User:Bmrbarre/Me and Wikipedia

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Hello. I'm Ben, thanks for coming here. This page is just some stuff about Wikipedia and Me, Me and Wikipedia, and Wikipedia and I (non-grammatically correct, of course.) At times, some of this may seem reminiscent of the ravings of a lunatic, but I assure you, this is going somewhere.

Originally, I found Wikipedia because it kept popping up first when I searched for stuff on Google. I started using it for research, generally reading the article, going to all of the external links, and getting as much information as possible. I found that this was a handy tool, and it had lots of stuff that I found interesting. I was also intrigued by the sense of people getting together to do something good.

I was never, and have never been, a vandal. However, some people will always take advantage of any loopholes or abuse what they can: That is just part of human nature, and I don't think anything can be done about it. Well, things can be done, but people will find ways to avoid them or find the loopholes and exploit them.

I began to edit when I found that Mark McGuinn did not have a page. I created it, and it has been expanded quite a bit. I keep hoping he'll notice and send me an email, but I suspect I'll keep waiting.

I don't really know why I made that first edit. I was at school at the time, I believe, and I created a user name and began the page. I guess that I made the edit because I knew about him, and I figured that other people should, too. And that's what Wikipedia is all about, isn't it? Sharing knowledge? Different people contributing what they know so that others can benefit: That is a very great thing in my eye.

Information is power. That is one of my key mottos in life: Information is power. I know that I am surrounded by information, some I am given, some is held back. There is an infinite amount of information out there, and I don't think that anyone will ever know much more than the smallest fraction of it. But quite a bit of it has been gathered here at Wikipedia, and this project is growing more and more each day.

Getting back to what I said earlier, information is power. How? Think about it, just think for a while. Information is what shapes you, what shapes society, what shapes the world. They call this the Information Age, and rightly so. We have so much information at the tips of our fingers. The internet, radios, televisions, etc., and all of it can be reached quickly, instantaneously at best. I think that Wikipedia is a big part of that, and will continue to be.

That was a tangent...sorry, folks who are still with me. Getting back to me and Wikipedia...I consider myself knowledgeable, and I consider myself intelligent. I am a good student, and I like to think that with these qualities comes responsibility: I have been blessed by a Supreme Being and I am responsible for using that gift, both to my advantage and for helping others. That comes with the whole being human kind of thing: If you've got a gift, share it, use it, and use it to better society. So for me, Wikipedia is a channel through which I am helping the world, one edit at a time.

Gosh, I must sound so dumb...I have a responsibility to help the world, so I'm doing it through Wikipedia! What a joke, you must be thinking. No one is going to read the articles I create, they're not featured, they're not important...hell, they're not even sourced correctly! And you're most likely right, but what if no one had created the Chloroplast article and I found myself needing it...where would I be then? I guess what I'm trying to say is, I hope someone will stumble across one of the pages I've created and be bettered by it, coming out a bit more knowledgeable than before.

I am a full time student, a part-time worker, an anytime boyfriend, a nighttime reader, and an if-I-have-the-time Wikipedia editor. With all the other stuff in my life, especially during the school year, Wikipedia is near the bottom on my list of stuff to do. But, I can sometimes find time...

During the past summer, I found out about this thing called wikistress: When you get pissed off at another editor. It's a terrible feeling, going out to dinner and feeling irritated because of something that isn't real life...then I remind myself that if it can irritate me, it's real life since it touches my real life. For some reason, I get very defensive when the articles I created, the articles I spent hours of my time on, get put up for deletion. Some AFD's have resulted in keeps, others have resulted in deletions, but AFD's in general irk me to no end, especially when they are articles I worked my ass off on. Pardon my French...

If you've gotten this far, congrats...and if you haven't noticed by now, I mostly work on creating articles, some Vermont related, some music related, and some history related. I also guard these articles fiercely...both from vandalism and from deletion. I detest trying to improve articles. For some reason, I enjoy working with a clean slate and scribble all over it rather than trying to clean up a dirty one. That must tell you something about me as a person.

A while ago, I was adopted by TerriersFan, who has helped me tremendously, and deserves any credit that I ever get for anything. For some reason, he gets all the barnstars, and I get my DYK's...I can't get any barnstars, it seems.

I sometimes fear that Wikipedia has strayed too far from its original goal. Looking through Talk:Main Page, as I'm apt to do, I find several disturbing things. First of all, I hate, with a burning passion, WP:Not censored, or whatever the link it...I think that Wikipedia should be sensored, at least to some extent, and I think that any questionable pictures should not be allowed on the front page. I vividly remember when my sister got to Wikipedia and screamed and proceeded to cry when she saw the picture of a dead soldier on the front page...I don't understand how some people can be so unfeeling, so insensitive, and so uncaring that they put up pictures of dead people on a website that is open to all people. Maybe I'm naive, maybe I'm stupid, or maybe I just don't comprehend reality very well, but I think that something is wrong with Wikipedia not being censored. It should be.

Well, I supppose that's all for now. I'd like to send a shout out to all of the users who have helped me along my journey, and I hope that I will be able to repay them some day. I leave you all with one last thought: Information is power, and it is empowered further when the world combines to distribute it. Benjamin