User:Pointillist

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Pointillist is busy in real life and may not respond swiftly to queries.

FYI I also have a self-imposed rule not to post more than three or four times on the same subject on a talk page. Once I've reached my limit I try to ignore the temptation to stay involved. If I've unexpectedly dropped out of some vigorous debate, that's probably why. There's no offense intended.

[edit] Food for thought

"I recommend... WP:BEFORE be absolutely mandatory for a BLP PROD, or for any other form of deletion where it would be relevant"– DGG (here)
"Sticky Prods should be exempt from wp:Before in that they may be applied without first searching for sources other than within the article and its previous versions"–WereSpielChequers (here)
"I also am more and more supporting living peoples ability to opt out of the project, more and more its clear to me that not only are we unable to keep malicious and defamatory content and additions from being mirrored through the project to all corners of the world wide web especially in regard to semi notable living people but that there is also some support amongst unverified users to allow this."–Off2riorob (here)
"more than 380 million people use Wikipedia and its sister sites every month", "help sustain our joint enterprise with a modest donation"–Jimmy Wales (here)
"many of the hooks don't work with a 'Did you know?' format (which promises something enlightening or surprising and counter-intuitive.) I saw one today that was of the nature of 'did you know that a very obscure so and so was a nephew of an equally obscure so and so?'"– Bali ultimate(here)
"Wikipedia values all contributors equally (especially those with special needs such as a complete lack of judgement or writing abilities)"–Hans Adler (here)
"The only people who don't make mistakes are the people who don't try to do anything."–Malleus Fatuorum (here)
"We need to make it clear, perhaps by restricting article creation, that the focus of the English Wikipedia needs to be on improving existing articles rather than creating new ones."–Mr.Z-man (here)
"Fascinating watching high traffic FAs erode over time though...." Casliber (here)
"It is better to have no information, than to have information like this [BLP anecdote], with no sources."–Jimmy Wales (here)
"If a BLP subject's age, year or date of birth is unsourced, contributors are welcome to make an attempt to source it but they don't have to. It is OK to delete any unsourced statement about a living person. Editors are not required to second-guess the potential for harm and there's no need to wait for a request from the subject."– Pointillist (here)
"only bots should be allowed to edit BLPs, living editors have a COI.... we need to find some way to tell new users that we should be more focused on quality rather than quantity. If that means they don't stay, oh well, if keeping a new user means putting up with a bunch of crappy articles that no one but them cares about, then that's too high a price." –Mr.Z-man (here)
"The best answer to your critics will always be excellence and maybe a hot date who gropes you publicly."–Banjeboi
"a poor-quality chatroom with an inaccurate encyclopedia attached."—iridescent (here)
"an exploitative cult running on sweatshop labour."—Seth Finkelstein in The Guardian
Raul's Razor: "An article is neutral if, after reading it, you cannot tell where the author's sympathies lie."
"Not all business articles are spam"–Eastlaw
"This article needs more {{Fact}}s. A couple of sentences didn't have one"-Angry mob mulls options
"Wikipedia is most useful not when it's a substitute for other sources, but when it's a substitute for ignorance."–Sarcasticidealist (here)
"We draw pictures in the sand. Between waves, someone might read a well-written article and be moved."–Moni3 (here)
"What the fuck is all this cocksucking shit all about?"–Moni3 (here)
Antandrus's observations on Wikipedia behavior ...which Beeblebrox calls "the best essay on Wikipedia ever." (here).
Awickert's Curmudgeonly opinions, e.g. "Accounts with sanctimonious usernames are usually up to no good."
Awadewit's Wikipedia Weekly interview
Alison's farewell comments
Jossi's user page and farewell comments
Recent ArbCom dicta, e.g. on Wikiprojects and proposed principles
Moreschi's Wikithoughts
David Runciman reviewing The Wikipedia Revolution
"It's dev speak. Just nod politely and back away slowly. =)" xeno (here)
On the need to avoid collateral damage (here).
"I have to imagine that most admins are not Evil Sockpuppets, merely because most admins are tragically boring."–Tznkai (here)
"The only important thing is whether Wikipedia was made better with Law as an admin/editor. Undoubtedly, it was, until the witchhunters found out who he really was."–User:Majorly (diff).
"Lastly, when the fuck did it become ok to sock around a block/ban? I'm appalled at the number of editors who are grousing about blocking an editor who socked around a ban under the assumption that they were good people on the 'new' account."–User:Protonk (diff)
"We only die when nobody still alive remembers us." - Anon (here).
"OMG, I agree with Malleus on something! ;-)" - Fabrictramp (here)
Masterpieces of Wikipedia: An Exhibition (Francisco Goya's gimlet-eyed commentary on The Encyclopedia Which Anybody Can Edit). See also How Ceoil pictures wikipedia editors
An honorable mention goes to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pissing contest, just because I keep breaking into laughter when I read it. Thanks, everyone.
"Wikipedia is a wiki" ( here). "A wiki is not a carefully crafted site for casual visitors" ( here).
'"has created featured content FA/GA/DYK" really seems like some kind of homophobic slur' Keepscases (#24 here)
Why it's a waste of time fixing redirects
Sure, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, but when we're wasting so many ounces on so many preventions that are unnecessary we've become pennywise and pound foolish.–Shereth (here)
The only sensible place to move ITN to is "nowhere". In a project with more than its fair share of bad ideas, showcasing what are by definition the articles most hastily-written and prone to edit-warring (and then wondering why the general public think Wikipedia articles are unstable and prone to editwarring) is somewhere near the top. – iride scent (here)
I often find it satisfying to remove some junk, just to get started each day, but if you want to remove articles, look for the utter junk at the very bottom. New Pages has a good deal of it, and the unsourced BLPs offer many opportunities this way. – DGG (here)
"Well, it is an encyclopedia. Maybe add an edit notice pointing out what an encyclopedia is, then tell them to reference their additions, else they be deleted.... encourage newbs to drop in raw urls and we'll do the rest." –Lara (here)
"adminship is a big deal and does create a semi-permanent class of superusers, so candidates should take this process with the importance it deserves.... Yes, I disagree with NOBIGDEAL" – SandyGeorgia (here)
"Personally I think that adding reliably sourced content is a basic skill that all admins should have." – WereSpielChequers (here)
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."–Philip K. Dick, (quoted in Greenberg, J., Koole, S. L., & Pyszczynski, T. (2004). Handbook of experimental existential therapy. p. 355. )

