User:GRBerry

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

User:GRBerry will have limited time for Wikipedia through roughly mid-April.
This user is an administrator
This user is an administrator.

Contents

B.S. in Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1997

Languages: English only

My to do list

[edit] Pages I regularly reference or recommend

[edit] POV risks and Affiliations

I am a Christian. I attend a non-notable, non-denominational, evangelical, semi-charismatic, and semi-fundamentalist church that was a church plant of a Southern Baptist church. I am not a member due to differences in scriptural interpretation, primarily regarding scriptural authority, pastoral authority, and creationism/evolution. I believe that Christianity and the New Testament can not be fully understood without first understanding Judaism as of the time of Christ and the writing of the New Testament.

There is a real POV risk when I am editing religious articles. I believe I can handle this, as my views are my own, many of my views on Christian controversies are unformed or highly tentative, and I have no interest in articles on religions other than Christianity (my own religion) and Judaism (for which I have high regard).

I also watch Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Religion and philosophy. I sometimes will chime in on discussions for articles about other religions. There is minimal risk here, as I normally will only copyedit such articles.


I am a member of the worldwide family of Scouts. I earned my Eagle Scout badge from Troop 39, Pine Tree Council, Boy Scouts of America, and worked as a nature counselor for two summers at Camp William Hinds (run by that council). I have not been active in scouting for over 17 years, so don't believe my knowledge is current. I own a circa 1920 BSA handbook, but would have to dig it out of the attic if you wanted me to look up something in it. I respect the BSA, the GSUSA, and the Campfire organizations but have no significant POV risk driven by this affiliation.


ΑΦΩ I am an alumni brother of Alpha Phi Omega, Alpha Chi chapter. The service orientation of the fraternity is a partial explanation of why I edit Wikipedia at all. I do not believe this constitutes a risk for edits to anything other than the article on the fraternity, which I don't intend to edit.


Job I have been employed by Pegasystems Inc. 1997-present, primarily as an internal financial planner/analyst. So far as I know, there is no article on the company, and my job is not especially industry specific. There is essentially no POV risk from this long term relationship. Nasdaq:PEGA

[edit] WikiPhilosophy

These are a few aspects of wikipedia philosophy that I've felt strongly enough to comment about. I wouldn't say it if I didn't want you to agree with me, changing your mind as needed.

[edit] Process

I am more annoyed by admins ignoring process or policy than by users doing the same, because admins are trusted with greater powers, and have greater potential to damage Wikipedia both by use of their powers and by being seen as more representative of Wikipedia.

I tend to be quite process oriented both within and without Wikipedia, sometimes too much so. I've left one job due to my frustration over end-runs around process. On Wikipedia, I feel that an excess of process will normally cause less harm than a debatable shortcut of process, so I'll err on the side of extra process.

As of 30 December 2006, I am now an administrator, see Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/GRBerry. Please use my talk page for any concerns you have about inappropriate behavior. My email is enabled, but I read email at work, so my talk page will often be faster. Email is available for items needing that format (privacy, forwarding other emails, etc...).

[edit] Experts

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Encyclopedias (these past couple centuries) are tertiary sources. For the purpose of creating an encyclopedia article, an expert on a topic is somebody that knows, can find, and can cite the relevant secondary source literature on the topic. For the purpose of creating a secondary source (in Wikipedia terms, for doing original research that it is against policy to publish here), an expert is somebody that can work with primary sources in the field. The secondary source creating experts will normally also be experts for creating encyclopedia articles. But to demonstrate expertise for our purposes, they need to be able to discuss the existing secondary source literature.

All else being equal, an expert is more capable of writing and maintaining an encyclopedia article on a topic in their field of expertise. They know the source better, and if they don't have a partisan point of view themseleves, are better able to make an article comply with the restrictions against putting undue weight on minority and crank viewpoints. Thus Wikipedia, and we as wikipedians need to respect expertise when found. Credentials matter, but the acid test, as described in the prior paragraph, is the ability to use, find, and cite sources. If some claims, or even has verified, credentials of expertise and makes claims that they can't back up with sources, those claims should be disregarded. On the other hand, if they cite sources, their interpretation should be given due weight, which is greater than that of non-experts, but not necessarily overriding weight.

[edit] Notability

I believe that notability is important. If a subject isn't notable, having an article on it is just not encyclopedic, and thus a violation of the policy WP:NOT. My basic view on notability is that a topic gets notability from intrinsic importance (heads of nation states, not heads of micronations) or from independent people noticing and creating published reliable sources about the topic. The latter is the primary notability criterion, and is somewhat further elucidated by the essay WP:INDY.

I'm more willing to be forgiving of a low quality article that explains why the topic is important than I am a high quality article on esoteric content. I'm also more forgiving of a sourced article than an unsourced one. If the history of an article shows that active editing has been unable to improve a bad quality article over a sufficiently long period of time, I'll support a stubbing or whitewash.

