User:John

Nemo me impune lacessit

Andrew Brookes. Crash! Military Aircraft Disasters, Accidents and Incidents, p. 36. London: Ian Allan Ltd., 1991. ISBN 0-7110-1965-7

I had been using Wikipedia and following the news stories about it for quite a while when I got into an argument with someone on a newsgroup about Wikipedia's reliability as a source. As I defended the Wiki principle of "anyone can edit", I realised that I could be editing instead of talking about it. That was in late 2005.

I wouldn't spend as much time as I do on it if I didn't still think Wikipedia was a great project. It attracts predominantly the right sort of people, who want to write an on-line encyclopedia of human knowledge.

How cool is that?

I respect the goals of the project, and so I support Wikipedia philosophies and policies, particularly WP:AGF, WP:CIVIL, WP:3RR, WP:NPOV and WP:VAND, to the hilt. For my favourite policy, see WP:BEANS.

This is amazing! It sums up how we can use conflicts to build our community instead of letting them tear us apart. I recommend that everyone read it.

• Copyediting
• Disambiguating links
• Uploading and editing images using the various copyright tags
• Fixing spelling erors using AWB. Great fun! I now do this under the account User:Spellmaster. I strive very hard for total accuracy, but if I make a mistake, please revert (if you wish), and drop me a message in my talk page so I know you consider it a mistake and can improve my edits.

• Weapons and war
• Aviation
• Southern Africa
• Scottish football
• Scottish literature and poetry
• Punk music
• Science, especially chemistry

• Copy editing
• Illustration
• Photography
• 'The itis': I have made 54,992 edits as of June 1, 2008.

• The proliferation of flag icons on pages where they add nothing, like biographies or band articles; see this MoS page for the arguments about good and bad use of flags.
• Ethnic categories applied to biographical articles by assertion. ("She looks black" or "his mother was Indian") See WP:NOR and WP:BLP
• Botswanan: in two years living there, I never heard this variant. The preferred adjective is Botswana. See this discussion.
• Chemical elements wrongly capitalised; it's "iron", "oxygen" and "boron", not "Iron", "Oxygen" and "Boron". Simple. Also Over-Capitalization Of Section And Article Titles.
• "It should be noted" and even the word "notable". If it isn't notable, it doesn't belong here. 'Ironically'; who found it ironic? Actually; in fact; these are the equivalent of saying honestly and may make a statement less believable, not more. Used is usually better than utilised or utilized.
• Humourous. Honourary. Hypercorrection at its most extreme. See here for details.
• Seminal. Legendary. Iconic. Epochal, used as intensifiers rather than their literal meanings. Unless it's sourced, no. See peacock words.
• Would wrongly used instead of the past tense, as in "1995 would be a difficult year for Yeltsin". Was is fine.
• However and other linking words deployed without thought as to their meaning.
• Overlinking in general. Incomplete dates wrongly linked (there's hardly ever any point in linking years, months or days of the week). Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) has changed to allow some ambiguity here, but I still generally go with Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context. See also the date linking debate. 'Easter egg' links like [[1996 in stamp-collecting|1996]]. Disambig pages with extra and/or piped links.

RfA . Favourite quotations, etc . Favourite contributions . Awards . Highlights . Gallery . Gallery, part 2 . Tools . Accountability