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Good day.

Thank you for taking some of your valuable Wikitime to read my Wikipedia user page.

I am not an expert in software, programming, astronomy, or any other topic on which I edit or contribute. I make no such claim(s) anywhere that I am aware of. If you find any text that can be (mis)interpreted to seem as if I make any such claim(s), then notify me immediately, and I will alter such text to be far clearer and harder to misinterpret. I am an enthusiastic, dedicated, life-long autodidact, former secretary (not a trained legal secretary) in a single-practicioner law office, part-time newsroom newspaper reporter, and low-hour volunteer teacher, who can think, read, write, and edit. That is all. When I make errors, notify me, and I will fix them as promptly as circumstances allow.

Starting in the late 1990s, for several years, I edited articles on a few open content websites, including Ward Cunningham's original WikiWikiWeb, some webrings on WebRing.com (before and during the Yahoo! years), and then the Open Directory Project (ODP or DMOZ, renamed Curlie in late 2017). Then I discovered Wikipedia, and edited anonymously for a few years before registering a username (if only there were means to get credit for anonymous edits!). On Wikipedia, I pursue mostly WikiGnome-ish activities. Sometimes I do a bit more. I hope that what I have done is of value to more than a few.

Almost all of my work is informed directly by the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (MoS). If I change something in an article, then it is usually backed by some rule, or at least principle, found therein. One could say that mostly I enforce the MoS, but such phrasing sounds too punitive. I prefer to think that I am teaching or educating other editors, while gently weeding and cultivating a garden a bit. If I am feeling a bit testy, than I view myself in a more janitorial role, as cleaning up a mess. On occasion, when grouchy, I encounter work which at first impression, moves me to interpret it as evidence of mental retardation or mild derangement.

Example: Internal Wiki links that are piped with identical text (a pet peeve of mine), of the form:

Title words

When I find myself being so uncharitable, I deliberately stop myself, and try to reinterpret the strangeness, perhaps as the effort of someone whose skills in English are vastly superior to my skills in their language. That usually puts me back in my place.

Editor responsibility

Wikipedia editors have a great privilege: we are stewards and guardians of an incredibly valuable treasure. Millions (!) of people have contributed to, and spent countless hours working on, this project. This creates a weighty responsibility on us. When we edit an article, in our hands lies the fate of all prior work on that article, and sometimes the records and reputations of highly accomplished, greatly admired, or dearly loved people (featured in articles, or Wikipedia editors), who may be gone but not forgotten, yet. I try to bear this in mind whenever I edit, and work hard to ensure, and hope, that I am a worthy caretaker.

Writing experience

Intermittently, from 1979, through the early and middle 1980s, and a few times in the mid-1990s, I worked as a part-time newspaper reporter, termed a stringer, at the then Milwaukee Sentinel, now Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. My beat (specialty) was technology, science, defense, and a few lighter human-interest features. Among many things I learned was to write very tersely. At a newspaper, more so before electronic media grew common, there was a ferocious emphasis on word count and article length. Failure to write compactly meant that lots of text might be deleted by copy editors. At times, accuracy suffered thereby.

During those years, I also edited the work of some college students, mostly term papers, and one Master's degree thesis. Two of the students told me that my work raised their grades routinely by one increment, for example, usually from C to B.

Quality

In the early 1990s, for a few years, I was a member of the American Society for Quality Control (ASQC), now American Society for Quality (ASQ). I highly recommend this truly fine organization for anyone interested in any similar or related issues. I still remember some of the basics of quality control, and try to apply my knowledge to Wiki work.

=Low quality reverts=

Sometimes an edit will have many (10, 20, 50, 100, or more) small changes, which seem correct, uncontroversial, conservative, responsible, precise, carefully thought-out and executed, and which seem to follow exactly the Manual of Style. Yet, some other editor may disagree with one or two points, and will then revert the whole edit.

Reverting such edits wholly is clearly incorrect, inconsistent with accuracy, and atrocious manners. Each such reversion is one more example of a low quality, thoughtless, hasty, sloppy, knee jerk, drive-by, shoot-from-the-hip revert. Sadly, these are far too common on Wikipedia. It is hard to sympathize or agree with, or sometimes even understand, the mindset of anyone reverting an edit in such a way, or behaving in such a manner. If you disagree with a point or two, then revert that point, or those few points, and no others. It is common sense, good manners, and Wikipedia official policy: WP:REVONLY.

