User:WereSpielChequers



Gentle reader, WereSpielChequers is as you may have guessed a nom de plume. I have long wanted to have my own chequers tree, but they are not normally known for their communication skills, hence the lycanthropy. There are other potential interpretations of the name, some of which may from time to time be spotted on this page. Of course another name for the Chequers tree is the Wild Service Tree, apart from the obvious I have yet to work out the implications of this, but as an admin I am indeed here to serve the community.  Were Spiel  Chequers ,  the Lycanthropic loquacious fruit tree





Communication
If you're here to leave me a message then please sign my guestbook or put a note on my talk page. If you're here to vandalise this page feel free to increment the vandalised counter by one (other vandalism is liable to be reverted).

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Useful stuff

 * recently active
 * poop patrol
 * WP:Database reports/Editors eligible for Autopatrol privilege

Signpost writing
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 * WP:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-11-09/New pages experiment
 * WP:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-07-26/News and notes - publicising the interwiki death anomalies report, follow up WP:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-09-13/Sister projects
 * WP:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-08-09/Admin stats - Some RFA stats - then updated 13 years later at Wikipedia Signpost/2023-08-15/Special report
 * WP:Wikipedia_Signpost/2015-08-26/In_focus - after several years of decline the number of editors making over 100 edits a month is rising again.

Things I've worked on

 * User:WereSpielChequers/Invisible_flagged_revisions a hybrid between the DE flagged revisions system and EN wikis way of working.
 * User:WereSpielChequers/AI accounts a modest proposal re AI members of the community, first published at the beginning of April 2010
 * User:WereSpielChequers/Newpage_proposal Some newpage ideas from 2011
 * User:WereSpielChequers/Going off the boil? an attempt to list all the alleged reasons why this project is doomed, with my opinion as to whether each is a bug, feature, myth or problem
 * User:WereSpielChequers/Private Space RFC July 2014
 * User:WereSpielChequers/2010-2014 Editor retention test Editor retention
 * meta:User:WereSpielChequers/spot_checking April 2015
 * Citation Archive
 * meta:Grants:IdeaLab/Community prioritised IT developments August 2015
 * User:WereSpielChequers/Edit Warring August 2015
 * User:WereSpielChequers/auto_confirmed_before_and_after_visual_editor February 2016

rfa
At wp:rfa I assess many candidates who have between 45% and 85% support; and have tried to code up my User:WereSpielChequers/RFA criteria so that I can focus my thoughts on how to evaluate candidates and be fair and consistent in my voting. I also maintain some stats on the RFA process at User:WereSpielChequers/RFA stats and have drafted some ideas on RFA reform.

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Tools
My native tongue is English, and I have a fair understanding of American English. My PC has an English Wordprocessor and American English spellings tend to get highlighted along with typos, (though sometimes it's the English variant that the spellchecker doesn't like) so if you are here because I've changed the spelling of something that's correct in American English, and it's not in an article that you'd expect to be in English then please say so.

Recall
As an admin and also a crat I am subject to recall, either of course via Arbcom. or voluntarily via my recall criteria.

Accounts
This is my main account, it's a unified account, I've also edited a number of other Wikimedia projects including strategy, commons and meta. I'm also WereSpellCheckers when travelling or using insecure PCs, and was Dahsun for a now defunct project. I originally edited as Jonathan Cardy, when my account was renamed it had a few edits left in it as a result of the rename process; I later used it for some editing on places near me, and for edits involving photos that I'd loaded in my own name.

From April 2013 to May 2015 I was Wikimedia UK's GLAM organiser and for my WMUK edits used the account Jonathan Cardy (WMUK)

Things I've got involved in
Initially I came here because of my hobby of archaeology, (I've been a volunteer on a couple of digs and I have a small library about Easter Island). I enjoy wandering round the Wiki following links and occasionally fixing things and making connections.

Nowadays I do a variety of things from patrolling new pages & changes and either reverting vandalism, tidying up other people's edits or welcoming newbies (often two or three of these in combination). Reviewing articles at WP:FAC, and fixing redlinks. I also have a very diverse watchlist that includes a number of frequently vandalised articles - if it gets past the hugglers I may still pick it up!

We're Spell Checkers
Then I moved on to fixing typos, (ablum, ablity, avalaible, bieng, becuase, sucess, thrity and webiste have been particular hunting grounds of mine) and fixing links to chance articles as I come across them. However most of these have now been botted.

Ware Spell Checkers
I also look at easily confused words like Doe snot/Does not that cause errors that spellcheckers cannot pick up. Cavalry/Calvary was a good hunting ground, as was Thier/Their, Anther/Another, Crowed/(Crowded, Crowned, Crowd), Mowed/Moved Planed/Planned, Posses/Possess/Poses, Panter/Panther/Painter and Formally/Formerly. In moving Wikipedia to a solider base I can claim personal responsibility for eradicating the Olympic sport of synchronised ventriloquism from Wikipedia, cancelling the Sumer Olympics and reducing the number of medals awarded to three by abolishing the sliver medal. Radically reducing the amount of preforming and staring in the entertainment industry. As well as lowering many places from seal level to sea level.

