User:Extreme Unction

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Note: Due to an intense school schedule this semester, my wikiavailability will be spotty.

[edit] Stuff About Which You Will No Doubt Care Deeply

This garish fellow to the right is sort of (but not quite) the genesis of the moniker "Extreme Unction."

Our story begins in an episode of Blackadder. It's the one in the 2nd series, where Edmund Blackadder is under threat of buggery with a red-hot poker for owing the Church a large sum of money. He mentions to the Baby Eating Bishop of Bath and Wells that he (Blackadder) had seen the Bishop in flagrente delicto with some nubile young maiden. The Bishop responds "I was administering extreme unction."

I didn't know what "extreme unction" was, but I thought the line was pretty funny. Maybe it was the delivery.

Years later, I found myself playing the City of Heroes MMORPG. One of the troubles with City of Heroes is that all of the good names are taken. It's hard to find a decently superheroic name for your characters. And after I created the hulking suit of armor in the picture to the right, I spent a good hour trying to find a name for him.

AND THEN!

LIKE A BOLT FROM THE BLUE!

I heard the words "Extreme Unction" in my head. And lo, I had a name.

Note that, through all of the foregoing, I had no clue whatsoever what "Extreme Unction" really was. I'm not Catholic, and my knowledge of Catholic rituals is miniscule. I've since found out that it's (and forgive me if I have this wrong – I'm not Catholic, as I mentioned) basically a prayer for the sick and dying, and is often administered as the "last rites". Or maybe it is the "last rites," I dunno.

So anyhow, there you have it.

[edit] Factionalism and Other Meta-Wiki Issues

"University politics are so vicious precisely because the stakes are so small." --Henry Kissinger

"You cannot reason someone out of something they didn't reason themselves into in the first place." --Aphorism from an unknown source

The Second Law of Thermodynamics applies to social systems as well as to physical ones. The same is true for Gresham's Law.

Each of us in life have our own respective talents. There are areas where we flounder, but there are also areas in which we excel. Some people have a talent for nurturing the tiny acorn, tending it with loving care, and helping it grow into a mighty oak. That is their talent, and where their skills lie.

I, on the other hand, have a talent for chainsawing the rotten branches that are drooping dangerously over the power lines and removing them in a safe and expeditious manner. This is where my skills lie, and this is what I have (metaphorically) been doing for a living for almost a decade.

You may think of me as a Mergist with strong Deletionist tendencies, or a Deletionist with strong Mergist tendencies. Either is probably accurate. As I outline in my comments in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The E, an AfD nomination is not necessarily an indication that the information contained within the article absolutely does not need to be within Wikipedia. Yes, sometimes it does mean that. But other times, it simply means that the information in the article doesn't warrant a seperate article. I have merged several articles into larger articles, and will continue to do so during my tenure here.

I am also not an exclusionist, and feel that there is room for many articles within Wikipedia that would not fit within a paper encyclopedia. In-depth articles about fictional characters are fine by me, for example, as are many (though not all) lists.

[edit] Articles (And Other Miscellany) Which I Have Created From Whole Cloth, Or Have Revised In A Sufficiently Extensive Manner That I Might As Well Have Created Them

These are articles that I have edited or revised based on my interest in the topics in question. Eventually, this space will be filled with many Beer articles.

[edit] RC Patrol

[edit] Articles (and Other Miscellany) Which I Have Wikified and Hopefully Improved, Despite Not Knowing A Damn Thing About the Subject Other Than What Can Be Discovered Via Google

These, generally, have been new articles, created by possibly inexperienced Wiki editors, which I discovered while on RC Patrol. They often suffer from poor formating and little, if any, wikification. Putting fingers to keyboard, I strode boldly forth, Googled on the topic, and provided such insight as I could, in the hopes that someone much smarter than me might come along later and expand the topic.

[edit] Articles Which I Have Merged Into Larger Articles, Rather Than Giving In To My Initial Urge To Simply Drop Them In AfD

In some cases, editors have, for reasons of their own, unmerged these articles back to their pre-merge state. But at least I made the effort.

[edit] Kudos, Attaboys, and Other Accolades From My Fellow Wikipedians

For excellent detective work uncovering the truth of False Doppler (and other AfD nomations). howcheng [ t • c • w • e ] 17:07, 11 November 2005 (UTC)	The Standard Barn	For being such a hard worker, you are awarded this Working Man's Barnstar by me, Nlu. --Nlu 16:34, 6 December 2005 (UTC)	Cool as a cucumber under fire.--Dakota t e 23:22, 10 December 2005 (UTC)