User:Gnevin/images

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Copyied from User_talk:Jtdirl

I must admit that I miss posting enormously. I loved Wikipedia. But towards the end the bot madness just drove me to frustration. I was a prolific poster and as such added in thousands of articles and hundreds of images. It was the images issue that bugged me. I'd upload images using the rules that existed, only to find that one set of templates had been abandoned and a new set, and a new set of rules, introduced. So I'd go through the images again, and then find six months later they'd changed again.

It was one thing when users were contracting people to point out problems with images. But it was quite another when the bot madness started and longstanding posters found their pages absolutely jammed with messages accusing them of using the wrong categorisation when they had used the correct one at the time. I just got fed up, especially when bots were informing me that images that were 100% with the right categorisation were still wrong simply because the technical command used for a graphic had now been changed by it, not by me. If people insist on continually changing rules then it should be THEIR responsibility to fix the problems THEIR decisions cause, rather than having bots blaming people who were innocent of anything.

Most of us posting in my group and my area just got completely fed up and left. Often I would only be back occasionally to check an article, only to find more ludicrous bot messages all over. Sometimes I lost the head completely - I suppose the posts just reminded me of all the frustration I had felt when I ended up leaving. I posted some rather strong comments *blush*. Apologies to anyone who was offended. (I noticed how one person who complained about by use of the f-word to reply to one particularly pointless bot message saying that I should have uploaded something to Commons even though Commons did not take those sort of images at the time the picture was uploaded, a few months later posted back to say that now HE had been hit by the bot madness over a rule change that meant his images were now all wrong and he was accused of putting in wrong templates, and now he realised just how frustrated I felt. He, as I and countless others did, just left the project.)

Anyway, as I said, thank you to everyone for posting supportive comments. I really do miss posting, but I just cannot be bothered dealing with the bot madness any more. I just felt like rolling my eyes when I got a bot message saying that a picture I took of a 100 year old newspaper that ceased to be published before anyone here was born, had copyright problems, when the only problem was that, yet again, the correct tag to use when in 2005 I uploaded the image is now incorrect because a new one has been created, throwing the thousands of images uploaded under the old tag into limbo. I was tempted in frustration to go and delete all the hundreds of images I created, but didn't. lol. But I am not fixing anything. So don't bother posting for me to do it. If images go into limbo because of someone else's decision on changing tags and templates, that is their problem. And if perfectly valid images are deleted and articles turned into a mess, that is their responsibility. I pointed out that problem repeatedly while I was here. I was the one constantly urging that Wikipedia set out rigid rules on images from day 1. That didn't happen, and the result has been a complete mess which I and the others now being blamed for are not going to fix. If Wikipedia had done what we urged years ago, there would not be a problem now.

Enough said. Take care everyone. Thanks for the support. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 06:27, 17 February 2008 (UTC)