  1. Google Scholar and Google Book references are much more significant than Google News or Google News Archive which are in turn more significant than Google Web. I'll view something as notable if it has even a few Scholar or Book references, while may not do the same for hundreds or thousands of Google Web hits.
    The Google tests are most useful for modern events, people, concepts, and places. For historic ones, I feel that they can show notability but can not show non-notability. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
  2. The Alexa test serves no useful purpose.
  3. I totally reject the argument that all schools deserve an article. At Wikischools, they would, but not at Wikipedia. Most people spend a lot more of their life at at least one employer than they do at any one school, but we don't treat that as a reason to keep all companies. Notability for a school needs to be established relative to other schools. I'd like to see us keep only about the top 10% or less in significance. Those will generally be schools where new schooling methods were introduced or popularized, which broke major social barriers, or which are historically important (i.e., has already passed the 100 year test, not just by continuing to exist but continuing to be known for something a 100 years old). For now, I'm willing to compromise by keeping schools that have what is likely to be only temporary notoriety/renown such as St. Charles East High School which became in the U.S. a poster school for the toxic mold "crisis". This should be evidenced by non-local reliable sources covering the school. To clarify, coverage in the regional paper is not sufficient. So the Boston Globe doesn't cut it for a Massachusetts school but would for a Maine school.
  4. We are currently doing a decent job with churches (in the sense of congregations). We won't even keep a megachurch solely on the basis of it being large, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Applegate Christian Fellowship. WP:NOTE is working just fine for churches, when applied.

[edit] Quality

We need to focus at least as much on quality as we do on quantity. Quality of Wikipedia as a whole can be improved by 1) adding content of above average quality, 2) removing content of below average quality, or 3) improving existing content. In the space I work in, all three matter. Stubs on solidly encyclopedic topics should be expanded with good material. Material of low enough quality or on worthless topics should be jettisoned in its entirety. New articles should be either given a boost or the boot.

I focus on sourcing as the easiest to spot, least subjective aspect of quality. Compelling prose, balance, etc... are equally legitimate aspects of quality. They aren't my focus, because they are too readily a matter of subjective judgment on which lasting consensus will be very difficult to sustain (and frankly, I'm not a great source of compelling prose). We can all recognize citations as citations, and most editors are competent to evaluate sources on most topics. Although I believe that an improved article is the best outcome of AFD, I'm also willing to delete material that has never been sourced.

[edit] Neutral Point of View

"The human mind is generally far more eager to praise and dispraise than to describe and define." C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves, 1960

The task of an encyclopedia is primarily to describe, secondarily to define (but not to be a dictionary). If praise and criticism (dispraise) is included only in order to describe, adherence to a neutral point of view is much easier than if we start by trying to praise or dispraise.

This user supports the Userbox Migration by hosting a directory of archives. The solution effectively ended the userbox wars. Yeah, it isn't perfect, but neither is any alternative, and nothing else ended those ridiculous wars. Now lets go improve article space, which is what we all are here to do.


[edit] AFD

Despite some appearances to the contrary, AFD is not a vote. It is a discussion, where we try to explain why an article should or should not be deleted. Then a closing admin comes along, and determines both the consensus of the discussion and whether the article meets Wikipedias policies for having an article. Usually, because most AFD contributors are basing their comments on the policies and guidelines, the close looks like it is reading the comments as a vote. But if there is an overriding policy issue raised (a demonstrated copyright violation is the classic example), then policy will be followed.

The most important thing to do as a participant at AFD is to explain your opinion. A bare opinion is useless, because AFD is not a vote. The explanation of what you are thinking is more important than the bolded opinion itself. Good rationales state and link to the guideline or policy behind the reason for deleting or keeping, explain in detail the reasoning as to the applicability, and state any research the editor did before opining. Every opiner is expected to actually read the article and look at the references in the article. The best opiners also do additional research above and beyond this when references or a lack thereof is relevant.

Please don't make an argument based on the presence of another article - it may need to be deleted also! See the essay Wikipedia:Inclusion is not an indicator of notability. Similarly, don't make an argument based on the absence of another article - it may be under a different title or may need to be created.

I think it is important to follow AFD conversations that someone has participated in. AFD starts with a nomination for deletion. Sometimes the nomination is only part of the story, sometimes the nominator tried to research but failed due to a silly mistake (unnoticed typo in a search, etc...), sometimes another user discovers an even better reason for deletion, sometimes an article gets a major reworking during the discussion et cetera... Participants who follow the discussion and change their recorded opinions on the basis of new evidence are, in my mind, the strongest reflection of the consensus of the discussion. I believe that closing admins should be encouraged to overweight the contributions of such participants when they change their opinion, but this is just my opinion.

Please don't go round up people you know will likely agree with your opinion. AFD is not a vote.

If you think the AFD process was violated (early closure by a non-admin, etc...) or the closing admin didn't do the job of following policy and guidelines, first ask the closing admin on their talk page, and only if that doesn't satisfy then bring it to deletion review. This guide may help you make a good deletion review argument, or at least avoid a poor one. When I opine at a deletion review, my review standard is abuse of discretion, not de novo review. When I close a deletion review, I am acting on the basis of the qualified opinions.

[edit] Major Contributions

This is Wikipedia, hopefully they have been revised and improved.

I reserves the right to completely screw up my edits. I make way too many typos, so copyediting is always appreciated. Copyeditors are a rare breed here on Wikipedia, and we should all give them more appreciation. Thanks for fixing my mistakes, and most importantly, thanks for making this a better place for our readers!


AfD I have rescued 6 articles for deletion by improving them, some of them with significant help from other editors. The best possible outcome of an AfD discussion is an improved article. How many have you rescued?


The Original Barnstar
You are being rewarded this barnstar for inspiring others to rescue articles nominated for deletion. I took a leaf out of your book and it looks like I have managed to rescue Laura Hannant from deletion. Bravo! David L Rattigan 15:12, 30 June 2006 (UTC)


As you can see from the list of my major contributions and my project participation below, I prefer to work in the realm of articles that are somewhere between nothing and a full, legitimate article. I don't feel motivated to bring articles up to be a featured article.

[edit] Users I might want to get expertise from

[edit] Project Participation

Normally,

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../g/r/b/User%7EGRBerry_fe84.html"