User:Mel Etitis
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Me
Now, there's not much point using a pseudonym if you then blurt out your mundane identity (where would that have got Batman?), but a couple of misunderstandings have occasionally arisen, which I ought to head off.
First, despite my User name, I'm not Greek but English (half Irish, in fact, but born and brought up in England). I took the name Mel Etitis from some on-line dialogues on the philosophy of religion; the original Greek word has been distorted to make it look like a name, but it means something like "one who studies".
Secondly, the character in the dialogues is female; I'm male. Not important, but some people get needlessly embarrassed if they find that someone they've been referring to as "she" turns out to be a he.
Thirdly, despite my youthful appearance (both on the page and – you'll have to take my word for this – in real life) I'm fifty years old; I'm a philosopher by profession, teaching in the University of Oxford, and spent many years teaching English as a Foreign Language, also in Oxford.
Aside from all that, my interests are wide and varied, my musical, literary, and other tastes are eclectic, and some of them are represented in my contributions (though some are not, and some of my contributions are utterly unrelated to my tastes or interests).
I'm an admin., which means that I'm an ordinary editor who's been trusted with a few extra powers to help me do some largely tedious housekeeping jobs. Being an admin doesn't mean that I'm in any way above Wikipedia policy, and in fact brings with it extra responsbility — so if you think that I've behaved wrongly, let me know — but politely; it's most likely to be inadvertent, as is most wrongdoing here. (If I have a fault ("if"!), it's that I tend to respond badly to rudeness and aggression.)
My contributions
I spend a little time randomly paging through the encyclopædia, tidying English and style, adding categories and stubs, occasionally doing more extensive editing. It's not glamorous, but I think that it helps make the encyclopædia better and more readable. I also patrol the New Pages list, and do work at the Speedy Deletions category. My more substantial contributions include 190 new articles as well as work on existing articles that ranges from significant expansion to complete rewriting:
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(I haven't included new Category or disambiguation pages here, of which I've created or revivified a few.) I've also created the following page, into which I plan to insert all the relevant free images from the Wikipedia archives: I started a page designed for those who are contributing, or who want to contribute, to Wikipedia in a language other than their first or native language: Finally, I've up-loaded a few of my own photographs. |
Articles on which I've done significant work, up to and including complete rewriting:
Plans for significant work on existing articles:
Jazz-L 100 project
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I score, incredibly, only 161 on the Wikipedia addiction test. This labels me an addict, but only just. On the other hand, it'll definitely have gone up since the last time I dared to take it.
I've made [1] edits since I registered on 29th December 2004. Good grief, that's over 3,000 edits a month; that addiction test isn't doing its job. (My 10,000th edit: 25th April 2005. My 15,000th edit: 12th June 2005. My 10,000th edit on an article: 17th July 2005. My 20,000th edit. My 25,000th edit. My 15,000th edit on an article: 8th September 2005. My 30,000th edit: 19th October 2005. My 20,000th edit on an article: 16th January 2006. My 35,000th edit: 18th February 2006. My 25,000th edit on an article: 10th April 2006. My 40,000th edit: 11th April 2006.
I'm rather proud of the fact that about two thirds of my edits are to articles, rather than to Talk pages etc. We are writing an encyclopædia, after all.)
Awards
I, User:Frazzydee, hereby award Mel Etitis this Working Man's barnstar for having an amazing 5-digit edit count, and an unbelievable average of 85.09 edits per day! Keep up the amazing work! Wikipedia will benefit for as long as you are ignorant of Real Life :-) Please don't lose yourself along the way- I hope that you will always remain as great a contributor as you are now.
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Here's a barnstar for your 20,000th edit
Happy editing, Dbraceyrules
I, Guettarda, hereby award Mel Etitis this Working Man's barnstar for his remarkable dedication to maintaining Wikipedia standards in articles relating to pop music, as has been shown beyond the shadow of a doubt here. Keep up the great work! 22:08, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
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Thanks for the assistance. Also can you help me out in... wait you already did. I dont know how to classify this but I think this would be sufficient for the random act of kindness barnstar. Congratulations. --Cool Cat 01:34, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
--FeloniousMonk 20:36, 26 August 2005 (UTC) It is only appropriate that the original "rouge admin" be awarded this badge of honor. Without your dilligent efforts, there would be no rouge admins.
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For being one of the best editors on Wikipedia, Orane gives M.E the Editors barnstar. Good work!
For amassing over 30,000 edits, Orane gives M.E this tireless contributors barnstar. Keep up the exceptional work.
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My attitudes to Wikipedia (an excuse for some moans)
My main attitude, of course, is the desire to help build this into an ever more useful reference work and information centre. I've some more specific thoughts, however:
- Votes for deletion. There's a tendency on the part of some editors to see this as their most important task. Well, it is important, of course; removing what's inaccurate, misleading, or biased is as important as adding what's accurate, helpful, and neutral. On the other hand, an overzealous attitude can lead to the removal of genuinely useful material that's of minority interest.
- One frustratingly annoying habit is the appeal to Google — the unargued (and largely unchallenged) assumptions being, first, that any topic worth mentioning appears on the Web (and with a frequency that reflects its importance), and secondly, that Google is wholly accurate. The latter is relatively insignificant, but the former is breathtakingly and demonstrably false.
- The most significant area is people, though: whilst the smallest village in the U.S. has its own page, with full and tedious census details, let someone add an article about an academic, actor, writer, etc., who isn't widely known and acknowledged, and a pack of editors appear, yapping that the person isn't ‘notable’. Leave aside the inconsistency for a moment; many of those who are claimed to be non-notable by this Vfd-pack are known to and have affected more people than all the nay-sayers put together (one sometimes wonders if that isn't the problem).
- Voting in general. There's a disturbing tendency on the part of many editors to jump into a discussion, vote without reading any of the comments, and then leave. The main symptom is a terse comment that clearly ignores what's gone before, and even seems to have been made in ignorance of the object of the discussion (see, for example, here, or the full, depressing debate here). It can make the business of voting a farce. Some admins take comments into account, and presumably make allowances for this sort of blind (and therefore pretty irrelevant) voting, but some just mechanically tot up the numbers.
- Admins. The vast majority of admins with whom I've had contact have been helpful, considerate, and professional in their approach. They're human, though, and occasionally one will develop a blind spot with regard to some issue, or a far from disinterested approach, and act against Wikipedia rules. What seems to happen then is that either their behavior is ignored by other admins, or (especially when the clamour of ordinary users is loud) they're subjected to a mild finger-wagging. If non-admins had behaved in the same way, they'd likely have been blocked from editing for a while — either generally or on a specific article or topic. Simple fairness demands the same treatment for the same behaviour — but given that admins are in fact expected to behave better than ordinary editors, it would seem right that they should be treated more strictly when they fall well short.
Now that I am an admin, I hold the same view, incidentally. - Finger waggers. There's a small group of editors, mainly or wholly admins who have been here for a while, who seem to spend more time lecturing other admins than working on the encyclopædia. Their edit histories typically show an articles-to-Talk/Wikipedia pages ration of 50:50 at best, often very much lower. Together with the many vandals and fanatics who try to take possession of certain articles, they make life here a lot less pleasant and productive than it could be.
Licence
I agree to multi-license all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:
| Multi-licensed into the public domain | ||
| I agree to multi-license my eligible text contributions, unless otherwise stated, under the GFDL and into the public domain. Please be aware that other contributors might not do the same, so if you want to use my contributions in the public domain, please check the multi-licensing guide. | ||
