User:FT2

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Contents 1 What I do on Wikipedia 2 Feedback: Life in the hot seat 3 Special memories 4 And last... some quotes :)

[edit] What I do on Wikipedia

I'm a compulsive fixer of mess, so whatever I might be 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:

1. 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.

    

2. 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.

   
   Articles I've worked on are listed here.

    

3. Last, as part of the community, I stop off to help on the reference desk, the 1.0 editorial team, the Wikipedia Neutrality Project, 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).

   
   Wikipedia project and other pages I've worked on are listed here.
    

[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 :)

- kizzle 00:47, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC) [1]

• "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."

- CheeseDreams 19:42, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC) Ahhh, that nice warm feeling. [2]

Yes, you are doing some good work there.Pedant [3]

• "Bet you have sex with your pets, huh?"

On spending 3/4 hr explaining wiki NPOV + NPA 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.

(Epilogue: user seriously failed to comprehend NPOV, NPA or OR; arbcom case eventually presented; user blocked from editing a wide range of this and related subjects. My 1st ArbCom case)

• "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) Cultural and historical background of Jesus [4]

• "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) [5]

• "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) [6]

• "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) Talk:Cultural and historical background of Jesus [7]

• "Thanks for your help in the article about Gral. Shahnawaz Tanai. I really appreciate it, since in order to achieve a good article, language is also an important factor on it. Cheers !"

- Messhermit 21:20, 29 November 2005 (UTC) [8] (Response to non-English speaker's request for review of one of his new articles)

• "Nice work FT2 - the article is stronger for your efforts."

- StephenHildrey 20:46, 13 December 2005 (UTC) [9] 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) [10]

• "Gender Differences: 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) [11] Original reference desk response here

• "Thanks for the help on the science helpdesk and the link to Last_universal_ancestor. You rule!!"

- Sonjaaa 04:17, 28 April 2006 (UTC) [12]

• "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 14:55, 29 May 2006 (UTC) Cultural and historical background of Jesus [13]

• "Heads up guys! FT2 is trying to gain power so he can promote Neurolinguistic Programming and Bestiality ... He promotes NLP by OR, selective editing, adding POV, and by accusing every neutral editor of being a sock. (I'm a responsible sock btw)."

- Reaction by vandal at a point where he was having new socks spotted and passed to RFCU for blocking rather quickly (July 06). Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Clerks/Candidates  [14] And my handling and reply, for what it's worth: [15].

(Epilogue: User eventually banned for a mixture of WP:SOCK, NPA, NPOV and long-term vandalism. My 2nd ArbCom case.)

• "Thanks! Thank you FT2 for merging the reindeer pages and adding a smoother apperance. I was struggling with how to make each individual article unique, but they are better merged. I am glad to see what I started has now been perfected."

- Merond e 12:31, 2 July 2006 (UTC) Santa Claus' reindeer [16]

• "I'm getting a good feeling about this page. I think it has a nice tone, not proscriptive, not condemnatory of zoophilia, but cautionary, which is what you want in these circumstances. This page may save lives, may help people avoid sickness and trauma. We can be proud."
• "This is a unique page on the web. If I'm not mistaken, this is the only page on the entire web that covers this topic (zoophilia/bestiality and health/disease) exclusively and in such depth. I believe it may be unique. That is surely an achievement."

- Skoppensboer 01:35, 7 December 2006 (UTC) and 18:14, 7 December 2006 (UTC) on the co-authoring of Zoophilia and health, which at one point went towards mediation before working out well. [17] [18]

• "Global Warming Thanks -- I love Wikipedia! Thanks for the thorough response. I am an English teacher at an inner city high school (Dorsey) in L.A. and I take immense comfort in recommending Wikipedia as a resource for my students to conduct research. I was alarmed at the nonsense Arnold 19 posted, but the processes you described are as much as one could hope for in this information age. I have ridden the Wiki-Wiki bus many times in Honolulu and have just now discovered the connection to Wikipedia; one more reason to feel good about this online encyclopedia. Again, thanks so much for the rapid and excellent discourse over my concerns."

- user:Ccgleason 00:52, January 8, 2007 (UTC) [19] (original question/concern and reply)

• "You're awesome.
  That's it:)."

- Nina Odell 14:34, 8 January 2007 (UTC) on User_talk:FT2 Still not sure what this is for. General editorship, I think. [20]

• "Seriously... thank you for protecting the Labrador retriever section and for your additions. I've been fighting vandalism on that page for months. -Erikeltic."

- 24.115.231.66 19:34, January 8 2007 (UTC) [21]

• "Good job on Wikipedia:Conflict of interest."

- WAS 4.250 20:56, 8 January 2007 (UTC) on adding administrative COI to the coverage of WP:COI [22]

[edit] Special memories

Main article: User:FT2/Memories

This page keeps a few warm memories alive in more detail - typically projects or areas I worked on extensively over a period of time.

[edit] And last... some quotes :)

"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.

About links

We're in general happy to use any sources, provided they seem to be credible, reliable, and verifiable. The quality of the source is an integral part of that assessment, and in general one should try to source from more solid sources not less solid ones. However on subjects like this, the websites of those who practice the subject or seem to be recognised in their subcommunities as speaking with a credible voice, may well form a notable viewpoint which needs representing, and whose sources are their own statements online. In other cases, online websites are the better source. We draw a line at citing websites in order to promote their owners interests, with the view that if a website has a genuine benefit to an article, other editors will judge this, not the owner or affiliated parties. Hope this helps. As for your four, I think the last of them is interesting (it's one I've seen before) and would convey much of the subject to third parties; the point is, one doesnt cite websites "just because they're there". there needs to be some considered thought if they're beneficial for encyclopedic purposes. See WP:LINKS.

What is NPOV?

(Posted at Wikipedia_talk:Neutrality Project, asking what NPOV is and whether one should always present an opposing view.) Wikipedia articles are not required to invent or embellish an opposing point of view if there isn't one. We are reporting upon a subject, whatever the article topic may be. Within that, some facts (or their interpretations) will be contested, others will be mostly accepted, others again will be almost universally accepted. We are obligated to ensure that when the article is complete, it mirrors and characterises, without re-enacting, the subject to which it refers, and the presence of opposing views in the article is purely a function of whether there were significant opposing views in the subject itself. The acid test if NPOV is achieved, is the map-territory relation -- the extent to which the article can be used as a "map" to guide a lay-person through the "territory" of the subject, including its relevant detours, conflicts and highways. Like a map, no article perfectly mirrors a siubject, nor is this expected; if it did it would have to re-enact and be as large as the subject itself. There is a "cutoff" of detail, called "notability" in Wikipedia, and a good map must have enough detail, but not too much as to be unwieldy and unhelpful in navigating ones way. -- [23]

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