Talk:Diving in Barbados/Wreck of the Brianna H

Thank you Ikan Kekek I will follow your good avice.

It is just over 24 hours since I started this guide, but an anonymous unsigned contributor has significantly altered what I wrote in several revisions. Although I am English and and obtained a First class degree at Cambridge University, and was subsequently awarded a Senior Lecturership at another major English University, he is entitled to disagree my use of the English Language. I disagree with his revisions on 5 grounds.

Firstly he has introduced a significant spelling error, Thr instead of the

Secondly he has repeatedly removed references to one of the divers with a European name (Ram Edghill or Ram) while leaving the more oriental sounding name Hakim. If I were writing a guide to Mount Everest and had pictures of Hillary and Tensing I would surely show them.

Thirdly divers like to know something of the history and appearances of wrecks prior to sinking. He has removed the links to other websites that give this information and the pictures.

Fourthly he has removed the citation for the date and circumstances of sinking.

Fifthly I tried to described how the diver finds the wreck from entering the water till actually seeing it, a significant portion of this has been removed which makes me wonder if he is even a diver, I certainly wonder if he is one like me who has found previously undived wrecks. Johnmartindavies 20:59, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Way too many pictures

Johnmartindavies: the pictures you've added are lovely, and I'd love for as many of them as possible to be used in the article. However, there are way too many of them for how long the article currently is. According to Wikivoyage policy, images should be aligned along the right margin of the page - we don't allow huge blocks of images from one side of the screen to the other, as you have at the end of this article - and should not stretch below the bottom of the text. Please see Wikivoyage:Image policy#Minimal use of images and Wikivoyage:Image policy#Image alignment for more details.

The article as it currently is can probably accommodate as many as three pictures - possibly four, if they're downsized a bit. But if you want to add more than that, please first expand the text.

-- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 23:33, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Okay, Johnmartindavies, I see now that you weren't the one who added the pictures! Sorry for pinging you unnecessarily. Good work on the article, anyway! -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 23:37, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Definitely a ridiculously large number of photos. Linking to Commons for the ones that don't fit here is completely appropriate. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:13, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Message to Andre Carrotflower

A divers only hard data comes from photos, GPS data and dive computer data. Apart from those 3 categories there is only subjective memory. You are too impatient. I've just got back from my latest visit to Barbados and the wreck has only been dived in the last twelve months or so. I was in the processs of developing the text and the rest of the article when you started pulling it down late on a Sunday night UK time. I spent half the night trying to prevent this.

Diving is 3 dimensional and visual, most of us don't have access to underwater speech or dictaphones, so visual information is very useful. I realised I was not going to stop you so I have extracted all the data I started developing for this article and the longer article I wrote about Cobblers Reef. I will migrate them to another site together with any future subscriptions that I would have been making to Wikipedia. As far as I am concerned you can do what you like with both articles. Johnmartindavies 12:53, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

We've got the worst possible outcome here - a new user is being threatened with userbans for apparently not fully understanding the site, and good content is being stripped out of an article in what seems like an overzealous effort to enforce a provision of the image policy. I'd like to go on the record as stating that based on what I've seen I'm emphatically opposed to a userban, and will be saddened if we lose content from an obviously enthusiastic contributor because he created an article with too many images. Worst case this article could be moved to userspace so that User:Johnmartindavies can develop it as he sees fit, but it seems like it would be vastly preferable to let him develop the article in mainspace while trying to work with him to make this article similar to existing dive guides like those under Diving the Cape Peninsula and False Bay. -- Ryan • (talk) • 17:58, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Good God, someone's threatening him with a userban over this? Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:42, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

It's one thing to be a new user unfamiliar with the ways of the site, quite another to respond to a friendly and helpful attempt by a veteran editor to familiarize the new user with policy by repeatedly lashing out at said veteran editor by name (1), (2), complete with diva-ish threats to quit the site. That's a breach of civility, which is a separate issue from anything having to do with our image policy or whatever other problems we had with his edits per se. Incivility is IMO something for which inexperience isn't a valid excuse. Civility doesn't require any intimate knowledge of our policy or manual of style. It's about attitude. And frankly, I feel it's incumbent upon new users to, as the saying goes, "know what they don't know". As a newbie, common sense and common courtesy says you tread lightly and when more experienced users counsel you, you listen and learn. I did it when I was new; so do most new editors who come to our site. It's not an unreasonable standard to hold people to.

Incidentally, I didn't strip any content out of the article other than most of the pictures - I simply rearranged the text according to the dive article skeleton - and I also don't regard my edit comment as a threat to institute a userban. When I feel that a userban is warranted, I take the issue straight to Wikivoyage:Userban nominations or in egregious cases I take care of it myself. I don't waste time with threats. My intent was simply to warn the user that incivility is not looked highly upon here, and that others have been banned in the past for it. I let the first offense slide; however, after that point I felt such a warning was warranted because with the second diff I linked to above the user's uncivil conduct had begun to become a pattern. (Moreover, earlier the user also sent me an email through the Special:EmailUser feature that took a similarly problematic tone.)

Pinging Ryan and Ikan Kekek.

-- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 02:48, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Johnmartindavies has actually been editing here since January, 2013, but the dive guides are a different subculture and are very different kinds of guides than anything else. Since Johnmartindavies has expressed willingness to work on this guide in his userspace, I would suggest we try to let things cool down. If you look at Johnmartindavies' contributions, you'll find that he's been a valuable content provider who made a lot of contributions to the Diving in Barbados/Cobblers Reef article, but he's clearly accustomed to working his way. Let's chalk this up to a misunderstanding, please. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:10, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

If this is an experienced editor being uncivil, that's IMO even more problematic. I'm willing to let the issue die, but for the sake of those who take issue with my conduct, I sincerely hope I've made my point about the distinction between questions of civility and questions of article style. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 03:13, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

I certainly understand where you're coming from. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:13, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

I understand the point about civility, and I don't doubt your good intentions, but in this case I think the situation was escalated when it didn't need to be, and would simply ask that in the future we assume good faith and try to handle this sort of scenario more gently. -- Ryan • (talk) • 15:29, 6 December 2016 (UTC)