User:Robert Brockway

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I'm on a wikibreak due to wikistress. I wish some editors would learn the meaning of consensus. I don't know when or if I'll be back.

This is the closest I've come to a home page in 10 years. Professionally I'm a system administrator with a strong commitment to the ideals of open source software. My preferred OS is Linux and has been for some 13 years. Having said this I dream of the day when many of today's theoretical concepts in OS design can be rolled out into production. The OSes we have available today are good, but we can do better. In 1995 I founded the Home Unix Machine Brisbane User Group.

For a little while I left IT and joined the Queensland Police Service as a sworn officer. This was interesting and fun but when the novelty wore off I resigned and returned to IT. My time in the police has left me with an interest in, and appreciation of, common law based legal systems and their subtleties.

I'm a citizen of Australia and a Permanent Resident of Canada. I am now eligible to apply for Canadian citizenship.

For fun I love playing board games, in particular german games. I used to do quite a bit of role-playing and play quite a few war games but not so much these days. I do enjoy a good LARP on occasion.

My wife recently gave birth to a healthy girl, Amelie Jade Brockway.

1 Unfulfilled Life Goals
2 Problems with Wikipedia
3 Articles
4 Places I've been
5 Boxes

[edit] Unfulfilled Life Goals

I'm happy to say I've actually achieved most of the life goals I've set myself. Fortunately I keep adding to the list which keeps life interesting. Life goals that I am yet to fulfill include:

Learning Arabic
Actually understanding the work of Burkhard Heim

[edit] Problems with Wikipedia

I think Wikipedia is great. I caught the open source bug a long time go so as soon as I saw it I realised the value. Having said this I do feel there are problems:

1. Anonymous edits

Anonymous edits cause far more harm than good as far as I'm concerned. People who care about Wikipedia will create accounts so they can edit articles. Just like crime most vandalism on WP is opportunistic. A minimal physical barrier will prevent most crime and similarly a minimal barrier to editing (creating an account) will prevent most vandalism. From now on I will comment on the problems with anonymous editing in the edit summary whenever I revert anonymous vandalism.

Some liken anonymous editing to the open source philosophy of allowing anyone to modify source code but this turns out to be a false analogy. All but the smallest open source projects restrict "commit" privileges on the source tree to trusted coders - open source is very much a meritocracy. The ability for anyone to edit the source tree comes from the ability to create a code fork. Those that do not agree with the privileged coders for the project may make their own project. To maintain the same level of openness WP does not need to allow everyone to edit the encyclopedia but rather it need only allow others to create a fork of the encyclopedia if they wish.

This very page was anonymously vandalised recently. The vandal made a series of anti-semitic and hateful statements against me (see the page history for details). I'm not actually Jewish so the anti-semitic statements were a bit odd, while still being offensive.

2. Lack of Consensus

I fear there is a rise of some who do not seek consensus. I have recently seen a concerning instance of this:

A memorial to Steve Irwin (http://www.ripsteve.com) was repeatedly removed from the page despite a consensus that it should stay from among those discussing the matter on the talk page. As each argument to remove the page was shot down another would take its place. So much for consensus.

3. Votes for Deletion

It is far too easy to nominate an article for VfD IMHO. Too many articles are being nominated. My position is that deletion should only be used in extreme circumstances.

Maui Cluster Scheduler was actually nominated for deletion and the result was "no consensus". Many of the comments claimed the article was spam (for an open source project?) or made comments that since the software was not used on a home PC it did not warrant inclusion in WP. At the very least this is parochialism.

Maui is a specialised piece of software. It has as much right to an article as any specialised subject. Much of the encyclopedia is taken up by specialised articles.

Donkey vote was once nominated for Speedy deletion. People need to stop nominating articles for Speedy deletion just because they don't know anything about the topic.

[edit] Articles

I tend to edit all over the place. I have a wide range of interests. Outside of computing I'm not a specialist in any area although I am well read in many areas of science and the arts. I have a strong interest in the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Articles I Started

Archibald Fenner Brockway

Buffalo Castle

Coso artifact

Document of Identity (Australia)

E3 Visa (merged into E-3 visa)

Iced coffee (Australia) (merged into Iced coffee)

Ipswich North State School