This user joins with Dickens, Melville, and other great writers[1] in rejecting the canard that which may not be used for restrictive relative clauses.
Thi's user know's that not every word that end's with s need's an apostrophe and will remove misused apostrophe's from Wikipedia with extreme prejudice.
if & whether
This user knows how to use "if" and "whether" correctly.
This user (hereafter "User"), and all subsidiaries, agents, et al. acting on his/her/its behalf, herein manifest possession of, and are henceforth estopped from disclaiming, an advanced knowledge of Legalese, or access to such knowledge as to suffice as a reasonable substitute.
I am Stanton McCandlish, a Web developer, nonfiction author, civil liberties activist and nonprofit executive, and amateur pocket billiards (pool) instructor, among other roles, and have been among the most active, avid Wikipedians. I have a B.A. in anthropology and communication. I am a US citizen, but have lived in England, Ireland and Canada for extended periods, and learned to read and write in the UK. I have semi-expertise in an odd assortment of topics, like Celtic mythology, English grammar, Manx cats, New Mexican culture, US law in certain fields (freedom of expression, privacy and intellectual property), salamanders, Web standards, albinism, pool and billiards, online PR, Art Nouveau, post-punk subcultures, and various fiction franchises, among other subjects.
Stanton McCandlish is a freelance Web developer and online PR/communications consultant, a buyer and seller of collectibles, and a pool instructor. His specialties include advocacy, media relations, information management and architecture, usability and accessibility, technology policy analysis, and technical writing. He is also an anthropologist by training.
He volunteers as the Communications Director for the CryptoRights Foundation (presently on hiatus). As such, he has acted as the organization's press manager, public relations lead, publications manager, and Webmaster, and has also participated in mission-critical technical projects, such as leading Project HighFire's documentation.
Stanton was among the world's first professional online activists, and came to CryptoRights after working on issue campaigns, policy and online communications at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) from 1993 to 2002, where he also ran one of the most-linked-to Web sites on the entire 'Net, and edited the organization's newsletter, EFFector, one of the largest-subscription online bulletins of the era. He has written a variety of articles and tutorials, been quoted by most major US news publications on Internet policy issues, and is co-author of the seminal privacy and e-activism handbook Protecting Yourself Online: The Definitive Resource on Safety, Freedom, and Privacy in Cyberspace (with Robert B. Gelman). He also managed production of the updated online editions of Everybody's Guide to the Internet (by Adam Gaffin), including revision, management of multi-language translation, and online distribution.
After studying computer science, technical writing and anthropology/linguistics at the College of Santa Fe, Eastern New Mexico University, and the University of New Mexico, Stanton did technical consulting at UNM, as well as maintaining an early independent electronic bulletin board system (BBS) and operating a small press publishing operation in Albuquerque. Some of his current areas of interest include electronic privacy, unsolicited bulk e-mail (spam) issues, free expression online, preservation of fair use of intellectual property, and protection of the public's interest in the development of technical standards. McCandlish holds a B.A. in cultural anthropology and communication from UNM.
He likes cats, post-punk, and bad girl art, and lives in Albuquerque again for the time being.
Three-ball — Article about the poorly-documented modern pocket billiards folk game, about 95% my material. Sourcing help wanted!
Five-pins — Article about the carom billiards game popular in Italy and parts of South America. I wrote it from scratch after someone posted a (terrible) machine-translation of the (good) Italian article; mine is now more extensive than the original Italian one, though may yet suffer from translation problems. Help wanted from someone fluent in Italian.
William A. Spinks — created from scratch; every single thing in it is reliably sourced.
Albinism — Was already a not-bad article when I got there, but I worked on it a lot, especially sourcing the science, and defending it from constant vandalism.
Albinism in popular culture — Was a narrow AfD survivor in the form of Albino bias and an AfD failure as Evil albino stereotype when I got to them; it's quite solid now, after a lot of mergin'-'n'-purgin', reliable sourcing, and frequent shepherding and cleanup.
Pleonasm — Article on redundant expressions in language. About 70% or so of that text is mine.
Blackball (pool) — Mostly my work, building on skeletal, unsourced material originally interpolated into Eight-ball. Help wanted!
