User talk:BrechtBro

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Your submission at Articles for creation: Philadelphia Fringe Festival has been accepted

Philadelphia Fringe Festival, which you submitted to Articles for creation, has been created.

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The article has been assessed as Start-Class, which is recorded on its talk page. Most new articles start out as Stub-Class or Start-Class and then attain higher grades as they develop over time. You may like to take a look at the grading scheme to see how you can improve the article.

Since you have made at least 10 edits over more than four days, you can now create articles yourself without posting a request. However, you may continue submitting work to Articles for creation if you prefer.

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Rambley ^{(talk / contribs)} 17:56, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

AfC notification: Draft:Helen Shaw (theater critic) has a new comment

I've left a comment on your Articles for Creation submission, which can be viewed at Draft:Helen Shaw (theater critic). Thanks! MCE89 (talk) 08:08, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

Ty, replaced BrechtBro (talk) 16:47, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: Helen Shaw (theater critic) has been accepted

Helen Shaw (theater critic), which you submitted to Articles for creation, has been created.

Congratulations, and thank you for helping expand the scope of Wikipedia! We hope you will continue making quality contributions.

The article has been assessed as Start-Class, which is recorded on its talk page. Most new articles start out as Stub-Class or Start-Class and then attain higher grades as they develop over time. You may like to take a look at the grading scheme to see how you can improve the article.

Since you have made at least 10 edits over more than four days, you can now create articles yourself without posting a request. However, you may continue submitting work to Articles for creation if you prefer.

If you have any questions, you are welcome to ask at the help desk. Once you have made at least 10 edits and had an account for at least four days, you will have the option to create articles yourself without posting a request to Articles for creation.

Thanks again, and happy editing!

GTrang (talk) 23:05, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

Edits to "Sara Holdren" draft

Hello there,

NB: This will be a long note, but I want it to be close to definitive so we don't have a long back-and-forth.

I hope you're well. I wanted to write a note here because I reverted most of your changes on a draft I have for the critic Sara Holdren. From the jump, I'm not sure why you went into my user, found a draft I had ready for review, and changed it so drastically. I personally find it borderline inappropriate, especially since I don't see anything in your history of going into other people's drafts and/or participation in AfC work. There was also no notice on my talk page or the page's talk page. If I hadn't been paying attention, a draft that I worked on and submitted for review would have been borderline unrecognizable to me if it had been approved. It's one thing for a live page to get revised or worked on—or if it were an abandoned draft or if I had asked you for help—but doing it (and cleaving it so thoroughly) unsolicited, matching your own preferences for what the article should be feels, like I say, stepping a toe into unfriendly territory.

I could go through many of the reversions point-by-point (why I felt that the article was best suited with my version instead of the revision you offered), but it would become tedious. I did try and accept the general view you expressed in good faith, pruning some trivia, condensing some bits, but all in all it seems that your version was just a completely different perspective grafted onto the work I had done. Why, for instance, would you have cut out the Pulitzer Prize finalist from her infobox? That is certainly a notable piece of info about her and I see the same formula used for others (I in fact copied the syntax from a separate live page). Why did you delete the bit about her succeeding Jesse Green, but not the bit about her succeeding Helen Shaw? What was the logic for one being notable and the other not? Why, again, did you take out any of the detail behind her Pulitzer recognition, her critical inspiration, her citations by her peers, etc. etc.? You write in the changelog, in general, that you were focused on notability concerns (as well as trivia), but you took out a lot of the stuff that makes her notable. I want to assume good faith, but it feels like you have a notion of how you would do it, so you did that; what Wikipedia:CAUTIOUS would dictate would be a level of deference when in the draft stage and/or a more measured approach and/or discussion. I tried to incorporate your general view of the article's flaws, but it feels as though you didn't, when you made your own edits, incorporate my general view as to why information was or was not included.

A general note on the "trivia" issue. Yes, you're right that WP:Encyclopedic does note that there are limits to what should be included, but, a) that is right under the WP:PAPER guideline that notes there are no physical strictures on what content and how much, only matters of collective judgment decide and b) when WP:Encyclopedic discusses unacceptable trivialities, it's not saying "Don't cite the plays a play director directed" or "don't include the inspirations a writer mentions" (which are very detailed in many pages for writers, musicians, etc.). It lists a few general categories of unacceptable trivia, per WP: Indiscriminate 1) Overly detailed plot descriptions without any additional context 2) song lyrics as one would find in a lyrics database 3) excessive lists or statistics 4) exhaustive logs of software updates, and per, WP:NOTDIARY 5) Celebrity gossip or diaries. Nothing I had (and you cut) was close to these forbidden trivia items. They were by and large her professional work and/or her development, which are very relevant for an entry in an internet encyclopedia about her. If you read a review of her on some Shakespeare play, you might wonder if she's directed any Shakespeare and would be able to find out. If you saw a play of hers and were curious about the broad strokes of her childhood and directorial education, you could get that via the bits in her early life. That's a feature of an encyclopedia entry. It's much less valuable to have an entry on a critic that says she is a critic and she works XYZ than it is to have that info plus, this is what she says inspired her, this is an example of the recognition she's received from her peers, etc. That tells you about her while not being mere trivia. You can look at the pages for all sorts of writers/critics from MFK Fisher to AO Scott to Michiko Kakutani and see that quotes from their writing are used freely and their inspirations/critical dispositions are often mentioned.

