User:Antepenultimate

{|cellpadding="15" style="width: 100%;" {|cellpadding="0.5" style="width: 100%;" {|cellpadding="0.5" style="width: 100%;" {|cellpadding="0.5" style="width: 100%;" {|cellpadding="40" style="width: 100%;" {|cellpadding="0.5" style="width: 100%;" {|cellpadding="30" style="width: 100%;"
 * style="width: 100%; background-color: #F0F0D4; vertical-align: top;" |
 * style="width: 100%; background-color: #954545; vertical-align: top;" |
 * style="width: 100%; background-color: #FFFFFF; vertical-align: top;" |
 * style="width: 100%; background-color: #954545; vertical-align: top;" |
 * style="width: 100%; background-color: #F0F0D4; vertical-align: top;" |
 * style="width: 100%; background-color: #FFFFFF; vertical-align: top;" |
 * style="width: 100%; background-color: #F7F9E7; vertical-align: top;" |

"To be is to do." – Socrates "To do is to be." – Jean-Paul Sartre "Do be do be do." – Frank Sinatra

Like a tiny, landlocked beach
"When I was very young, my parents took away my Sandbox on account of me constantly flinging sand at the house. But now I can create as many as I like!"

Useful items of general interest

 * coord template instructions
 * convert template instructions
 * Extended convert instructions
 * GNIS search, for all of your US-based coordinate needs
 * NGA GEOnet Names Server (GNS), the GNIS for the rest of the world
 * Annotated image, for cropping an image's display on any page

Naughty Mantras
"I am consciously motivated by the prospect of goal attainment." — Interview speech in case I ever want to work with idiots I don't like it, but occasionally I am forced to time travel.

By way of introduction
Seems this editing thing is maybe less of a 'phase' than I thought (hoped?). So, may as well be cordial and give a bit of background, my editing interests, and a few unasked-for opinions.

I began editing back in 2006, focusing on science-fiction related articles, particularly award-winning and New Wave science fiction novels from the 1960s and 70s. I enjoyed locating and uploading first-edition cover art for these books, and many still stand. However, I got extremely frustrated by several poorly programmed bots that were determined to delete my contributions simply because their machine logic couldn't understand my hand-rolled file summaries, which were completely WP:NFCC-compliant despite not being enclosed in a fancy template. This caused me to leave after just a few months, and I did not return for about seven years.

What brought me back was an article so terrible, I couldn't help but make some snide comments on the talk page. That comment is embarrassing, and I suppose easy enough to find in my contribs, but somehow checking my crusty ol' watchlist scratched an itch I didn't even know I still had. I began editing articles about some local parks...

These days, I mostly edit and create articles related to protected areas and geographic features (mostly rivers and islands), with a focus on subjects in New York state, where I'm originally from. Lately, I've started turning my attentions to places in Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland, in an effort to more formally adopt the area I now call home. I enjoy fixing up articles that are the result of hundreds of uncoordinated contributions over the years, and forming them into a coherent, structured article. However, I also believe that short articles can and should contain valuable information, and one of my major peeves with wiki culture is the idea that article length is any indication whatsoever of article quality.

I am a staunch believer in WP:V. Although I admit that my reliance on web-based (reliable) sources isn't always optimal, I do believe that a major function of a Wikipedia article is to quickly guide interested readers to additional information - for which an online source is darn efficient. To be honest, I don't hardly trust a word that I read here, but I do love the new resources that I find through this site. I also believe primary sources for some subjects are acceptable, even preferred; for basic information regarding public properties, I'm going to trust the management agency more than a popular newspaper article, where authors tend to round figures or approximate.

I sorta miss the talk culture of this place that declined during my time away, so by all means, leave me a message if you so choose, especially if you think any of my edits could use improvement! (Unless it's about en-dashes. Seriously, addressing a single 'Citation needed' tag is worth more than ten thousand dash/hyphen corrections, and you know it. )

Did-Done-Did
Bolding indicates those articles I'm especially fond of; I don't go for the DYK/GA/FA scene so this is all I can do to point out contributions I spent way too much time on

Articles created

 * The Butterfly Kid (Way back when)
 * Sprague Brook Park
 * Salmon River Falls
 * Primula mistassinica
 * Frenchman Island
 * Parnassia glauca
 * Akron Falls Park
 * Emery Park
 * Como Lake Park
 * Wendt Beach Park
 * Robert G. Wehle State Park
 * Buffalo Harbor State Park
 * Mexico Point State Park
 * Canandaigua Lake State Marine Park
 * Beechwood State Park
 * Brentwood State Park
 * 1212 (album)
 * Ellisia nyctelea
 * Croil Island
 * Franny Reese State Park
 * Hook Mountain State Park
 * Haverstraw Beach State Park
 * Galop Island
 * Strawberry Island (New York)
 * Little Salmon River (Lake Ontario)
 * Labrador Hollow Unique Area
 * List of New York wild forests
 * Helen L. McNitt State Park
 * List of New York state wildlife management areas
 * Canaseraga Creek
 * Chazy Fossil Reef
 * Hallock State Park Preserve
 * Robert V. Riddell State Park
 * Mohawk River State Park
 * St. Lawrence Reservation
 * Cuba Lake
 * Virginia Wildlife Management Areas
 * Short Hills Wildlife Management Area
 * Mattaponi Wildlife Management Area
 * Big Woods Wildlife Management Area
 * Smith Mountain Cooperative Wildlife Management Area

Article overhauls & expansions

 * Warheads (candy) (Way back when)
 * Chestnut Ridge Park
 * Eternal Flame Falls
 * Tug Hill (Incomplete)
 * Ellicott Creek Park
 * Salmon River (New York)
 * Scoby Power Plant and Dam
 * West Valley Demonstration Project (Incomplete)
 * Woodlawn Beach State Park
 * Otisco Lake
 * Canadice Lake
 * Bayswater Point State Park
 * Blauvelt State Park
 * Captree State Park
 * Amsterdam Beach State Park
 * Onondaga Park
 * East Charity Shoal Light
 * Taughannock Falls State Park
 * Rockland Lake State Park
 * Robert Moses State Park (Long Island)
 * Jones Beach State Park
 * Rock Island Light
 * Eighteen Mile Creek (Erie County)
 * List of New York state parks
 * List of New York State Historic Sites
 * Catharine Creek
 * List of New York state forests
 * Zoar Valley
 * New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation
 * Virginia Natural Area Preserve System‎‎
 * List of Maryland wildlife management areas

Current projects

 * Haphazardly working my way through the List of New York state parks, creating articles for redlinks and getting others to a minimum standard (c/e, structure and infobox)... Here's a list of what I've completed so far.
 * Overhaul of List of islands of New York, which is pretty useless at the moment. My sandbox for development can be found here. Currently on hold.

Former projects of dubious worth and significant vintage
Seriously, this was all just about forever ago. Strong were the redlinks then
 * Added infoboxes with first-edition covers (when possible) to all...
 * Novels written by Kurt Vonnegut
 * Novels written by Tom Robbins
 * Novels written by Philip K. Dick
 * Novels that won or were nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel
 * Novels that won or were nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel