User:Ohconfucius

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Ohconfucius
Wikipedia:Babel
en This user is a native speaker of English.
fr-5 Cet utilisateur parle français à un niveau professionnel.
zh-4 該用戶能以道地的中文進行交流。
该用户能以地道的中文进行交流。
es-2 Este usuario puede contribuir con un nivel intermedio de español.
cs-1 Tento uživatel má základní znalosti češtiny.
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I'm a married male born in the 1960 -which makes me a "Generation X". I live in Hong Kong with 2 kids, and work in the hospitality industry.

On economic issues, I tend to be a Classical liberal, on social issues, I believe in freedom and democracy with a strongly system of checks and balances to prevent governments from eroding civil liberties.

I started being a Wikipedian in July 2006.

Contents

[edit] Interests as a Wikipedian

I tend to work on any articles which take my fancy. I sometimes create new ones, but most of the time I will work on ones which I know something about, or are labelled in need of work. I prefer by far working on biographies, as there is so much one could learn from the lives of successful people. Occasionally, I also take listings in French, Spanish and Chinese and translate their contents into English, and vice versa.

Interested in politics, human rights, Chinese culture, Chinese history, music, audiophilia

[edit] Loves

A job well done: I take my editorship of wiki very seriously, and try to be thorough in my research, whether in the articles I am trying to build, or those under AfD. Except in cases where no notability is asserted, I will never vote on a page without having first carefully investigating all material available online. I will take into account any relevant material provided by others in the debate, but will never follow a vote blindly.

I believe that WP:N is almost as important as WP:V. Regrettably, WP:N is only a guideline. Having said that, I believe that some of its criteria are too tight (in the cases of some really specialist people) that it is sometimes a judgement call. When I try and evaluate an actor's notability, I would look at his resumé, the what type of show he's been in, what type of rôle. For an author, I will look at who publishes her books, how many books have been written, how many reviews published, and her books' Amazon.com rank.

It annoys me that the "primary subject" rule per WP:BIO is often bent. I have often seen people gloss over the guidance that items appearing in different journals on the same day on the same issue count only as one coverage.

[edit] Pet peeves

[edit] self-promoters

I have noticed considerable junk from self-promoters, people who self-publish a book or CD, people who think they are notable just because they have a book published, and people who think that the size of their own egos would entitle them to a wiki entry.

A Wikipedia article more often than not guarantees prominent hits on Google. New products, new companies, non-notable people and bands often come to wiki seeking free publicity........ egoes and commercial interests are often too strong. I hardly ever hesitate to speedy any article for a subject who does not assert notability, or any article which looks like advertising.

[edit] Copyright violations

Plagiarism has taken on a new dimension in the internet/computer age. Copying and pasting is too easy, and there are many people who put up new pages just for its own sake, and/or are just to idle to write stuff themselves. Wholescale copying whist attributing sources is still copyvio. I ruthlessly speedy any such articles I come across.

[edit] Reality TV

I watch reality television like the rest of us. Some are better than others, and I do sometimes scorn at the production concepts. I actually quite like ANTM and Project Runway. My main grip as a wikipedian is from people who insist that appearing on television inherently makes someone famous or notable. Supporters often confuse "contestant" with "star". I accept that the shows may give someone with potential the break in furthering their chosen careers.

This genre of programming may be entertaining, but they are fundamentally about how a person behaves, and usually not what they do. The zoo may be notable, but monkey A and monkey B inside are not. Here is a good place to debunk that other fallacy: "if it's in the news, it must be true". Simply, it ain't. Even the most reputable sources occasionally get things wrong. Nevertheless, some sources are better than others, and that is exactly why wiki insists, and why we as editors should insist, on reliable sources, not just any old ones.

[edit] all-inclusiveness

"Wikipedia is not google" – JFW. But for the existence of WP:NOT, Wiki could be heaven for "trainspotters": there is a huge temptation for people to churn out articles, or spend a lot of time writing in very small detail about, for example, bus routes and tram stops. Although wiki is not paper, wiki is not an indiscriminate collection of information either, and I will more often than not vote for the deletion of lists, pages of bus schedules and list of routes in particular. Having said that, I have voted to keep some lists from deletion.

