On the radar
- At least we know it's happening for certain: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-02-18/In the media#Are Pakistan articles being manipulated? – I've been warning for years that the #1 problem WP will face in the long run isn't vandals, or its own internal squabbles among editors, or an admniistrative crisis, but well-organized, secretly funded, professional editing to programmatically distort the truth to advance socio-political agendas. I'm sad to be proven correct so quickly. Pakistan's government being engaged in a pattern of "civil PoV-pushing" to slowly turn all Pakistan-related articles into material that is at the level of Pakistani-nationalist elementary school indoctrination textbooks is just the tip of the iceberg. Pakistan simply got caught because they pushed it a hair too far too fast. This real-world-cabal factor is chief among the reasons we need to rethink wikiprojects, and (in the short term, not "eventually") rein them in from the "article-owning", isolationist fiefdom behavior so many of them are increasingly engaged in, pushing out conscientious editors and turning entire topic areas into editorial factions, while filibustering changes to those articles unless "approved" by the inner wikiproject circle. The levels-of-consensus policy is being ignored with increasing impunity and this will prove disastrous to the whole project if it is not rectified quickly, since it's obviously leading to root-level fractures in the enforceability of core policies like WP:Neutral point of view. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 17:10, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
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- Thanks for sharing this. It places WP, with its perennial internal quarrels in a whole new perspective. I was ready to quit. But forced to decide between the gigantic forces of the state and/or multi-million dollar companies on one side and a litigious global culture with a mid-level of squabbling on the other, I choose the latter. Historiador (talk) 05:44, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
- In 2015, Wikipedia's co-founder Larry Sanger was interviewed by Zach Schwartz in Vice; he said, among other things, that "I think Wikipedia never solved the problem of how to organize itself in a way that didn't lead to mob rule", and that since he left the project, "People that I would say are trolls sort of took over. The inmates started running the asylum."[1] Not an idle concern.
Hi!
I am Stanton McCandlish (often referred to as just SMcC here and some have nicknamed me Mac, which I don't mind). I am a Web developer, IT consultant, nonfiction author, civil liberties activist and nonprofit executive, and amateur pocket billiards (pool) instructor, former online news editor, policy analyst, archivist, independent publisher, and an amateur artist, among other things. I have been among the most active, avid Wikipedians. I have a B.A. in anthropology and communication (a custom minor that combines linguistics and broader human communication, including journalism, PR, and media criticism). 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 (and I use something of a form of Mid-Atlantic English consequently). I have competence in an odd assortment of topics, like Celtic mythology, English grammar and usage, Manx cats, New Mexican culture, US law in certain fields (freedom of expression, privacy, and intellectual property), salamanders, Web standards, UI usability, albinism, pool and billiards, online media, Art Nouveau, post-punk subcultures, Mac OS X, and various fiction franchises, among other subjects. Being an autodidactic polymath, my interest shift over time and are intense. My latest passion is the interface of zoology and anthropology, especially the history and nature of domestication.
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My current local time is 12:54 PM (reload).
Bio
Basically this is my compressed CV |
Stanton McCandlish is a freelance Web developer, systems and network administrator, 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, technology policy analysis, and technical writing. He is also an anthropologist and linguist by training.
He long volunteered as the Communications Director for the CryptoRights Foundation (presently on hiatus pending reorganization). As such, he has acted as the nonprofit'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 privacy and e-activism book 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 (mostly off-WP) interest include electronic privacy, 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, salamanders, spicy food, art nouveau, post-punk, and good girl art, and lives in Oakland, California.
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Contact
Wikitivities
Putting my money where my mouth is
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This user is a donor to the Wikimedia Foundation. You can be one too. |
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This user donated to WebCite, which keeps online source citations working in Wikipedia articles! |
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$$$ |
This user buys sources, and has spent over US$2,200 specifically to obtain over 90 reliable sources for citing in Wikipedia articles. |
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TL;DR
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This user has been editing Wikipedia for more than ten years. |
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This user has been awarded with the 100,000 Edits Award. |
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This user is not a Wikipedia administrator, and would never like to be one. |
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823 |
Admin score: This user is Wikipedia's 44th highest-scoring non-admin according to the admin scoring tool, as of 4 March 2013. |
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This user has been on Wikipedia for 10 years, 5 months and 22 days. |
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2,800+ |
This user has logged more than 2,800 moves or other log actions on Wikipedia. |
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ESU |
100% for major edits and 99.99% for minor edits. – Last update: date=October 2015. |
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vn-16 |
This editor's user page, talk page and/or subpages have been vandalized 16 times. |
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4.9 |
This user has |
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This user is one in 27,401,417. |
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This user was the 378,390th registered editor at English-language Wikipedia |
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What I'm working on now...
