User:Usrnme h8er

 Talk· Contributions

About the Me
A medium activity user, on again, off again since 2005 - with some IP edits before that, generally on NP patrol, AfD or sniffing around the project pages slipping in the occasional vote or just trying to learn more about the ways of the wiki. Occasionally I still get it into my head to write something and I pull together an article or two about computer science (my education), shipping (my job) or military history (an interest). I tend to keep an eye on pages I make major (or even minor) edits to, so my watch list is a real mixture of topics... Never know when you might come across me in a discussion.

I like to think everyone on wikipedia is actually nice and as such I am a firm beliver in Online Dickhead Syndrome (ODS) being the cause of all vandalism. I refuse to discuss any comparison to real life vandalism (graffiti etc) and call people who make such comparisons poopie-heads (and since its only on-line, I can be a dickhead and it won't come back to haunt me!).

Wikipolitics and Wikireligiousity
A discussion is due on my view of policy and guidelines in wikipedia. As a frequent editor in XfD, I often find policy and guidelines are swung as hammers of vengeance a little too much. The problem with policy is that it is almost always interpretable. For example, the phrasing "Consider making the page a useful redirect or proposing it be merged rather than deleted. Neither of these actions requires an AfD" was brought to my attention by another user in an AfD which, in reality, was a discussion about whether to merge a page or leave it be. Now I agree with the statement. I think most of us do - there is enough stuff in Deletion today without including all the mergers there. The problem is the policy statement says it's not required. It doesn't say it's not allowed, permitted, recommended or even expected; just that it's not required. Much like religious texts, the text of policy (if we try to interpret it as law) can be twisted and turned any which way we want. That's why I love the ignore policy. It lets us overrule the policy lawyers with an ultimate trump card - it is policy that all policy can be ignored (yes, I'm aware of the petitio principii that IAR can be ignored).

So what is wikipedia if it's not a democracy, an anarchy or as established above, not governed by written law? I would say that either wikipedia, like the United Kindom is governed purely by best practice. I mean, the "legal" system has methods to it's madness (Mediation, RfC, XfD, DRV, ArbCom, etc) and even an established escalation and appeal process. More than anything else however, the system is based on precedent. Effectively, we do things because that's how they're done. Not to say of course that things never change

On the other hand, if it's not based on precedent as above, wikipedia (or at least alot of wikipedians) seems to be based on religion. Consider the evidence. First, we believe in the policies and the guidelines as a higher truth. Different people interpret them in different ways, and there seem to be different opinions about who has the right to ultimate interpretation since no one really knows who wrote them (and no one is going to go ask some long since abandoned user who wrote part of WP:CSD what he meant). Second, different people care differently much about the scripture. Some people put endless hours into perfecting the policy pages and guidelines so they are fit for the wiki, while some people envoke IAR at every turn and never even bother to read the notability policy. Third, there is no limit to how enraged people can get when their particular interpretation of the policies is questioned - just have a look at the Arb cases! We have out (edit)wars, and even threats of schism as people come and go, feel fire and flames and then abandon the project because they got a new boss who actually looks over their shoulder when they work. Perhaps we should create a new template,, that says "Welcome my children - worship the wiki.".

Wikiopinions
I am opposed to Flagged revisions but in favour of limited adspace on wikipedia (something like clearly marked ads visible only to anonymous users). Some would probably brand me a deletionist but I would prefer to think of myself as a realistic inclusionist. I take WP:BLP very seriously and I don't like to push the limits on 1E and non-encyclopaedic content.

References in Popular Culture
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