User:Jason Quinn

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Unified login: Jason Quinn is the unique login of this user for all public Wikimedia projects.
About me
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Noia 64 apps karm.svg This user has been on Wikipedia for 6 years, 2 months and 11 days.
15,000+ This user has made over 15,000 contributions to Wikipedia.
PhD This user has a Doctor of Philosophy degree
Wormhole jet.jpg This user's favorite subject is Physics.
\begin{array}{r}\zeta(s) = 0\\ \Re(s) = \frac{1}{2}\end{array} This user is an expert mathematician.
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tyop
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Wikipedia Typo Team.
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C This user can program in C
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Maximinus denarius.jpg This user is interested in coin collecting.
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Comments, compliments, or inquiries may be left at my talk page.

Contents

[edit] Welcome

I am a wiki-gnome who prefers to make small corrections to articles. I occasionally combat vandalism or might start a new article. I love correcting mistakes in references, because they are otherwise difficult to detect, and I frequently consult WorldCat and Google Book Search to confirm my edits. I also do a lot of copyediting.

[edit] My editing style

My editing style changes with time and goes through phases that can last for months. In general I mostly fix things that many other editors ignore. I fix spelling and grammar. I copy-edit pages to fix references, section structure, formating on so forth. Sometimes I will just click the "random" page until I find some page that has obvious problems which I then fix. Recently I've been scrubbing the encyclopedia categories contaminated by user pages. This turned out to be a lot more interesting than it might sound, as it discovers some really shady user accounts and some very friendly new users who just need some help learning the ropes.

Whenever I edit a page, I usually spell-check the entire article while I am there. I use the native spell-checker of Firefox with American, British, Australian, and Canadian dictionaries. Multiple dictionaries are very valuable to an editor and I strongly encourage you to install them (but note that they aren't gospel when it comes to defining the dialect, so use caution). I always try to verify that a misspelling isn't a sic (e.g., in quotes) and include a sic notice if it is.

At one time or another, I have nearly or completely purged Wikipedia of the following spelling errors: currrent, Mississipi, improvment/improvments, athelets, Detriot, Philidelphia, Anerica, Willliam, entertianment, oponent, sweetner/sweetners, acoording, guarenteed, repsond, quikc, wresting (for "wrestling"), relaese, esential, referece/refereces, graudate/graudates/graudated/graudating/graudation, privledge/privledges/privledged, and many, many more. Many errors have since returned. Oh well, I'll return to them some other day.

An arch-nemesis of mine is the use of "it's" as a possessive. This isn't a job a bot can do because you must read the context to know whether to make a change. I've fixed many instances of this and there are probably tens of thousands more corrections to make, so you could help out. The rule is simple: "it's" always means "it is" or "it has" and never indicates possession.

I pride myself on the idea that just about all my contributions to Wikipedia go straight towards making it better. If two editors rewrite a biography article, it is a matter of taste which version is better, but if I fix all the spelling mistakes they left and bad URLs in their references, it is unquestionably an improvement.

[edit] Mediawiki bugs

Occasionally I find little bugs in the Mediawiki software that Wikipedia uses (see Special:Version). I first noticed and reported that the "my contributions" hyperlink was not bold when selected (earth-shattering!) and I am currently trying to get a categories bug fixed. If you find any bugs, you can report them at the Mediawiki Bugzilla.

[edit] Useful links for Wikipedia editors

[edit] Some thoughts on Wikipedia-related issues

Having been on Wikipedia for a while now, I've started to form my own opinions about certain policies. Here is an explanation of some of my views:

  • People who incriminate Wikipedia as "unreliable" are dinosaurs who do not understand it, often have never used it, and certainly do not understand its inner workings. As has been demonstrated again and again, Wikipedia is reliable and so long as you use a little bit of common sense when reading the articles, you'll find it a great resource.
  • The Wikimedia Foundation needs to stop trying to find problems with its editors and instead focus on fixing problems that editors identify. There's only so many times Foundation members can talk about eliminating sexism or hostile behavior before they are in effect accusing members of being sexist or hostile. This is far out of touch with our actual community and their statements seem born of out a lack of understanding about how online communities function. I think the Foundation's focus on chasing ghost issues is starting to harm the encyclopedia as their comments are starting to be reflected in the attitudes expressed by the public.
  • I am against the customization of user signatures. Customized signatures are distracting on talk pages and interrupt the flow of conversation. Allowing user signatures causes people to invent hideously gaudy signatures in an attempt to out-do others. I have not seen even a single customized signature where I thought it added to the discussion. (see Wikipedia:Signatures)
    • I no longer care so much about personalized signatures. I still prefer when people use the default but I've learned to live with the occasional awful and distracting signature.
  • I strongly encourage users to edit their user pages sparingly. Every edit of a user page takes up storage and bandwidth. A good user page tells other editors about you so they can judge the quality of your edits. Your user page is not meant to be a MySpace substitute. If your user page edits rivals or exceeds your article page edits, you are abusing the feature. To some extent there are rules about what is appropriate for user pages but for obvious reasons they are tough to enforce. (see Wikipedia:User page)
  • I have mixed feelings about userboxes. As with user pages themselves, user boxes are appropriate when they inform others about your background to help gauge the quality of your edits. Do you have a degree? Worth a userbox. Are you an expert at karate or on moths? Use a userbox. Do you have a favorite food or color? Probably not worth a userbox. See the difference? (see Wikipedia:Userboxes)
  • I use my real name for my Wikipedia account. I wish the practice were more widespread. Handles were cool in the 80's and cute in the 90's but the Internet has grown up now. Real names add an air of respectability that contribute positively to Wikipedia's acceptance and image. If (and only if) you understand the privacy concerns, consider using your real name instead of a handle. Wouldn't you prefer people credit your name for your contributions rather than "TurkeyChucker83282"? I thought so. It also helps in the maintenance of the encyclopedia. When I scan history pages to find a vandal edit, I can usually be sure that those who used their real names were not the culprit thus saving me from having to view their diff. (see Wikipedia:Username#Real_names)
  • I wish that editors as a whole would be more strict regarding what and who qualifies as notable. In my opinion, Wikipedia currently suffers from too many articles on obscure sports players and musicians but because some fly-by-night newspaper or two once wrote about them, their notability passes the editor groupthink. There is an unfair bias in the way Wikipedia handles notability. A person can be considered notable according to the guidelines for having once played for a few games in some low-level soccer match in some third world country yet many professors at large universities would have trouble passing the notability guidelines. Fixing this is an almost impossible task but I think bringing it to editors' attention at least helps a bit. (see Wikipedia:Notability)

[edit] Image gallery

I have contributed photos to Wikipedia. Here is a sampling of them:

This is a Wikipedia user page.
This is not an encyclopedia article. If you find this page on any site other than Wikipedia, you are viewing a mirror site. Be aware that the page may be outdated and that the user to whom this page belongs may have no personal affiliation with any site other than Wikipedia itself. The original page is located at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jason_Quinn.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Jason_Quinn&oldid=479071100"
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