...when time permits:
Incomplete articles
"Incubator" of new or to-be-restored articles in progress |
Stuff I occasionally work on, because it's unfinished or it was deleted but could be salvageable with some better sourcing and writing.
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Wikipedia-namespace pages
Stuff I've been largely responsible for or heavily involved in
Projects
Articles
- 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.
- Sandbox (software development) — A coding safety process. Created this article. I crack up when someone mistakes it for the Wikipedia:Sandbox.
- 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.
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- Pleonasm — Article on redundant expressions in language. About 70% or so of that text is mine.
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- 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.
- Other misc. articles I've created: Persian onager, Turkmenian kulan
Wikipedia policies, guidelines and essays
Major templates
- {{Rp}} (The template that keeps us from going awful things when citing the same source many times in the same article. Came to me in a flash after User:Fuhghettaboutit bemoaned how many lines were created by citing the same book for so many entries at Glossary of cue sports terms. Today probably the most widely used of the "support" templates for our source citation system.)
- {{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.)
- {{Whisperback}} a.k.a. {{wb}} (the talkpage template that's not all up in yo' face)
- {{glossary}}, {{term}}, {{defn}} (See also MOS:GLOSSARIES.)
- {{div}}, {{span}}, {{em}}, {{strong}}, {{var}}, {{kbd}}, {{samp}}, {{dfn}} and most of the rest of Category:Semantic markup templates
- {{Date series header}} (This may be obsolete now.)
- {{' "}}, {{" '}}, {{" ' "}}, {{-'}}, {{'-}}, {{-"}} and {{"-}} (quotation mark kerning templates)
- {{Germanic name}}, {{Romance name}}, {{Slavic name}}, {{Turkic name}}, etc., which have inspired a great many more.
- {{Cue sports nav}}
- {{WikiProject Cue sports}}, {{WikiProject New Mexico}}, and several others
- Loads more, I just fire and forget. Literally; I'm often surprised to look in a template history and see that I created it and forgot.
Category
- Category:Cue sports (I created and have been one of the most active maintainers of most of its subcategories.)
- Category:Insular ecology (I didn't write the articles in it, I just noticed they were scattered about and not categorized sanely, so now they are.)
- Lots that I'm forgetting.
Gallery of contributed images
Some of the images I've contributed under GFDL/CC (and sometimes PD) are displayed as thumbnails in my Gallery Page.
To-do list
Wikawards
Barnometer |
![The Barnstar Creator's Barnstar: Thank you for your submission of the Instructor's Barnstar. It's now on the main barnstar list. – User:Pine, 15:11, 26 February 2012 (UTC)](https://web.archive.org/web/20160202205457im_/https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bc/Creatorofbarnstars.png/30px-Creatorofbarnstars.png) |
noob |
involved |
been around |
veteran |
seen it all |
older than the Cabal itself |
Gratuitous |
The Running Man Barnstar |
The Working Man's Barnstar |
The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar |
The E=mc2 Barnstar |
Excellent User Page Award |
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For your many, many fine cue sport related edits.
--Fuhghettaboutit 23:30, 9 February 2007 (UTC) |
For all the arduous work on Cue sport
68.239.240.144 23:46, 20 February 2007 (UTC) |
Awarded to SMcCandlish for sleuthing out sockpuppets being used to subvert RfA.
—dgiestc 20:05, 11 April 2007 (UTC) |
Awarded for your tireless work on articles relating to the field of pigmentation.
Rockpocket 09:23, 17 April 2007 (UTC) |
[...] ask Mr. McCandlish if programmers are users too. Peace and love.
-SusanLesch (talk) 03:31, 12 September 2008 (UTC) |
Barnstar Eaten by a Bear |
The Working Wikipedian's Barnstar |
Some Falafel and One Canadian Beer |
The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar |
The Heroic Barnstar |
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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 being here and to work on the women sport project.
--Cordialement féministe ♀ Cordially feminist Geneviève (talk) 20:34, 20 January 2012 (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! |
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For all of the thoughtful posts through the extended discussion at MOSCAPS. I've appreciated it.
JHunterJ (talk) 13:52, 10 February 2012 (UTC) |
Auto-assigned |
Looshpah Laureate
of the Encyclopedia |
Good Article |
Good Article |
"Did You Know?" Article |
"Did You Know?" Article |
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This editor is entitled to display this
Master Editor IV Badge
(10+ years & 78K+ edits) |
This user helped promote the article CornerShot to Good status (promoted July 24, 2006) |
This user helped promote the article Jasmin Ouschan to Good status (promoted September 12 2009, received October 20, 2009) |
On March 2, 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article William A. Spinks, which you created and substantially expanded. |
On June 2, 2010, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Golden Cue, which you created and substantially expanded. |
"In the News" Article |
"In the News" Article |
The Original Barnstar |
The Barnstar Creator's Barnstar |
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On 5 May 2009, In the news was updated with a news item that involved the article Shaun Murphy (snooker player), which you substantially updated. |
On 5 May 2009, In the news was updated with a news item that involved the article John Higgins (snooker player), which you substantially updated. |
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 |
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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: |
Consider yourself duly admonished |
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I hereby award this barnstar for your disruptive MFD nomination.
