Contributions
Like most users, I tend to have my little corners of wikipedia in which I tend to be found. Here are some of the areas you're likely to find me in:
- American football (especially college football)
- Florida
- Colorado
- Roads and Highways
- Classic video games
- American politics
- Religion
Articles I've Created
People
Places
Things
- The Original Whizzinator- Admittedly, creating this article was not my best wiki-moment. But when the aforementioned Onterrio Smith was detained at an airport with it (along with dried urine samples), the whizzinator went from being an order-over-the-internet fake penis (available in white, black, tan, and latino!!!) for beating a drug test to being a news item worthy of a wikipedia article.
Substantial Article Contributions
- Bartow, Florida- One of these days I'm going to take this puppy to featured article status.
- American football strategy- This is a work in progress, but I simply don't have the time to do it right now.
- Subway (restaurant)- As someone who has managed a Subway for what seems like four score and seven years, I consider myself the "keeper" of this article, and am surprised to come back every so often and see how much erroneous information seems to gather in this article. I have also added information which the general public typically isn't privy to.
Minor Contributions
Because I am not just an editor... I also use this thing we call an encyclopedia with great regularity, I often find myself doing much copyediting. This can range from simple spelling or grammatical fixes to correcting huge mistakes in accuracy. Yes, You can help !!!
Community Building
Because while Wikipedia is first and foremost, an encyclopedia, it is also much more than that...
Esperanza
I recently joined Esperanza, the association dedicated to strengthening the wiki-community. One of the problems I've found with wikipedia since I've joined is that there is much animosity, bickering, and generally too much BS which get in the way of building a great encyclopedia. I joined Esperanza so that I could, hopefully, make a small difference. I highly recommend joining Esperanza, but with a caveat... it may require a change in attitude. I did a lot of thinking before I joined because I wanted to make sure I would be a positive reflection on the rest of the Esperanza members.
Articles for Deletion
I try to participate in Afd several times a week. I do tend to be a deletionist.
Requests for Adminship
I vote on Rfa once a week or so. To me, it's important to have administrators who know what they are doing and who don't abuse their powers, swinging their mopstick wildly like a Jedi who has turned to the darkside. I've tended to be someone who assumes good faith which means I vote support unless I have a compelling reason to vote otherwise(in most cases voting "neutral" along with my reasons for not voting in the affirmative). I don't have a hard set of standards for how I vote, although I am getting closer to having criteria that I can put down on a page. The one thing which will cause me to chose oppose is the nomination of a desysoped admin who is renominated. In my opinion, being an administrator is so important and the power is such that someone who has been elected and subsequently abused the power to the extent that they are desysoped should never be allowed to become administrator again. Hey, there are 1000+ admins and many more users who are capable... there's no shortage on the English wikipedia, so why risk giving someone a "second chance" ? Perhaps if more people took that position, maybe more of the current administrators would act more responsibly.
I also strongly oppose making "bots"/scripts/other programs/droids/any other non-sentient entity an administrator.
Vandal Fighting
Speaking of acting responsibly, I have a confession to make: My first experiences with wikipedia were as a vandal. This was before I even started the current Jcam account. I wasn't "Michael Pelican Shit Johnny on Wheels"- my edits were mostly small annoying ones(although I was blocked several times and appeared on the vandalism list a few times) and were probably less than a hundred (but at least several dozen). Then I happened to come across an article in which the facts were all wrong(it was the article about Subway Sandwiches-I used to manage a Subway). Instead of vandalising the article, I decided to correct the obvious(to me) mistakes. After I clicked on "save" (which I'd done many times before), I read the updated article, realised I'd improved it immensely, and then it hit me... building an encyclopedia could be more fun than destroying it. And probably longer lasting as well(the edit I made then is still in place) while vandalism doesn't usually last more than a few minutes.
I wasn't sure if I should "confess" about my past- who knows it could come back to haunt me in the future, but I did so in the hope that some vandal might some day read this and maybe they would think twice...