[edit] My travels

Austria Bahrain Barbados Belgium Canada Denmark France Germany Hong Kong India Ireland Italy Liechtenstein Luxembourg Malaysia Monaco Netherlands 日本 Norway Portugal Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Spain Sri Lanka Sweden Switzerland Thailand United Kingdom United States Vatican City

Days Just passing through Many months Months Several weeks Years

[edit] My focus

	This user is a member of WikiProject Fact and Reference Check.

Oxon.	This user is an Oxonian.

1RR	This user prefers discussing changes on the talkpage rather than engaging in an edit war.

	This user strives to maintain a policy of neutrality on controversial issues.

	This user tries to do the right thing. If he makes a mistake, please let him know.

	This user assumes good faith.

	This user suffers from the following condition: formal legal training

	This user enjoys music by Johann Sebastian Bach

	This user enjoys Baroque music.

lapsed	This user is a lapsed musician.

C-3	This user is an advanced C programmer.

rb	This user can program in Ruby.

This user is the owner of multiple Wikipedia accounts in a manner permitted by policy.

he	This user prefers to be referred to using masculine gender pronouns.

I currently focus on noteworthy items that don't currently have verifiable articles. By "noteworthy" I mean items that:

relate to areas that are popularly recognised as issues or cultural trends
are recognised by specialists in reputable publications as having significantly advanced the state of the art in such area/s (even if they weren't popularly recognised at the time and so may have been overlooked by Wikipedia).

I try to fix such items when I find them, if I have the time to do the job properly. It seems to me that...

Articles on overlooked subjects tend to receive little or no peer review, so it is important to get them right first time. Unfortunately these subjects were probably overlooked because there was not an obvious source of verifiable material to support them, so it can take a long time to assemble an article to Wikipedia's standards. So I am only an occasional contributor of original articles.

As an example of my contribution, Wikipedia had no existing article on the designer Raymond Hawkey. Book covers are part of popular culture in that almost everyone buys 'airport' paperback thrillers from time to time, and Hawkey's design for front cover of The IPCRESS File (1962) has been described by specialists in reputable design publications as "the template" for all such book covers since then [which is arguable, but nevertheless verifiable]. The IPCRESS cover is mentioned by recent designers as a favourite and is already displayed in Wikipedia, but without a credit for Hawkey. In addition, covers by Hawkey are an indicator of value in the rare books trade. Furthermore Hawkey was a notable player in a related field (British newspaper design from 1959 to at least 1974). So I created an article on him.
Likewise, Richard Asher is regarded (BMJ obituary) as one of the last polymaths in medical science, comparable to Richard Feynman in his belief in transparency and doubt, and still regularly cited in expert papers. He significantly advanced the state of the art in several areas, but his Wikipedia article was still only a stub. I extended this with a much richer narrative biography supported by 12 extra citations and 7 online links to his writing.
Hazel Genn is still alive and making socio-legal waves, but her article (this diff) was based on just one source: her profile at UCL, which is arguably pretty close to being self-published. I dug around and re-built the article around eleven new references, so there's now one citation for every twenty words in my most recent version of the article.

