User:Samboy

RETIRED

This user is no longer active on Wikipedia as of January 2012.

With my wife January 26, 2009

Wikipedia:Babel en This user is a native speaker of English. es-2 Este usuario puede contribuir con un nivel intermedio de español.

I am the author of MaraDNS. MaraDNS is a secure open-source DNS server for Windows and UNIX clones that has been discussed in PhD dissertations, described as more secure than BIND against denial of service attacks in an IEEE symposium paper, recommended in an O’Reilly book, has an entire chapter devoted to it in a book about alternative DNS servers, is used by CERN, and has been mentioned in a paper co-written by Ron Rivest.

I am a recovering Linux fanatic. While I still agree with a lot of the ideals of the open source movement and the underlying “hacker ethic” of Free software, I am now married have to face the reality that I need a job that pays the rent and feeds the family. That said, Wikipedia in some ways does follow the ideals of the hacker ethic, since it is a repository of freely available information done in the same spirit as open source software.

I find the deletionist movement here very disturbing and very much against this hacker ethic. I think there is something fundamentally broken with the way the Wikipedia allows articles to be deleted because the subject they cover is not “notable” enough; to me the deliberate destruction of information goes against the hacker ethic of making information freely available. It’s sad that the Wikipedia allows a single person using TW to mark dozens of useful articles to be deleted in just a few minutes, and has a culture that encourages this what I see as destructive behavior.

Then again, I should really just let go of the Wikipedia and let the deletionists go on their rampage here; if they continue unabated, Wikipedia will ultimately become a less useful place for readers, but that’s Wikipedia’s problem, not my problem.

In order to make more time for my wife (and to finish up MaraDNS), I am moving away from editing the Wikipedia. I will pop in sometimes to chip in a “keep” vote to combat a poorly researched deletion nomination or to fix an obviously broken article (WP:BLP violations and what not), but will otherwise not contribute here. I also, because of the flamage potential, do not reply to comments about my keep votes posted to my user talk page (and usually delete the comments if they are at all negative).

You know you’re a geek when:

• You watch The Big Bang Theory

• While watching The Big Bang Theory, you read the Wikipedia article on dibs when they mention it on the show (since you asked, it’s in the episode where Leonard buys the time machine). This isn't the only time they mention the Wikipedia, they also mention it in this episode when one of the characters points out they edit the Wikipedia because they have nothing to do at work.

I have a personal blog and a technology blog

I can't resist pointing out that, as much as Slashdot whines about the Wikipedia, Wikipedia has a much higher Alexa ranking than Slashdot. The complaints boil down to "My God. Wikipedia is a place for readers, not writers." The fact that Wikipedia is not spam-filled is a great testament to the users and administrators able to keep a Alexa top 10 site useful with relevant content. Then again, a lot of their complaints are about the deletionist movement here, which I feel are legitimate (see above).

Editing Wikipedia to learn professional skills

Wikipedia is one of the best places to learn professional skills on the internet. Not only is there a lot of useful information here, there is also a very important learning process in terms of getting along with other users. We have some policies here which not only work well on the Wikipedia, but also work in real life: Assume good faith and no personal attacks.