did at Nazi racial theories, you may be blocked from editing. Binksternet (talk) 05:39, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"by whom" tags[edit]

Hi, this is just a friendly note about your use of "by whom" tags. I have checked quite a few of your edits after noticing several misused "by whom" tags on Hierarchy, and it seems you have a slight misunderstanding of their use. By whom tags should only be used when the tagged statement is an example of WP:WEASEL (weasel words). This means when an opinion is being given passed off as fact due to lack of attribution or context.

It is not to be used for every passive sentence, in many cases passive statements do not express opinions but simple facts, and the agent is not required. This is when the agent is unimportant, obvious from the text, or simply does not require an agent for grammatical/semantic reasons, this was the case in your edits to Euxinograd, Hierarchy and Government of National Salvation.

In other cases, where a reliable source states that an opinion was widely held, we can use structures like "is widely thought", as this is justified by the source. One of your edits to Cumbric fell into this trap.

Furthermore, when we use terms like "is thought to", on some occasions this language indicates that the scholarly consensus is that x probably happened, but that x is fundamentally unknowable or at least unknowable with current technology or evidence. If supported by a source that uses this language, there is no requirement for a "by whom" tag. The other "by whom" which you added to Cumbric made this mistake.

You are not in any trouble, and no administrative action will be taken as this is obviously a mistake you have made in good faith, but please familiarise yourself with WP:WEASEL and be wary of adding unnecessary tags.

All the best. Boynamedsue (talk) 10:44, 29 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

editing which is damaging to article quality.[edit]

Please stop tagging perfectly acceptable passive constructions, and senselessly changing passive structures to active ones, as you did in your recent edits to Maori Religion, Energy Policy, Culture of Belarus, Muri Railway Station and Sacred space etc... The passive is not frowned upon in wikipedia and should not be changed to the active unless it is proven necessary. Many of the changes you make in this regard caused the prose of the article to be weakened and as such are detrimental to the quality of wikipedia. Boynamedsue (talk) 18:24, 25 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with @Boynamedsue. The passive voice is often advised against by schoolteachers, but encyclopedias can and should use it. Appropriate, encyclopedic use of passive voice avoids other inappropriate constructions ("One may do something" is not an improvement over "Something is done"), tone problems, and focusing on trivia (e.g., who exactly does something, when the main point is that the something is done). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:05, 26 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Nevertheless, the Wikipedia Manual of Style states clearly: "Passive voice should still be avoided when it is not needed [...]". - 131.203.251.134 (talk) 04:48, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The sentence immediately before that says "The passive voice is often advised against in many forms of writing, but is used frequently in encyclopedic material, where its careful use avoids inappropriate first- and second-person constructions, as well as tone problems". You were quoting out of context. The entire meaning is that passive voice is usually acceptable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:52, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

How very remiss of me to quote only a shortened passage from the MOS:PASSIVE section of the [[WP:MOS | Wikipedia Manual of Style. A more complete extract reads: "The passive voice is often advised against in many forms of writing, but is used frequently in encyclopedic material, where its careful use avoids inappropriate first- and second-person constructions, as well as tone problems. Passive voice should still be avoided when it is not needed [...]." This grants the use of the passive voice in certain circumstances "in encyclopedic material" (whatever that may mean) and then continues - despite and notwithstanding the foregoing - to make a clear recommendation: "Passive voice should still be avoided when it is not needed [...]. The word "still" here appears to have contrastive force. - While sometimes acceptable, use of the passive voice, when "not needed", can stand improvement by judicious re-writing using active-voice constructions. - 131.203.251.134 (talk) 04:40, 28 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As Wikipedia is meant to be an encyclopedia, everything in every article should be "encyclopedic material". Passive voice should be avoided under some circumstances, but it should not be removed from articles on sight, especially when the resulting active-voice constructions are clunky or awkward. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:56, 28 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. And clunky and awkward constructions using the passive voice make excellent candidates for re-casting into concise active-voice clauses, while unencyclopedic vague assertions disguised with passive panache cry out for the addition of an agent. - 131.203.251.134 (talk) 04:42, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

IMO most of the text you replaced was not clunky and awkward, and some of your replacement text was. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:34, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is the crux of the matter. Many of the IP's edits are constructive minor changes, but the rewording of passives and other structures involving the verb "to be" often either makes the prose clunky or deletes nuance. Boynamedsue (talk) 07:16, 7 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:22, 8 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

