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This user is ranked 148 on the list of Wikipedians by number of pages created. |
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This editor is a Veteran Editor IV and is entitled to display this Gold Editor Star. |
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This user has pending changes reviewer rights on the English Wikipedia. (verify) |
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This user has autopatrolled rights on the English Wikipedia. (verify) |
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This user is a donor to the Wikimedia Foundation. You can be one too. |
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This user lives on or hails from Long Island. |
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This user has been editing Wikipedia for more than ten years. |
My user name is also my name, Roman Spinner.
This user name made its first Wikipedia appearance on January 22, 2006 when I effected "Save page" for my initial edit. Editing and having a user name seemed only appropriate since I have been a more-or-less continuous user of this unique online knowledge repository since its inception in 2001.
Over seven months and some 700 edits later, belatedly realizing that the red link comprising my user name indicates a lack of completeness in my use of this resource, I decided to integrate fully into the blue links of Wikipedia, with this page coming into being on September 1, 2006 for that specific purpose and for the sake of its own existence, that anyone who cares may be able to glance at it. Perhaps at some future date there may be more information here, including elaborate graphics, similar to those which adorn the user pages of other Wikipedians, but as more years pass, the early contents of this page continue to remain sufficient for the day...
Contents
Passages
2007
On August 1, 2007, eleven months after the preceding edit, a few minor additions—a couple of categories and a single userbox—additional details at some other time, possibly...
Another month later, on September 1, 2007, the first anniversary of the creation of this user page, I am appending interwiki links to additional components of Wikipedia where I have been editing, including a user page on MetaWiki, created December 2, 2006.
2008–2009
Four months after the September 1 edit, on January 1, 2008, I am appending another element, a link to my entry on IMDb and, following addition of counter/clock the following month, on February 2, no edits until this page's third anniversary on September 1, 2009, when a few text revisions and updates are made, including delinking of dates and expansion of the interwiki links list.
2012
On the sixth anniversary, January 22, 2012, of my first edit, one more userbox, which, appropriately, specifies my time with Wikipedia and states, "Today is this user's WikiBirthday". I am also taking the opportunity to update and expand my interwiki list.
2013
On January 22, 2013, as the userbox, mentioned directly above, notes its first anniversary along with my seventh "WikiBirthday", I am marking the occasion by indicating, for the first time, three Wiki userboxes which are frequently found on user pages of longtime editors. Since my "preferences" shows that I've made over 13,100 edits, Veteran Editor II is appropriate and, furthermore, since I had been notified, on June 19, 2010, that I was being granted the "reviewer" user right, that, too, can thus be added. Finally, another notification, on January 29, 2011, informed me that, as of that date, I also have the "autopatrolled" permission, enabling me to add the third userbox.
2014
With the passage of another year, my eighth "WikiBirthday" arrives. From the "over 13,100 edits" mentioned in the paragraph above, the number has risen, on January 22, 2014, to over 16,400, authorizing me to replace Veteran Editor II with Veteran Editor III. Staying on the subject of longtime users and editors, as well as subjects of interest to those among them/us who are statististically-minded, another box [being appended today] provides a certain perspective on the ratio of occasional, intermittent and former users [as well as administrators] to continuous users.
2015
Today, on my ninth WikiBirthday, January 22, 2015, a background aspect of the past comes forth to be commemorated. As a native of the Ukrainian-Polish region of Galicja [born and raised in its capital, Lviv, known as Lvov to its Russian-speaking inhabitants, as Lwów to its Polish-speakers as well as during the brief modern period when it was a part of Poland in the interwar years of 1919–1939 when my parents came to adulthood and, further back, when they born there, before the start of World War I in August 1914, during the final years of the city's 146-year (1772–1918) era within the Austro-Hungarian Empire and, during the German occupation of 1941–44, when it was known as Lemberg], I am adding myself to Category:Polish Wikipedians and to Category:Ukrainian Wikipedians.
2016
Autobiographical notes
On January 22, 2016, after a decade of editing on a nearly-daily schedule, I am arriving at my 10th WikiBirthday. Considering that (after 2008) I have been editing my user page only once a year, today is a time for reflection and remembrance, starting with my parents, William George Spinner (August 30, 1912 — April 10, 1994) and Mary Spinner (May 11, 1914 — November 22, 1998), born in Lemberg as Jerzy Wilhelm [YEH-zhih VEEL'hel'm] Spinner and Maria [MAH-rya] Dżułyk [DZHOO-lik]. By the time of my birth, the city, pre-World War II Poland's third-largest and a major cultural center known by its Polish name, Lwów [L'VOOV], had been incorporated into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and officially renamed Lviv [L'VEEW], the name by which it was known to its large Ukrainian population. The large majority of its Polish residents were expelled/resettled to populate the longtime German (and Medieval Polish) city of Wrocław [VROTZ-lahv] (German name Breslau), which lost its German population to expulsion/resettlement into East and West Germany. A strong early memory from my childhood is the ceremonial imposition of national grief which followed the announcement of Stalin's death in March 1953.
The immigration to America with my parents was on the ocean liner MS Batory which left the Polish Baltic port city of Gdynia on March 31, 1961 and arrived in Montreal on April 11. The automobile ride to the US border crossing at New York town of Champlain was the following day which, as I later discovered, was the 100th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. Having no knowledge of English, I learned the language by continuous watching of television and verbal repetition of dialogue which I was, initially, unable to understand. One of the earliest series, in April 1961, which imprinted itself upon my memory was The Americans, about two brothers fighting on opposite sides in the Civil War which, at the time, I understood to be one of the many westerns populating each day's schedule on the TV networks. I only saw five or six episodes before the series was canceled, but it left a lasting impression. Twelve years later, I worked as a member of the technical crew in daytime TV and even received an Emmy statuette (accounting for my IMDb listing, below). It was a group award for the 1978–79 season, with each member of the crew working on the daytime drama The Edge of Night receiving his or her individual statuette. I was the show's teleprompter operator for the previous six years and the longtime producer, Erwin "Nick" Nicholson, added my name to the crew list, a practice which was not followed by any other program. Teleprompter operators and cue card holders are ineligible to compete for Emmy Awards in these job categories, thus effectively making me the sole such winner in Emmy history.
Wikipedia updates
Taking the opportunity of this annual WikiBirthday user page editing [not a hard and fast rule — if circumstances warrant or spirit moves — this page may be edited at other times], I am adding one more userbox: {User article count ranking|148} (count as of today) and updating the Service Awards mentioned in 2013 and 2014. Since my "preferences" indicator shows that the number of edits I made, most recently mentioned in 2014 as being at the Veteran Editor III level of over 16,400, has risen to over 23,500, the III can now be replaced with Veteran Editor IV. Finally, with eligibility for the {{User Ten Year Society}} userbox, that too can now be added.