User:Ymblanter

Following this finding of fact in the arbitration case (unrelated to me) I have stopped all administrator activity in the areas I edit — everything related to the countries of the former Soviet Union, to rail transport, and to the Olympics. I may occasionally make fully uncontroversial actions, such as blocks for and protections against obvious vandalism and obvious BLP violations.

I feel necessary to give some background information about myself, because people keep making wrong assumptions. I am a Dutch citizen living in the Netherlands. In real life, I am a theoretical physicist specializing in condensed matter physics and quantum nanoscience.

I have been administrator here since 2013. Besides the English Wikipedia, I have advanced permissions on Commons (administrator), Wikidata (administrator and bureaucrat), and the Russian Wikivoyage (administrator and bureaucrat). These are the only four projects which I edit on a daily basis (with the exception of four minor Wikipedias where I add the image of the day every day). I used to be active on the Russian Wikipedia, and was twice elected to the Arbitration Committee there, but I left that project in 2011 and only made a couple of edits there since. I may occasionally edit some other projects, but I do not do so on a regular basis, and I usually have no idea what is going on there. I also have a global rollback. Over the years, I have done some community service. In particular, I was a program committee member for Wikimania in Gdansk in 2010 (one of the three who survived until start of the event), I was on the Research Committee from the beginning until the moment it was clear it is not operational anymore, I actively participated in the 2010 Strategy process (my name is mentioned in the Strategy Document), and I have been on the jury for Wiki Loves Monuments consistently for years for Russia, and occasionally for other countries, and also for Wiki Loves Earth. In 2020, I was on the Transition Design Group for the implementation of the Strategic directions.

Here, I both contribute content and perform maintenance. What I am exactly doing drifts with time, you can have a look of my recent edits to have an idea. I keep away from quality content (FA and GA) since I believe it is best left to native speakers of English. Contentwise, I mainly try to contribute to the topics I have advanced understanding of, but mostly not related to my professional interests.

I have a couple of articles about my employer on my watchlist and occasionally edit them. I am not paid for that. I never made major edits to any of them.

I have never received any monetary reimbursement for editing Wikimedia projects. Here is the (as far as I can remember) exhaustive list of non-monetary reimbursement I have received:
 * A yearly subscription to the Dutch magazine of cultural heritage, as a prize for Wiki Loves Monuments, Netherlands;
 * Two calendars, prizes for Wiki Loves Earth and Wiki Loves Monuments, Azerbaijan;
 * An Amazon voucher for 25 pounds, a prize for the Africa destubathon contest (nomination: Mozambique), spent on a book on the history of Mozambique;
 * An Amazon voucher for 30 US dollars, for participation in a research related to a specific topic area, spent on a book on the history of Ecuador;
 * A pack of stroopwafels, for my contribution to some contest related to women painters (do not remember the details);
 * An iron barnstar, for my involvement in the 2010 Strategy process;
 * Drinks and sandwiches on two occasions (a Wikiconference and a Wikidata-related meetup) in Utrecht, paid by Wikimedia Nederland;
 * An invitation to the ceremony of the Erasmus Prize in the Royal Palace in Amsterdam (and drinks at the ceremony) when Wikipedia has won the prize.

I had to create an alt account, Ymblanter_alt, due to some difficulties I encountered a few years ago. I am not planning to edit using that account. The account currently is only registered on Commons.

The theory that I find most credible as an explanation of the decline of the community since 2007 is the end of the "SoFixIt" culture and its replacement by the templating culture which some consider newbie biting and which has lead to hundreds of thousands of articles disfigured by garish templates calling attention to problems that somebody hopes someone else will understand and fix. By WereSpielChequers, .



User:Number 57/Election categories to be checked

WikiProject Stations/Station names

Admin dashboard

Copy Patrol

Rollback hidden at User:Ymblanter/common.css

🇦🇱 🇦🇩 🇦🇺 🇦🇷 🇦🇹 🇦🇿 🇧🇾 🇧🇪 🇧🇦 🇧🇷 🇧🇬 🇨🇦 🇨🇳 🇭🇷  🇨🇿 🇨🇾  🇩🇰 🇪🇨 🇪🇪 🇫🇴 🇫🇮 🇫🇷   🇩🇪 🇬🇮 🇬🇷 🇭🇺 🇮🇪 🇮🇸 🇮🇱 🇮🇹 🇯🇵 🇯🇴 🇰🇿 🇰🇷  🇰🇬 🇱🇻 🇱🇮 🇱🇹 🇱🇺 🇲🇹 🇲🇽 🇲🇨 🇲🇪 🇲🇦 🇳🇱    🇳🇴 🇵🇰   🇵🇱 🇵🇹 🇷🇴 🇷🇺 🇸🇲 🇷🇸 🇸🇬 🇸🇰 🇸🇮 🇪🇸 🇸🇪 🇨🇭 🇹🇼 🇹🇯 🇹🇭 🇹🇷  🇺🇦 🇺🇸 🇺🇿  🇪🇭
 * Lived in / visited:
 * 🇷🇺: 03, 04, 08-13, 16, 18, 19, 21, 22, 24, 26, 29-40, 42-44, 46-48, 50-55, 57-62, 64, 66, 67, 69-72, 74, 76-78, 86
 * 🇺🇸: AR, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, GA, HI, IA, ID, IL, IN, KY, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NV, NY, OH, OR, PA, RI, SC, UT, TX, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY.