Talk:Waterways, Alberta

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Re: Unnecessary changes to references and other meta-data

Some contributors make unnecessary changes to references and other meta-data, undermining the usefulness of articles' revision history.

There are few things more aggravating that coming back to an article, using the history mechanism to see how it has been changed since one worked on it, seeing it lit up like a christmas tree, with diffs, only to realize, after considerable effort, that all, or most, of those changes were purely cosmetic changes to the article's references, meta-data, and unnecessary changes to line endings, that didn't alter the article's intellectual content, or how it appeared to readers.

Some contributors prefer to place all the fields in a citation template on a single line. Other contributors prefer to place each field on a separate line. I think the general rule is, unless a reference is seriously broken, it is best to leave it formatted as it was left by the contributor who originally placed it. I don't alter references to my preferred style, without a good reason, and I would like those who prefer placing all the fields on a single line to do likewise.

I restored a reference to the form I originally used here. Geo Swan (talk) 16:25, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The reformatting was done primarily to maximize content viewable within the edit window while conducting edits, and for preference of consistency among all references (two were added with the next edit). If your preference must be retained, so be it. I don't care, as long as the edit window is readable, and would rather tolerate the extra scrolling within the edit window instead of engaging in a trivial battle over contributor formatting preferences worth of an honourable mention at WP:HALLOFLAME.

I do however resent the assertion that the subsequent edits were all or mostly cosmetic changes to the article's lone reference, etc. Quite the opposite. Rather, the majority of the changes actually expanded the article's intellectual content. The reformatting of the ref was only done concurrently with the first edit, where the purpose of the edit was to expand the article with referenced content from two other sources.

'''Waterways''' is a locality within the [[Wood Buffalo, Alberta|Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo]].<ref name=locality>{{cite web | url=http://stds.statcan.gc.ca/sgc-cgt/2006/ersl-rerl-fin-eng.asp?criteria=4816037 | title=Standard Geographical Classification (SGC) 2006 – Economic Regions (4816037 - Wood Buffalo, geographical codes and localities, 2006) | publisher=[[Statistics Canada]] | date=2010-03-05 | accessdate=2012-06-01}}</ref> It is now a neighbourhood within the [[Fort McMurray]] urban service area along the west bank of the [[Clearwater River]], south of the river's confluence with the [[Athabasca River]].<ref name=envision>{{cite web | url=http://www.woodbuffalo.ab.ca/Assets/Departments/Planning+and+Development/Long+Range+Planning/Envision+Wood+Buffalo/PDF/background_report_ftmcmurray.pdf | title=Envision Wood Buffalo: Towards 250K – Fort McMurray | publisher=Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo | date=May 2004 | accessdate=2012-06-01}}</ref>

My preference would be that contributors be careful in reviewing the contributions of others, rather than mischaracterizing them as vanity edits, because the contributions have unintentionally aggravated a contributor's personal preference. It deters collaboration. Hwy43 (talk) 00:53, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]