User:FT2

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[edit] What I do on Wikipedia

I'm a compulsive fixer of mess, so whatever I might like doing, if I see a project space page that's not well laid out, an article that's a bit of a disorganized heap of text, or a dispute that's getting heated because people aren't talking civilly and thinking about policy instead of personality, I can't help it... it's a case of "let's go see if we can't offer a hand, get the stress down." When nothing much is up, I have three main wiki-interests:

  • I have a penchant for cleanup of controversial and messy articles, especially where sourcing, balancing, cleanup and sorting out is at issue. I particularly like cleanup of intro's, "overviews" and section structure, and disambiguation, and I've done that on many articles. I enjoy controversial subjects because it usually isn't that difficult to create a good balance, and it's good to reduce others' stress levels :)
  • I also have some subject areas I keep returning to: Biographies, sexuality (including fringe/paraphiliac sexuality), animal sciences, psychology and cognition, religion and spirituality, science and technology, law, and political controversies. In this context I've written, cleaned or expanded much of BDSM and Zoophilia and their related articles, a range of Judeo-Christian articles including cultural and historical background of Jesus, and several key law cases, as well as the original fully cited "as it happened" 2004 US election controversy article.
  • Last, as part of the community, I stop off to help on the reference desk, the 1.0 editorial team, some peer review and RFC's, AFD, policy pages and headers, re-organized the Copyright Assistance section, and a variety of informal mediations and dispute smoothings, as well as taken two persistent virulent "POV warrior" vandals and sockpuppet masters through dispute resolution, to editor consensus, through to Arbcom when needed (one ultimately indef blocked from subject area, the other indef blocked from Wikipedia).

[edit] Articles I've worked on

[edit] Major article edits

  • Biographical: -
  • Plot summary or character: -
  • Fringe sexuality: -
  • Animal science/anthrozoology: -
  • Neuro-linguistic programming: -
  • Sociology and psychology: -
  • Abuse/human rights: -
  • Philosophy: -
  • Law: -
  • Religion and spirituality: -
  • Politics and controversies: -
  • Science and technology: -

[edit] Disputes and resolutions

  1. Cindy the Dolphin - solved categorization dispute for editors (new)
  2. Homosexual recruitment (before after) - noticed an AFD dispute whether encyclopedic. Researched and mostly rewrote article, after which it was accepted it was.
  3. Talk:Sexual intercourse - the "circumcision debate"
  4. Trusted Computing (before after) - Precariously stable after previous editor dispute, rewrote introduction -- delicate!!
  5. Cultural and historical background of Jesus - mediator following editors' RFC, later co-author of new article with user:Slrubenstein
  6. Zoophilia - controversial, regularly attacked by POV warriors. Cool and level head needed!
  7. Arbcom: Ciz AKA DrBat - Documented and presented case of POV warrior on zoophilia. Initial case Jan 2005, finally removed from article after 2nd arbcom Jan 2006. Previous steps included mediation, discussion, etc.
  8. Arbcom: HeadleyDown and sock/meatpuppets - Documented and presented case of POV warrior on neuro-linguistic programming. Finally removed from Wikipedia June 2006. List of bans, blocks and socks, and their dialogs, needs to be seen to be believed. Several mentors got wikistress before this was concluded.

[edit] Wikipedia and Template namespaces

Wikipedia namespace:

Up and coming:

Templates created or improved:

[edit] Disputes and informal mediations

Samples:

[edit] Special memories

  1. The category:zoosexuality series was tough to research, but well worth it.
    • Zoophilia (before current), a highly controversial subject, which started as a minimally cited "legal/myth/porn" summary, is now highly informative, stable and agreeable (no edit or POV wars for 18 months), and by June 2006 probably the most solidly cited and comprehensive source on the net, and positively viewed for Featured Article by outsiders. I feel this article above all, showcases Wikipedia's ability to take even subjects many would consider controversial at best or a rare pathological or abusive fetish at worst, and turn them into valuable sound encyclopedic sourced information. With the exception of JAQ's refactor in Jan 05, about 90% of the substantive edits (ie those which added cites, information or sections) were my work.
    • Zoosexuality and the law (new), an example of how to do an article, not just a list.
    • Bodil Joensen (before after) , a researched biography of the first animal porn star. Very human, and very sad. Well worth a read, even if you hate the subject..... this is one that specially touches me...
       
  2. The zoology and welfare articles were very rewarding:
  3. Neuro-linguistic programming was fun.
  4. Religion... I have to say it. My two favorite ones I worked heavily on were
  5. Politics, two articles stand out:
    • By far the most heavy duty achievement was 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities in the immediate aftermath of the 2004 election. Despite numerous "sour grape" and POV attempts to AFD it, the article received resounding support from other Wikipedeans, and was (if a bit long) solidly cited to the hilt. It was later split into about 6 articles on separate themes, but a snapshot of the original as I wrote it on the first day, can be found here. The citing was important since it was a major controversy with accusations in the USA of "poor losership". By Nov 28, just prior to splitting out, it was far longer and more complete, had overwhelmingly survived two rounds at AFD, and was being referenced elsewhere on the web as one of the most solidly cited comprehensive resources for the subject and its background, and why it was taken seriously. At that point the election was only 3 weeks old and the debate would still rage nearly another 2 months.
       