Folgerphone — an experimental musical instrument. Created this short article (a stub, but sourced). Someone's disputed a major fact, on the Talk page. Help wanted from anyone who knows anything at all about Folgerphones.
Wikipedia:Manual of Style, Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers), etc. – guidelines – Along with Tony1, Noetica and several other "regulars", I have spent a lot of time shepherding the MoS; I've mostly moved on to other stuff at this point, but weigh in periodically. For a long time, MOSwatching was my #1 "Wikipedia:"-namespace activity.
Wikipedia:Notability – policy – I was deeply involved in the debate over the future and form of this when it was a proposed guideline, especially from Nov. 2006 through Feb. 2007, until it stabilized.
{{CompactTOC}} as we now know it (there were many radically different templates of this sort, and I merged all of them and their features and added many new ones)
MOS:NUM still blatantly conflicts with WP:MOS, in direct violation of WP:CONSENSUS and WP:LOCALCONSENSUS policies. Me being attacked for two months and censored for another one isn't going to magically make this fact go away.
WP:WikiProject Animals/Article structure is stalled, due to my being hounded of Wikipedia by anti-MOS people, though it's unlikely noticed since it hasn't been broadly "advertised" yet.
Figure out how to push updated code into WP:Cite4Wiki's new repository now that you have write access.
I regret to inform you that the barnstar that I was going to give you for this bit of hilariousness was eaten by a bear. Happy editing! Hamtechperson 04:46, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
For general template taming goodness. Ludwigs2 03:36, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
For behaving in a genteel fashion, as if nothing were the matter, and for gallantry.
--Djathinkimacowboy 03:27, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
For your recent work at WP:MOS: A model of unflagging effort, precise analysis, institutionally broad and historically deep vision, clear articulation, and civil expression under great pressure. Unforgettable. DocKino (talk) 06:14, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
Cheers!
For all of the thoughtful posts through the extended discussion at MOSCAPS. I've appreciated it. JHunterJ (talk) 13:52, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
This barnstar is awarded to everyone who - whatever their opinion - contributed to the discussion about Wikipedia and SOPA. Thank you for being a part of the discussion.
Presented by the Wikimedia Foundation. 20:37, 21 January 2012.
Thank you for your submission of the Instructor's Barnstar. It's now on the main barnstar list. Pinetalk 15:11, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
Reciprocal
The Angry Tarsier of Appreciation!
A Barnstar Point
A Barnstar Point
For awarding me a barnstar, I hereby giveth unto you one angry tarsier of appreciation. Thanks!
--Fuhghettaboutit 21:29, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
This barnstar point is awarded to SMcCandlish for giving me a barnstar point! GracenotesT § 01:12, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
I, Λυδαcιτγ, award Stanton McCandlish the Minor Barnstar Point for the creation of said Barnstar.
Hostile
"Anti-awards" like this are a great example of what not to do on Wikipedia just because you disagree with someone:
Incidentally, the Wikipedia:Fromowner "placeholder image" junk has been deprecated by the community just as I suggested and predicted. I wasn't disruptive, just a little before my time. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:12, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
What I'm up to in general on Wikipedia
On Wikipedia, I mostly do the following in lieu of large-scale article authorship (though I do have some major ones planned and three under my belt):
Making substantial contributions to existing articles (and sometimes creating new ones) on topics I know a lot about
Shepherding the growth and health of some particular articles that need it (and, in some but not all cases, about which I care a lot)
Correcting typos, grammar errors and readability problems
Weeding out unverifiable, or incredible and unsourced, claims
Adding missing salient information
Moving articles that violate the WP article naming conventions
Correcting outright factual errors
Improving cross-references, categorization, etc.
Improving consistency of formatting
Removing redundant wikilinks
Removing pointless (Wikipedia is not a dictionary!) wikilinks — everyone already knows what "eye" and "the sun" mean, in most contexts in which they appear
Removing minor, childish quasi-vandalism (smart-aleck remarks in articles, etc.) — I like to document these in the Talk pages, since they often are actually funny
Reverting and repairing intentionally destructive vandalism, especially that by religious or other zealots, slanderers, the foul-mouthed, and the discriminatory
Tagging outright vandals' talk pages with countdown-to-blocking warnings
Repairing semi-vandalism edits in the form of deletions of long-standing passages without explanation, or the inexplicable addition of large chunks of questionably relevant or unsourced alleged facts, especially attacks against living article subjects, fanwanking and crackpotism.
