User:Verdatum

Hello! I am a wiki addict, and the founder and principle contributor of The Special FX Wiki. This is the result of my research in the realms of Prosthetic makeup and prop building. I am a Software engineer in the telecom industry by trade, and to that effect, I am the administrator of a private XWiki. I am also a classically trained musician and I have 8 years experience in the pharmaceutical industry.

I have no desire to be admin Wikipedia at this time. It's a crazy job, and I have the utmost respect for those who choose to undertake the task. I am however ready and willing to voice my opinions related to policy, welcome new users, and do what I can to help others. While specific questions may be better asked to admins, I'll happily do whatever I can to answer whatever questions are asked of me.

General philosophies
I am a firm subscriber of the Fallibility Principle. It's worth taking the time to listen to opposing arguments, because it is entirely possible that I could be wrong about anything.

Wikipedia philosophies and habits
I generally don't create articles, but I'm quick to edit to uphold style. I'm usually reluctant to add content without citing a reference. I, like so many editors are fearful to subscribe to a labeled philosophy, but if forced to select a primary identifier, it would be eventualism. From the open source community, I've learned that problems that severely bother people tend to get fixed. And if a problem severely bothers you, then maybe you should be the one to fix it. In the world of WP, if a page is really bad you shouldn't propose deletion, you should fix it. If too busy, then tag it for cleanup, and just let it go.

Concerning deletion, I am in favor of the Criteria for Speedy deletion as reasons for deletion. But other reasons for deletion often alarm me. My major objection is in regards to history. As an administrator of multiple revision control systems, I strongly appreciate the value of change logs and article histories. History allows you to see the evolution of an idea, it allows you to trace when problems first occur, and it reveals what work has been rejected through consensus so that the work does not need to be wastefully redone, only to have it removed again for the same reason. Article deletion hides this history from regular editors. A deletion should signify "This article does not belong on Wikipedia in any form; there is no benefit for any revision to be visible to editors." Often, it is just this case that "This article contains unsuitable content that should be removed from the current revision. Other content could potentially exist once it is found." Or "This article could exist if needed, but at this time, this topic can properly be covered in it's entirity within another article." in these cases, cleanup, redirection, and/or merging are preferable solutions.

I really hate the term "cruft" It's needlessly aggressive and needlessly insults the contributors. In my experience, I'd estimate that half of the time the term in invoked as a reason for removal, it is content that I agree should be removed. But not because it is cruft, but because it fails WP:V WP:N and WP:NOR. It also gives the impression that the invoker is on a quest to remove all detail related to various fandoms. This forces the dissenting arguer into an aggressively defensive position which hinders communication and impedes WP:Civil discussion.

Since one of the projects asked nicely, I've caved on my opinions of userboxes. I still think most of the personal details ones are silly (with the possible exception of gender).

TODO list
I really gotta start listing out the things I'll claim to do "in a few days, pending discussion" on talk pages. I'm starting to edit too many articles to keep it in my head.


 * Reorganize Miniature figure (gaming), Miniature conversion.
 * Review and recover any properly referenced material that had been deleted from Electrotherapy

User Subpages

 * User:Verdatum/FICT_FAQ - possible candidate for Wikipedia talk:Notability (fiction)/FAQ
 * User:Verdatum/Daughters of the American Revolution - Major reorganization.