Neutrality

Of many things I consider very seriously, one is objectivity, or neutrality in Wikipedia nomenclature. I try very hard to be neutral. This is mostly due to my basic personality, but was also further informed and refined by my newspaper experiences. But, no one can be fully neutral in all ways, no matter how great our efforts; for some insights on this see Wikipedia:Systemic bias. At least two kinds of neutrality clearly exist: attitudinal and functional. We all have many biases, of many types, and these effect our thoughts and actions. Attitude biases are the easiest to counter, mostly by consciously monitoring ourselves and working to be deliberately neutral in our actions. Functional biases are much harder to counter. We all have varied strengths and weaknesses, areas of knowledge and ignorance. Thus we work in areas we know, and perform actions we understand, and tend to perform less well outside that range. Where I do this, and accidentally harm or confuse anyone, I apologize. Tell me and I will act to improve my results.

=Systemic bias example=

A too-common type of unfair systemic bias occurs when Wikipedia's standards and practices for determining notability are applied to covering some types of software. The sad reality is that academic software, and open-source software, both, even when widely used, usually receive far less attention, such as reviews and awards, than more commercial forms of software. This contributes to some promising articles being deleted due to lack of third-party sources for references. Given Wikipedia's methods as of 2017, this bias cannot be avoided or even reduced. Software which is both academic, and open-source, suffers from both sources of inattention, and is doubly vulnerable.

Edit summaries

Edit summary notes are highly useful for documenting work, to explicate processes and motives for others to understand. I have devised many for my use, which also may be useful for others. So, I have listed them on an edit summaries page. These notes are never a form of attack. They exist to inform others of exactly what I have done and why, and to help them find useful and germane parts of the Wikipedia:Manual of Style from which they may learn and become better editors.

Categories

A WP:CATEGORY can be highly useful when looking for an article on a specialized or unusual topic. Here is a block for programming languages which I consult often.

Needlessly piped redirects

One problem which some edits cause, which is needless, and thus especially irksome, is links with needless pipes which redirect.

For example, after the name of many programming languages, there is the string {{nowrap|" (programming language)"}}. Often this creates a direct link, but often it creates a needless pipe (per WP:NOPIPE) which points to a redirect.

Examples of links that are piped and direct, thus correct:

Examples of links that are needlessly piped and redirecting, thus incorrect:

  • C++. Instead, the unpiped direct link is C++.
  • Perl. Instead, the unpiped direct link is Perl.

If you don't know for sure if a link is optimal, why not check it first? It is easy and fast, taking only several seconds! Check links after making them, via the Show preview function, but before saving edits, via the Save page function. On the article edit page, simply use the Show preview function to display the links in their published form, and then WP:TESTLINK (click on) them, before saving. Then, you can use the Show changes function to see all changes that you made up to that preview.

Only then, after confirming that everything is correct, should you save.

Actual? Itself? Himself? Herself? Themselves? No!

Some words are all too easy to overuse, and sadly, are overused routinely, and usually incorrectly, to the extent that many or most instances of their use become useless linguistic junk. For example, most common uses of the words "actual", "itself", "himself", "herself", and "themselves" are vague, imprecise, ambiguous, and almost meaningless; some type of strange needless intensifier when occurring immediately after a referred-to term. Such words can almost always be cut from a sentence with no change in the meaning. Here are some examples:

  • They can almost always actually be cut from an actual sentence with no change in the actual meaning.
  • They can almost always be cut from a sentence itself with no change in the meaning itself.
  • They can almost always be cut from sentences themselves with no change in the meanings themselves.

Proofread! Try it! Communication begs for clearer terms. Readers need clear semantic guidance as to what an author's references are about.

Userboxes

I have created a few userboxes. As with all I do, if you like one, or more, please feel free to use it-them.

Music articles

I have worked extensively on a few non-technical articles, a few about Music groups which I know and enjoy, and of which I am a fan: Cyberchump and Palm Ghosts. Disclosures: For the Palm Ghosts article, the first version was written mostly by band founder Joseph Lekkas, with encouraging, and extensive coaching and technical edits (templating, WP:LINKs, WP:CATEGORYs), and some WP:REFerence WP:CITations and text edits, by me.

WikiProject software announcement

{{Wikipedia:WikiProject Software/Announcement-u}}