User:Geekdiva

(↑ to remind me to review these options for User:Geekdiva/Draft of Userboxes. Last updated November 2016.)

2014+: My limitations, plus advice for most in N. America, especially Washington State
Especially due to my chronic illness, when on a talk page, I have a problem with WP:BECONCISE. I tend to think out loud ...er, out keyboard, and have no time or energy left for revision, which is why I can't make the edits myself nor be likely to return to that page. It's also why I often add to the edit summary what others would put on talk pages. I use up everything I have on the edit with nothing left for Facebook, even, much less a talk page.

For me, it's this OR that, talk page OR article edit. As ridiculous as it may sound, I have to make these calculations down to the very moment: If I make this edit I'll likely pass out in a little while (which I might do anyway), so do I make this edit or escape cabin fever by going with my helper when she goes to the store for me?

Even these words I'm posting right now, I've tossed them around my head for years, at least since 2009. But randomly puzzling my way through Wikipedia when I can allows me to keep my brain refreshed, my skills up to returning to work if my body ever allows it, and my self-esteem mollified by feeling a bit like I contribute to the world that has helped me.

What has helped me & might help someone you know—or become
For all the USA's faults, I know there are many places in the world where I would have been dead by now. When I have a helper who's from one of those places and, say, is supporting 24 people overseas on disability-assistant income, we often talk about it. For example, I'm grateful to live in clean low-income housing just a few blocks from where I used to own a condo. The rent is pegged to my income & I can deduct part of my medical expenses.

If I ever can return to work, most likely my income would drop at first, but this living situation takes a lot of fear out of that possibility. Oh, I didn't explain that well, says March 2016-me. ... ...... Ah, I'll figure it out later with this as a reminder.

Maximizing your independence
I found help to maximize my independence with an Independent Living Plan from my local Center for Independent Living (Seattle & Bellevue-area's Alliance of People with disAbilities at http://www.disabilitypride.org), which helps people at any level of disability, working or not. I found them through the Washington Information Network 211 (http://win211.org/), a statewide organization that coordinates between local 2-1-1 call centers.

2-1-1 for everyone (US and Canada)
In an increasing number of places in the US and Canada, people can find helpful organizations by calling the 2-1-1: community services and information line. It's not limited to help for disabled people; no matter what your difficulty is, they'll try to find local places that can help you. In some locations, the number is 3-1-1.

See N11 code for background on the other North American Numbering Plan numbers, eight of them ranging from 2-1-1 to 9-1-1. Of course, for a sudden, emergency crisis in these locations, do not call 2-1-1. Call 9-1-1 instead.

"Choosing" work
The US SSA's Ticket to Work program also would help if/when I'm capable again, although I find the name of the beneficiary web site, Choose Work, a bit laughable. It demonstrates the well established, well meaning prejudice that disability is a choice of "giving in" to the illness, especially when it's an invisible illness creating an invisible disability.

I worked my entire adult life with fibromyalgia AND went to school at night to almost finish my degree even though I had a career, but suddenly I'm a malingerer when I get too ill to work and, in spite of everything I tried and still try, can't climb out of that hole? All too often even friends and family say this kind of thing to us and, more often and for longer, to each other behind our backs. See Stigma management § Invisible stigma management.

"But why don't you just..." (March 2016)
"Uh, but you could just do the stuff you do on Wikipedia but do it in the workplace." This is a reasonable idea. In some cases, it is a true idea. But in other cases, it is not. In those cases...oh, it can be horrible, the way people assume things. Including your own self.

I made myself much sicker than I had to end up (so far without regaining any of that lost health or capability and then losing even more later) by doing what I "should have" been able to do, but shouldn't have done. Can does not equal should. You can walk into a blazing furnace full of molten steel, but it could be detrimental to your health.

I still struggle with the guilt, even though my therapist (who visits me twice a month because I'm too ill to make it to medical appointments other than those with my primary care doc and rheumatologist, and wouldn't see my therapist otherwise—e.g., I've been supposed(grammar?) to see a neurologist again since...uh, it, it turns out to be at minimum 12 years ago?!?)...

Let's start that sentence over. My therapist points out that I give back to the community here on Wikipedia and through other small, more personal ways. But I can't easily pull myself off of trains of thought or ways of being that increase both the guilt and the inability to follow through on the right things to get them done at the right time even under ideal conditions, and stress derails you more easily the more ill you are. Get sick enough, and stress will blow up the rails you were just on.

Lack of reliability is only part of why I can't work. I'll explain more some other time, says March 2016-me, but think about the parts of finding and keeping a job or even running your own business that are just assumed that you "just do," such as agreeing on what should be done for how much payment. Or, if not commuting, setting up commuting from home. Managing interactions with people. You know how if you have the flu how reading email can be an emotional minefield, with things suddenly blowing up on you when you don't have the wherewithal to deal with them? Like that, but every da. ... I can spell "day." I really can.

My lack of reliability on Wikipedia
Anyway, I still have to abandon more changes than I'd like and often push myself further than I should, ending up with symptoms like the worst flu you've ever had and escalating my daily fever spike from the Still's (see Still's Disease.org).

Even the notifications system only helps somewhat because, like the rest of the internet, notifications can be an emotional minefield, and my constant case of Adult-onset Still's disease (for some people, it's periodic, but I have it ev·ver·ry single second) gives me a fever that goes up and down every day, a fever that increases in response to physical activity or emotional stress. So I save reading them for a good day, which can take some time to happen.

