User:Bongomatic/Mushy stuff

What I do here
I have no idea when I started editing Wikipedia, but my first registered contribution was in October, 2006. It's fair to say that at that time I had no conception about Wikipedia policies or guidelines, and considered editing Wikipedia to be like participating in a barn raising, where there was no need to question anyone's motives or contributions.

I started editing frequently in September 2008.

My main focus is article creation and sourcing. I don't have the luxury of time to work on improving articles to the good or featured status. I frequently start biographical articles on the subjects of New York Times obituaries, or other topics identified by readings in real life.

I have created more than 200 pages in article space, though probably a lot of these are redirects or the result of page moves. Nonetheless, there are quite a number of real articles of substance in that list. A few are particularly pleasing, generally because of the amount of collaboration, or simply other people's (often, Kelapstick's) work, that went into getting them from stubs to articles of reasonable utility. (I had a boss that used to say, "the best way to get something done well is to do a halfassed job, and show it to someone smarter than you".) A partial list of ones I'm very happy with are:


 * Alan Scott (blacksmith)
 * David Sabiston
 * Bacon Explosion
 * Batu Hijau mine
 * Jerry Rosenberg
 * Marvin Sutton

Quite a number of articles I created have appeared on the DYK page, though I have never nominated any of them.

I also spend time patrolling pages from the back of the queue. I add maintenance templates to articles, and nominate articles that (in my view) fail to meet the inclusion guidelines for speedy deletion, proposed deletion, or for deletion discussions. I also participate in deletion discussions.

Editing, reversion, and deletion philosophy
I dislike spam, vandalism, POV insertion, and COI-inspired editing, but am equally if not more irritated by indiscriminate deletion nominations. Over time, I have come to consider WP:ATD and WP:BEFORE extremely important. When nominating articles for deletion, I try to do an exhaustive search for sources. In clear COI situations, I also consider&mdash;in addition to the guidelines&mdash;whether an article would ever have been created by someone uninvolved.

The notability guidelines are far from perfect, far from consistent, and far from my own views. But they are reasonably stable, and while actual outcomes (nicely summarized at WP:OUTCOMES) differ from them to a degree, not by an unreasonable degree given the governance structure of Wikipedia.

My main issue with the guidelines is how they are applied to special interest coverage (coverage in very local sources, or the metro section of regional sources, or in very specialized newsletters or journals). While WP:5P says that Wikipedia "incorporates elements of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers," it doesn't mean that it should incorporate all such elements, or all elements that could be added to a hypothetical specialized encyclopedias. Support for my viewpoint can be found at WP:NOTDIR, WP:INDISCRIMINATE, and WP:SOAP (see point #5), but editors who opine at AfD discussions are all over the map on this issue. One editor I particularly respect (though disagree with regularly) successfully argued that a company listing in a Jane's directory of aviation suppliers satisfied the GNG. I will continue to wax poetic on this sort of issue it comes up in AfD discussions.

On the other hand, while I personal don't think the encyclopedia benefits from covering every secondary school, I accept that (if you allow parochial local coverage to count) most will satisfy some users' interpretation of the GNG, so it's not worth bothering having a deletion discussion for them&mdash;just keep them and save keystrokes for productive works. The same goes doubly (triply?) for accredited tertiary institutions.

Administrators and hats
Being an admin is, indeed, "no big deal". However, it is not the case, as at least one admin has suggested, that admins are nothing but editors "with some extra tools that can help Wikipedia remain running with stability". Admins&mdash;especially when using the tools&mdash;should be cooler, slower to anger, less threatening, and more patient then the standard we ask for from the rest of the community. Administrative actions should never be discourteous, and administrators must make a particular point of not threatening blocks or other administrative action for good faith disagreement. Administrators should make it clear when they are acting as editors (offering content opinions, or policy suggestions, etc.) or as admins (staying neutral on matters other than administration of policy).

As editors, admins should be permitted to try to move consensus based on their personal views of what the encyclopedia should be. As admins, they must follow the consensus of others, and should recuse themselves from administrative actions where they can't (or would be perceived by a significant number of reasonable editors not to be able to) be neutral.

Behavioral guidelines and enforcement
The Wikipedia behavioral guidelines are very good to follow. This place works better when editors assume good faith about one another, don't make attacks on one another, and engage in civil discourse even when they disagree. But administrative response to dissent is in many cases a cure worse than the problem. Even inflammatory criticisms that are based on actual behavior (referring to an administrator's enforcement of policy as "grotesquely biased") does not generally rise to the level of personal attack. Blocking for not "assuming good faith" is generally a nonsense, too. The "assumption" of good faith can be rebutted by observation&mdash;and one editor's lack of assumption of good faith is another editor's reasoned conclusion that despite all attempts, no good faith motive is consistent with someone's actions. Civil society&mdash;needed to build the encyclopedia&mdash;is advanced more by an open (even if disorderly) marketplace of ideas than by the chilling effect of threatened and actual sanctions for stating one's opinions. Practically, editors returning from blocks don't usually feel calmed by the experience. Blocks should be used with the utmost restraint, primarily to prevent unambiguous vandalism (including edit warring and other disruption to the encyclopedia) and personal attacks. Other use should be limited.


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