Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2019-01-31/In focus

''Just like Wikipedia is a representation of the collective consciousness of the world, admins here in a way represent the collective consciousness of Wikipedia. This article aims, in theory, to represent this collective here. To simplify the task, the scope has been narrowed down to merely the collective consciousness of "active admin userpages". Talking in plainer practical terms, this article picks up stuff (aka plagiarism) from the userpages of some active admins on the English Wikipedia and tries to convey it in a humorous light-hearted or serious/neutral way, as per the content. Note that everything compiled here, the respective degree of humour or seriousness, is courtesy the admins.''

A euphony of professions and interests
Admin Anne Delong is a bluegrass musician, 28bytes is a video game designer and Acroterion is an architect. J Milburn is a philosopher who still "takes part in horror-themed live action role-playing from time-to-time" while admin Antandrus is a professional pianist as well as a professional violinist, but JUST an "advanced" thereminist. Andrew Gray is a librarian working for a London university, Ausir is a freelance translator while Edgar181 is a medicinal chemist with a PhD in organic chemistry. Casliber is a psychiatrist, while Cburnett is an MS in biomedical engineering in striated muscle electrophysiology and Anachronist is a scientist who has worked mostly in the field of stealth technology. Ad Orientem has an infobox which states his occupation as "gentleman" and writes on their userpage "OK, we have the two world wars and the sinking of the Titanic covered. How much more do we really need?"

Did you know... that Wikipedia DYKs are rhetoric in nature?

 * DYK... that admin BDD used to think the metaphor of the mop was a joke, and now they know it's not?
 * DYK... that admin Bumm13 was "King of IP Contributors", but now is merely a sysop?
 * DYK... that admin 78.26 has 78 in his name because he listens to 78 RPM records? (Wonder what the 26 stands for!)
 * DYKE... that admin BD2412 has been a Wikipedian for 30.1% of their life, Ser Amantio di Nicolao has been a Wikipedian for 37.4% of their life, but K6ka, an admin who is 20 years, 7 months, and 27 days old, has been a Wikipedian for 42.8% of their life?!
 * DYK... that admin BU Rob13 doesn't know how he got into editing Canadian football biographies and is a known talk page stalker?
 * DYK... that Choess uses the admin tools "very sparingly and mostly to aid in article writing/organization, so if you have a problem requiring an administrator, they are not necessarily your best choice?"
 * DYK... that Bagumba, Ianblair23 and Barek have The Signpost templates on their pages, and so should you?
 * DYK... that Awilley "is an inexperienced and extremely problematic editor and administrator" and that in 2014 there was a controversial rumor that Awilley is a sockpuppet of User:Jimbo?
 * DYK... that Nightstallion, the male equivalent of a nightmare, stole his username from the fantasy author Piers Anthony, well-known for his Xanth novels?
 * DYK... that admin Athaenara has created the Wikipedian Signature Art Gallery?
 * DYK... that Catfish Jim and the soapdish tried to change their name but this upset some people, so the soapdish remains?
 * DYK... that admin Graham87 has no idea what 1337 is and prefers to contribute using proper words?
 * DYK... that some active admins (David Levy, Dbachmann, Cryptic) do not have userpages to plagiarise off?

Some admins show a certain sense of being disillusioned in general as well as concern with certain things on wiki

 * Adam Bishop has "general disillusionment with Wikipedia...", he doesn't think he "can co-exist on a Wikipedia that has articles about individual Heidi Montag songs".
 * Bkell lists out things they don't like about Wikipedia which include "Drama and endless debate", "Undetected hoaxes and vandalism" and "Image names include the format".
 * Admin Swarm has an infobox saying that they sometimes or always feel useless on wikipedia.
 * BigDom doesn't edit as much as they used to. BigDom writes on their userpage - "Editing Wikipedia used to be enjoyable but lately I've found it's become a real chore and I just can't find the motivation to write new articles. This place has gone to the dogs in my opinion; it's mostly full of kids and people who seem more interested in bickering than building an encyclopedia. There's still some excellent editors and writers left and they know who they are, but 90% of articles are absolute drivel and with the notability guidelines as they are it will only get worse."
 * Boing! said Zebedee is "getting a bit tired of acting purely as an admin and contributing nothing more than occasional minor edits to the actual encyclopedia".
 * Art LaPella lists two reasons why Wikipedia can die. "An influential faction, and close to a consensus, has decided that experienced Wikipedians don't need to be as civil as newcomers," and Link rot.

Animals, Plants, Nature
Admin Black Falcon has a falcon on their page and admin ferret has a singing polecat on their page. IceKarma and GorillaWarfare have a picture of a cat, while Courcelles is owned by one or more dogs and Megalibrarygirl has dogs, baby sea lions and a desert dove on their userpage. Acdixon, Sadads, and Bilby are WikiDragons while Beeblebrox is a WikiGryphon.

Admin Mattinbgn has an image of an evocative row of Pepper trees in rural Australia on their userpage, Jehochman has a beautiful view of the Talcott Mountain, Grant65 has pictures of a bobtail (Tiliqua rugosa) and a Red Kangaroo Paws and Jo-Jo Eumerus has a picture of Miñiques lake.

Quotes on admin userpages

 * On the userpage of Bongwarrior:


 * As seen on the userpage of sysop Fenix down (the quote is from another userpage dated 16 January 2001):

''The key turning point was the increase in emphasis on WP:VERIFY. It unquestionably improved the quality of the encyclopedia, but it just as unquestionably changed us from a large community of online users sharing everything they know to a much smaller community of scholars willing to put in a significant amount of effort researching and documenting their use of reliable sources. That was a good thing for producing a more informative and trustworthy reference work, but it was effectively the end of "the encyclopedia everyone can edit", since most people simply can't or won't make the effort to do the kind of research required to make significant edits when every such edit requires an inline citation to a reliable published source. That combined with the exhaustion of many of the easiest topics has inevitably lead to the community shrinking. --Rusty Cashman (Source:The Signpost 2011, a comment'')
 * As seen on the userpage of Buckshot06:


 * BrownHairedGirl: "Some wikipedian user pages tell their life story or reveal all sorts of interesting details about themselves, whilst others define their interests and values. I want to do neither, because I do not want to tempt the reader to stereotype me — so a few boxes to the right is all you get." Two of the infoboxes -

Beware of users so in love with their own virtue, that they are incapable of recognizing when it has become vice; and so in love with their own eloquence, that they can not see when it has become hypocrisy. The former are those who never admit to any wrong, but yet demand apologies from others for the lapses of judgement to which all human beings are prone; and the latter are the blindest and most intractable of POV-pushers. Skill with words correlates neither with virtue nor wisdom. - Antandrus
 * As seen on the userpage of Beeblebrox, quoting another admin...

The list of meaningful quotes related to Wikipedia on the userpages of admins is endless... check out the userpages of MastCell and Kaihsu.