Copyediting, encyclopedizing and formalizing any juvenile, colloquial, non-neutral or poorly thought out language in articles
Fixing miscellaneous "bad stuff" - vanity/marketing language, crystalballing, etc.
Proposing (and sometimes performing) merges of redundant articles
Adding obvious missing redirects and making sure they go to useful places
Educating misinformed arguments (per logic or Wikipedia policy) on Talk pages
Trying to resolve circular disputes on Talk pages
Defending articles from AfD when the reasoning for the deletion is specious, especially "NN per nom" me-tooism.
Nominating truly atrocious crap for AfD (or for SD, or just prod'ing them)
Learning a lot concerning things I didn't know about, on all sorts of topics!
Critics who think I frequently make valuable contributions but have exhibited problematic behaviors would probably have to classify me as a cross between a WikiPlatypus and a WikiPuma.
On the non-"political" side, I am largely an exopedianist with little interest in the socializing aspects - I get that from other aspects of my life. I'm largely a WikiGnome but shapeshift into other forms of WP:WikiFauna at will, sometimes for long stretches. I have taken part in some quite extensive policy debates, spent a lot of time on visual improvement of articles, wallowed in sourcing troublesome articles, buried my nose in copyediting, become a template master, and obsessed over the perfection of certain articles, as well as gotten into pointless arguments, while also created barnstars. I'm really just not pigeonholeable.
Wikiphilosophy userboxes
This user thinks that registration should be required to edit articles.
Note: SMcCandlish's comments on Wikipedia are a work in progress subject to the Thread-mode Disclaimer.
Licensing rights granted to Wikimedia Foundation
I grant non-exclusive permission for the Wikimedia Foundation Inc. to relicense my text and media contributions, including any images, audio clips, or video clips, under any copyleft license that it chooses, provided it maintains the free and open spirit of the GFDL. This permission acknowledges that future licensing needs of the Wikimedia projects may need adapting in unforeseen fashions to facilitate other uses, formats, and locations. It is given for as long as this banner remains.
Just as a matter of full disclosure, there are certain articles I should not heavily edit (i.e., other than to revert vandalism, provide sources, or otherwise adjust in an entirely neutral manner), because of unintentional potential for conflict of interest or non-neutral point of view. Other editors may wish to examine carefully any edits I ever make to any of the following articles:
Stanton McCandlish (me; while I would easily pass WP:GNG and WP:BIO, I have no article, have never had one, and don't want one - that would be a bit creepy to me, and friends with articles say they just cause trouble for them (personal attacks, misinformation, etc.)
Protecting Yourself Online (I co-authored the book by this title, ISBN 9780062515124; it has no article and is surely not notable enough to have one)
CryptoRights Foundation (I am their volunteer CCO/Communications Director, since 2003; it bugged me somethin' fierce that it did not have an article until recently, but it seemed grossly inappropriate to even start a "just the facts" stub on it)
Wilcox–McCandlish law (something amusing that a colleague and I came up with in the '90s; someone else created an article about it here, before I even became a WP editor; it was subsequently deleted on notability grounds, and should probably stay that way)
Things I could conceivably have a conflict of interest on, due to past connections
Electronic Frontier Foundation [EFF] (held various job titles there, including Program Director, and was editor of their EFFector newsletter and the webmaster of eff.org, 1993–2002)
Blue Ribbon Online Free Speech Campaign (this was largely my brainchild, as a part of my professional life at EFF; it was an EFF project not a personal one)
Someone concerned about overlinking in articles actually used the Professional wrestling article as alleged smoking-gun "proof" of rampant overlinking across Wikpedia, requiring (naturally) much more stringent anti-linking wording in WP:LINKING. Of course that article in particular would have overlinking, along with just about every other noob error, except when periodically cleaned up by experienced, neutral editors who don't believe in fairytales. The article is clearly indicative of nothing but the nature of that topic's fanbase (and thus its most frequent editorial pool).
A comment posted at WP:COUNCIL/P, on a proposal for a "WikiProject Life on Mars"; if you don't get why this is hysterically funny, just move on - it's an old-school sci-fi geek thing. (Hint: "John Carter" + "Mars".)
Someone upset about grammar flames that were wasting people's time and being a distraction posts a distracting time-waste in the form of a longwinded and meticulously-researched grammar flame about it (plus a second shorter one!), all in support of the grammar flaming of the starter of the grammar flame; in the process, re-opening debate to yet more grammar flaming in the pointless sub-thread being complained about (dormant for over a day), and to which the poster was not even a party to begin with. I couldn't make this stuff up!
An edit summary in response to "no, don't delete the barnstars!" panic replies to a TfD on a useless template simply relating to barnstars. I awarded Gracenotes a Barnstar Point for that one.
— Wikipedia:Ignore all dramas (as of this version} on ignoring instead of responding to wikistupidity; later versions have it as the far less pithy "Even the largest pile of bullshit will decompose on its own." The original addition was "The most copiously deposited bullshit decomposes on its own." I reverted it to the concise version on 10 August 2011 and it seems to have stuck.
"Removed older logo. One logo is sufficient. Logos are copyrighted and Wikipedia should not serve as a gallery for logos."
"Anyone who adds material to an article, but cannot be bothered to cite any sources, is being discourteous to the other editors who later have to try to find reliable sources."
"Of course, the point of style is to give coherence and consistency, deviations from which can detract from the publication's voice (in this case, an encyclopedic voice)."
"...no need for bullet points - detail here is no more important than others"
— SilkTork (talk· contribs), 10:19, 27 June 2011 (UTC) (edit summary at Wikipedia:Article size); too many editors create bulletized lists from normal prose all over the place, as if Wikipedia were a giant PowerPoint presentation.
"While the title should be recognized as a reference to the article topic by someone familiar with the topic, for the uninitiated, it is the purpose of the article lead, not the article title, to identify the topic of the article."
"The reason Wikipedia has policy pages at all is to store up assertions on which we agree, and which generally convince people when we make them in talk, so we don't have to write them out again and again. This is why policy pages aren't "enforced", but quoted; if people aren't convinced by what policy pages say, they should usually say something else. The major exception to this stability is when some small group, either in good faith or in an effort to become the Secret Masters of Wikipedia, mistakes its own opinions for What Everybody Thinks. This happens, and the clique often writes its own opinions up as policy and guideline pages."
— JCScaliger (talk· contribs), sockpuppet of Pmanderson (talk· contribs), 03:57, 3 February 2012 (UTC), Wikipedia talk:Article titles thread "Request for edit, Poll". While Anderson made this point in a WP:POINTy way, sockpuppeting in a discussion he was trying to control (and arguing against me on the details of the issue) he's precisely right, and this was well articulated.
"If a high-profile [Wikipedian] poll is conducted that brings in widespread participation from editors who had previously stayed away from [the] venue, and the holdouts who had been stonewalling and preventing progress merely slouch, stuff their hands in their pockets, and walk away, then that proves that they knew full well that their arguments were not sufficiently persuasive, or didn’t have sufficient numbers, or both. ... Trying to now torpedo the current consensus by stating that certain people somehow didn’t have an opportunity to participate is nothing but sour grapes ... On Wikipedia it’s called ‘wililawyering’ which is disruptive and mustn’t be rewarded."
"The next-to-last resort of someone who cannot muster a rational response to an opposing argument is to wave away that argument as something impossible to respond to (the last resort being ad hominem attacks)."
"If one grinds an axe long and hard enough, there is no axe any longer, just a useless old stick."
(A quasi-Taoist response to cranky complaints that relate to incidents so long ago no one should care any more; concise version: "Grind axe too long: no axe.")
(A response to angry accusations of wrong-doing that self-evidently apply at least equally and usually much more accurately to the ranter. More recently, I've used it as a mantra for myself, when I feel wikistressed.)
Bonus: Nifty Wikipedia tools
Kind of hard to find unless you already know about them: