User:Silence
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I am Silence, a Wikipedian copyeditor and administrator with a cherry on top.
Most of my work on Wikipedia involves copy-editing for spelling, grammar, clarity, and word choice, fixing page organization and layout, working on page links and style, and the like, though I also sometimes add new information and references to articles, and will work on pretty much anything else I stumble onto that I find myself able to improve. Although I have a number of interests, including linguistics, art, religion, philosophy, mythology, logic, and debate, most of the articles I edit do not correspond to these fields, and I'm open to helping out with anything that needs improvement, so feel free to post to my talk page with any requests, suggestions, questions, or other comments you wish. People are fun to talk to, I've found.
I have been using Wikipedia since early 2004, and made my first edits here in July 2004; I made my first edit with this account at 06:19, July 12, 2004, a characteristically trivial and style-oriented one to an arbitrary article. I received most of my early experience with Wikipedia-style editing as an admin at a humor-based Wiki, starting in December 2004. For several months, I made intermittent edits to Wikipedia, mostly just exploring its contents without editing. I first got really involved in editing Wikipedia in late August 2005, and have been actively contributing ever since. Sorry.
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[edit] Background and beliefs
I am a heterosexual male. I come from a caucasian, upper-middle class family living in the eastern United States. I am ethnically Jewish, and of German-Lithuanian descent.
I have no spiritual or religious beliefs. This is because my skeptical and ever-questioning nature prevents me from accepting unverified or unverifiable beliefs, though I keep an open mind to all possibilities. I also don't really see the need to believe in a soul or God, honestly; I find the world perfectly beautiful and strange enough even without the supernatural added in for spice. However, I am interested in religion and mythology as systems of thought and storytelling, and acknowledge the psychological and emotional value they have for most people.
I am a naturalistic secular humanist with rationalistic tendencies. I believe in the importance of logic, reason, clarity, and truth, though I treat all of these not as ends in themselves, but as tools with which to help humankind. Practicality and usefulness towards myself, society, and mankind are the most important things to me—primarily because the alternative isn't so hot.
... And I also have a healthy appreciation for totally arbitrary and ultimately meaningless madness, because it keeps me on my toes, and because without a natural respect for the absurd it's hard to simultaneously understand and appreciate much of life.
I am politically liberal and progressive. I am against the death penalty, for separation of church and state, and neutral on whether or not to redistribute a portion of U.S. federal lands to private ownership.
[edit] Editing attitudes
I was first attracted to Wikipedia because of the wealth of information there, most of it needing tidying and cleaning-up to be more presentable. I've been a compulsive editor for several years now, so Wikipedia provides me with an easy way to slake my obsession for improving text. A lot of the articles I've worked on heavily have nothing whatsoever to do with my personal interests, but are just things I stumbled upon and saw needed help I could give. I've found that this flitting from page to page on Wikipedia, editing along the way, is a great way to learn new things about all sorts of (retrospectively) interesting topics.
I am more of a preservationist, inclusionist, and especially mergist than a deletionist, though most of my votes on TfD tend to be "delete" for some reason. I am also an eventualist, an isolationist, a Trotskyist, and a sispistisktist. Sorry I just spit on your face. :(
I am always open to, or at the very least interested in, new ideas. If I come on a little strong to you or seem too sure of myself, it's not because I think that I am infallible (or that anyone else is), but rather because I'm eager to put my ideas to the test in conversation and debate so that I can learn whether my ideas have any merit.
If you disagree with me on any topic, please feel free to say so and explain why you feel that way; don't worry about offending me, regardless of the subject. The only things that don't interest me are generic, rhetoric-based (rather than logic-based) arguments like "How can you be so sure of yourself?" or "Why are you being so stubborn (rather than accepting everything I say as gospel)?" Instead of just telling me I'm wrong and stopping there, explain to me why I'm wrong so I can see whether your criticism has merit, and, if it does, change my behavior accordingly.
I also feel that humor does not have any place on Wikipedia. If you don't act seriously, you obviously aren't taking Wikipedia seriously, and are probably Hitler. If you see me making what seems to be a joke or ironic statement, you are probably misinterpretating a completely literal and straightforward comment. Silliness and the Internet are like oil and water: commonplace chemical compounds found in a liquid state at room temperature. Wikipedia is serious business people!!!
Here is a picture of a stapler:
[edit] Interests
I like experiencing as much of the world as possible; the more interests I have, the better, and I'm often sad about things I simply can't make myself get involved in. I've found that I used to hate most of the things I like now (like languages, music, plays, debate...), but that I don't hate all the things I used to like, which is a rather good sign.
I like art and literature, and anything combining the two in interesting ways, like comics. I like theatre (plays, opera, musicals, etc.), but understand people who can't stand sitting through lengthy Mozart opera or Shakespeare plays, even though they are nifty. I like movies, though not as much as most people, I think. I like playing games, but I'm into computer and video games infinitely less than most other people in my age-group and socio-economic class. They are too crude and obvious. I like music, and my taste is rather eclectic and broad; some of the only stuff I really have a dislike for is country music, though I'm always open to new experiences.
I like philosophy, especially ethics; "what should I do?" is always a much more interesting question than "what can I do?" (though "why do I do what I do?" is also always good), which is why I'm not interested in law. I love debate, and consider the Internet the perfect medium for in-depth exchanges of ideas and arguments, but am rarely fortunate enough to find a debate-partner around here. I also like dabbling in logic (fallacies are funtastic), though some of the tougher concepts (especially where it intersects with mathematics) will probably be always be beyond my comprehension.
I am very interested in linguistics. I like clever, subtle wordplay (not puns.), interjecting a little bit of poetry into random bits of any day, and rethinking the deeper meaning of words and concepts on a regular basis to allow for cool innovations. I am most interested in English, my native language, and Latin, the foreign language I'm most well-versed in.
I also like most things that are awesome, and most things that aren't awesome.
[edit] Technology
I use the Foxfire web browser and the Windows XP operating system on a Dell PC with 1024x768 resolution. I sometimes use an IBM ThinkPad laptop. I have limited HTML skills, and no skills whatsoever in other programming stuff. Macs frustrate me, and I detest touchpads. I have limited technical expertise, and even more limited technical interest. In fact, machines, automobiles, electronics, etc. in general turn me off. They're too simple, easy, and well-designed for me; humans are much more fun.
This page has been vandalized: π times.
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