User:BigNate37/Wikiblog
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This is my Wikiblog. It can be transcluded to make the following description and the latest entry appear. Do not {{subst}} it.
It is how I try to make available information on what I am currently working on at Wikipedia, both for my own reflection and for those who are interested. It is not a blog for my non-wikipedic news. I generally disapprove of blogging as a waste of time, but this is one situation where I believe it to be helpful.
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[edit] The Latest
- What's with all the "sign here" nonsense?
People are putting links in their signature to their "sign here" page. It's a subpage in their userspace where they try to get people's signatures... what is the point in all this? It just seems like needless vanity and server load—as if there wasn't enough (arguably) useless effort spent on having fun at Wikipedia. I think it should be frowned upon and we should start imposing limits on how wide a user's signature can be. I mean, lots of markup is one thing (one thing I'm guilty of myself), but a signature that's half my screen in width with links to every page in the user's userspace is a little offensive. 01:42, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
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This is an archive of past monologue. Do not edit the contents of this page. |
[edit] Older Wikiblog Entries
[edit] 2 December 2006
- Back to old habits?
It seems like I'm back into my old habits of perusing XfDs, policy discussion and getting involved with new or very poor articles—many of which get deleted. I still visit my watchlist quite often, though I've paired it down and I spend less time here each time I log in. That's a good thing. I feel like I've become more knowledgeable in the policy and processes that govern this project, and I like to think that I am better at interpreting policy and guidelines when forming my opinion on the issues I have my hand in here.
The arbitration case with WP:CHILD is frustrating, since it took so long to accomplish so little. Obvious, irrefutable, impractical ivory-tower ideals do not influence any practical progress on the matter. Don't get me wrong, that's not all that was passed down from the comittee, but it looks like that will be the bulk of it. Of course, it is a moot point anyways since subproposals have waxed and waned and the original proposal is all but rejected regardless of the arbitration comittee's decision. But that's enough of that, I don't want to give the flawed impression that I am disappointed with the comittee members. 16:49, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] 7 November 2006
- Back from Wikibreak
Well, I no longer consider myself on a wikibreak. I have lost most of my enthusiasm for the project, though. I guess I've seen too much of the ugly side of Wikipedia and it shook my confidence in this project's ability to be a reputable encyclopedia. I expect that I will ease back into editing in a small role, perhaps as a cross between the anonymous lurker I started as and the excited community member I became. 06:29, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] 25 September 2006
- Extending my wikibreak
I've decided to extend my wikibreak. I was going to come back today. After having calmed down in being away from the Wiki, I looked back on the events at Wikipedia talk:Protecting children's privacy and in particular the actions of Herostratus (talk • contribs), and I became angry again with the way this administrator conducts himself, reverting on a protected page in which he is involved in a dispute. He is using personal attacks, fallacies of logic and erroneous estimates of numbers to further his position and has still failed to respond to my valid concerns and criticisms, some of which still go unanswered since his having archived them. He has also misquoted me and other editors. He is taking far too much control of the discussion because he had at one point thought that the outcome was not going to be to his liking, and he now plays coordinator for the discussion while also being the proposal's keenest supporter.
This administrator explains himself by asserting that by following process the proposed policy would not stand a chance and so he abuses his sysop bit, however he shuns the same tactics from those who oppose his point of view on the proposal. He has marginalised the opposition and misconstrues the definition of consensus. Those who oppose him edit for edit are vocal and unreconciled (and dismissed by a misquote of WP:CON), and those who merely state their reasons for opposition to the policy once are totally ignored. In my eyes, he is incapable of being fair and is unable to separate his administrative role from areas where he becomes personally involved and entrenched. I'll be lurking here when I want to read up on a topic, but I do not want to be associated with editing at an encyclopedia where this is allowed to go on. In having had a small break already, I am confident that this is the way I feel and is not just an irrational reaction, and I don't see how he has been allowed to proceed in this way for so much of the discussion. 09:21, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] 18 September 2006
- Armed with coffee, my watchlist set to fully-auto with the safety turned off
Well, it's official. I'm an obsessive watchlist refresher, sometimes mistakenly using three different tabs to track it. It's come to a nervous twitch, I just flinch and a new tab is loading my watchlist. I'm also getting back into RfD a lot more, and commenting on some of the issues that come up at WP:AN/I. I feel it helps to have a neutral opinion whose intent is not to figure out which party to block. I merely try to propose a peacful, unforced resolution in situations where it might help. Or at least that's how I justify my nosiness in others' incidents since I'm not an admin. I did get a chance to see the cabal at work in my WP:AN/I travels. Ah, dorky humour, good times.