    • The other political article I'm specially pleased with is List of war crimes. Although still not neat and often poorly cited, its an important article in terms of the focus it covers -- that there have been many such acts, and many countries have done them, "friends" "strangers" and "enemies". That neutral perspective was missing from Wikipedia, which previously focussed only on the few cases taken to court... invariably by the West.
       
  6. Philosophy, spirituality, science...


[edit] Feedback: Life in the hot seat!

  • "FT2, you're always there to bring us back to the business at hand ;)"
This was when I added a comment to the effect that it's lucky we don't have to talk about these speculative matters to actually sort out an article. And it's mutual, Talk:2004 U.S. Election controversies and irregularities is an article I'm quite enjoying watching grow :)


  • "I consider FT2 to be a better more neutral person to guide the discussion, and choose the quetions to answer first than either you or I since we are parties to the edit war that brought this page protection."
Ahhh, that nice warm feeling. Talk:Cultural and historical background of Jesus
Yes, you are doing some good work there.Pedant [1]


  • "Bet you have sex with your pets, huh?"
On spending 3/4 hr explaining wiki NPOV to a vandal and making clear that no matter what he or I may personally think of Talk:Zoophilia, it deserves and will get, neutral and balanced reporting, and sourced information.

Please don't forget to thank this person for lightening up my life. I can just see him going round, splitting the world into people who are ignorant fanatics, and people who obviously have a guilty secret *grins* Actually I think I'd probably prefer that, than to lack social skills to that degree... :)


  • "I did not have a chance to see what you were doing yesterday (nor have I taken a look yet today) but I was very impressed with the effort you were putting into this. Your process of collecting the consensus votes and working through the complete article, while at the same time posting to the talk page your progress to keep the antsy members of the contributing group abreast of your progress, seems to me to be a particularly appropriate form of agressive mediation; something I believe this article/dispute has been in need of. While I cannot offer an appropriate reward, please know that your efforts have been noticed and strongly appreciated!"
- Amgine 17:30, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC) [2]
  • "I would like to second this, reviewing the summary I constructed for the text, it seems like you spent a great deal of effort over this."
- CheeseDreams 22:08, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC) [3]


  • "I am new here so please let me know if I am posting inappropriately. I would like to comment upon the work that FT2 has done regarding the neutrality of the zoophilia article. I have come to expect Wikipedia to be a RELIABLE source of information with VERIFIABLE content. I would still like to see the appearance of references and links to peer-reviewed psychological and zoological references. However the wildly POV aspect of the original article has been well toned down and FT2 is close to a neutral discussion. Personally I find the whole subject distasteful but have had to study it from a psychoanlytic POV and therefore appreciate the efforts of FT2. Thank you."
--kaijura 21:53, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC) [4]


  • "I think several of your recent edits have really improved the article, and I want you to know that I acknowledge that"
- Slrubenstein | Talk 10:45, 13 October 2005 (UTC) [5]


  • "Nice work FT2 - the article is stronger for your efforts."
- StephenHildrey 20:46, 13 December 2005 (UTC) [6] after sorting out a stable intro on trusted Computing that both sides in the edit war were happy with.


  • "Just to say that I think the work you do on here is interesting..."
- Saudade7 20:43, 18 March 2006 (UTC) [7]


  • "Loved your response at the Science Helpdesk on a thread that was moving in a troubling direction. That is all."
- Ginkgo100 03:31, 26 April 2006 (UTC) [8] Original reference desk response here


- Sonjaaa 04:17, 28 April 2006 (UTC) [9]


  • "I think along with me you probably put the most work into this article. If I am right that we had achieved (after a lot of struggle) a very stable consensus, you were part of that, and should comment. I appreciate your help"
- Slrubenstein | Talk 14:55, 29 May 2006 (UTC) [10]

[edit] And last...

[edit] Some quotes I wrote, long ago :)

"If people only realised that the only choice they EVER have is how to react in this instant to what’s already happening....."


"More people die from not being able to talk about what’s happened to them, than ever die from the event itself"


"Nobody will ever walk your path with you. Some will walk an inch along with you...some cross at right angles, coming and going in the same instant, some will walk a distance...but nobody will walk the whole way with you. But that doesn’t matter, because in every instant, there will always be people round you to walk this instant with you.......if you can learn to see them"


'Not quite, but fairly close' definition: "Love is seeing reality and recognising that you and 'other' are one."

Not "love is a mushy feeling" or "love is about wanting to be symbiotic to someone".

Love is recognising, simple and free from illusion, that you and 'other' (whatever 'other' may be), are in truth, one.


About wikipedia

Writing for an encyclopedia is not the same as writing for an academic paper. It's more like writing the bibliography for an academic paper. We aren't trying to decide what is "true" and what isn't, because that's not what an encyclopedia is. An encyclopedia is a balanced collation of multiple perspectives and views. Theres few decisions to make, few opinions to form, other than to observe which views seem to be more or less relevant views of note, and to understand each (and its sources) well enough to document.

We care that we document each view fully and with understanding. That is the "truth" we work to here. That, and that alone. Our truth is the truth of the bibliography, and the measure is, have we represented collectively in summary the multiple verifiable sources of note. Drawing editorial conclusions from all of them is the end-use of an encyclopedia, not the work of encyclopedists.

This user is a member of the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team
Warning to Vandals: This user is armed with VandalProof
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