All of this said (at unfortunate length), I don't know what your perspective is in this. Like I mentioned in the Jesse Green talk thread, I assume you're a lovely person and that you are approaching things with good intentions. But after that and now this, I can't say I don't wonder about some personal feeling. I won't speculate further, but if you feel frustrated by our discussion on the Jesse Green page or if you feel like my approach is inferior or whatever else, I don't think you have anything to gain by going into my drafts and marking them up.

You may have excellent notions, but I might have excellent notions as well. The idea is that we can, using consensus-building and the guidelines (not one-interpretation-only decrees) create something that's better than the sum of our parts. I, for instance, want to have a look at your Helen Shaw page at some point down the line to see if I could have any fruitful additions, but I wouldn't just delete everything that I wouldn't have personally put there myself. That erases the time/effort/thought you put in with no real benefit. Dizzycheekchewer (talk) 05:05, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

Hi @Dizzycheekchewer, I saw the article through WP:Theatre news. I saw it had been declined and resubmitted without significant changes and set about making some changes to address flaws I saw in the article because I'd like to see it accepted and to have a quality article on the subject. Articles in draft space are not "yours", see WP:DRAFTMOVE and WP:OWN. I believe Holdren is notable, but the article makes a weak case, and the reviewer clearly agreed, this is in part because the reliable the secondary sources are buried by trivia and your primary sourcing. Notability is established by sourcing, not by any of the "stuff" I took out. I'll comment more at the talk page. BrechtBro (talk) 06:30, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

I appreciate the response, but if you endeavor to make major changes like that to a draft, it would seem only polite to mention it in talk or even to act collaboratively beforehand. I don't want anything to be construed as though I'm claiming ownership, but there's a level of frustration that will comes with a sudden, unannounced deletionist approach. Especially when we had had a back-and-forth about our differing philosophy.

On the notability, it is determined by both the "stuff" and the sourcing. I can't tell you why exactly the reviewer declined the original submission. Neither can they (I asked) nor can the AfC help desk. But one of the explicit checkmarks is receiving a major award in their field (which Holdren has done and which was marginalized in the article by the revisions you made). That would be the case even before the sourcing used which also, as is, demonstrates notability. This is also the case as the Helen Shaw article as is, on its own, substantially relies on her position as NYT critic even though it stands on relatively rickety sourcing of an AT interview and three news articles (from one event) that substantially quote the same press release. You make the argument yourself that the sourcing should matter less than that baseline notability on the talk page there. I hope this explains my confusion and frustration to have notability "stuff" be deleted in the name of supposedly demonstrating notability.

Either way, aside from this mini-dispute, I would, in a hopefully friendly way, recommend you consider employing WP: Preserve for this and beyond. Even though people don't own their articles, they will feel frustrated when their hard work is deleted as a matter of personal preference. It's really easy to delete; it's much harder to create it in the first place. And if you mentioned some of your concerns/recommendations beforehand we could've reached greater WP: Consensus and averted some tsuris. Dizzycheekchewer (talk) 07:11, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

Shaw passes WP:NJOURNALIST criteria 1, maybe in part based on her posting at the Times (certainly I felt it was an appropriate time to write an article about her), but also because of her body of work as a critic for 22 years, for which she is widely cited and has won multiple prizes. The awards themselves do not get her past ANYBIO because they are not well-known, the way a Pulitzer is, but they show professional recognition within the field toward NJOURNALIST. Of course, I don't know what the reasoning of the reviewer was. I agree the sourcing was rickety per GNG, which is why I explicitly made the case in an AfC comment, but I also made it easy for a reviewer to look at the sourcing and assess it's quality both as a whole and piece by piece.

