User:Dev920

This page is dedicated to the memory of Jeffpw.

Active Wikipedia editor years - 2006-2008.

Long effectively retired, I still log in from time to time to edit the odd article that I happened to see that needs creating or improving. In 2022, I checked my standing on List of Wikipedians by number of edits and was astonished to see that fifteen years later, my name was still in the top 10,000.

Wikipedia is an extraordinary place, but it is plagued by all of the doubled-edged swords of the internet. Anyone can edit it, but ANYONE CAN EDIT IT, everything of value acquires gatekeepers, and those gates are guarded by people who are largely anonymous and have little regard for repairing their relationship with you after you've spent three days fighting it out over a misplaced comma. The outcome is burnout, dysfunction and decline.

I have always considered myself an inclusionist, but it's somewhat depressing to take a stroll around the places I used to go and see these obsolete ideas and pages, like walking through an abandoned city staring up at the monuments to the past, wind blowing through their empty fronts.

I hope someone cleans it all up one day.