How nice to have the opportunity of chatting with User:Boynamedsue once again. No doubt we all frown on any deletion of nuance, and work to repair such sins whenever brought to our attention. - Identifying clumsy and awkward text involves matters of opinion, as User:WhatamIdoing's "IMO" label implies. (Possibly surprisingly, even I have opinions: my sense of English-language style, amazingly, finds most passive-verb constructions clunky and awkward.) Where do Wikipedia-editors find MOS guidance on "clunkiness"? And how do we weigh up concise pithiness against crises involving passsive-militated vagueness? Perhaps fortunately, in the matter of passive and active verb usage - the subject of our present discussion - we need not quibble about personal opinions and preferences, because the Wikipedia Manual of Style gives a clear frowning directive in MOS:PASSIVE: the passive voice "should [...] be avoided when it is not needed". Once we have avoided the passive voice in such cases, then it becomes demonstrably no longer needed, and we have absolutely no basis for defying the stated Wikipedia convention by re-introducing it merely for reasons of peripheral style-preferences. We can instead work within the scope of the active-voice constructions to mitigate any perceived clunkiness or awkwardness. - 131.203.251.134 (talk) 04:45, 13 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It has been explained to you above, we have a manual of style which specifically states that the passive voice is "encyclopaedic" and states that the occasional prejudice against it is not applicable here. Your attempt to take the phrase "should be avoided when not needed" out of context and transform it into a directive to replace passive voice with active voice whenever grammatically possible is simply mistaken. In addition to this your aversion to the verb "to be" and connectors like "even though" and "according to" seem to have no plausible basis in the MOS. The fact you are running multiple IP accounts to do this is a very worrying trend, it suggests a desire to avoid scrutiny of the problems your editing style brings. There is a wiki-policy called WP:NOTHERE which you might benefit from reading, if you consistently edit to impose a personal MOS contradicting our own, you risk falling foul of it. Boynamedsue (talk) 06:19, 13 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Per discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Wikilawyering over passive voice, it looks like the sentence "Passive voice should still be avoided when it is not needed; write Germany invaded Poland in 1939, not Poland was invaded by Germany in 1939" we shortly be removed and no longer be part of the MOS, in which case there isn't really any appeal to the authority of the MOS to be made anymore, or soon won't be. So really 131.203.251.134, I'd let it go. You made your case, you stated your points, and you didn't win the day. I'd recommend moving on. Herostratus (talk) 06:12, 15 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Notice of noticeboard discussion[edit]

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.Boynamedsue (talk) 19:54, 25 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The section is at WP:AN#Advice about an IP user. You can respond there if you wish. EdJohnston (talk) 03:44, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Please follow the MOS[edit]

As you are aware, there has been a recent discussion in the MOS talkpage, in which users unanimously (with the exception of yourself) agreed that the passive voice was an important part of encyclopaedic language and should not be changed without good reason. In a recent edit which you made with one of your alternative IP addresses you changed a passive clause "the fort was purchased by the US Army" to the active "the US Army purchased the fort". This is an example of what was referred to by various users in the MOS discussion as a shift of focus. The first clause of the sentence is an active construction in which the fort is the subject, so using a passive later on maintains the focus on the subject. This is beneficial because the fort is the most important thing to the reader, not the army.

Please stop editing in this way, it is getting into the realm of deliberately ignoring consensus, which is a matter for ANI. This is compounded by the use of multiple IP accounts, which is fine when you are doing nothing you know to be against policy, but becomes problematic when you have been clearly advised of the policy but choose to ignore it. --Boynamedsue (talk) 07:14, 23 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As of 27 May 2022, MOS:PASSIVE continues to state Wikipedia policy clearly and definitively: "Passive voice should still be avoided when it is not needed [...]." Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Wikilawyering over passive voice has not yet reached any consensus that use of the passive voice "should not be changed without good reason".

Comments at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Wikilawyering over passive voice have included:

* User:Herostratus: "There are times when the passive voice is great, and times when it sucks [...]"

* User:Herostratus: "[...] passive voice is sometimes used to bamboozle or shirk blame [...]"

* User:SMcCandlish: "We should keep something on this [avoiding use of the passive voice] [...] It's in there for a reason."

* User:Jayron32: "The real guidance should be 'avoid circumlocution'."

* User:Herostratus: "Really in most cases you can use either [active or passive voice]. As long as its not truly grating or objectively confusing [...].