We're Spiel Checkers - thoughts on deletion
Though I've done over five thousand deletions I now realise that I'm a bit of an m:Inclusionist as I decline dozens of speedy deletion tags.

Speedy deletion is for the truly uncontentious deletions, sometimes I decline a speedy deletion whilst believing that it probably should be deleted. If I've declined your suggestion that I delete something, and my edit summary was "decline deletion notability is asserted" then I doubt the article would survive wp:AFD. If it was "decline deletion notability is established" then I think it probably would survive wp:AFD. But if the article was about sport, music, MilHist or Manga then I'm unlikely to participate in the AFD discussion as I know less about the subject than most chequers trees.

If your boss or client wants to know why I deleted your article, please read NOTADVERTISING and wp:COI.

If I deleted your article about your ex, the school geek or your political or romantic rival, and you want to know why Wikipedia won't help you get even; Feel free to add your User name here.

If I deleted your article and you want a copy of it; Email me and as long as it wasn't attacking someone or a copyright violation I should be able to Email it to you. In five thousand deletions that offer has only been taken up a couple of times, including once by someone who'd posted a love letter up as a Wikipedia article, but yes if you thought it worthwhile writing it and you didn't keep a copy I can email it to you, or if it was really about you I can turn it into your own wikipedia userpage so that you can introduce yourself to your fellow wikipedians.

Further reading for new page patrollers: Further reading re deletion:
 * wp:Criteria for speedy deletion
 * WP:Field guide to proper speedy deletion
 * User:I'm Spartacus!/Why I hate Speedy Deleters
 * User:SoWhy/Ten Commandments for Speedy Deletion
 * User:SoWhy/Common A7 mistakes
 * User:I'm Spartacus!/CSD Survey
 * Criteria for speedy deletion/Overturned speedy deletions
 * User:Filll/Encouraging Newbies
 * Deletion policy
 * Article Rescue Squadron
 * Google result counts are a meaningless metric
 * User:Uncle G/Wikipedia triage
 * User:WereSpielChequers/Newbie treatment A test I started (and later ended) to see how we treat the authors of new articles.
 * User:Mike Cline/Archimedes was deleted
 * Gwern's excellent report on Deletionism and the damage it does to the Project

Some deletions I've declined: a drummer, More are archived here.

My editing philosophy.
When I've finished my changes to an article I try to make myself unwatch it, otherwise I'm continually looking at other people's changes and having to stop myself from breaching wp:own. So if you are here because you've proposed a change to an article where I have been a major contributor in the past and you think I'm now ignoring the article talk page, yes I've probably unwatched it, so feel free to improve anything I've done. If however you want my opinion, would like me to provide a citation for information that I've added or would like to point out one of my mistakes, then please leave a note on my talk page. But you don't need to point out my big error in defaulting to minor edits and even making entire articles out of a series of them, as that emerged in September 2008 during my first RFA.

Related to Rapa Nui (Easter Island)
Ahu Akivi, Anakena, Puna Pau, Rano Kau, Ahu Tongariki, Easter hotspot, Moai (seamount), Pukao (seamount), Terevaka

Miscellaneous
Eunomia (goddess), List of fictional demons (current work in progress - very incomplete), Mountain Pass, California, Muirhead (disambiguation), Pritchardia pacifica, Mammillaria spinosissima, Tagg, Warham Camp, Cathedral of the Nativity of Our Lord, Upper Clapton Full list

Some Articles I've contributed to
Pukao, Rano Raraku, Dearth, Marilyn Manson, Payroll giving, LHC, List of theological demons, Hopping

Reviewing candidates for Featured Article status
I really enjoy reading FA candidate articles, often make minor tweaks and where I don't understand something query things. Whether they pass FA or not, to me these discussions are usually the most pleasurable and civilised place on Wikipedia. This is a good guide to FAC, to the right are some that need attention and below are a few that I've reviewed:
 * Kaiser class battleship
 * George Koval - the one they didn't catch
 * Maiden Castle
 * Brazilian battleship Minas Geraes 1 & 2
 * Nico Ditch
 * Pallid Sturgeon
 * Byron Brown
 * Murray Maxwell
 * Heinrich Bär (the guy who cheeked Goering)
 * Malawi
 * Economy of Ohio
 * Nevado del Ruiz a mountain prone to going bang
 * Joking Apart my favourite story from Oz
 * James Russell Lowell (one of my very first FAC reviews)
 * Chilean battleship Almirante Latorre


 * More of my reviews can be found here

Disambiguation projects
Atlas (disambiguation), Queen (dozens of Queens replaced by Queen ), Water Buffalo, Ajax, Prince (mainly to Prince (musician)), TNT (most of these were explosive, but there seems to be a rapper who needs an article about him/her), Heer, & Yuan

Were
In June 2010 I initiated the Death anomalies project. This table and set of lists enables any project that has a category equivalent to deceased people to feed in data, and request a report out.

The EN wiki report is at Database reports/Living people on EN wiki who are dead on other wikis.

Most of the time, as one would expect, the report merely informs you of a biography here that can be updated because the person has died. But sometimes it gets more complicated - in one case I had to remove interwiki links in 6 articles because we had two similar people linked together. I've now made edits in about ten times as many languages as I can speak.