Articles on more popular subjects seem to get factual review by other specialists, but are often missing citations and examples, maybe because the specialists think "yes, that's true" without considering Verifiability. When I spot this (mainly in technology or graphic design areas) I either add citations or tag the article 'refimprove', or both.

My additions to the Xerox Star and IBM Selectric Composer articles are simple examples.
A more complex situation is the final illness of Jane Austen. I was drawn to this when my minor edit "or Hodgkin's lymphoma" was reverted in good faith, on the basis that the majority opinion was that she died of Addison's disease, so the minority view should be assigned to a footnote. A key issue was whether the majority view was based on just one medical analysis originally published in June 1964. This analysis was reprinted in a literary review and the subsequent challenge in the original publication was probably not seen by the Jane Austen community. Repetitions of this challenge in 1995 and 2005 were discounted because the majority viewpoint was so well established. A good-natured debate on this followed, and now we have a substantial set of notes on all the competing viewpoints, supported by a set of medical citations that literary biographers might not have found. Of course, our job is not to decide what killed Ms Austen, just to catalogue the competing views. But that process, performed according to pure NPOV and Verifiability, is probably the most demanding academic exercise I have ever participated in. Indeed, it led me to Richard Asher's comments on Pel-Ebstein disease, and Maurice Pappworth's observation that "Overwhelming evidence is not essential for correct diagnosis, and the absence of some expected symptom or sign often does not invalidate an otherwise reasonable diagnosis." (Pappworth MH. Diagnostic pitfalls: the sin of greed. A primer of medicine. London: Butterworths, 1978:32–33), both of which tend to make all the medical analysis somewhat irrelevant.

Time permitting, I hope to make further contributions like these in future. In the technology area, I am fortunate to have a library of materials for early 1980s office systems, including marketing items like the Xerox Star brochure, output samples from office systems and original images of daisywheel elements, magnetic storage cards, IBM OS/6 and Xerox 8xx, etc.

[edit] Verifiability vs readability of Wikipedia

Given that I believe whole-heartedly in verifiability, I try to use a lot of citations to support my edits. For example, the second paragraph of the Richard Asher article has 7 citations in 147 words (i.e. the ratio of words to citations is 21:1). On this basis a 600-word article should really have 30 citations. I know that few articles achieve this ratio, let alone the 13:1 ratio in the first paragraph of "Notable articles by Richard Asher". But just a quick bit of tidying-up on the Oxbridge article changed the words:citations ratio from 49:1 (in this diff) to 34:1 in my most recent version.

My concern is that when you achieve a verifiable density of citations the article becomes significantly harder to read. So there is a dualism: either skip the citations and you will probably get away with it or do the citations (which will take a long time if you do them properly) and your article will be unattractive to read, because the footnote references muck up the layout. Am I alone in seeing some challenges of behavioural psychology here?

Update (January 2010), citations are now being discussed in lots of places:

[edit] Useful places

meta:Conflicting Wikipedia philosophies is a good way to get your bearings.
NPOV, No original research and Verifiability (including Citing sources, Harvard citations, citation examples and Templates for challenging assertions such as Template:Dubious vs Template:Fact); Diberri's citation tool; Magnus' toys'n'tools (e.g. MakeRef); Doc glasgow's BLP essay.
Watcher tool file, Toolserver/watcher list
Template messages: User warning templates, Cleanup templates. Cross-referencing: Otheruses, Main, See also and list of section templates.
User information templates
Manual of Style (dates and numbers), Wikitable how-to, Wikipedia:Images, Wikipedia:Image_use_policy#Image_galleries, Wikimedia Commons, Extended image syntax, Alternative text for images—and a vast discussion about FAC and Alt text, SVG image support, Allowable fonts in SVG, Commons help on SVG, How to use commons multimedia, WP:Public domain image resources, Magic words, # of times page is watchlisted.
Tony1's redundancy exercises and advanced editing exercises
Category:Geography infobox templates, Template:Infobox UK feature, Template:Infobox UK place and Template:Location map
A fool's guide, How to satisfy Criterion 1a, Zen and the art of good reviewing, Comma splice, That+which+and+who
My sandbox of draft work. Please don't edit this except to add comments. Remember that anything you add here will be indexed by Google etc (tested on 2007-12-10).
Tests on talk-page-archiving - originally for the Jane Austen Talk pages
access via https
Silly Things

External sites, tools etc:

I've also come to understand that sometimes the best way to reduce visual clutter in a article is simply to delete all the explicit pixel widths from thumbnail images. Feels like breath of fresh air, and respects each registered reader's preferences. (last updated) Pointillist (talk) 23:32, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
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