User:74s181

I decided my user page was too long, so I've trimmed it back. The previous more opinionated and verbose version is available here. 74s181 (talk) 13:11, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I know that Wikipedia has pretty strong guidelines on personal attacks and criticism, but I really do need to be slapped sometimes, so if you think that my comments anywhere on Wikipedia have crossed the line, please feel free to visit my talk page and 'slap' me.

I enjoy writing, especially sharing ideas. I discovered Wikipedia and made my first contributions in December of 2004, anonymously under my home net static IP. Like many things I do I dived in without fully understanding the process and rubbed a few people the wrong way. Now that I have a bit more experience I still occasionally rub people the wrong way. This is not intentional, I try to follow the rules, but there are so many of them, especially for what claims to be an 'open' or 'free' environment. It's hard not to get irritated sometimes, especially when there are those who ignore the rules and never experience any consequence.

As an aside, I sometimes feel like the banker, who, when he first heard of socialism chuckled and said, "They want to eliminate money? Poor fools, they'll re-invent it soon enough."

Like most people who regularly edit Wikipedia, I have an agenda. Unlike many editors I state my agenda right up front.

I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the one headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. My goal in editing is to ensure that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its doctrines and beliefs are fairly and accurately portrayed. I do this by editing according to Wikipedia policies such as WP:NPOV, WP:V, and WP:NOR. These three policies are the 'law' of the land regarding content. If you think you have seen an example of where I have violated either the letter or the spirit of the laws of Wikipedia please bring it up on my talk page.

You may be wondering if I am a true believer in Wikipedia. I guess it depends on how you define the term, 'true believer'. I think that Wikipedia is a noble experiment and provides much useful information about many topics, but I am still trying to understand how it is supposed to work with controversial articles like those I edit. As a Christian, Wikipedia seems to me like a house built upon sand. Usually, the storm doesn't come, and the winds don't blow, but when they do you end up with Anti-Mormonism articles like First Vision. I'm still here, I'm trying to assume good faith, I'm trying to contribute in a NPOV way. But I'm also digging in the sand looking for some kind of bedrock to build on.

Anyway, that's who I am. If you're wondering why I use the handle '74s181', it is because the first computer I spent a lot of time on was the Data General Nova 3 which was based on the 74181 bit slice ALU. Years ago when I first started registering at various places on the Internet I used 'bitslice', so did a lot of other people. So I switched to '74s181'. Most people haven't even heard of that one, but those who have, know what I'm talking about.

Feel free to leave comments on my talk page. 74s181 (talk) 12:54, 10 July 2009 (UTC)