Even if an article isn't doing any harm by existing, it is not enough to justify keeping it if it fails WP:NOT. In that context, I was surprised to find a huge number of stub articles in the categories {{guyed masts}}, {{towers}} etc. I have been getting rather good at mass deletions, having executed a total of over 300 useless stub articles linked to List of masts to date through AfD, with another 300 gone through prods. My record is 54 stub articles deleted in one go ;-).

See also :my essay on masts and towers and my prods page

[edit] Summary

Together, these have made me a deletionist. I err on the side of caution when attempting verifications per WP:V. It is better to have one article fewer, than an inaccurate article.

Like every garden, you need to do a lot of pruning. The weeds just grow too fast, and there are only 24 hours in a day, and I only have hand tools right now. Unfortunately, the sun shines 24 hours a day somewhere in the Wikipedia world ;-), but I am not the only gardener.

[edit] External resources I regularly use

I am fond of User:Uncle G's saying "counting Ghits is not research".

I have often had contradictory results using just Google: often quite notable individuals have few GHits, and very often non-notable individuals get loads, depending what field they are in, where they list and link their pages and info.

Amongst all the chaff of Ghits, there may be some wheat, and it takes time to analyse out that which is important from that which is not. The only hard and fast rule is to click patiently through all (well not all, as I tend still take a flier through forum entries, and directories, and often through blogs) the Glinks, and access accessory sources where available. Then there's the credibility concerns of those accessory pages to consider, but that's another matter. I need to build up a list of sites useful for the different specialties we come up with most frequently.

Below are free tools I use frequently. However, whilst these are impeccable sources for the most part, I should add that none of these is infallible. Some provide useful links, and a small number of them may themselves fail Wikipedia policy on reliable sources.

[edit] Company information

[edit] News


[edit] Significant contributions

America's Next Top Model (all seasons), American Idol (all seasons), Anko Asato, audiophile, Australian Idol (all seasons), Benjamin Cruz, Bob Ludwig, Brian Lees, The Bus Uncle, Carl Ford, Carl T.C. Gutierrez, Carlos Slim, Cart noodle, Chen Liangyu, Cheung Ching Estate, Chief Executive of Hong Kong, City of Birmingham Tramways Company Ltd, Daniel Snyder, Dave Smalley (Cleveland), David Akers-Jones, David Michael Webb, Direct to Disk Recording, Domenico Montagnana, Edinburgh Place Ferry Pier, Eric Carmen, Hong Kong Golden Forum, Havas, QUAD, He Depu, Henderson Land Development, Ho (surname), Housing estate, International Finance Centre, InvestHK, Isobaric speakers, Ivor Tiefenbrun, Jean Hamburger, Jim Bonfanti, Joyce Symons, Julian Vereker, KCR Light Rail, Kenny Williams, Linn Products, Linn Sondek LP12, List of Home Ownership Scheme Courts in Hong Kong, List of masts, List of public housing estates in Hong Kong, Mark Clifford, Martha Hill, Martin Gordon, Matteo Goffriller, Michael Rowse, Naim Audio, Open letter to the Sixteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Ouyang Yi, Pineapple bun, Privatisation, Public housing estate (in progress), The Raspberries, Regal Hotels International, Robert Holleyman, Roksan Audio, Shek Kip Mei Estate, Snyder Communications, Solina Chau, South China Morning Post, The Standard, Star Ferry Pier, Central, Suicide methods, Thwaites & Reed, Top Ten Lists of Roger Ebert, Vincent Bolloré, Web.com, West Kowloon, World-Wide House, Zhao Changqing.

[edit] Translations

[edit] into English

[edit] into French

[edit] into Chinese

[edit] Heroes

Steve Jobs for his vision, Margaret Thatcher for her strength and determination, Miles Davis for his creativity, Milton Friedman for his creative modern-day solutions in furtherance of free enterprise and the ideas of Adam Smith.

[edit] Music

I still possess a large collection of vinyl LPs in addition to a smaller collection of CDs. I am not at all into digital downloads for listening to music seriously, because I find the sound quality is often lacking. I often use P2P networks to download potentially interesting music to listen to on my iPod Nano. If I find something to my liking, I will then buy the CD. Uninteresting stuff gets deleted within a matter of days.

Fairly mainstream, into 1970s New Wave, New Romantics, Rock, Jazz Funk/Fusion, Jazz

[edit] Current playlist

[edit] Favourite albums (in alphabetical order)

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