User:Fudoreaper

''2021: The text below very old because I am far less active than in the past. Still a wikipedia, though. :-)''


 * WIKIPEDIANS! Please give articles a chance, and don't demolish the house while it's still being built. Help the Article Resue Squadron.

Welcome to the Wikipedia userpage of Fudoreaper, which is me. I am a 31 year old male living in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. I first edited Wikipedia in February 2004, almost 9 years ago. I enjoyed it, and have been contributing to varying degrees every since.

This page contains information about me, and about my editing philosophy. I have also used this page as a notebook of sorts for myself about Wikipedia topics. It is not always up-to-date, but here it is.

About Me

 * See also: Cities of Interest
 * See also: Cool train stations
 * See also: Fudo Suggest
 * See also: Wikimedia Links

Personal
When I have free time, I like to edit Wikipedia. I also like computers, and bicycles, and trains, and science, and many other topics, which is why I like Wikipedia, it covers so many topics. ;-)

Editing
I like editing Wikipedia to make things more correct and accurate. So I like copy-editing to fix formatting problems of any kind; punctuation, spacing, heading order. I also do some fact-checking from time to time, reading citations and also doing my own looking for information about a topic. I'll add information if I know more than the article does, and I'll correct things I know to be wrong.

I like to re-word sentences to make things more clear, or to explain better to a general audience. I like making things understandable to an international audience, for example making sure we say things like "US President" not just "President", using metric (International System of Units) units, even removing some slang or colloquialisms only makes sense if you have specific cultural knowledge.

I am a soft editor. I edit when I feel am correct, when policy backs me, or when I really want to. But if I am unsure of the text, or unsure of another editor's change, I prefer not to edit. Unless I can articulate to myself a reason for editing, I hold off. Sometimes this means I leave questionable or poor text in an article, but I prefer to let another, more knowledgeable editor make the change. I feel this helps me avoid petty edit wars, and also keeps the quality of the edits I do make higher. But I still make mistakes, and I'm grateful when other editors correct me.

I don't have a specific method of editing, or finding things to edit, except for my watchlist. I check it when I feel like doing some checking of edits, and inevitably some editing. But sometimes I go for days without checking it.

I don't feel like I own any article. There are some I am fond of, and have edited many times, but I never resent or oppose the contributions of another editor on any page, including the (very few) that I created.

Some of my favourite things are:
 * adding wiki links, or correcting them. Sometimes pages make reference to something that I want to know more about, but the word is not linked. So I find the page manually and then add the link on the original page.  Also, sometimes links point to a redirect page, a disambiguation page, or the wrong version of a multiple page topic.  Correcting this, cleaning it up, makes me happy.  I like to think that this kind of attention to detail is a valuable contribution, and pretty easy as well.
 * fixing up disambiguation pages. Check out WikiProject Disambiguation.
 * improving formatting
 * adding airport code redirect pages

I have begun to edit Wiktionary. The project is just as cool as Wikipedia, but massively multilingual. You can look up a word that comes from any language, and the definition returns in English, or whichever language you're using at the time. The number of translations is exploding, too.

Oh, I also am the original author of a page about my Hometown, Birtle, Manitoba. I should work on improving it.

Philosophy of article merit
As of October, 2008, there have been many rumblings about 'deletionism' at Wikipedia. The rumours appear to be true, as I discovered while editing 2008 Channel Tunnel fire with some updated information a couple of days after the fire started. Already on the talk page there was a heated discussion about whether the page ought to exist at all. One commenter, posting 23 hours after the fire started, had concluded that there was insufficient material to justify the page, and that deleting it immediately was the best course of action. I was flabbergasted. How is it possible to know within 24 hours of an accident of this nature what the significance (meaning 'notability' to Wikipedia) will be? I really think editors must spend more time considering, and less time rushing to conclusions where no one is asking for one. (I posted a comment opposing deletion)

Therefore, let it be known that I am an inclusionist. I think we ought to include every topic we can. There are two primary reasons I feel this way.

Firstly, Wikipedia is not paper, it does not have a physical size limit. Having 20 million articles will not make the most popular 1000 harder to use. The point is that there is no technical or logistic limit on the maximum number of articles or article sizes. It is true that each article causes higher requirements of the Wikimedia servers, but the marginal additional cost from a single additional article is so small that we cannot use this as a reason to delete.

Secondly, as long as the information is factual, (and can be verified if needed) and someone cares to maintain it, there is no reason why that article should be deleted. By definition, notability is decided by Wikipedia's editors. Also by definition, anyone editing Wikipedia is an editor. Put those two facts together, and you can conclude that any factual, edited article must be notable, as editors, by their edits, are endorsing it as notable.

In summary, Wikipedia still has a long way to go, and there's still 10 years work on improving the quality of the first million articles. (We're at 2.5 M as I write). However, in our efforts to improve Wikipedia, we should be careful not to artificially limit Wikipedia due to our own narrow notions of what is 'notable'. If the page is factual, but small, little linked to, and not popular, so what? Let it live, adding completeness to our encyclopedia which eventually may serve as a form of history for us.

Think big! Include as much as possible!

P.S. There are some articles that do not merit inclusion, despite my inclusionist philosophy above. For example, I'm still on the fence on deeply-detailed articles about fiction. Fictitious characters, weapons, worlds, etcetera—their merit is dubious. But too many people are being compelled to fight to keep good articles. This is opposite to the attitude that built Wikipedia. We should bias ourselves toward inclusion, and then cut only the truly inappropriate articles.

Edit summary
There is no excuse for any registered editor to omit an edit summary.

It is immensely useful to other editors, and omitting it is slightly insulting, as if the the editor considers their judgement above reproach, and therefore does not need to explain themselves. Editors who leave edit summaries are more likely to be making good edits, as articulating the reason for the edit clarifies the thoughts of the editor, and encourages considering edits more carefully. Those who leave edit summaries are less likely to have their edits reverted by other editors, due to confusion, or general mistrust of unexplained changes. Leaving an edit summary can be the difference between a revert and a keep, even though the edit may be fundamentally sound.

When editing, the reason for your edit may seem obvious to you, but it may not be obvious to another editor. Especially consider an editor who speaks English, but does not share your culture or country of residence. Examples for western people might be to imagine editors from India, Singapore, or Kenya, where the English language is common, but the culture is much different than that in Canada.

My advice is: Leave an edit summary for every edit, no matter how trivial. It will make your edits better by focussing your thoughts, and it will help your fellow editor understand your edits. Both these things make Wikipedia better for editors, resulting in improvements for all.


 * Inspired by this frustrating edit, devoid of edit summary. Deleting entries from a DAB page is not minor, and deserves some explanation.

Todo

 * completely out of date


 * 1) Talk:Major (disambiguation) - asked a question, waiting for answers...
 * 2) Xserve - fix opening sentence to be one
 * 3) FQDN - clarify
 * 4) Autonomous building - read
 * 5) Hawk's Nest incident - cleanup
 * 6) Internet protocol suite - fact-check
 * 7) Niagara Processor - should this be renamed
 * 8) SPECint - current work in progress
 * 9) St. Lazare, Manitoba - give it some life

Links

 * [Wikipedia:WikiProject Internet]


 * http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Conflicting_Wikipedia_philosophies

View my contributions; count them.


 * X-chat wikipedia scripts.
 * Manual_of_Style_%28disambiguation%29 - DAB page style
 * WikiProject Airports
 * Edit-in-place samples


 * Work


 * OpenStreetMap on Meta
 * Commons:Geocodng

Accounts

 * en.wiktionary || user page || watchlist || contributions
 * commons.wikimedia || user page || watchlist || contributions
 * meta.wikimedia || user page || watchlist || contributions
 * en.wikinews || user page || watchlist || contributions
 * ko.wikipedia.org || user page
 * battlestarwiki.org || user page || watchlist || contributions

Friends

 * White Cat
 * Anorthe - Hey Reaps, I miss you! See you in wpg over xmas?
 * Niten
 * Swaff
 * Arkayuu
 * Arthree