Talk:Alpha Psi Lambda

Section blanking

I am attempting to correct an incidence of section blanking by an editor named Praxidicae. I've not seen that user name before, but they appear to be active. WP:RCD (dispute resolution procedures) generally require engagement on the Talk page, which has not hitherto been done.

At issue: Praxidicae blanked (removed) the list of founders, purpose, mission, and a short list of historical milestones of this Latino fraternity, with the somewhat cryptic remark that "WP is not a directory." As some 1,400-some fraternity, sorority or society articles commonly list those persons who formed each society, and note their bare-bones histories, the edit goes against well-established precedent. Further, while purpose and mission statements can be somewhat repetitive, they are historical affirmations of the rationale for formation, often stated in the founding documents of these groups. Thus they are reasonable to include in the article.

I police these pages for vandalism. Hence, I reverted Praxidicae's edits, twice, where several sections were removed, again, with no more than the cryptic note stating "WP is not a Directory". I urged a dialog if there was a sincere desire to improve the page. --This is often enough to discourage vandalism. Praxidicae ignored my note, where I asked that concerns or disputes go to this Talk page for discussion. The page was partly blanked again. This time, I learned that Praxidicae has some additional administrative rights which they used to hide all previous versions of pages. Not only were the recent versions of the page hidden, no longer something I could revert, but the entire article history was hidden - general users were thus unable to even review what had been removed. Nor could we use earlier drafts to address legitimate complaints.

I thought his or her actions were an excessive and unwarranted use of this administrative tool. Such activity can easily be interpreted as bullying. Readers will understand the frustration when an article is bluntly edited, but for those unfamiliar, Wikipedia also admonishes editors to assume good faith... Thus I will do this, and ask that other readers do too, even as I struggle to understand why there was no dialog or effort to teach; those who are part of these organizations, who occasionally edit the pages with new content are often new users. Hence I try to teach them whenever I edit these pages. Wikipedia also encourages editors to IMPROVE pages rather than just cutting away things they don't like. Hence my immediate instinct that these deletions were vandalism. Instead, let's let the process work out.

Please note, if you are just now seeing this, maybe a member of Alpha Psi Lambda or interested party, I do not believe, at this time, that this was a racist attack or effort to diminish this society. I note that Praxidicae edits a wide variety of pages, and has a message on his or her user page exhibiting solidarity with those BIPOC readers who are affected by police misconduct. Again, I assume good faith.

With that said, Praxidicae, what is your concern? I cannot tell, now that you have blanked the old versions. Was your point that the article was insufficiently sourced? We can and ought to fix that. I would have suggested a better tact would have been to add a "more sources" tag, or "citation needed" where you felt something was amiss. As to your removal of the list of founders, typically these are long removed from active management of these fraternities. Thus their inclusion is historical, and not a directory. I didn't quite understand why you cited that complaint.

As your edits take you far and wide, please know that the Fraternity and Sorority Project editors have made significant progress in updating, upgrading, and making more consistent these pages, especially for the Latino, Asian, and traditionally Black societies, often much younger, which had in the earlier days of Wikipedia not gotten vigorous attention in writing and editing. Thus we are supportive of proper citation, and may make a thousand or more edits a day toward article improvement. Section blanking like this is counterproductive, and really is harmful to newbies, and the general improvement of Wikipedia. I assume that you and I share that concern. Please respond. Jax MN (talk) 22:44, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

We cannot copy mission statements in their entirety, it's a copyright violation. Further we do not need a list of a bunch of non-notable people. This isn't a who's who of frats. SANTADICAE🎅 23:19, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Further, I'm not reading this giant wall of text. There was no use of an admin tool, I didn't even use rollback. I could have made the same edits as an IP. Lastly, if you feel that I'm bullying you or "misusing" a tool of any sort, the appropriate forum is not this talk page but WP:ANI so I expect to see you provide your complaint and diffs there. SANTADICAE🎅 23:20, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Your edit goes against all precedent for similar articles which list founders. A mission statement and purpose, cited from their constitution or set of bylaws is a quote, not a copyvio. You blanked five short bullet points of the fraternity's historical milestones. While the list of founders isn't notable to you, it is notable to the establishment of the organization, following a long precedent here. One could reasonably infer that you are demeaning them by being so dismissive. And me, by choosing not to read a 3-inch, apparently "giant" wall of text. I hoped for better. Sure, I can take this to ANI. Thought I'd reach out to you, asking you to do the right thing, first. Jax MN (talk) 23:43, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Praxidicae, if you were the editor who removed editors' access to viewing the last 15 years of page revisions, can you please explain why that was done, preferably linking to a discussion or other record of decision that explains the reasoning. It seems pretty extreme. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:21, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

I just opened a complaint at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Section_blanking Jax MN (talk) 04:39, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Apparently an editor called Primefac (s/he has been previously cordial and helpful) protected those sixteen years of edits, likely responding to a copyvio claim. We'll sort it out in the Administrative complaint. I fully support summarizing and paraphrasing content so our articles don't reuse the body text from any organization's page. --It's an issue that sometimes plagues fraternity articles, and we need to police for it. But when it comes to a mission statement or purpose statement, these can be quoted with citations. Jax MN (talk) 05:07, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

That makes sense. You can usually ask the editor who did the revdel to e-mail you a copy of the old page if you want to try to paraphrase and source it properly. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:03, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

To circle back, I rewrote the page from original sources, citing them, and providing cleanup throughout. Often, new editors are waylaid by COPYVIO concerns here, using what they think is freely available language on a national website in a simply copy-paste. No can do. Wikipedians take COPYVIO very seriously. By paraphrasing or summarizing the history, and properly referencing my edits, hopefully, what I have added will meet peer review. Jax MN (talk) 18:44, 15 January 2022 (UTC)