User:AmericanLemming

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Hello all! As my username suggests, I live in the United States (Wisconsin, to be precise), and I like lemmings. Having admired Wikipedia from afar for many years, I finally decided to get in on the action back in 2013.

I'm a medical student at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. I graduated as a German/Spanish/pre-med triple major at the University of Oklahoma in May 2017. As far as my editing goes, I generally fix typos and other such mistakes as I read Wikipedia (I use Wikipedia a lot). I also maintain the GA stats page and the FA stats page.

My three pet peeves are words that are capitalized that shouldn't be, extra white space at the top of articles, and biographies that don't have the current age/age at time of death in the info box. My interests include history, foreign languages, commercial aviation, and medicine.

In case you didn't notice, I like lemmings.

What I've done around here[edit]

My relationship to Treblinka extermination camp is rather complex. I'll just state the facts:

1. I copy-edited and reviewed the article during its GAN in late October 2013 (48 edits to the GAN page and 76 comments).
2. I copy-edited and reviewed the article during its first run at FAC in early November 2013 (76 edits to the FAC review page and 15 new comments).
3. I copy-edited and reviewed the article immediately after its FAC was archived in mid-December 2013 (126 edits to the article talk page and 60 more comments).

Thus, I've copy-edited the article three times and made 837 edits to the article proper, bringing me to a total of 1,087 Treblinka-related edits, along with 151 comments. AmericanLemming (talk) 05:43, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Movie plots I've worked on

Articles expanded

Barnstars[edit]

The Copyeditor's Barnstar
Thanks tremendously for pitching in on Jelena Balšić; your edits and suggestions improved the article substantially. -- Khazar2 (talk) 03:10, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
Feel free to ping me when you start doing GA reviews; I'd be glad to offer assistance if you ever want any. I owe you one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 03:10, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
The Copyeditor's Barnstar
Thanks for your helping in Dragon Warrior II!--113.200.212.68 (talk) 06:38, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
The Good Article Barnstar
For your contributions to bring International emergency medicine to Good Article status. Thanks, and keep up the good work! -- Khazar2 (talk) 02:19, 20 August 2013 (UTC)


I just realized this was your first GA, so you definitely deserve one of these. Congrats-- I hope it's the first of many. -- Khazar2 (talk) 02:19, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

The Copyeditor's Barnstar
Thanks for your help at Treblinka extermination camp--your diligence and thoroughness have already made this a better article! I really appreciate your stepping in on short notice to lend a hand. Cheers, -- Khazar2 (talk) 16:54, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
The Mediator Barnstar
Your mediation attempts, though perhaps not entirely successful, have not gone unnoticed. Don't be discouraged from continuing to be a neutral voice in other disputes on Wikipedia. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish{chat} 19:42, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

All pages in my userspace[edit]

User:AmericanLemming
User:AmericanLemming/sandbox
User:AmericanLemming/sandbox2
User:AmericanLemming/Noteworthy Wikipedians
User:AmericanLemming/Wikipedians by FAs
User:AmericanLemming/Four billion words
User:AmericanLemming/Signpost draft
User:AmericanLemming/vector.js

Odds and ends[edit]

What is the difference between undoing an edit and reverting an edit?

What is the difference between undoing an edit and reverting an edit? Or are they the same thing? AmericanLemming (talk) 21:37, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

for the purpose of determining whether or not edit warring is occurring, there is not one bit of difference. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:39, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
Then, is "reverting" an edit just when you undo an edit and change the "undid revision #n by User:X" edit summary to "reverted revision #n by User:X"? AmericanLemming (talk) 21:51, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
I'm nervous about the TheRedPenOfDoom's answer, depending on why you are asking. Reverting is a broader concept than simply undoing. They are not the same thing. Can you share the context?--S Philbrick(Talk) 21:58, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
See Help:Reverting. If I make an edit, and you make a change to my edit, even if you did not undo all of it, you have reverted. I missed that distinction early in my WP career. I mistkenly thought reverting mean reverting. The terminology is unfortunate.--S Philbrick(Talk) 22:01, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
I undid a revision by an IP editor on Carolina Panthers and asked them to join the discussion on the talk page before removing the restored content again. I didn't see a button on the "History" tab that said "revert", just one saying "undo", and I was wondering how to revert an edit. AmericanLemming (talk) 22:03, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
Undoing can be a form of reverting, but reverting can be done in many ways, like undoing, going to an older version of the page and editing it so that any changes after said version are removed, and rollback (along with other semi-automated tools). - Purplewowies (talk) 22:34, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
Well, thanks for the help, everyone. I think I understand the distinction now. AmericanLemming (talk) 09:39, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
Early in the morning when i start editing i'll check my watchlist. Some days i'll have an article that has been vandalised multiple times in succession by a person. I'll use Rollback on that to remove every edit in one quick action. If there was only one edit by a person and some of it was terrible, and the other half useful, i'd undo it, but only so that i can remove the half i don't consider useful (saving some time as i don't have to revert and then add half back in). You can also Restore to a previous version if you feel the need, like if there are multiple unhelpful edits to the article in a row. It's all reverting, but for different reasons. Hopefully that helps a bit. Thanks Jenova20 (email) 10:00, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
What are image and source reviews?

