User:Heimstern/About

A teeny little bit about who I am, if for some reason you give a care.


 * Contrary to what many are led to believe by my username, I am not German. I'm a citizen of the United States of America and a resident of the State of California. Note that I tend to identify myself as Californian rather than American. Nothing against the US; I just prefer to identify with my state than with the whole country. Oh, and for those who are wondering which of the two I mean: Southern California.


 * I am currently an expatriate (and no, not living in Germany).


 * My spelling and punctuation is an odd melange of US and Commonwealth practices. I tend to use "colour", "honour" etc., but also "organize", "realize" etc. "Center" and "centre" both seem to show up in my writing. I use the British method for punctuating full stops and commas inside or outside quotes and avoid the Oxford comma where possible. (I'll accept the notion of "red, white, and blue" when "red, and blue" becomes correct.) In general, though, I reserve the right to pick and mix styles.


 * As a user on Wikipedia, my foremost role, I find, is as a reader. I spend many more hours a week reading Wikipedia's articles than I do actually editing them.


 * My basic wikiphilosophies tend to be inclusionist, separatist and eventualist, though I'm willing to bend those rules for certain areas (notably BLPs, where I feel we should be particularly cautious about what we include and act quickly to remove dubious information, and internet phenomena, where I think our coverage is a bit excessive). I have a particular dislike for the tendency to minimalize coverage of fictional topics. I don't see at all how this is helpful to Wikipedia.


 * I'm an admin. Doesn't mean I'm an especially good Wikipedia editor, just means I managed to pass a popularity contest. I used to be heavily involved in policing the edit warring noticeboard, but I've been away from it for a while now. Maybe I'll get back to it sometime, but for now, I mainly block vandals and sometimes delete CSD candidates.


 * I have an alternate account. I rarely use it; when I do, I see to it that it's in accordance with policy. I made it primarily for use on public computers.


 * I will not reveal anything about my political views or religious beliefs on Wikipedia. And not because I'm afraid of harassment or anything; just because I prefer not to and consider it irrelevant to my editing. So you won't find that information about me here, unless of course it shows up in my comments. I don't think it does, but hey, I could be wrong.


 * I used to be one of those admins who spent loads of time on administrative tasks and next to none on articles. This led to eventual burnout (which in turn led to one of my primary philosophies: Wikipedia is going to suck sometimes). I've since sworn never to be like that again. I try to spend more edits in the mainspace than anywhere else on Wikipedia. Mind you, I'm still no FA writer (though I'd like to be when I find that right topic), nor do I even add all that much new content all that often. But I do try to do what I can to help our articles read better by correcting spelling, grammar and other writing-related issues.


 * The single content-related issue at Wikipedia that irks me the most is unquestionably the problem of nationalist POV-pushers. I am of the opinion that the community, especially administrators, need a better toolbox for hindering, preferably rehabilitating, but, where this proves impossible, eliminating such users. ArbCom can't handle it all.


 * I think Wikipedia would be a better place if we'd develop slightly thicker skin and ignore annoying things people do more often. When a user does something Really Terrible, Uncivil And Is Being Abusive, before you plop down that comment at ANI, really think about whether the action is really harming the encyclopedia or the community, and whether or not discussion at ANI is likely to really help the situation. If it's just going to escalate drama, just maybe it's better to just leave it behind.


 * As a corollary: The fact that some people's skins here are too thin doesn't mean it's a good idea to be unpleasant. I will never understand why some Wikipedians seem to go out of their way to be maximally unpleasant to others. It's just not conducive to writing an encyclopedia. I hate to sound like a primary school teacher, but seriously: Be nice. Not a namby-pamby, just a nice person. Being nice is not incompatible with being harsh, incidentally. Sometimes the nicest thing you can do to a person is be harsh with them (it's that "cruel to be kind" thing). If you're not nice, I'm not going to block you for it. But I will tell you this: People will listen to you more if you're nice.

That's it. Now, stop reading this page and go edit an article. Revert vandalism, spellcheck, add new content, fix or remove some less-than-good content, whatever. It'll be more productive than reading this page, I'm pretty sure. Have a great day.