User:Pigman

I'm currently proofreading and tightening prose on various articles, mostly found through Recent changes and Random article. I'm also a member of the Counter-Vandalism Unit. See sidebar for other current projects. In varying degrees, I'm working on:

Basically, I'm working on being a good Wikipedian and finding projects suited to my skills and interests. Assume my good faith in editing and if I make mistakes, please notify me; I'm not infallible. I try to behave coolly and with a balanced attitude here but I have been known to get cranky on rare occasions, so if I act incivilly, please let me know. However, be aware that I have a low tolerance for trollish behaviour. You can be certain I've been on the internet long enough to recognize such behaviour quickly and I will act accordingly. I cleave to WP:AGF and courtesy to the best of my ability but at a certain point... well, I admit to imperfection. My idea of imperfection is rather mild, though. I suspect most people wouldn't even notice the way I express it.

[edit] That Funky Wikipedia Civilization

Recently I've been toying with the idea of seeking adminship, despite the fact that there are facets (or lack thereof) in my WP participation sure to disqualify me in some quarters. See Musings on Adminship, an essay I'm developing as an additional retardant to any such attempted bid on my part. Satiric observation and offensive speech mingle in the essay, never comfortable companions for popularity. Politics is not my strong point. I fail at affirmative self-promotion and caution.

[edit] I hateses the vandalses...

Working on vandalism patrol has given me some sympathy with the position of requiring editors to register and create an account before editing. A fairly cogent analysis of this position can be found here: User:Bluemoose/Thoughts. (I am woefully sad to find that Bluemoose left Wikipedia on 1-Dec-2006.) On the other hand, such a small step probably wouldn't discourage those who I call "hobbyist" vandals. For these, vandalism is a kind of strange text videogame and little can deter them in an open project like Wikipedia without making Wikipedia into a different beast altogether.

[edit] Current Pet Peeve

The remarkably low levels of footnotes, references, and third-party sources to support information in the body of many articles. A corollary to this is the use of trivial or not relevant links (usually as external links) as references in order to bolster and beef up the number of references. Padding references is a bad thing. Runner-up: Articles which clearly fall under What Wikipedia is not. Please read it. It's criteria I often use when putting articles up for deletion.

[edit] Current short-term goal

Finishing the time-consuming Starwood Mediation Starwood Arbitration. Sigh There are several majority decisions now available: Proposed decision.

[edit] Current Hobby

Cruising the New Pages and slapping {{db-bio}} and other speedy delete templates on many, many articles. I mean, really: a vanity press at least requires people to pay them money to publish. On Wikipedia, anyone who knows how to write the word "poop" can start a page. Sheesh! (Er, but I'm not saying "poop" doesn't deserve an article; just on Wiktionary, please.) (Er, Part 2: Nor am I taking the position of limiting who can start an article; this is just humourous commentary.) Runner-up: WikiGnoming spelling and formating mistakes. Sooo February, 2007 and I'm over it now: Vastly overloading weak and/or short articles with template tags like {{orphan}}, {{verify}}, {{wikify}}, {{tone}}, {{references}}, {{context}}, {{copyedit}}, and {{notability}}. This is not always a proactive, constructive approach but sometimes it's easier on my glazed-over brain than the effort of trying to improve the articles. I fail at consistent, boundless enthusiasm for all Wikipedia articles.

[edit] Worst Mistake (at the moment)

Putting a {{prod}} notice on Sammuel Barlay. This is the second or third mistake of this type I've made on football/soccer players in the last couple of months. I obviously do not have good judgment when it comes to notability in this sport and should just keep my ill-informed opinions to myself in such cases. Runner-up: I just noticed I've been replacing English "recognise" with American "recognize". I generally know the difference between English and American variants of words but I was trusting the Firefox spellcheck too much. Oops. I fail at paying attention to detail (for the moment.)

[edit] Credo: My Deletionism Views

I am not a strict Deletionist. However, I do believe in taking the trash out. I try to not judge an article on my personal experience or familiarity with the subject but on verifiability and reliable sources. This means I am very tough on articles without reliable sources. I will take other experienced editor's views into consideration as to whether to allow a new article with flawed or no references to develop further rather than just put it up for deletion. The consistent creation of vanity and promotional articles on WP leads me to be more ruthless in my decisions on poorly sourced articles than is perhaps necessary, but those are the breaks. Perhaps I'm more of a Darwikinist because I see myself in the role of culling the weak and sick from the herd. However, I am not inflexible; I will change my opinion if verifiable information can be presented and incorporated into the article.

[edit] My edit style

I use the "preview" button often during edits. Although I believe it's a bad idea, I usually do substantial changes to an article in a single editing session. Actually, if I do several edits in a row to an article, it's more probably because I made a mistake in my editing than consecutive major changes. If my changes are minor, I try to mark them as such. Twinkle currently has a not-so-good habit of marking some of what I consider major edits as minor (adding templates, etc.) Speaking of Twinkle, whenever I use it to put a speedy delete on an article it has the great feature of opening up the editor who started the article's talk page to notify them of the placement. Such thoughtful and convenient software. Love it.

[edit] Never again the revert times!

Except in the cases of blatant (and I do mean blatant) vandalism, I'm not keen on reverting people more than once. I'm a firm believer that, if good faith edits are contested, the best course is discussion on the talk page and bringing in more eyes to evaluate the situation. I try hard in such cases to bring in editors I respect but don't know their specific opinion on the specific situation. I'd go so far as to say rallying bodies, !votes, and opinions to support one side or the other is a Bad Thing in almost all cases. (Hey, I have to leave a loophole.)

[edit] Give me the dregs...

For some reason, I like going through the dead-end pages, pages with no wikilinks to other articles. These are often the dregs of Wikipedia articles: vanity, original research, oddball perspectives, strange subjects, inarticulate and ill-conceived, weirdness, etc. The vast majority (70-90%) have absolutely no possibility of becoming even stubs, much less more standard articles. But then there's the gems, started by someone who doesn't really understand WP yet but is eager to learn and share their particular knowledge about a person or subject in an article. And that's part of why I work on Wikipedia: to watch and help articles arise from bare concept to stable nugget to a full article. Even a cynic such as I may smile at such unfolding and development. Despite the vandals and the sometimes difficult interactions with trollish participants, it's still fun.

[edit] Post Scriptum

This user page seems to be getting inordinately long. I'd feel guilty but I observe that almost everything on it relates directly to my Wikipedia participation and experience. There are no links to my home page or blog. This was not an ongoing, conscious decision on my part but I'm pleased it has turned out this way. I want my actions and behaviour on Wikipedia to be the main criteria on which I'm judged by other Wikipedians. I try to act honourably here, an old-fashioned concept perhaps but one which is a touchstone for me. Post Post Scriptum: In light of regular exposures of Wikipedians who have misrepresented their education/qualifications in their dealings on Wikipedia, I might as well declare that my experience and background is pretty much what I've detailed on this user page. My understanding of Wikipedia, its culture and policies have changed over time and so have I. I have neither the time nor energy to spend on creating elaborate alternate identities or personalities. I doubt this issue will ever be of consequence anyway: I have no real ambition to be a b'crat or arbcom member, and barely enough to consider being an admin. My real flaw is Too Much Information Syndrome (TMI), exemplified by bothering to address this issue at all. So there.