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Hello and welcome. Though I believe in taking responsibility for one's work, I also fear the consequences of, for example, getting in an edit war with a psychopath. As such, I won't give my name or any personal information more specific than the various generic userboxes at right. If you deduce my identity from that, then bravo, I guess.
[edit] Helpful Wikipedia Advice
- There really is no rule that can't legitimately be bent or broken, where "legitimate" is defined as increasing the accuracy, transparency, or quantity of relevant content.
- That said, you should probably know the rules before you break them, so as to better judge the usefulness of your actions. The most important rule is maintaining neutral point of view.
- Be bold! Don't be overly worried about "messing up," and don't let it stop you from editing. This might seem to contradict the previous rule. Such is the mystical nature of Wikipedia.
- Don't take anything personally. Wikipedia is full of more experienced editors who just want to help, and idiots who don't. By approaching everyone with respect and restraint, you can learn from the former, and look smarter than the latter.
- Don't make an article promoting yourself, your garage band, your business, or your groundbreaking new theory of physics. It's annoying having to delete them all.
- If you're planning on vandalizing articles, please, for everyone's sake, at least try to be clever about it. Any vandalism including the words "LOL," "pimp," "faggot," "sux," etc. is almost certainly not clever. Just stop. You are a fool.
- You are not the first person to think that an encyclopedia that anyone can edit is a flawed enterprise. If you're setting out to demonstrate this, don't bother. "Wikipedia only works in practice. In theory, it can never work."
[edit] Usual Wikipedia Activities
- My browser is set to bring up a random article as my homepage, which I will often rewrite poorly written sections, wikify with links, or impose more neutral point of view. Sometimes I do this for whole strings of random articles, so as to better avoid work I might get credit for.
- I use Wikipedia as a first resource for any and all obscure questions I have, of which there are many. I try to do the same kind of editing for these articles of tone and aesthetics as the random articles, so as to reward their answering my questions.
- I patrol the recent changes, and revert a large amount of vandalism in that way.
- I look for new articles, and bring them up to basic standards of readability, make appropriate links, etc. For some reason I end up doing this for a lot of towns in India.
- I research and add more skeptical viewpoints for balance in articles on paranormal topics. I remove original research conspiracy theories and the like. I'm a curmudgeon.
- I edit for factual accuracy in articles relating to philosophy and the history of mathematics.
- I adopt a few articles and make a point of improving them periodically, and defending them from nonsense.
Mycroft1, my arrogantly assumed namesake. He finds you tiresome.
