User:Greyscale

This is not Facebook nor Myspace, so I have no intention of naming myself here, or listing my interests. I am an occasional editor and ofttime reader of Wikipedia; if you really want to do some internet sleuthing, there's nobody to stop you, and the stuff is floating around, but it would be silly.

I will, however, place here information that is relevant to Wikipedia. I am inclusionist when it comes to anything that a person would travel to Wikipedia to look up. When I look for an article and find it is an AfD, I am struck by the ridiculousness of that status. Wikipedia is not paper. If one person visits an article and finds it of any use, we're better off not deleting it.

On the other hand, I have less patience for over-long trivia sections and overcategorization. When it comes to this crap, I err on the side of deletionism. People don't come to Wikipedia to find out if Buffy the Vampire Slayer likes Carnegie Mellon University.

Ultimately, any editorial problem is solved by looking at it as a reader rather than an editor. And that is precisely why people shouldn't waste their lives devoting it to editing Wikipedia--they become true Editors, Editors with a capital E, and that's exactly what we don't need. The reason we don't need it is because an Editor cannot think like a reader without ceasing to be an Editor. It is because of Editors that we have useless articles that nobody will read; these people create articles about individual types of enemies in a given video game. Nobody looks on Wikipedia to find out the best way to defeat the boss on Level 12. They have forums for that. These are symptoms of obsession. I'm not going to be making an article for Lobster Boy's mum and dad anytime soon, nor will I make a red link to his buddy who helped him build the shack. It is really a shame, I think, that I cannot reasonably expect this Encyclopedia to continue to exist without them. And their efforts really are something... but I do nonetheless wish this Encyclopedia were written by its readers.

But a person who browses Wikipedia based on their interests, adds articles where they were disappointed to find none, and corrects problems where they see fit.... That is a true Wikipedian.

Ultimately, ask yourself: if I were a reader, browsing in a stream-of-consciousness fashion or researching, would I want to see this?

Next to the answer to this question, nothing, save veracity, is even relevant.

I remain yours,

Greyscale 11:31, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Rather amusing hypocrisy
Isn't that fascinating.... In a minor edit describing a grammatical change, my edit summary was un-grammatical. I do so love this kind of irony. Greyscale 11:34, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

CMUites
Well, you have my pic (from my userpage) and my name (also from my userpage) -- I'd be a bit surprised if you've never seen me on campus. :) Don't be too fooled by the username though -- I started calling myself Improv after an old spreadsheet software Lotus used to make (Lotus Improv) some time back. I sometimes improv when I'm playing on my accordion, but that's not the origin of the name. There are a few other Wikipedians at CMU -- it might be amusing to organise a one-time meetup at some point. --Improv 15:28, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Regretfully, I have no accordion skill (just enthusiasm). To avoid further social networking here, my email is pgunn@andrew. It might be fun to play sometime (sans audience). Laters. --Improv 20:30, 1 December 2006 (UTC)