User:MusikAnimal/Continental Mainland

About
Plato said "To do is to be". Jean-Paul Sartre said "To be is to do". Frank Sinatra said "Do-be-do-be-do".

I live in New York City. Musician, photographer, web developer, chess player. Knowledge hungry, always seeking something new.

I began in 2003/04-ish as a casual reader of Wikipedia, making occasional minor edits as an IP user. My first registered edit that I'm aware of was made in. I have had at least (now abandoned) account since then, before settling on this username in 2011. My addiction grew, and in May 2012 I finally decided I wanted to give back to the community and start making more substantial contributions, and since March 2013 I've been here almost daily.

Although I work for the Wikimedia Foundation, all statements and contributions made from this personal account are my own, and may not reflect the views of the Foundation.

Philosophy
My philosophy as a Wikipedian is pretty straightforward. I try to make it fun and avoid disputes. I sometimes create new articles when I see the need for one, but in general I enjoy improving existing ones. I love music and am fascinated by big cities, and tend to focus my editing on these topics. Content creation is important to me, but the bulk of my 100,000+ edits are owed to fighting vandalism. It keeps me engaged and I get the same rewarding feeling. As of late a lot of my focus has been with my steward role, as well as technical contributions such as bots, tools, various scripts, and MediaWiki itself.

As an administrator I'm heavily involved with maintenance of the project. As always I spend much time in preventing abuse of the wiki, but I try to help out anywhere there's a backlog. I probably lean more toward an inclusionist except for recently created articles with major fallacies. I am an absolute stickler about verifiability, and have very little patience in dealing with BLP violations and spam.

Edit warring is particularly baffling to me. I don't like how many people think or assume WP:BRD is something you are required to follow, or an excuse to revert. I'm all for the philosophy, but incorporate it into your own editing and don't try to force it onto others. Citing BRD in your edit summary feels aggressive. Your rationale should explain why you reverted, not that BRD says you should, or that you can. Instead, something like "Reverted good-faith edits..." can make a world of a difference when reverting disputed content. It is more friendly and conducive to a collaborative environment, and helps prevent any potential temperament.

I have a lot of faith in new users. Technical mistakes are simple and you should help them, and while it's improving, Wikipedia isn't incredibly user-friendly. On a more social level, it's crucial to give newcomers a good impression of the community. In my early days I was accused of sockpuppetry. Fortunately I was resilient. I believed in Wikipedia and did not want to give up. I feel like many users would have been scared off and abandoned the project altogether. The experience shaped the Wikipedian that I am today. It taught me how important it is to be careful with new users, and always assume good faith. It makes me wonder how many other would-be long-lasting contributors we must have lost...

Environment
I use a modified version of the Vector skin with the Monobook background. My wikieditor is monospaced with syntax highlighting enabled. I find these tools indispensable:
 * Scripts – linkclassifier.js / linkclassifier.css, useridentifier.js, permalink.js, comments in local time.js
 * Gadgets – MoreMenu, Navigation popups and of course Twinkle

Recent progress




New userspace draft
Use db-u1 for user speedy deletion of own pages.



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