User:Manning Bartlett

An old-timer who has been here since the very, very early days (I know Larry Sanger if that helps gives you a sense of time). In the days before tilde-signing, we used to just write our initials (that's how few of us there were). I am hence regularly found in the old stuff under MMGB. I'm Wikipedia user #100, but that's only because they turned on the user registration system while I was asleep. (I'm #3 on Meta).

I joined the 'pedia around the time it hit 10,000 articles, somewhere in mid-2001. Those were the days when you could get to know every single editor on the project. I was a member of the first group of admins ever appointed. Apart from creating and developing many, many articles, I was instrumental in many of the earliest decisions about Wikipedia policy and structure, such as the fleshing out of WP:NPOV (as developed by Jimbo), the creation of Meta (all of the policy discussions were held in the main 'pedia - we had no namespaces), and the development of the first management system for editing utilities.

I live in Sydney Australia, for what it's worth, and I'm 52. My user name is my real name. My Wikipedian style is Exopedian. I would estimate that around 90% of my article editing has been done anonymously. Some people find this weird, but I like just getting things done and not worrying about who did it.

My marks on the 'pedia:
Let's see... I created the WikiProject concept (and also coined the term).

I also created the original Page Titles to be deleted back in the days when we had no admins and only Tim Shell and Jimbo could actually delete pages from the database. This evolved into WP:AFD among other things.

I am also reliably informed that I created the first system for tracking/fighting vandalism. I really wish I had come up with a better name for the page, though.

I also proposed and developed the first arrangement of Wikipedia Utilities which eventually evolved into the "Wikipedia" namespace (which we didn't have at the time).

I also created the original Wikipedia Anti-rules which LMS hated. (Since relocated to a user subpage of mine.)

One day when I'd just had enough of people complaining about the same old stuff, I coined the term Morto-equine percussionist.

For my own amusement, here are some articles I originally created (back in the days when you could actually do that) and relevant history records.
 * Split infinitive - Original history (pre Mediawiki)
 * Wikipedia utilities - Original history (pre Mediawiki)
 * Ant - Yes I created 'Ant'. To be fair, all I did was type a one line stub. But I couldn't believe we didn't have an entry for "Ant". It got a bit better since then.
 * Here is a lengthy article I wrote about NPOV

Here are my contributions from the days before we moved to the new platform. About 70-80% of the records appear lost, as there are none before September 2001 and none after Dec 14, 2001, and enormous gaps in between (check the history log for Scientific Method below and you'll see what I mean).

My old, hand-managed contribution page from Nostalgia Nostalgia Contribution Log

Sadly the history pages on Nostalgia are not as reliable as one might hope. I am not listed on Princess Diana yet I absolutely remember writing the original article. Conversely, this history log tells me that I was the first editor of Scientific Method which is simply NOT true. A recent discovery of a dump from August 2001 may improve this situation with old article history.

Other Web Activities
I regularly contribute to Rationalwiki.org under the name Voxhumana. I also contribute to Wikivoyage and several other WMF sites.

Drive-by hello
So... hello? Is that email you left at my page a couple **cough** years ago still valid? Was talking about you just today with someone. Were your ears burning? Anyway, if you're around, leave me a message, and I will drop you a line. exJHK

Hey -- I'm at a conference, but will be in touch! exJHK JHK (talk) 19:42, 10 May 2014 (UTC)