I still haven't taken any pictures of the U of R like I intended, but I like to think that I'll get around to it. Maybe I'll get one of the Regina sound stage which was the old College Ave. campus, as the old pic was taken down for some licensing reason. Probably not—as much as I tell myself otherwise, I can't be bothered to drive for five minutes to do that. 23:18, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] 26 August 2006
- On vacation, so to speak
Have a week off since I just finished one semester of school and am about to start another. In this time, I'll still be popping in to check my talk page and watchlist, but I won't be actively seeking discussions on RfD or patrolling new pages. I'll still be checking my talk page more than my e-mail, so my talk page is probably the best way to contact me. 20:26, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] 17 August 2006
Becoming a little active in AfD, somewhat less active in RfD than before (not as many redirects I feel inclined to contribute to, I guess). Got tangled up with Throat Gaggers (as a new article—AfD discussion) and to a lesser extent New Carissa (as a FA candidate—FA comments). Still on New Page patrol, but mostly being beaten to the punch by users of tools like VP; I've started acting more in a secondary role on NP patrol, refining the edits of automated users and being more active on the talk page of new contributors where I can do so to improve a situation. Coming up to final exams next week so I may not be online as much for the next six or so days. Still a little active in userbox creation and discussion, but only very little.
I'm a huge proponent of communication, and I don't think there is enough of it here; that said I'm bad for not letting new editors know my full intentions while on new page patrol. This is mostly due to a lack of my personal ability to WP:AGF at all times, and that somehow by explaining what is wrong I'll enable those who wish to have vanity articles to circumvent CSD criteria and disguise their intentions such that the material stays for longer, or indefinately. I don't think I'm the only one who does this, and I think I'm even better at communicating with users that I have interactions with here than some administrators, but I know I need to improve. 21:06, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] 26 July 2006
Kinda frustrated with Ubuntu right now. Used Fedora Core 4 for a bit (which worked like crap on my laptop's hardware) and now I acquired a 64bit version of Ubuntu for my beast of a desktop PC. Ubuntu won't load GRUB for me like I'm told it does, and frankly I've yet to meet a Linux distribution that didn't cost me hours upon hours of wasted time. I'm mentioning this here because many Wikiepedia editors use Linux successfully and I'm all out of ideas—I could use some help. If you'd care to take the time to understand how I'm trying to have it set up and suggest how I should do it, please e-mail me. 02:58, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Been spending a lot of time at WP:RFD. Starting to get annoyed with parts of the RfD process, brought my concerns up at the deletion policy talk page. Also brought a new template (User:BigNate37/TM/Un-advertised) into existence after it saw two successful applications. Soon after I finished the template I realised the second successful application was really not that successful. That article's AfD is in progress. 00:21, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] 15 July 2006
Well, I put some work into eCustoms. I think I'm done with that article unless someone brings it up to me again. I've had a couple spurts of new page patrol and one particularly difficult exchange with User:Avalonian Captivity. I learned some better warning template usage in the process, I think. I've also begun work on making my own templates, as evidenced by my User Status section up above my Wikiblog. I'm currently contemplating breaking out my Wikiblog into a seperate userpage to store all but the latest messages at. 14:41, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] 5 July 2006
Been writing exams at school lately; not had any time to work on eCustoms for User:Customs Compliance Specialists. Starting some new classes as well and when I have more time I'll get back to editing here. 00:53, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] 26 June 2006
I've been in open dialog with a few editors; mostly stuff I happened upon during my new page skimmings. I automatically add any page I edit to my watchlist and over the last week or so I've accumulated enough of a watch list to keep me busy. I also do some general browsing, reading, and the slight grammatical/formating edit. Likely to become my most significant focus of effort is eCustoms where I will probably be inserting some content linked to me by the article's creating author, User:Customs Compliance Specialists, in an effort to prevent WP:AUTO and WP:NPOV conflicts. I am skeptical of pages that are autobiographies which is why it caught my eye on Special:New Pages. 02:07, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] 22 June 2006
I've been doing a lot of watching for newly created pages lately. I jump on articles with a very low size (less than 500 bytes) that are created by a user with no user page, and anything that looks suspiciously like an autobiography. Anything that meets WP:CSD, I'll tag for deletion. I pick out the ones that look like autobiographies and speedy them if I can; if they don't meet WP:CSD I stick in a {{Autobiography}} and {{Importance}} as appropriate ({{Notability}} and {{PotentialVanity}} have also been helpful at times). There are a lot of articles that are worth keeping, and when I come across one that is being newly created I try to stick in a {{Stub}} tag and if necessary one or more cleanup templates. 01:46, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] 16 June 2006
I'm currently working on my userpage to get accustomed to wiki editing. I've a friend who maintains a wiki for our everquest guild, and since I am somewhat interested in editing for Wikipedia as well as this other wiki, I decided it's high time to get learning teh wiki [sic].
Thanks to Jimbo Wales, TomStar81, and Robert A. West whose user pages I used as an example of what to put in my own. 18:50, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
