User:Risker

My editing philosophy: Our readers do not care one whit who adds information to articles; they care only that the information is correct.

Milestones First stub - 1973 (song) First article - James Blunt: Return to Kosovo First GA - James Blunt (Major rewrite and re-referencing). on February 15, 2008. First FA - Jacques Plante, in collaboration with Maxim. on March 31, 2008. 10,000th edit, October 25, 2008. My RFA First essay - Wikipedia:On privacy, confidentiality and discretion Arbitration Committee candidacy 2008 Appointment to the Arbitration Committee 2008 Arbitration Committee candidacy 2011 Re-appointment to the Arbitration Committee 2011 Current favourite Wikiriffs Song: Son Bonet aerodrome (The musician behind Wikiriffs determines the subjects of his songs by hitting "random article" on Wikipedia) Incredibly cool map showing all the geolocation points mentioned in Wikipedia by Danny Vrandečić

(Written in response to a comment referencing Wikipedia:There is no deadline at the RFC on Biographies of living people)

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the living people about whom we write. There is a deadline for them: it is the moment that Google puts our article about them in their top-5 results. That is something that was never contemplated at the time that Wikipedia was created. We must be responsive to changes in circumstances; this is about as big a change as can be. This is part of Wikipedia maturing and becoming a responsible citizen of the information world; when we were small and unnoticed, we had almost no impact on the life of an article subject. Now, what is published in our pages can (and sometimes does) cause long-lasting harm. Why do you think Google now crawls our articles incessantly to ensure it reflects the most current version of a page? We are no longer a little upstart in a distant corner of the Internet: we are now a top-10 website whose words, whether they should be or not, are taken as relatively accurate if not entirely authoritative. Not a day goes by that someone being interviewed on radio or television isn't confronted with a question that starts "I looked up your Wikipedia entry and it says..." The failure of individuals to recognise this collective responsibility to get things right about real people does more to harm the reputation and credibility of this project than any other error that is made.

—Risker (talk) 03:02, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

What I've been doing around here

First off, I'm a copy editor at heart - not much of an article creator, but I've received good reviews on my work enhancing the prose and research of others. Collaboration is, in my mind, the best feature of Wikipedia. Copy editing a wide variety of subjects, ranging from literature of Indian languages to Russian history and architecture, hockey, and popular culture, has allowed me the opportunity to work with a fantastic cross-section of our amazingly diverse Wikipedian editorship. They have one thing in common: they want to share well-researched and well-presented information freely with the world at large. Like me, they're hopeful hearts.

I've spent time managing vandalism and spam in Kim Kardashian, vandalism and BLP issues in Richard Gere and Richard Simmons, and assisted in the development of a factual article on the Essjay controversy (the latter of which has since undergone further revisions about which I am not entirely happy, but heck, it's a wiki). I have mild deletionist tendencies, particularly when it comes to biographical articles of people known mainly for one event. Since becoming an administrator, I've done my share of blocking obvious vandals and protecting pages.

When I have the urge to contribute, but nothing in particular that I want to work on, I generally do new page patrol—It is refreshing to see new content being added every day. In my earlier days, sometimes I just wouldn't bother logging in and would roam about the encyclopedia, reading and copy editing. I haven't done it in a while, because I was finding it frustrating to have minor revisions (spelling and grammar corrections, for example) reverted without comment or, worse yet, a warning. I have never been blocked as an IP or when logged in, nor received a credible warning.

On December 20, 2008, I was appointed to the Arbitration Committee, and much of my time on Wikipedia now is focused on the work of this committee.

Some articles I have copy-edited

Michael Gomez - in preparation for and throughout (successful) FAC, recognised as co-nominator
Bezhin Meadow - during (successful) FAC
Hockey Hall of Fame - during (successful) FAC
Diorama (album) - during (successful) FAC
Homer Simpson - in preparation for (successful) FAC
Paranoid Android - in preparation for (successful) FAC
Kannada literature in the Vijayanagara Empire - in preparation for (successful) FAC
Prince's Palace of Monaco - light copy-edit and partial re-referencing in preparation for main page appearance
Treehouse of Horror (series) - light copy-edit in preparation for Hallowe'en TFA appearance
Adelaide Rams - during peer review
Winter Palace and its myriad daughter articles
Jeffrey Reodica - cleanup of old article including re-referencing
Robert Kardashian - cleanup of old article including re-referencing
Kannada literature - in preparation for a second FAC
William Wardell - for some reason it was on my watchlist, and obviously needed a cleanup
Colin Mochrie - in preparation for a GAN

My editing guide is Tony1's guide to writing brilliant prose. This is chock full of ways to improve prose; it might not replace a copy editor, but it will help just about anyone on their way to being a topnotch writer.

Alternate accounts and interesting stuff

User:Risker is a unified account, and I have contributed to several projects including Meta and Commons. Risker on the road is an account I use when I am on insecure computers; it just has a watchlist, and I rarely use it to edit anything; however, this may change now that I have additional permissions that require extra vigilance. I am also Risker checklist, which is an account specifically created to carry a separate watchlist of stable non-BLP articles unrelated to those I usually edit, to make vandalism patrol a little easier. I hope not to do too many edits on that account. I recently created Risker no privs to test the proposed flagged revisions. User:Anne Criske is a doppelganger account that will not be used for editing; I created it after a vandal misread my name and was sticking it in inappropriate edit summaries and usernames. I have two other doppelganger accounts (one in my full realworld name, and the other the nick I use on another website), which are created solely to prevent vandals from usurping those names. They are recorded on the Arbitration wiki. Eventually (I hope), a video will be made available of a lightning talk I did at the NYC Wikiconference in July 2009, but meanwhile here's a photo of me taken by Sage Ross at that conference.

