User:Safehaven86

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About me
Hello, and welcome to my user page! I'm Safehaven86. I began editing on Wikipedia in October 2011. I liked the place, and decided to stay. I hope you'll drop me a line if you want to collaborate or if you have any questions.

"'Be yourself, everyone else is already taken.' –Oscar Wilde"

No girls allowed
From The New York Review of Books, in an article titled Wikipedia's Woman Problem: "Around 90 percent of Wikipedia editors are men, and it shows." I'm a member of the 10%, and from my experience, I can see why women are less inclined to edit. It can feel like an aggressive, testosterone-fueled boy's club around here. I try to keep my chin up, although it's remarkable the amount of incivility that long-time male editors are able to get away with on Wikipedia. Given the conduct of some of these long-time male editors, it's no surprise to me that Wikipedia has a problem attracting and retaining editors, female or not.

I don't know if it's because I'm a girl, but I have been called "illiterate" (and ignorant, and more, hooray!) on Wikipedia. Although the fact that I could read and interpret that comment makes me wonder....Another one for the Gender Gap Hall of Fame: a man explaining to me what mansplaining is. Isn't it ironic, don't you think?

Biggest Wikipedia pet peeve: editors who say things like, "I have to WP:AGF, so I can't call you a liar/fraud/incompetent/ass-hat/hack," etc. Umm, message received. There's the letter of the law for you.

Also, proofreading is important.

Areas of interest
I like copy editing, anti-vandalism, trying to make use of my People and US Weekly reading habits by editing celebrity pages, and editing the pages of non-profit organizations and American journalists. (Fun fact--this section of my user page was once plagiarized by another user who was eventually blocked & banned from Wikipedia. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I guess). Recently, I have become interested in finding and correcting typos. Don't ask me why, but for some reason I think it is fun to think up possible misspellings of words and search Wikipedia to see if any instances of the misspelling exist here. I have started a list to document common misspellings that I find: User:Safehaven86/Common Misspellings.

These are delicious and need a better article. I would attempt it myself, but it makes me too hungry.

Articles I have created
I've created over 60 articles, ranging from politics to pop culture. Articles that I've started include Leo Linbeck III, Christina Bianco, Spirit of '76 (sentiment), Domenica Ruta, Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, Government Accountability Institute, True & Co., Kenneth Vogel, Melissa Hartwig, Kindara, and Thinx. I get ideas about pages to start when I am reading a news article and there isn't a Wikipedia page for someone or something that seems notable. If you have any requests for page creation, please let me know, and I'd be happy to help.

Articles for deletion rescues
Too often, articles are nominated for deletion instead of simply being improved. It's certainly easier to nominate articles for deletion than it is to do the research and work required to fix (often very poor) articles. But I believe it is in Wikipedia's interest to fix things rather than to throw them out. Deletion comments that say "article is bad" or "there are no good sources in the article" ignore WP:NEXIST.

WP:AFDISNOTCLEANUP. A promotional tone or WP:COI editing doesn't impact an article's notability. Tone and COI edits can and should be fixed, but deleting notable articles is not the answer. These are some articles that were nominated for deletion which are clearly notable and merit inclusion on Wikipedia: Bompiani, Basecamp (company), Peapod, and Squarespace.

Important links

 * Be bold
 * Community portal
 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
 * Policies & guidelines