Pardon my ignorance, but what exactly it a "source review"? And while you're at it, what's an "image review"? I might get into source reviews and image reviews at some point, but I don't know what they are. AmericanLemming (talk) 19:13, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

A source review is a set of comments related to the sources used in the article that looks two main areas:
  • Are the sources formatted consistently? Are the publication names consistently in italics, are the dates in the same formats, are page numbers or other location references supplied as expected? In short, do the footnotes or bibliography entries have a similar format with all of the expected information present?
  • Are the items used "high-quality reliable sources" as required of the criteria? Do they come from publishers known to exercise an appropriate level of fact-checking and editorial oversight? Are they the sorts of sources we should be using, or are there better ones?
As for an image review, that checks to make sure all of the media (including video or sound files if appropriate) are properly licensed and captioned. Such a review makes sure that if something is under copyright that we're following WP:NFCC properly. For other items, we're scrutinizing a bit to verify licenses or public domain status, and then for everything, we're making sure that captions are appropriate to the article and formatted properly.
Related to the source review is a spotcheck, which is only needed on a first nomination and then periodically after that. In a spotcheck, a reviewer is making sure that the sources do back the information being cited, and that the prose isn't paraphrasing too closely. It's really making sure that the writing here respects the original author's copyrights and avoids plagiarism concerns, whether cited or not. Imzadi 1979  19:23, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
You might also be interested in User:Nikkimaria/Reviewing_featured_article_candidates#Sources, User:Nikkimaria/Reviewing_featured_article_candidates#Media, and the links in each of those. (And anyone is welcome - even encouraged - to edit that page). Nikkimaria (talk) 00:43, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
Symbolic concrete blocks mark the path of the former railway line at Treblinka.

Treblinka was an extermination camp built by Nazi Germany in Poland during World War II. It was located near the village of Treblinka. The camp operated officially between July 1942 and October 1943 as part of Operation Reinhard, a phase of the Final Solution. During this time, 800,000–1,200,000 people died in its gas chambers, almost all of whom were Jews. More people died at Treblinka than any other Nazi extermination camp besides Auschwitz. Managed by the German SS and the Eastern European Trawnikis, the camp consisted of two units: Treblinka I and Treblinka II. The first was a forced-labour camp in which more than half of the inmates died. The second was an extermination camp. A few Jewish men became its Sonderkommandos, forced to bury the victims' bodies in mass graves. These bodies were exhumed in 1943 and then cremated along with the bodies of new victims. Gassing operations at Treblinka II ended in October 1943 following a revolt by the Sonderkommandos in early August. In postwar Poland, the government purchased land that had formed part of the camp and built a stone memorial. Treblinka was declared a national monument during a ceremony held in 1964. Meanwhile, the first German trial for war crimes committed at Treblinka was also held in 1964, with those responsible first brought to justice at that time.

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Treblinka articles[edit]

Size of Wikipedia[edit]

Another way to measure the size of Wikipedia is by looking at the total number of pages, which includes pages in other namespaces like Talk, User, or Wikipedia as well as articles. As of 23 April 2024, there are 60,509,665. The size of the database is difficult to measure because it varies depending on how you define it and how much the data is compressed. One way to define it is to just include the current version of all 6,815,734 articles; another way is to include the current version of all articles and their edit history (that is, all previous versions of each article), which is much bigger. Including the current version of all 60,509,665 pages (with or without their edit history) makes the size of the database even larger.