* User:BarrelProof: "'Mistakes were made' should not be used as a way of avoiding the identification of who made the mistakes."

* User:Visviva: [...] examples show [...] how context-dependent the choice between active and passive clauses is, and how unwise it would be to have any hard rules (or anything that could be misinterpreted as a hard rule).

Claims that readers of Wikipedia find one thing (a subject of passive-voice clause, for example) more important than another (the subject of an active-voice equivalent clause) remain speculative.

We still lack a definition of "encyclopedic language" too. Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Wikilawyering over passive voice has not addressed the topic of "encyclopedic language", let alone reached any consensus.

- 131.203.251.134 (talk) 04:51, 27 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I see that your more recent edits on another of your synonyms have avoided this, hopefully this can be construed as acceptance of the consensus? --Boynamedsue (talk) 07:34, 23 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

One would hope so. Changing things to passive voice can be encyclopedically dangerous, especially when it turns an expression of uncertain details to a statement that falsely implies editorial certainty. Encyclopedic writing, by design, uses passive voice much more frequently that most other types of writing. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 05:51, 27 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

PS: You (the anon, not Boynamedsue) are directly misrepresenting my quoted statement from the MoS talk page discussion. Try:

User:SMcCandlish: "We should keep something on this [not avoiding use of the passive voice] [...] It's in there for a reason."

— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 05:53, 27 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I excised the misleading sentence from the MOS, per consensus on the MOS talk page. (I also edited another sentence to indicate that advice against using the passive is obsolete. So forcing the passive purely for its own sake is not only no longer advised, but is now advised against.) Herostratus (talk) 07:17, 27 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Look, since I was pinged in regard to this, here's my continued take on the matter. The passive voice is sometimes absolutely necessary and sometimes not. Nuance needs to be used in discerning which type of of construction is needed in any given situation, and switching from one to the other when it is not an improvement should not be done. Which is to say, that it is disruptive and ultimately bad writing to incorrectly change from passive to active when the passive really is the more appropriate construction, and if one does not understand when to do so and when not, one should not be doing so. --Jayron 32 11:44, 27 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Continued disruptive editing. I believe the IP account 131.203.30.137 to belong to the same user as yourself, as it is mainly concerned with altering the format of references, removing phrases involving the verb "to be", adding dates and... incorrectly rephrasing passive voice as active. Two examples postdate our discussion on this page.

this one, where you rephrase "Ralph was excommunicated" as "the church excommunicated Ralph".

this one where you change "Eastern Poland was occupied by the Red Army" for "The Red Army occupied Eastern Poland".

There were a couple of more marginal cases, but these are clear examples of what we are discussing above. You really need to stop this now. Boynamedsue (talk) 15:30, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I see no evidence of crimes committed in these examples- only exaggerated obsessions against standard editing improvements. -- 131.203.251.134 (talk) 04:53, 9 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.Boynamedsue (talk) 17:06, 23 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion subsequently at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1102#Multiple_IP_user:_Consistently_removing_the_passive_against_advice_in_the_Manual_of_Style - 131.203.251.134 (talk) 03:35, 1 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I reverted your edit at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1102. That archive is a snapshot showing a section as it appeared on the ANI noticeboard at a particular time. It is not a place to add last-word commentary. Johnuniq (talk) 07:56, 1 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your note. It did surprise me somewhat that I could edit a noticeboard archive. It also surprised me that the thread went into the archives before I had had an opportunity to respond to slurs against my editing. - 131.203.251.134 (talk) 04:46, 14 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Warning[edit]

Wikipedia requires collaboration. Even if you were correct, you would still have to adapt to the advice being given. The community is damaged when someone on a mission attempts to force their point of view into articles. If the cycle of your edits leading to more reversions continues, I will block this IP and all other IPs or accounts performing similar edits. Contributors must listen to other editors. Johnuniq (talk) 04:12, 25 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Recent edits from the following IPs appear to be from the same individual. A report has been made at an administrators' noticeboard regarding your edits. Please see the ANI report here.

At this stage, it does not matter whether your edits are desirable or not. The point is that many editors in good standing have raised objections. Wikipedia requires collaboration and individuals are not permitted to force their preferences into article using persistence. I will block this IP and any other IP or account after a warning if similar editing continues against the objections of other editors. Johnuniq (talk) 09:29, 25 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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