You'll find Risker's law and Avi's corollary on Raul's laws of Wikipedia. Thanks, Avi - March 25, 2008

And now, a word from my sponsors

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  The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar For your kind thoughts of me with regard to a new editor with a similar screen name, and the unexpected and thoughtful comments about me you made at the Request for Comment on that editor's user name. Smee 08:34, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
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  The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar For your exceptional (and much needed) explanation of the Giano/!!/Durova issue to me. It's cast things in a new light. Thankyou. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry 04:48, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
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  The Copyeditor's Barnstar For all your excellent help with Hockey Hall of Fame. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 00:22, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
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  The Copyeditor's Barnstar For your excellent contribution to Kannada literature article.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 03:19, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
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  The Minor Barnstar Copyediting is a laborious underrated part of Wikipedia and I award this for Risker's efforts in a request he didn't necessarily have to do. Thanks again.  The Windler talk  05:03, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
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  The Medaglia Reale for all your help at Prince's Palace of Monaco and elsewhere. Giano (talk) 20:39, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

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  The Socratic Barnstar For your eloquent and collected arguments concerning the article assessment of William Melmoth, I award you the Socratic Barnstar. Contributions like yours are a pleasure to read. Kafka Liz (talk) 00:30, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
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  The Barnstar of Diligence I think you know why you get this. ++Lar: t/c 19:25, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
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  The Anti-Flame Barnstar You get this, anyhow LessHeard vanU (talk) 23:58, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
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  The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar You know what this is for :-) You have no idea how much I appreciate your assistance with the many things I bug you about. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 04:27, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
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  Cheezburgr! maxypoda tik-tik-tik! haz givn u Cheezburgr! Cheezburgrs promot WikiLovez and hoapfuly thiz one haz made yore day bettr. Spreadd teh WikiLovez by givin sumone else Cheezburgr, whethr it be sumeone youz hav had disagreementz with in teh past or a gud frend. Hapy munchins! Spredd teh goudnesz of Cheezburgerz to all lolcat buddiez by addin {{subst:Cheezburgr}} to their talk puj with friendly messuj to all. Kitteh and tikataliik have great much alike maxypoda tik-tik-tik! 00:51, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
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  The Hello Barnstar This is to say hello to a fellow Wikipedian User F203 (talk) 19:49, 11 August 2009 (UTC))
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  The BLP Barnstar Your hard work on BLPs in general, and at User:Lar/Liberal Semi specifically, is much appreciated. That page has now been sunsetted (and I hope never to need to bring it back) but the work you did there (whether by bringing articles forward, reviewing them, or protecting them... or even by questioning or criticizing the process!) was of great help to the project. See you in the trenches! ++Lar: t/c 01:50, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
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  The Barnstar of Diplomacy For greatly reducing the stress level on wikipedia via peaceful means. — Rlevse • Talk • 13:28, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
• The Hive Mind Barnstar

  The Hive Mind Barnstar Coffee // have a cup // ark // 21:01, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
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  The Guidance Barnstar Thanks for all the places and ideas you have pointed me to. MBisanz ^talk 05:18, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
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  The Guidance Barnstar This is just a small token of my appreciation to express my gratitude for your well considered advice and guidance. Thank you, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:39, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
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  The Socratic Barnstar This Socratic Barnstar is awarded for your decisive action and articulate explanations on a recent user block (for BLP violations and harassment). Sad that it had to be done, but I applaud the way you did it. Thanks. TraceyR (talk) 11:38, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
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  The da Vinci Barnstar To Risker, for helping to increase the communication between the Arbitration Committee and the Functionaries, and for generally helping to make sure that the Functionaries get what they need to work effectively. I award you this da Vinci barnstar! --Deskana (talk) 16:28, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
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  The Tireless Contributor Barnstar For your tireless work last night (I'm sure you know what I'm referring to), I hereby award you with this long-overdue Tireless Contributor barnstar. I know you probably don't get this enough but I think I speak for everyone when I say "thanks" for all the work you do around here. Now go to sleep. Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 05:55, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
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  The Barnstar of Diligence For your tireless work on Pending Changes and your excellent panel presentation at the Wiki-Conference NYC 2010 on Pending Changes, and all the work that went into that, I hereby award you this Barnstar of Diligence with much appreciation. This makes a difference to Wikipedia. You did so much more work on this project, but you were kind and gracious enough to let me share a few moments on the panel. And your company (and let's not forget the sangria and salsa/chips) was a welcome change from banging away at the computer for the most of the rest of the year. Thank you for the opportunity, and thank you for your note on the WikiConference. — Becksguy (talk) 00:20, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
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  The Barnstar of Integrity I wasn't sure which barnstar to choose, but this said "may be awarded to those editors who have shown to be a person of integrity and honor. Or, more simply, a stand-up guy/gal" - seems to fit the bill. You have helped me enormously over a long period of time, with my sporadic requests, and even my need to vent. You're an asset to Wiki?edia, and I suspect some of your behind the scenes actions, which are critical to the project, go unrecognized. Well - I wanted to show that some people notice. I am very grateful for your thoughtful advice, based on enormous experience. Common sense is all too rare, but you have it in abundance.  Chzz  ►  02:18, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
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  The Tireless Contributor Barnstar For working way too hard at every hour of the night and never giving up. Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 04:38, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
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  Your Opinion is More Important than You Think Barnstar I think you know why I'm giving this to you without me having to say it. Thank you for convincing me that driving myself insane is not a prudent course of action. Sven Manguard _Talk 04:50, 21 November 2010 (UTC)