Adding paragraph to the lead about the total number of pages and the size of the database

Canniesburn Hospital[edit]

Canniesburn Hospital was a plastic surgery hospital that existed from 1967 to 2003 and served Greater Glasgow.[1] John Scott Tough was the principal driver behind the hospital's creation, while Thomas Gibson obstructed its construction out of his dislike of Tough.[2]

Predecessor[edit]

The predecessor to what would become Canniesburn Hospital was the West of Scotland Plastic Surgery and Jaw Unit,[3] which opened in October 1940 in Ballochmyle Hospital, an Emergency Medical Service hospital in Ayrshire. It was closed in 1943 on the recommendation of Harold Gillies. It reopened in 1944 with John Scott Tough in charge.[4] Thomas Gibson worked in the Burns Unit of the Glasgow Royal Infirmary from 1942 to 1944, where he researched burn management for the Medical Research Council.[4][5] Gibson was drafted in 1944 and served in the Royal Army Medical Corps until 1947.[5] Upon his return to Glasgow he fully expected to be put in charge of the Plastic Surgery and Jaw Unit at Ballochmyle Hospital, and was disappointed when he discovered that Tough was in charge. Although Gibson had as much experience in plastic surgery as Tough, Tough treated him as a subordinate, which was the beginning of a mutual dislike between the two that intensified throughout their careers.[4] They were quite different; Tough was a far better surgeon than Gibson was, but Gibson was an innovative thinker and was willing to challenge existing medical beliefs.[6]

Design and construction[edit]

In 1958, Tough selected Canniesburn as the site for a formal plastic surgery specialist unit (specialist hospital).[7] Gibson was not the only one opposed to a dedicated plastic surgery hospital; Charles Illingworth, Regius Professor of Surgery at Glasgow University and member of the Greater Glasgow Health Board, strongly objected to the idea of specialist hospitals of any kind, and he used his influence and prestige to block the construction of Canniesburn. Illingworth's preferred alternative was to have an individual plastic surgeon in each of the main hospitals in Glasgow. The neurosurgeons in Glasgow also wanted a dedicated neurosurgery hospital, but since they were unanimously in favor of one, Illingworth had to let construction proceed. Though all of the plastic surgeons except Gibson were in favor of a plastic surgery hospital, Gibson's dissenting vote allowed Illingworth to obstruct construction.[8]

After Illingworth came off the Greater Glasgow Health Board, Tough received permission to begin drawing up plans for Canniesburn Hospital. This was formally granted on December 24, 1962. While the decision to build Canniesburn was acrimonious, the neurosurgery hospital was built more smoothly and included a large academic component. Canniesburn was not granted any academic component, making it difficult to retain someone with an academic bent like Robert Acland, who eventually left for Louisville, Kentucky.[9]

Tough designed Canniesburn in consultation with the architect with little to no input from the other plastic surgeons. Canniesburn Hospital officially opened on September 1, 1967. Tough hoped that he would be able to have total control over the Canniesburn, and he was the administrative director of the unit, but in practice each plastic surgeon carved out his own niche, meaning that Tough was just another consultant.[10] He appeared to lose interest in the Plastic Surgery unit and retired in January 1970[11] after only two years as director; he was 60 years old at the time. His poor health contributed significantly to this decision; he was a diabetic and suffered attacks of angina due to emotional upset.[10]

Early years (1967-1986)[edit]

Thomas Gibson became the director of Canniesburn Hospital after Tough retired in 1970[10] and remained in that position until 1980, when he retired. He was replaced as director by Ian McGregor, who himself retired in 1986.[12] Canniesburn became internationally known for its innovations in plastic surgery.

Closure[edit]

Canniesburn Hospital was closed in 2003.[13] A new Canniesburn Plastic Surgery Unit was built in the Jubilee Building of the Glasgow Royal Infirmary.[3]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ "Canniesburn Plastic Surgery and Burns Unit". NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
  2. ^ McGregor & Watson 1998, p. 341-342.
  3. ^ a b "Canniesburn: 50 years at the forefront of plastic surgery". PMFA. 5 (1). October/November 2017. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ a b c McGregor & Watson 1998, p. 333.
  5. ^ a b "Gibson, Thomas (1915 - 1993)". Plarr’s Lives of the Fellows. The Royal College of Surgeons of England. Retrieved 22 March 2018.
  6. ^ McGregor & Watson 1998, p. 333-334.
  7. ^ McGregor & Watson 1998, p. 336.
  8. ^ McGregor & Watson 1998, p. 336-337.
  9. ^ McGregor & Watson 1998, p. 337-338.
  10. ^ a b c McGregor & Watson 1998, p. 338.
  11. ^ "John Scott Tough (1909-1977)". British Journal of Plastic Surgery. 30 (4): 330. October 1977. PMID 338076.
  12. ^ McGregor & Watson 1998, p. 341.
  13. ^ "Canniesburn Plastic Surgery and Burns Unit". NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. Retrieved 28 March 2018.

References[edit]