User:AlisonW

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This user is an administrator.
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This user is an OTRS member.
This page has been semi-protected from editing.
This page has been semi-protected from editing.
This user is from England.
This user is from England.

"Sometimes I'm the lightening[1] rod, Sometimes I'm the spark!"


One of the aspects of the 'lightning rod' approach is that it serves to draw out those who otherwise try to hide in the shadows where they can act against our improvement and development of this free encyclopaedia with impunity. Whilst many of those who have commented upon my recent edits are entirely innocent it is clear that others were not[2]. It is clear to me that responses to my edits and answers have, sadly, served to confirm my suspicions in that respect and identify some individuals as biased and actively seeking to make things difficult for me where ever they can (ie trolling). Whilst I hate to admit defeat and give them the appearance of success they really do not deserve, I shall consider my position awhile.

My Wish for Wikipedia

Is that people would spend less time on prettifying their userpages, or seeking to delete articles or useful information on pages, and actually spend their time here *adding* to "the sum of all human knowledge". The Wikimedia Foundation and its allied Chapters fund this operation through thousands of individual donations, and editing the content in order to increase that record of knowledge is and will always be far more important than getting hung up on 'process' and 'policy'. The only policy that matters is to *add useful stuff*.

I can do no better than to quote someone who wrote a comment on one of my blogs:

"Deleting stuff is really stupid, there´s been a few times I´ve looked things up on wp, and it´s had ´marked for deletion´ pasted over it, I´ve felt lucky to get there and find the info I wanted before the vandals who run lurk there wiped it. Often I don´t need to know a lot of in depth detail so even a stub is enough to be really useful.
"Probably a good many people who actually *use* the site find things out just want as much info as possible, so long as it´s accurate it doesn´t matter if it´s not complete so long as the gaps are marked. Most people won´t have an account and don´t have time to get into a long argument with some troll who spends their life being negative rather than actually contributing content and filling in the gaps."

Another commenter had noted:

"Then again, it may just be naivety on my part in assuming that an encyclopedia is about amassing as much knowledge as possible."

Indeed.

Rail Icons

The as-complete-as-I-can-make-it set of railway icons for route maps can be found at User:AlisonW/Rail Icons. If new icons (prefixes) are created on existing codes it will pick them up automatically (subject to MediaWiki caching images for up to an hour or so) but completely new codes (suffixes and main codes) need to be added manually. If you create such a new main code then you need to let me know on User talk:AlisonW/Rail Icons. Please do not do it yourself, thanks, as the interactions are a little crazy. Subsidiary templates are currently:


  1. ^ Intentional pun on 'lightning' as in creating a central response to an issue, and 'lighten up' as people get just too serious and I like to ease the vibe when I can
  2. ^ That I choose to not quote diffs on this matter, either regarding the factual basis of my original claims or regarding the lies and mistruths said of me in the WP:AN thread is my choice; others are welcome to investigate and conclude their own opinions on the actions of certain individuals though.