User:BPRN88

I love Wikipedia. I'm a bookworm and love books. Endless reading and writing is my dream :-) When we were little kids, our great grand father bought several sets of encyclopedia for us to study.  He paid over thousands of dollars, USD.  When Wikipedia came out, it was a blessing in heaven for us and for our kids.

Interesting, Wikipedia was first brought to my attention by my youngest son. He loves Wikipedia and have been donating his little hard earn money to Wikipedia regularly. He said, "Mom, even just $5, it will help." He continued saying, "Imagine everyone donates $5? That will be a big help to Wikipedia." He is now going to college. I realized, Wikipedia is going to be a big help to him.

When I first learned about Wikipedia in 2004 from my son, I told all my friends about it. I loved the Wikipedia so much that I created an account. I used the same username in every site that I have an account. I did that was because, it was the easiest thing for me to remember. Since I was in business, the easiest username was my business name. However, one day, when I came back to log in to my account, it was blocked. I was puzzled. I read up every possible terms and condition, policy and so forth. I then realized, it was not allow to use Wikipedia to promote your business. Although I wasn't, but using an username that looks like my business name was a big no-no and I didn't know. I should have read up on the terms first.

I tried contacting someone in Wikipedia for assistance, but to no avail. I was disappointed and left helplessly. (But wait...)

There's a good side to this story. The bottom line is, I learned my lesson. I also learned that Wikipedia respects the community to a point that it make sure no one is taking advantage of it by advertising themselves and using it as PR. I now understand.

Then one day, I was browsing the web and clicked on the link to what I was looking for. I was directed to a page on Wikipedia. On top of the page was a celebration announcement. It was Wikipedia celebrating its 10 years anniversary. It was asking people to organize and host celebration around the world.

Well, guess what? I've been a Meetup Organizer of ten Meetup groups for many years with monthly events for each group. It was something very easy for me to do. My love of Wikipedia came back. My passion in wanted to create an event to celebrate the ten year anniversary of Wikipedia was stronger by the minute. If anyone can spread the words and organize an event about it, I surely is the right person for it, so I told myself. I'm sure many others can do a great job too. But when I search on Wikipedia to see if anyone in Dallas / Ft. Worth areas in Texas in the U.S. is doing anything about it, I found none.

There, I was more eager that ever in wanted to create an event to celebrate such great thing, so I decided to create an user account with a clear username that is not coming across as advertisement by mistake. I really wanted to create an event to promote the Wikipedia's ten year anniversary and bring people together and celebrate.

Hence, the birth of my new username here. I wanted something easy for me to remember and yet not easy to forget. Again, I'm not using my traditional username, so, I have to be creative and create an username that is not easy to forget.

Finally, we all got together. The event was great. I organized it. Introduced it. Promoted it. Hosted it. I even bought food for everyone who came to the event. We all had a great time.

Then times went by. I tried signing back in to my Wikipedia account to update the celebration announcement page with pictures and videos, but I couldn't remember my username and login. Bummer. I came back several times trying to log in, but I couldn't remember my username. I left again.

But tonight, I was searching for something online and it lead me to Wikipedia again. I was wondering what my username was. with a little search in my email files, I found a copy of the emails that I've sent to everyone to invite them to my event in celebrating Wikipedia ten years anniversary.

I was able to login after I reset my password. I'm in! I'm back in my account! I'm so excited! I started to look and see what else I can do.

There, I found...

(1) My user page is empty and I need to put something here. So, here you go! (2) I can create a book in Wikipedia! I can even have it printed! Check out this awesome video showing you how. (3) I found the donation page for Wikipedia. Yes, I'm going to donate. (4) Yup, I'm going to contribute in anyway I can to Wikipedia.

I love Wikipedia!

Thank you for reading this long user page :-)

--BPRN88 (talk) 09:18, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

P.S. Moderator, please, if you see something you don't like. Please don't delete my page or kick me out again. I'm like you, love Wikipedia and that is why we are here, just like you working in a common goal: support Wikipedia. Please contact me, if you can, to let me know if you see something written above needs to be adjust to meet the terms and condition and the policy in Wikipedia, please let me know. I will comply accordingly. Thank you.

P.P.S. For my own reference, here's the [Terms of Use], CC BY-SA 3.0 License, GFDL.