Possible futures
I can't be reliable...yet. Not quite yet. Not yet for 14 years now. But in every way I can through all this, I've always been setting myself up for all good possible futures. --Geekdiva (talk) 21:43, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

2016: Futures update
I got better: a little, but noticeably. ''Get yer vitamin D and iron levels checked, people! If you see a specialist, especially a rheumatologist, that doctor might want you to have higher vitamin D levels than your primary care doctor would, so double-check!''

Then I pushed myself too far and I got worse again, but I caught it in time, so even though I lost the recent progress I made and then some, the "then some" didn't push me down to my worst-ever level.

Other bad things happened, but that's more Facebook- than Wikipedia-relevant. However, it has been a challenge, and I am now 20 notifications behind here on WP. Probably most are just kind messages from everyone's good friend, User:BracketBot, but the emotional minefield looms a bit after, for example, having an edit reverted a bit back with the edit summary saying I was vandalizing WP. I don't have the energy to deal with that, but it's par for the Internet course.

All that said, I have made progress in my emotional strength, so maybe the emotional minefields will start looking just like bumpy road again. ... Oh, noes! Minefields always just look bumpy! THAT'S THE POINT! [runs!]

Heh. All best possible futures still in target range, — Geekdiva (talk) 21:37, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

2009: Who, what, where, but no how or why
Who I am: Geekdiva.

Where I worked: I was a technical writer, editor, & trainer for Adobe, Intel, and a couple of places in Seattle you've never heard of. Ten years ago, I became very ill with Adult Onset Still's Disease. I last worked in June of 2001. It took 7 years to get my SSDI approved, and I still don't have my private long-term disability approved.

What I'd do if I could do more: Help out more around here, write the book in my head, create the PBS show I've somewhat written down, see more of my friends and the world, and play my harp.

What I do in spite of my limitations: Study Japanese by osmosis. If I can't do anything else, I at least watch the subtitled version of various anime to pick up some vocabulary. One bedside shelf holds dozens of dictionaries and other reference books. The other holds this computer, which I was too sick to use for a few years, but by working hard on the little steps I've stretched my limitations enough to get back online, at least a little.

--Geekdiva (talk) 01:41, 6 June 2009 (UTC) (Hey, look! In wikitime, it's already my birthday, while here it's June 5th!)

2007: I exist
I just created my first edit, so I'm creating a simple user page.

--Geekdiva 04:47, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

en.WP nav collection, mostly for desktop
Mostly for editors, a few things for readers. — Last major update: June 2015 —

Note that horizontal navboxes currently do not show up in the mobile version of Wikipedia.

Here are useful or interesting links and navboxes I've run into over the years. Feel free to suggest others on my talk page, but be aware that it takes me a while, sometimes even months, to check my own talk page. Thanks! — Geekdiva (talk) 23:14, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

I probably will create a section for vertical (aka side, sidebar) navbox template links, not the navboxes themselves, for those vertical ones that have no horizontal (aka bottom, ending, See also) version. The vertical ones are great for articles but take up too much room here. — Geekdiva (talk) 01:05, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

About the above, I might just use Template:Tl (I think that's it) to list the side navboxes at the start of the appropriate section in paragraph format. I wonder if the standard V·T·E (View template page, see the Talk page for the template, Edit the template) should have a Vs or Vb link when there are two templates available to keep them better in sync. A bottom navbox could read: V·T·E·(Vs) or V·Vs·T·E. Maybe V2? — Geekdiva (talk) 23:14, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Misc links & shortcuts

 * New page links: (For some reason, this template insists on being on a new line and won't indent, even if I put it on a new line first and precede it with a colon or asterisk.)
 * Wikipedia:Editor's index to Wikipedia. For reader indexes, see Portal:Contents, About or FAQ/Readers. For what else might be referred to as an index on Wikipedia, see Index (disambiguation).
 * Category:Dead-end pages are articles without any outgoing links: that is, no wikilinks in them to other pages. ... Argh, I had to report significantly different numerical totals between Category:Dead-end pages and Special:DeadendPages. I'll have to postpone simplifying this bullet point and starting ones for Template:Underlinked and Template:Orphan.
 * Category:Inline spacing templates

Links & shortcuts less interesting to me

 * Category Archive requests is populated by the Archiveme template.
 * Opentask

Japanese-related templates, &c. on En.WP
· Template:Nihongo · Template:Japanese name ·Template:Okinawan name · Help:CharInsert
 * Nihongo, also displays kanji properly, along with Romaji and optional notes, inside parentheses, with the English version before the parentheses. If you want to link to Help:Japanese via a small question mark, use this template. Help:Installing Japanese character sets
 * Nihongo4, the same as this template, but does not link to Help:Installing Japanese character sets
 * Nihongo3, essentially the same as this template, but gives rōmaji first and English inside the parentheses
 * Nihongo2, also displays the kanji properly, but without adding anything in parentheses, without rōmaji and without the extra parameters
 * Nihongo foot, same as this version, but puts everything but the English into a footnote
 * Ja icon, to label sources written in Japanese
 * Japanese, to request expert assistance with Japanese script

From: Category:Hatnote templates for names (→link later) · — Geekdiva (talk) 12:18, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Frequently useful navboxes, &c.
I list horizontal navigation boxes (aka navbox footers, bottom navboxes) only, due to issues of space and layout. I might add a paragraph with wikilinks to useful vertical navigation boxes (aka side navboxes, sidebars), eventually. — Geekdiva (talk) 21:53, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Interesting (perhaps less frequently useful?) Wikipedia navboxes, &c.
"If any of this helped, I am very, very glad, whether you see these words of gratitude or not. And especially if you are reading these words, thank you for probably skimming and possibly reading this far. Heh!"