User:Edward Z. Yang

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Edward Z. Yang (formerly known as Ambush Commander) is a Wikipedian, a Sysop on English Wikipedia, and a user on Meta, Wikimedia Commons, English Wikinews, Wikiversity Beta, Wikisource and English Wiktionary. When I'm not on Wikipedia but on my computer, I can be reached fairly quickly via email.

In case you're wondering, no, Edward Yang is not me. If I ever had my own Wikipedia article, I'd say it'd be at Edward Z. Yang.

Contents

[edit] Credibility

Am I a credible editor? I made my first edit in AnimeSuki on August 15, 2004. I was promoted to Sysop on January 17, 2006 by Ilyanep. I will not report on what I believe I do well, but my possible weaknesses.

[edit] Vices

  • Takes too long to form opinions, is wishy-washy (but hopefully open-minded)
  • Is too accommodating to bad-faith/troll editors (how can you tell if an editor is bad faith?)
  • Is distracted easily from article writing to community issues and technical hacking
  • Is stingy with compliments (I have this perception where a comment on a talk page means I did something wrong)
  • Hasn't contributed significantly to any featured article
  • Doesn't know what to do about talk pages (I'm testing duplication on both pages, but I often forget)

[edit] Philosophy

I think these are good ideas, and I've been doing it for a while. I may still be wrong, but this is my humble opinion.

  • Always summarize your edits. If you have trouble doing that, check out this nifty script.

[edit] Experiments

I think these are good ideas, but I'm not so sure. So I'm experimenting with them.

  • Also, I'm trying talk page duplication over both the sender and reciever's pages for major conversations.
  • Noticed an interesting template: {{cleanup-spam}} which could be pretty cool actually for some of the pages I view... but it's more of a stick and leave proposition, so I'm not so sure...
  • {{main}} is often used when it shouldn't be used. Check out {{details}} and {{background}}, which are especially applicable to specialized articles.
  • I just realized a quick fix to the "Watchlist isn't like Recent Changes" gripe... and I probably like this solution better. Instead of clicking (diff), click (hist), and then base your check on dates. Granted, a script that tells you the last time you checked the page and then highlight them or something would be nice, but this works pretty well. It's just hard to see the places you last checked.
  • Category:Images with inappropriate JPEG compression is an interesting place to hone my Inkscape skills, but it's so huge! O.o
  • Discourage all use of rollback except when on RC patrol. Why (besides the fact that it gives no edit summary at all)? Because multiple people may have vandalized it: rollback only catches one of the vandals and discourages deeper inspection of the pages history to make sure all the edits are okay.
  • Harness positive energy: treat anonymous users nicely. A dedicated user can often be more important than any number of edits to an article, because another user who cares about Wikipedia means more love and caring attention, something that is not unlimited. Be polite, be nice, and turn the unwashed anonymous masses into dedicated editors. Harness positive energy! Remember: we are all human beings.
  • Special:Recentchangeslinked looks pretty cool...
  • We need a category for images of money and related objects

[edit] Staying knowledgeable

Staying in the know is a bit difficult here on Wikipedia, partially because there is so much going on! If a Wikipedia-life of hermithood appeals to you, go for it (you'll probably get more good work on articles done). However, for the savvy Wikipedian, there are places across Wikis that can't be watched from your watchlist. And a lot of important discussion can take place here, so make sure your watch up.

  • Mailing lists - I recommend wikitech-l, which is relatively low traffic (but maybe that's just because I'm techno-savvy)
  • External press - Slashdot is a good place to start for views on Wikipedia in the greater leftist tech community
  • Selective namespacing of Special:Recentchanges. Little known is the MediaWiki namespace.
  • IRC. Period. So much stuff flies around in this medium, and it generally gets lost to someone's logs. Be sure to occasionally check in.

[edit] Village pump

Watching Village Pump pages is one of the best ways to get "linked up" to the "Wikipedia grid." I noticed that after coming out of a long hermit-hood and readding the Village Pump to my Watchlist. Village pump may be removed again in order to induce me to do more article editing.

Status: I am back to Village pump hermit-hood. Time to do some real article editing.

[edit] Interests

These are topics that I am interested/knowledgeable in (which also means I might have bias in these topics). Note that I don't edit on many of these pages. Don't know why.

[edit] Personal subpages

[edit] Programming

[edit] Wikipedia

* In progress - ¹ Rewritten - ² Is a stub

[edit] Disclaimers

This is a Wikipedia user page.

This is not an encyclopedia article. If you find this page on any site other than Wikipedia, you are viewing a mirror site. Be aware that the page may be outdated and that the user to whom this page belongs may have no personal affiliation with any site other than Wikipedia itself. The original page is located at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Edward_Z._Yang.