User:Val42


 * I've taken an extended vacation from Wikipedia for a while. I will be checking in occasionally still.

I'm a forty-something computer programmer, living approximately six miles west of downtown Ogden, Utah, three miles east of the Great Salt Lake and 30 miles north of Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.A.. I graduated from Weber State College (now a university) with a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science in 1989. I had enough credits that I could have chosen a Bachelor of Arts degree, but I figured that the science degree would work better with my chosen career path. (I still lean more to the artistic side than others in my field.)

I accept Jesus Christ as my personal savior. I am an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I served a mission in the Argentina, Buenos Aires South Mission, in the cities of Los Hornos, Chivilcoy and La Plata (in that order). I spoke Castilian Spanish fluently, but with an accent. I can still speak passable Spanish, and still with an accent.

Politically, I am both a fiscal and social conservative. There should be as little government as necessary and no more. On the World's Smallest Political Quiz, I score in the libertarian region, close to the conservative region. But I do not affiliate with any political party, especially not the two major political parties in the United States.

No human can be truly unbiased. However, I do truly strive for the Wikipedia NPOV. Other useful Wikipedia knowledge is found here.

Avocations
 

I'm an active geocacher with 545 caches found as of October 8, 2007.

I enjoy playing board games. I used to go to the monthly meeting of a board game group in West Valley City, Utah (next to Salt Lake City about four to six times a year. I'd go more often, but it is about an hour away from my house.  There is now a board game group forming in Ogden, Utah.  Join us.

I hold an active Amateur radio license, technician class.

Major Wikipedia Edits
I've made some major edits to some topics of which I have personal knowledge. Most have been rewording while adding some additional information. I worry more about editing than keeping this list up to date, so I've missed some major edits. Rather than try to maintain chronology, I have grouped them by topic.

Religion

 * Anti-Mormonism: Addressed false Mormon "doctrine".
 * Opposition to Mormonism: Above category renamed to this. (Major contributor)
 * The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Minor contributor. (It was already pretty good.)
 * Agency (Mormonism): Major restructuring
 * Blacks and Mormonism
 * Curse and mark of Cain
 * Curse of Ham
 * Book of Mormon
 * Jaredite: Relatively minor edits, but I expect to do more
 * Mahonri Moriancumer: Major expansion (from Ether 1-6) with scriptural references
 * Moroni
 * Mormon (prophet)
 * Omer (Book of Mormon): Greatly-expanded article
 * Plates of Nephi: Re-organized then added the Caretakers section
 * Three Nephites: Rewrote from a stub article to a full article
 * Zarahemla
 * Extermination Order: Added date and governer (Kit Bond) when it was rescinded, and other links to this article.
 * Fireside (Mormonism): Created article (as a stub)
 * LDS movies: Created this article. I've been meaning to do it for a few months, but the article in the Deseret News today about Man's Search for Happiness spurred me on.
 * Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration: Added story that was presented in the movie. (It was stilted, but now present.)
 * Legacy: A Mormon Journey: Created this article stub and the Legacy (movie) redirect.
 * People who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:
 * Neleh Dennis: Created a stub (which was soon deleted). But someone else created a better article later.
 * Henry Eyring: (m) Corrected category listing
 * Jon Heder: (m) Corrected category listing
 * Glen A. Larson: Producer of Battlestar Galactica
 * Hugh Nibley: (m) Added him to Category:Latter Day Saints
 * Quorum: Created the article
 * Stake: Revised a lot
 * Ward: Revised a lot
 * WikiProject: Latter Day Saint Movement: Self-added participant
 * Word of Wisdom: Minor edits now, but I expect to do more later
 * Zion
 * City of Zion (Mormonism)


 * Creationism and Creation belief: Tried to help without getting stuck in the muck, but was chased off by those who made it into an anti-creationism article.
 * Presiding Bishop: Though the article is mostly about Latter Day Saint Presiding Bishops, Alai and I have added some to the Episcopalian section of the article.
 * Restorationism: Various edits to make it read better

Geography

 * Salt Lake City, Utah: I live about thirty miles north of this city.
 * Ogden, Utah: I live about six miles west of this city.
 * Fort Buenaventura: Created this article.
 * Great Salt Lake: I live about three miles east of this lake.
 * Extremes on Earth: Created this page because I'm interested in this type of information.
 * Extremos en la Tierra: Translated my page to Spanish. It was corrected with the comment (translated), "This translation appears to be a mix of frightful Spanish and Esperanto to Spanish."
 * WikiProject: Utah: Self-added participant

Politics and History

 * Legacy Highway: I'm for the Legacy Highway. As a computer programmer and former ISP worker, I recognize the logic of redundancy in network paths.  But I stuck to a NPOV.
 * Eddie Aikau: Created this entry because a guy at work has a T-shirt with the phrase "Eddie would go" and some vague recollection of Eddie's story. I decided to look it up and create a Wikipedia stub.

