|
|
One of my jobs on Wikipedia is to categorise the uncategorised. I think it's important that articles are categorised, for a number of reasons. Firstly, it helps people to find other articles on the same (or a similar) subject easily. It also helps editors to ensure that articles are consistently written and formatted. Thridly, it gives users the choice of browsing/surfing through Wikipedia rather than having to search all the time. Fourthly and finally, it's a simple matter of being tidy.
If you'd like to help those poor, desperate articles out there that currently have no category to live in, then please join Wikipedia:WikiProject Categories. It's a great way to learn stuff, and since many uncategorised articles also require other forms of cleanup, it's really helpful for identifying those and improving the encylopaedia as a whole.
[edit] Useful links
The National Health Service Wikiproject is a fairly new project with an awful lot of work to do. There are hundreds of hospitals and NHS organisations with no Wikipedia articles at all, and the quality of the NHS-related stuff that does exist needs to be vastly improved. I'll do what I can.
I'm British, and I have an interest in local history. As a result, I've contributed to quite a few articles about places within the UK. In fact, most of my Wikipedia contributions that aren't related to cleanup (including categorising and vandalism-fighting) and Wikipedia citizenship are, understandably, on British people, British music, and places within the UK (particularly England).
The UK geography project keep a corporate list of things to do, as well as a different article each month that we work on together:
 |
This user is not a Wikipedia administrator but would like to be one someday. |
|
In the olden days, when Wikipedia first started up, every user that logged in had administrative rights. Not surprisingly, the vandals soon started creating accounts and abusing the admin tools. To combat this, a distinction was made between "ordinary" users and administrators. Ordinary users can apply, or be nominated, for administrator status using the RfA process. But (and this is the important bit) the underlying principle is still that any trustworthy user should be granted administrative rights, and only those users who are suspected to be vandals or who will almost certainly abuse the admin tools should be turned down. It's an innocent-until-proven-guilty thing.
Unfortunately, many users who vote on RfA have forgotten this, and assume that all users are unsuitable for administrator status unless they can prove otherwise, (usually by longevity or accumilating a large edit count - neither of which have anything to do with vandalism, trustworthiness, etc.). So, when the mood takes me, I occasionally visit RfA and try to support those trustworthy Wikipedians who are being judged against criteria that have no place in Wikipedia.
[edit] How I judge a request for admin status
So what is important to consider when looking at a request for administrator status? Here's a quick guide to what's important and what's not when considering candidates for administration. But first, some key quotes from WP:Admin that form the basis for what's below:
- Wikipedia policy is to grant this access liberally to anyone who has been an active Wikipedia contributor for a while and is generally a known and trusted member of the community.
- In the early days of Wikipedia all users acted as administrators and in principle they still should.
- From early on, it has been pointed out that administrators should never develop into a special subgroup of the community, but they should be a part of the community like anyone else only equipped with a few more tools to do some chores that would potentially be harmful if everyone was entrusted them.
- The community does look to administrators to perform essential housekeeping chores that require the extra access administrators are entrusted with.
[edit] What's important
- The candidate is trustworthy
- The candidate is civil, and makes an effort to get along
- The candidate has been around for a while. What's a while? One month is plenty of time for someone to prove themselves.
- The candidate sees adminship more as a responsibility than a reward
- The candidate is open and honest. That means, they say a bit about themselves on their user page (preferably using Userboxes so that I can get an idea of who they are easily and quickly) and they admit mistakes or conflicts they've had in the past.
- No history of vandalism or edit wars
- A good knowledge of policies and procedures, but a healthy dislike of bureaucracy for the sake of it.
[edit] What is definitely not important
- Edit count. See Edit Counting and WP:Admin. In particluar:
- Number of edits in talk space / user space / anywhere else other than the encyclopaedia itself. In fact, too many edits to discussions etc. will put me off, as it indicates a lack of focus on the job.
- The candidate has committed some indescretion in the past for which they've apologised and pledged not to repeat.
[edit] Other factors that are more likely to make me support them
- A similar POV to my own. (It's better to admit bias than to pretend that we all have a NPOV on everything!)
[edit] Things that might put me off
- (rarely an issue) A POV that I really really strongly disagree with
- Putting undue emphasis on the things that aren't important (see above) in their nomination, over and above the things that are important.
 |
This little tag you are reading is a userbox. |
|
 |
This user supports userboxes . |
|
| AD |
The user is against the mass deletion of userboxes |
|
|
|
| 238.584px |
This user believes all userboxes should be the same size! |
|
|
|
|
|
They seem to be a hot topic at the moment. Here's my take on things.
[edit] What is a userbox?
I know it's defined elsewhere, but many people seem to have many different opinions about what they are. Here's my take. A userbox is like a badge or a wristband. It's something its owner chooses to wear, that makes a statement or a point. Like badges and wristbands, there are several key features of userboxes that need to be preserved:
- They need to be easy for users to find
- They need to be stored centrally
- They should be consistant:
- There should be a standard size and shape
- There should be only one userbox for any one "message"
[edit] Opinion in Wikipedia
In order to create a trully neutral encyclopaedia, we need to discuss areas of contoversy and conflict. That's why we have talk pages on articles. In order to have meaningful discussions, we need to understand one another. In order to understand one another, we need to know what each others' opinions are. The more we know about one another, the more understanding there will be, the more meaningful our discussions will be, and the better our articles will be. So if we're genuine about improving Wikipedia, we need to allow opinion. And it's much easier to identify someone's opinion by spotting a standard userbox on their user page than by reading through pages of prose, written in a different way by each Wikipedian.
