User:Uriyan

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Hi, my name is Uri Yanover, and I am a Tolkien/Linux geek living in Israel. Might contribute bits of this and that to various articlles, particularly concerning (surprise!) Tolkien, Linux and Israel. My main topics so far have been:

I will not burden you with unnecessary detail (there's a lot of it, and this is an encyclopedia, after all). If you want to contact me, all you have to do is do a Google search for my name and mail me through my site.

user talk: uriyan

Dear Wikipedians,

I've not contributed to Wikipedia since late November 2002, and do not plan to resume my participation in the forseeable future. More than six months have passed since; I feel it is appropriate to leave a note here at this time, as enough time has passed to allow me to exercise a degree of perspective.

First, I'd like to remark that my participation in the on-line encyclopedia project was a wonderful experience for me, allowing me to communicate with fascinating people, to expand my horizons in various subjects and improve my ability to express myself in English. Being a part-time encyclopedia editor sounds like a cool thing, and it is.

Contributing to Wikipedia is a team effort; and in many of the articles, I've had the privilege to collaborate with distinguished, intelligent and generally cool people. Many fond memories of my experiences as a Wikipedian remain with me.

So why did I leave? During my time on Wikipedia, I took part in the editing of numerous articles, on the subject of Middle Eastern politics, which on frequent occasions developed into raging flamewars. Such atmosphere made it almost invariantly impossible to create sound articles.

It is no secret that I cared to present the Israeli view, and that I was the only Israeli to do so on Wikipedia (during most of the period of my presence). Therefore, those who blame me for being responsible for those flamewars have a seed of truth - however, as the Hebrew saying goes, "things that we see from here are not the things they see from there". Without anyone who understands or is ready to genuinely defend the Israeli stance, the resulting content is severely lacking, and is "unblessed", as far as I'm concerned.

As the time passed after I stopped contributing, I came to the conclusion that political arguments are an inherently useless waste of time, which would much better be spent on genuine education and achievement. I've learnt some things since, and enjoyed doing so. As to the Middle Eastern articles - they will not get better until they are edited in the spirit of true scholarship; may this happen one day.

Leaving now to hang my coat of arms above the fireplace,

Yours truly,
Uri Yanover

P.S. In response to an earlier comment, now moved to Talk: to the best of my knowledge, Joseph is a Palestinian, and was certainly one of my opponents when it came to editing; throughout, his conduct was exemplary dignified.

P.P.S. I enjoy a lot the mathematical section on Wikipedia, which has advanced significantly since the introduction of the new software. Well done!

P.P.P.S. To my embarrassment, I'd made some appalling mistakes in the translation of the poem under Leah Goldberg (albeit, in good faith; the mistranslation of a single word, sagrir, changed the whole meaning). The poem that I meant is "In the Land that I Love the Nut-Tree Blossoms" (be-eretz ahavati ha-shaqed poreax), which is about Israel; Since the theme of Israeli nature appears a lot in Goldberg's poems and I almost certainly disqualified myself as a poem translator, I'd like to humbly request any Wikipedian who can translate it to do so.