—freak() 13:00, 4 May 2007 (UTC) |
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) |
add this :)
![Wildlife Barnstar (V5) Alt.png](https://web.archive.org/web/20160202205457im_/https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/98/Wildlife_Barnstar_%28V5%29_Alt.png/100px-Wildlife_Barnstar_%28V5%29_Alt.png) |
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The Fauna Barnstar |
For being an enlightening Star in a farmyard Barn Gregkaye ✍♪ 15:11, 22 September 2014 (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):
- Setting up a WikiProject and making it work
- 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!
- Having a good time!
Wikitivities userboxes
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This user is a donor to the Wikimedia Foundation. You can be one too. |
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linkspam |
This user despises linkspam, and will terminate it on sight, as well as any other spam by the contributor. |
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This user fixes double redirects. |
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This user cites online sources with the help of Cite4Wiki! |
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This user watches over Wikipedia with the help of Twinkle! |
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This user keeps citations to online sources working with the help of WebCite! |
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I am a chimera, frequently shapeshifting.
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This user is a WikiDragon: making massive, bold edits everywhere. |
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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
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This user thinks that registration should be required to edit articles. |
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This user believes that common sense trumps all other arguments. |
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Flexible |
This user deals with edits, deletion, and creation of pages individually instead of unilaterally and encourages others to do so. |
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AfD-3 |
This user has had 3 pages put up for deletion. Most of the time, they were deleted. |
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This user is bold, but not reckless, in updating pages. |
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This user tries to do the right thing. If they make a mistake, please let them know. |
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</noinclude> Note: SMcCandlish's comments on Wikipedia are a work in progress subject to the Thread-mode Disclaimer.
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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. |
Where I am in Wikispace
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Potential conflicts of interest
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 topics:
- 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 vaguely, conceivably have a conflict of interest on, due to past connections
- Too many clients to individually list here (and some are covered by NDAs anyway); I know better than to edit articles about them.
- Integrity Incorporated (Toronto company) (former employer, 2005–2006)
- 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)
- University of New Mexico [UNM] (alma mater, 1991–1993 and 2007–2010; former employer, 1992–3)
- Double Rainbow (former employer, 1991)
- Wal-Mart (former employer, late 1980s)
- Cannon Air Force Base, United States Air Force (former employer, late 1980s; I was a civilian worker, not military personnel)
Things and stuff
Funniest things I've seen on Wikipedia
- [emphasis added when salient]
- The content itself isn't funny, but the fact that more than 50% of the content of the page is a huge navbox is hilarious.
- Perhaps the funniest real article name on Wikipedia. (It's a real math/physics theorem, and not intrinsically funny, though a bit amusing.)
- 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 song parody by various Wikimedians (to the tune of The Eagles' "Hotel California"). I hate filk, with a passion, yet I somehow loved this.
- I think I was channeling Ancient Finnish or something.
- in Animal Farm, as of 13 January 2010 version (we all know that ancient Marxism was of course founded by Marxus Aurelius, right?)
- Rather remarkable definition of "watch your language".
- 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".)
- Did you know?... That there are not just regular vandals but ones with really, really weird agendas lurking in Wikipedia?
- An edit summary from Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). Needless to say, the next editor's summary read "deleted spam".
- 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!
- 05:46, 21 February 2007 Gracenotes (Talk | contribs) (→Template:Barnstars - *stabs kittens*)
- 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.
- I'm not sure Wikipedia's account-creation CAPTCHA database should include every word... >;-)
Smartest things I've seen on Wikipedia
Just a few particularly well-thought-out bits by other editors. They aren't necessarily mindblowing or anything, just insightful and well-put.
- "I ... had no problem whatsoever learning wikicode when I started writing and improving encyclopedia articles in 2009. I do not want to learn new software features that are less productive and less intuitive than old software features. I welcome any upgrades that are entirely intuitive and non-disruptive to existing editors. I will oppose ill-conceived and poorly-implemented make-work projects for professional programmers. This is not an employment program for coders. It is an encyclopedia created by volunteers, who are article writers and researchers."
- —Cullen (talk), 18:40, 29 November 2015 (UTC), Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Breakfast#RFC - Remove Flow from WikiProject Breakfast? [2] (commenting on how testing WP:Flow, WMF's new forum software intended to replace talk pages, pretty much destroyed the wikiproject that agreed to test it.