To summarise:
- Expressing opinion is crucial to building a neutral encyclopaedia
- Userboxes are an easy-to-read and easy-to-write way of expressing opinion
- Userboxes are more efficient than every user writing the same things in slightly different ways
[edit] Userboxes as templates
It's my opinion that a userbox isn't a userbox unless it's available as a template. That's because if you're going to wear a badge to support a cause, you usually go and buy that badge from somewhere. You don't expect everyone who shares your opinion to have to make their own version of the badge.
Those against this idea say that using userboxes as templates puts an extra load on Wikipedia's servers, but that using "subst" is better. However, using "subst" just creates loads more copies of the same code; code that is usually around 10 times the size of the template reference. Therefore, using "subst" demolishes the uniformity that userboxes should have, and takes up more space on Wikipedia's servers (hence putting more load on the servers). So that argument doesn't wash with me.
Unfortunately, due to the current threats to delete userboxes from Wikipedia, I've felt the need to use "subst" on every userbox on this page. But I still have an un"subst"ed version saved, and hopefully will be able to use it when the jobsworths have found something more constructive to do with their time than trying to hide the wonderful diversity of the Wikipedia community.
The American mutilation of English (or Where the English Language Wikipedia Fails)
The idea of the English language Wikipedia is that both the USA mutation of English and the rest-of-the-world version are used, to give an overall neutral flavour. But, to put it simply, it doesn't work. When I'm on RC patrol I often see American users changing perfectly valid English into Americanish. Furthermore, new users are invited to experiment using the "sandbox". Outside of the USA, "sandbox" has no meaning - we call it a sand pit. So from the outset, non-U.S. Wikipedians are made to feel unwelcome and intrusive because of the divisive language that's used.
And while we're on the subject of language, let's just clarify a few things:
- An accent is the inflection given to certain words or phrases, usually subject to regional variation. The spelling of the words is unchanged unless one is trying to indicate phonetically how the word is spoken using the accent in question (for example, most Americans pronounce "butter" as "budder" and "centre" as "senna").
- A dialect is an accent combined with a set of additional words or phrases, usually borne out of the pronunciation of existing words with the said accent, or out of regional slang. The existence and spelling of the core language is not altered by dialect. Examples include "Why-aye" from Newcastle, UK and "Yahoo" and "Yee-ha" from the United States.
So neither accent nor dialect affect the correct spelling of words in the core language. So spelling words like "centre" as "center", "colour" as "color", and making up wholly new words in place of adequate existing ones (like "anesthesiologist" instead of "anaesthetist") is not a dialect of English, nor is it anything to do with accents. It's a series of mistakes that need to be corrected.
It's an interesting subject. I get particularly passionate about the differences between "American English" and "Commonwealth English", particularly the spelling thing (center instead of centre, encyclopedia instead of encyclopaedia, etc.): My understanding is that most of these occurred directly after the American Civil War, and the idea was to distinguish the American language from the English of the rest of the world; thus "American English" is not a natural dialect but an artificial one. With that in mind, it always annoys me when "American English" is adopted as a global standard (in html code for example - why is <CENTRE>...</CENTRE> not supported as well as
...
? How hard can it be for developers to write browsers that support both?! And why is the supposedly global Wikipedia not Wikipaedia?) when the whole point of "American English" was to be different from the global standard.
Does that mean I go around changing Americanese into English? No. That would make me as bad as those I've just moaned about, and in any case is a breach of Wikipedia policy. What I do do, though, is uphold Wikipedia's policy (see WP:MOS) which is to use neutral / mutually acceptable language wherever possible. In order to make sure the quality of Wikipedia is as high as possible, and it's as useful for people outside of the USA as those poor souls within it, it's important that we maintain this neutrality and that wherever possible, americanisations and incorrect grammar are altered to language that makes sense and is accepted universally.
Of course it's a never ending task, and there are some words and phrases that are more difficult to "neutralise" than others.
[edit] "Different to/than/from"
At present, I'm concentrating on "different than" (which, although commonly used in the USA, is, strictly speaking, grammatically incorrect - even according to some US grammar dictionaries) - usually changing it to "different from". In many cases, "different to" would fit better, but I understand this is never used in the States, so "different from" is often the only universal compromise. (Sometimes "other than" or other phrases fit better - like many things, it's all a question of context).
Some "different than" quotes and discussions:
The overriding concensus from these (and many more - try a Google search) is that "different from" is acceptable everywhere, "different to" seems to be UK-only, and "different than" is either not acceptable, or acceptable only under particular circumstances (but a "different from" can usually be used instead: This is different than it used to be should be This is different from the way it was or This is different from how it used to be, etc.)
[edit] Me generally
Everything you could possibly want to know, and a lot of stuff you probably don't...
|
|
| respect |
This user respects other people's religions and realises that not all people wish to follow the same path. |
|
| <>< |
This user is a Born Again Christian.|} |
 |
This user believes in the existence of a human soul or spirit. |
|
| God |
This user believes in God.|} |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
This user drinks tea.|} |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ? |
This user follows his/her own political ideals. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| en |
This user is a native speaker of English.|} |
 |
This user is old enough to remember what a typewriter is, and that's all you need to know. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I find it amazing that there are so many people who can find nothing better to do than vandalise Wikipedia. Except from the very occasional exception, such edits are usually far from amusing, they don't help anyone, and they're reverted pretty quickly (by people like me), and no-one gains anything. Frankly, I just don't understand the motivation behind vandalising Wikipedia - especially when things like Uncyclopedia exist to host amusing gibberish and the like. But whatever the underlying cause, as a Wikipedian I do what I can to keep the encycopaedia clean and tidy, and that involves a lot of RC patrolling and vandalism-fighting.
|
 |
This user does not understand mean people. Please be nice.|} |
 |
This user is bold, but not reckless, in updating pages. |
|
 |
This user tries to do the right thing. If they make a mistake, please let them know. |
|
|
|
|