Now, my edits didn't marginalize the awards - they highlight them, because rather than getting into the rationale, they plainly state and clearly state the fact that she won or was nominated. Less is more. Your draft minimizes key facts by surrounding them with too much detail so that they blend in with other trivia you've included. BrechtBro (talk) 08:13, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

You may believe that Less Is More, but that is not a rule nor a motto of Wikipedia. It's your personal philosophy. I believe that there will absolutely be instances where "Less Is More"is the best tactic, but it doesn't automatically rule the day. There is in fact a lot of discourse on the topic of a deletionist Wikipedia or an inclusionist Wikipedia here (read especially the "Criticism" section) and on Wikimedia. Either way, if you are a deletionist (you may or may not be, I don't want to speak for you), you don't decide unilaterally that "less is more" is the best policy for a given page. You offer that notion to other involved editors and theoretically try and find a middle ground or compromise.

That is unfortunately not at all the approach you took when you made the changes in the first place, nor when you unilaterally reinserted the changes after I reached out to you to express my strong reservations. You did not seek compromise or consensus or middle ground. You also, somewhat snidely if I may say, impugned me on the Holdren talkpage, even though you overhauled—without other people's support or consensus—an article twice in 18 or so hours against what I clearly expressed were my concerns.

It is behavior that I recognize from the Jesse Green talk page discussion, where you made a suggestion and had 4 or so separate people (including some pretty well-established editors) disagree with you. And instead of entertaining a compromise, you just continued to link to WP guidelines you say agreed with you or quote interviews/secondary sources you say back you up. It's not you versus everybody else in the name of maintaining The Proper Wikipedia. It's all of us trying to make a Better Wikipedia through collaboration. We are all trying in good faith to make it better and you don't have the only correct interpretations of the WP guidelines. Dizzycheekchewer (talk) 04:50, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

Well, I didn't say less or more is an editing philosophy, I pointed out that it's useful in this case to demonstrate notability because the article was unbalanced and cluttered with 60 sources, which other editors have also pointed out.

I took your feedback and the current version of the article is substantially more inclusive than earlier version. I've offered up other compromises, yet you're here with accusations about my behavior rather than engaging with any of the rationale I or others have offered regarding the page. I'm not going to engage with that further, if you want to discuss the changes on the page, fine, but from where I sit you are the one making a unilateral demand. You asked for a explanations, well, you've been given them, and if you're unhappy that parts of that explanation have been repeated, consider that you could have engaged with it in a substantial way sooner I guess. I don't have to WP:SATISFY you. You've written 1700 words on my talk page. BrechtBro (talk) 05:37, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

If you're unhappy with my comments here, feel free to remove them of course, it's your page. I didn't come with accusations, but I did come with characterizations and measured comments. The worst thing that I said was that I thought your substantial deletions in the first place were borderline inappropriate. I'm also too wordy, but you've already said you have little interest in reading my comments, so all's fair there. You are, unfortunately, the one who leveled words like "creepy" and concerntrolled and frankly spoke down to me earlier on the talkpage, all while you were the one making substantial deletions to a page that was approved by AfC. You may have made what you felt were measured concessions, but they weren't at all consensus-based, especially since you kept dissing them after the fact.

But as I said on the talk-page, if you want to take the defensive stance, after you were the one that substantially messed with the page less than 12 hours after I asked that you consider WP: Preserve and bring more consensus/discussion to bear, then so be it. Dizzycheekchewer (talk) 06:33, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

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Please help me with the content dispute described in the section above. The other user has repeatedly accused me of bad faith edits of a new article in very lengthy comments, both here and at the article talk page. I admit some fault in that I should have left a note on the draft's talk page upon executing the edits and I could probably be more polite. The note I did leave the following morning was acknowledged by the AfC reviewer who approved the article, though the changes I describe had been reverted at that time. I explained in some detail, sometimes multiple times per the other party's request, the changes I'd made not only for unencyclopedic content (which have been echoed by others at the AfC helpdesk), tone, and chronology, but for NPOV, accuracy, and the privacy of the subject, which other party has again reverted.

BrechtBro (talk) 18:56, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

What is the admin action you are seeking? Admins do not settle content disputes; if there is a behavioral issue to address, I'm not clear on what it is. 331dot (talk) 23:30, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

Ty @331dot, I'm aware admins don't deal with the content. My concern is the repeated lengthy, sometimes extremely lengthy comments during this dispute that now include discussing this help request on the article talk page, which variously say that I "impugned" them, that my behavior was "borderline inappropriate," that I went "into [their] user" to edit a draft, and that I "concerntrolled." They speculated about my motivations, writing, "I can't say I don't wonder about some personal feeling." I feel badgered and I perceive some of this as ownership behavior.

I don't know what's in the admin toolkit but tbh I would be satisfied by someone asking them to cool it. BrechtBro (talk) 06:28, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

I guess the comments don't seem that bad to me, but it may just be me. I will leave this open to see if someone else sees something here that I don't. If you would like help with your dispute, dispute resolution methods are available. 331dot (talk) 08:45, 12 January 2026 (UTC)