- "I reverted to the version before the diff you cited [i.e., the addition of disputed material], but was reverted. Changes pushed through without consensus are likely to be ignored or constantly disputed, so there's actually no point in doing this."
- —SarahSV (talk) 04:51, 27 January 2016 (UTC) Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images#RfC: Should the guideline maintain the "As a general rule" wording or something similar? [3]
- "Revert rules should not be construed as an entitlement or inalienable right to revert, nor do they endorse reverts as an editing technique.
Passed 9 to 0."
- —Arbitration Committee, 22:47, 23 March 2012 (UTC) Article titles and capitalisation, Final Decision
- —Gigs (talk · contribs), 12 June 2013, in Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-06-12/Op-ed, "The tragedy of Wikipedia's commons".
- "Nearly all our policies are driven by the need to prevent ... abuse of Wikipedia. Policies on biographies of living people are driven largely by those who would abuse Wikipedia for purposes of defamation. Policies on neutrality and verifiability have been largely driven by the need to address those who were here to push a political agenda or promote their fringe viewpoints. What Wikipedia is not is pretty much a chronicle of all the things that people have tried to use Wikipedia for that the community has decided are detrimental to a quality encyclopedia. ... This isn't censorship, it's curation."
- —Gigs (talk · contribs), 12 June 2013, in Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-06-12/Op-ed, "The tragedy of Wikipedia's commons".
- "[C]onsensus is an outcome of discussion, not a type of discussion. Editors' comments contribute to the consensus-building process."
- —David Levy (talk · contribs), 11:49, 6 March 2012 (UTC), at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured list#Renaming and re-stylizing Today's Featured List?, accessed March 11, 2012
- "If rules make you nervous and depressed, and not desirous of participating in the wiki, then ignore them entirely and go about your business."
- — Koyaanis Qatsi (talk · contribs), at 04:00, 18 September 2001 (UTC); it is the original formulation of WP:Ignore all rules
- "Any pile of bullshit decomposes naturally."
- — 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."
- — Farine (talk · contribs), 05:59, 6 May 2008 (UTC) (edit summary at Data East)
- "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."
- — Dalbury (talk · contribs) 11:42, 24 January 2007 (UTC) (Wikipedia talk:Speedy deletion criterion for unsourced articles#Userfy is a good option, accessed January 31, 2007)
- "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)."
- — Ninly (talk · contribs), 06:38, 8 May 2009 (UTC) (Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style, accessed June 2, 2009), on the real purpose and value of the Wikipedia Manual of Style.
- "Show the door to trolls, vandals, and wiki-anarchists, who, if permitted, would waste your time and create a poisonous atmosphere here."
- — WP co-founder Larry Sanger, on Wikipedia:Etiquette
- "...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."
- — Born2cycle (talk · contribs), 17:25, 26 January 2012 (UTC), Wikipedia talk:Article titles thread "Common names"
- "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."
- — Greg L (talk · contribs), 00:49, 10 February 2012 (UTC) Wikipedia talk:Article titles thread "Why no action on implementing community consensus"
Allegedly clever things I've thought up here
- "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.)
Nifty Wikipedia tools
Kind of hard to find unless you already know about them:
- Wikimedia Labs at Mediawiki.org, for general info.
- The Tool Labs at WikiTech.Wikimedia.org, where anyone can create an account to develop tools.
- This page indicates lost tools and other problems after the demise of the old ToolServer.
- OAuth applications list
- editorinteract.py at WMFLabs – analyzes your interaction with one or more other users
The material below became outdated due to the demise of the ToolServer.
Old content that I haven't updated |
Coding tools
- Special:ExpandTemplates – get raw HTML output of arbitrary wikicode with templates and parserfunctions
- Lua programming and Scribunto modules
- Unsorted additions
- How to ping people: "The keys are: max 20 pings per edit; and do an edit to clean before before trying a new ping, so the system sees a clean diff; and of course always new four-tilde signature. Dicklyon (talk) 03:45, 15 December 2014 (UTC)"
- TimedMediaHandler - a-v in articles
- Search through a page's history for edits made by a particular user [4]
- List changes made recently to pages linked from a specified page [5]
- List contributors to an article, ranked in order of activity [6]
- Find images for a given article, using interwiki links [7]
- Find which Wiki pages link to a particular site [8]
- What pages have you and another edited? [9]
- User's across-projects contributions [10]
- Search Wikipedia's back pages [11]
- Who wrote that? (Wiki blame) [12]
- Request page protection [13]
- Fix bare url reflinks [14]
- Readability meter [15]
- X!'s edit count [16]
- Wikichecker [17]
- 3RR tool [18]
- Review [19]
- Emote [20]
- Help [21]
Help and info
Editing tools
User stats
(Snottywong's tools – an array of user & editing statistics and search tools
Page/Category stats
External utilities
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Security
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