I do try to do some patroling of recent changes several times a week- remembering my history, and of course trying not to bite the newcomers.
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My Wiki Philosophy
What I try to achieve:
- Be Kind and Civil. Because things can always get tense.
- Move around. I used to have the tendency to edit in one place for days at a time. For example, I'd concentrate on American football articles and then get burned out. Now, I try not to edit in one area too long. If I feel I've been editing in one area too long, I'll go to another area which interests me and go back to what I was doing later.
- Be bold but be accurate. Nothing worse than an encyclopedia with erroneous information.
- Don't be too personal about your edits. We've all had it happen... spend a lot of time working on an article, and then someone comes along, doesn't like what you put, and changes it all around. As much as we'd all like to think a certain article is our "baby", it's not. When this happens, I take a day or two off from the article and then go back to it. And, hey, sometimes that unwanted edit was actually an improvement.
- When you see good work, give praise. When you see less than stellar work, give constructive criticism. This goes along with being kind and civil, but its worth mentioning again. Once I registered for an account, I was severely rebuked by an established user(a controversial one whose name I won't mention). I seriously considered leaving right there until I had another use who gave me a compliment and this encouraged me to continue.
- Even if an article is less than complete, don't hesitate to fix grammatical, punctuation, and other small errors. I saw something on someone else's user page in which it was said that it is a waste to fix errors like this in an article which is far from complete. The analogy used was "why wax a car when you are going to paint it afterwards." My argument is this: "But if you aren't sure when the car will be painted and the neighbors have to see you drive the car, you might as well make it look as good as you can, for now."
- Have fun ! Because if you aren't enjoying yourself... why bother ?
A few simple userboxes
There used to be more here, but I figured I'd make my user page a little less complicated... and perhaps controversial. So they are on a separate page. If you don't want to know my opinions(which I strive to keep out of article space with a vengeance, then don't go here.
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This user has a website, which can be found here. |
User pages on other wikis
My Edit counts:
Accurate as of November 11th, 2006. For the most up to date counts, go here.
- Total edits 1014
- Main: 511
- Talk: 80
- User: 77
- User talk: 104
- Wikipedia: 162
- Wikipedia talk: 26
- Image: 14
- Image talk: 0
- Template: 6
- Template talk: 0
- Help: 0
- Help talk: 1
- Category: 2
- Category talk: 1
- Portal: 26
- Portal talk: 4
Edits 3 most recent months:
- September '06: 119
- October '06: 409
- November '06: 183
Top 5 Articles edited:
| 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. |
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Favorite Portals
I have recently discovered the joy of browsing wikipedia via portals. Here are some of my favorites...
Special thanx to....
SomeGuy1969, the first user to ever vandalise my user page. You hold a special place in my heart as the first one. While many would argue that many of my edits to my own user page resemble vandalism (and I won't dispute that), your contribution will always bring a warm feeling to my soul. Sure, there will be others in the future who will vandalise this page in ways you could only dream of, I'll never forget you...
Spiritual Inspiration...
- He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. Psalms 91:1
- From desire anger arises. From anger comes delusion. From delusion loss of memory. From loss of memory the destruction of discrimination. From destruction of discrimination, he perishes.Bhagavad Gita II:62-63
- This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you John 15:12
- Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice. Philippians 4:4
- And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. Psalm 50:15
Some notable quotes...
- "Love is friendship set to music." E. Joseph Crossmann
- "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." William Shakespeare, "Hamlet"
- "Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book." Ronald Reagan
- "I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals." Sir Winston Churchill
- "If liberty and equality, as is thought by some are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost. " Aristotle
Quick Facts
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Things I Like
Thinks I Dislike
- Fleetwood Mac- How could a band sell so many albums with such poor songs... not to mention the goat voice singing.
- Subway's Chicken Teriyaki sub- gross!
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