Technology

 * Amiga Corporation: Created article for the company that created the Amiga computer.
 * Geocaching: This is a hobby of mine.

Entertainment

 * Cinema
 * Back to the Future trilogy: links to and from
 * Clockstoppers: Started article
 * Down and Derby: Wrote article the same day after watching the DVD.
 * The Gods Must Be Crazy: Several minor changes that look like more because of the way differences are generated.
 * Grand Tour: Disaster in Time: Created a stub article, hoping to fill in more later.
 * The Philadelphia Experiment: Added infobox.
 * LDS cinema
 * The Best Two Years: Wrote a complete (new) article
 * Brigham City: Started article stub
 * Mobsters and Mormons: Wrote a complete (new) article
 * Out of Step (film): Wrote a complete (new) article
 * Saints and Soldiers: Significantly expanded article with "Plot Summary" and "Commentary" sections, and added categories.
 * Motion Picture Association of America: A minor edit, but adding an external link was my first Wikipedia edit.
 * Small Soldiers: Added story.
 * Take A ChanceTake A Chance (2006): Created article. (It has since been merged into another article about the movie.)
 * Time Machine (2002): Started article.
 * The Time Tunnel: Created episode table, placed existing episode names in it and populated the rest of the table (February 19 through March 1 2007).


 * Games
 * Bridges (puzzle): Created article.
 * Crayon Rails: Recreated article.
 * Category:Rail Games: Created category that is now named Category:Railroad games.
 * Reversi diagram template: Created the template by modifying the Chess diagram template.
 * Rivers, Roads & Rails: Created article.
 * Square Mile: Created article, disambiguation page and a new board game category to put it in.
 * Tracks to Telluride: Created article.
 * TransAmerica (board game): Created article.


 * Television
 * Battlestar Galactica: Some rework (understatement)
 * Triad (Battlestar Galactica): Started article
 * Viper (disambiguation): Worked on page
 * Bordertown: Created article
 * The Muppet Show: I like this show so much. It is intelligent humor in a silly way.
 * The Prisoner: Added episode of The Invisible Man that bears a striking resemblance to The Village, and re-arranged References section.
 * Quark: Added infobox. (Also, some prior and following edits.)
 * Salvage 1: Added episode list (w/air dates) and restructured article.
 * Star Trek
 * Cyrano Jones: Started article (Lasted a while before it was deleted on the second attempt to delete it.)
 * Teen Angel: Added infobox and episode list.


 * Music
 * Convoy: Added a lot more detail to the article about this song by C.W. McCall.
 * Robert Lund: Created this article complete with discography. It was speedily deleted the next day.
 * The Royal Guardsmen: Created this because I like their music, even the ones not about Snoopy and the Red Baron.


 * Category:Fictional technology: Combined Category:Fictional devices and Category:Science fiction technology in to this category.

Miscellaneous

 * Continuous flow intersection: Created article.
 * Template:Infobox RareCurrencies: Created template for use on Inverted Jenny article, etc.

To Do
This is my own personal list of things to do, when I get time:
 * Add pictures of internal workings of
 * Pocket Cube (2x2x2) (Can this be disassembled?)
 * Rubik's Cube (3x3x3) Done (by someone else)!
 * Rubik's Revenge (4x4x4)
 * Professor's Cube (5x5x5)

Bookmarks
Articles I want to bookmark for future reference:
 * Ray tracing:
 * POV-Ray
 * YafRay
 * Kerkythea
 * Sunflow
 * Errors in the Encyclopædia Britannica that have been corrected in Wikipedia
 * Computing
 * Portal:Free software
 * Haiku (web site), the current open-source successor to BeOS
 * D which was deleted.
 * Stratagus, open source game engine.
 * Miscellaneous
 * Agloe, New York, a paper town that became real.
 * The Ciphers of the Monks, describes a numeral system that was used by the Cistercian order of monks.

Opinions to be considered

 * Don't Destroy
 * Constructive Criticism on current Wiki Deletion Policy
 * After an article was nominated for the third time for deletion within a few months, I developed a personal policy to automatically vote against deletion unless it had been at least six months since the previous nomination. This went over like a lead balloon when I used it in a recent deletion review, so much so that those desiring deletion didn't read the other reasons I'd given to keep the article.  However, in a recent discussion, someone brought up the Wikipedia policy on renominations, so I will now use this with a "six month" limit for "reasonable amount of time".

Problem editors/edits

 * Avoid Three revert rule electric fence
 * Administrator intervention against vandalism
 * For other problem

These are the voyages...
...of the user Val42... 