User:PurplePlatypus

A little about me
PurplePlatypus is Jeff, a grad student, silly person and all-around geek originally from the Canadian prairies and currently living in Houston, Texas. He has just started in the Ph.D. program at Rice University. His field is philosophy, particularly ethics and logic, and his outside interests include It is now pretty much definite that he does not have Asperger Syndrome, but he certainly has a lot in common with people who do. It turns out he does, however, more likely than not have a mild form of ADHD. At the moment, he is writing about himself in the third person for no particular reason.
 * Dungeons & Dragons (incidentally, that article has improved a lot, little thanks to me) and role-playing games in general
 * Music and especially progressive rock
 * Magic: The Gathering
 * And the Muppets

Brief Summary of Wikipedia Contributions
I played a very substantial role in helping Asperger Syndrome retain its Featured Article status, which was being challenged when I first became active on Wikipedia, by performing a major reorganization of that article. I probably only wrote about 20% of it (and falling) myself, but my rearrangement affected far more than 20% of it. Of course, that article has gone right down the shitter since then, but that's mostly since (and perhaps, partly because) I gave up on being a regular contributer to it.

I also played a small but significant role in getting Pink Floyd to Featured Article status.

I have twice drastically rewritten the Characteristics section of Progressive Rock, introducing what I regarded as vast improvements. The first time the then-current editors of the article pretty much unanimously agreed and the changes stuck for about a year, though they have since been systematically dismantled by idiots. The second time, most of said idiots were already there and revert-warred my version out of existence. There is a lesson about Wikipedia in there if you care to look for it. This goes a good ways toward explaining why I edit much less now, though I never did do all that much of it.

I spend most of my Wikipedia time in topics related to role-playing games, bands I like and whatever other entertainment-related topics catch my fancy at any given moment. I also poke my head into more "serious" topics from time to time, usually to do with psychology or philosophy; for instance, I have made a few tweaks to John Stuart Mill. I also keep an eye on Requests for Arbitration, seldom liking what I see there.

I am apparently not that interesting a target for the assorted woes of editing here. This page has only been vandalized once, for which the perpetrator later apologized; I've only been accused of having or being a sockpuppet twice, both demonstrably spurious (and by people of questionable mental stability, one of whom is now banned from the project); and I've only gotten into an argument with SlimVirgin once.

IPs I have known
Before creating this account, I did a total of 202 edits and comments under the IP address 24.77.97.3, most notably to Progressive Rock, the page that is now Asperger Syndrome, and Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival.

More recently, for a day or two I found that about half my contributions were signed by my IP address instead of my username, even though I was logged in. By this point my IP address was showing as 24.79.85.41.

Pseudo-Rant
I went on a fairly substantial Wikibreak in April and again in July, and for the foreseeable future, Wikipedia is not going to be the daily part of my life it was for a few months there. It was taking up more time than it was worth, and there are just too many stubborn jackasses, who for reasons ranging from short-sightedness and inexperience to active desire to push political agendas, appear utterly indifferent to the basic goal of making Wikipedia as useful and accurate as possible. Some are almost universally recognized for the cranks and trolls they are. Others hold positions of considerable responsibility and are, inexplicably, widely regarded as pillars of this particular community.

It may be worth pointing out that "consensus" - the rock upon which Wikipedia is built - is, at least in significant part, coextensive with popularity, and when you start openly proclaiming that popularity is more important than truth, nothing but trouble can follow - at least from the point of view of a non-ignoramus with a great deal more respect for truth than popularity, such as myself. This is a big, big problem and I have no idea what to do about it, or whether I have any role to play in a community where such a (from my point of view [where's a rolleyes smiley when you need one?]) twisted view of reality holds sway.

Never mind that consensus is routinely ignored, generally due to the whims of one of a relatively small number of powerful individuals (I include here at least half of the Arbcom and a handful of other unusually influential admins). This wouldn't be such a bad thing if the occasions when it was done reliably tracked the quality of the contributions (and contributors) on the receiving end, but that is anything but the case. Most of these people have more ego than useful knowledge, several of them routinely make extremely biased contributions to important articles, and all seem to see themselves as a sort of Wikipedia aristocracy who don't have to listen to regular users or even other admins unless they feel like it. Most of all, they appear to think the rules only apply to those who disagree with them (at least two of them commonly block people for personal attacks while making far worse ones themselves, sometimes in the very messages where they inform them of these blocks, for example). This is not good for Wikipedia and I'm surprised it has been allowed to continue for so long, though I do see signs that it's starting to fray at the edges. If you're going to judge contributions by fucked up criteria, at least do it consistently, or at the very least, don't have the alternative criteria be even more fucked up. "Consensus" is a lousy criterion for encyclopedia-building, but "whether you agree with (say) SlimVirgin" is an even worse one. PurplePlatypus

Talk:Pink Floyd/GA1
Hi PurplePlatypus. Pink Floyd has been nominated for GA status. As you are a significant contributor you may wish to take part. Regards  SilkTork  *YES! 13:55, 26 October 2009 (UTC)