User:Thadswanek



Исэнмесез! Привет! Merhaba! السلام عليكم 你好. Hola! Hello!

How is everyone? Come in, have a seat.

Projects and Specializations
Projects:


 * Il-khan articles, especially Hulagu.
 * Sufi articles, especially Attar and The Conference of the Birds.
 * Zemfira, cause she rocks.
 * Anything Russian. Come on! You have to admit there's something about a rebellious province of the Mongol empire that goes onto take over that empire, become a global superpower and launch the first man into space. Stay tuned, the Russians aren't done yet, folks...
 * Central Asian history. Including Turkish, Tatar and Mongol history and related topics.
 * Contemporary Turkish culture. Started the Zaman (newspaper) article.
 * Non-Russian ethnic groups of the former Soviet Union and their republics. Such as Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Chuvashia, Udmurtia, Chechnya, Dagestan (the land of 100 nations!), Adygea, Kalmykia, Buryatia, Mari El, Tuva, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan.

Skills:

- Translation/copyediting of articles from the Russian Wikipedia or other Russian sources.

My views on Wikipedia. A goal, not a process.


I am an advocate for Wikipedia as a goal, not a process. The whole project is an experiment. Can we do it? Can the world create, almost spontaneously, a free-to-use un-biased encyclopedia? Like all experiments it has to reach an endpoint so it can be evaluated. It has to be evaluated a success or failure at some point. This is beginning to happen now if we like it or not.

I think it's time more contributors and administrators think about Wikipedia as a goal-oriented project. And that we shift focus from endless contributions and quantity to selective contribution AND quality. This many mean locking or restricting access to more articles so the quality continues to build. Even having guest experts (e.g. academics or scholars from around the globe) contribute to certain star articles that can only be edited by vetted contributors, might be great publicity for the project. Imagine Iranian imams (maybe al-Sistani?) writing the mullah or fatwa articles or Kevin Mitnick writing the hacker article. It could be cool. And it could make Wikipedia a much richer, more respected tool. --Thadswanek 22:59, 7 February 2006 (UTC)