User:Ssr

This user lives in Russia. Этот участник живёт в России.
ruРусский — родной язык этого участника.
en-3This user can contribute with an advanced level of English.
es-1Este usuario puede contribuir con un nivel básico de español.
uk-1Користувач може робити внесок українською мовою на початковому рівні.
Википедия Я вношу вклад в русскую Википедию. I support the Russian-language Wikipedia with my contributions.
This user has a userpage on Wikimedia Meta-Wiki.
This user contributes to Wikimedia Commons.
This user is a member of the Association of Inclusionist Wikipedians.
This user has been on Wikipedia for 19 years, 5 months and 5 days.
this counts for ru-user from 16 Jan, 2005  en-user registered on 4 June, 2006
BThis user keeps a weblog at Blogger as sergeisergeievich.
LJThis user maintains a LiveJournal  as @ssr.
http://ssr.pp.ru/ • Commons gallery  /Sandbox • /monobook.css• ॐ

If you find a grammar error in my texts (e. g. my contributions) please be so kind to correct or to notify me (e. g. via my talk).

I am a bit more active as ssr in Russian Wikipedia (since January 2005), since September 2006 I also act as ssr in Wikimedia Commons (see my gallery).

I used to work as journalist at popular Russian Lenta.ru news website and wrote two ([1], [2]) Russian language articles and a number of news stories about Wikipedia (list can be found by checking Lenta.ru mentionings in ru:Press coverage throughout 12.01.05—26.12.05).

My homepage is http://ssr.pp.ru/ (ft. English version), my name is Sergei Rubliov/Rublev/Rublyov/Roublev (my passport states Sergey Rublёv, my username is the acronym for the full standard name Sergei Sergeievich Rublyov). I have no apparent connection to Andrei Rublev.

In the past I studied journalism at MSU for 3 years (didn't graduate due to poor compatibility with academism), worked at Lenta.ru during November 1999 — January 2006 (was writing tons of general news on many subjects, articles about IT (textual portfolio in Russian), at times I also trained some staff and functioned as a sysadmin) and now I work at Art. Lebedev Studio as editor/copywriter — I deal with content of websites created by the studio, write technical documentation and so on.

In September 2006 I participated as a consulting expert in the forum called “Dialogue of Civilizations” at Rhodes island and had a talk with Anthere concerning international Wikipedias and now am very proud of that (at the time I didn't know she is so high-ranked in WMF) (Russian report on the forum section we were taking part in).

In 2005 I participated in advisory panel of the Runet Prize governmental award and was voting for Russian Wikipedia but it failed (being included in shortlist though). It succeeded the next year (I refused to participate in 2006 panel for personal reasons).

I also have an online collection of selected oldschool (synthpop) Tracker music by different authors, you can visit it and listen for free (it's not mp3 but it's simple to use).

Reading Wikipedia is a skill

Many misinterpret what Wikipedia is because of lack of capability to read it properly. Unlikely what many see at first sight, Wikipedia is a complicated and sophisticated entity (and is popular moreover) so one must learn how to read it and not just take literally what is written. One must bear in mind that the text is multilayered and different pieces of it are written by different people at different times (reminder: all previous versions of each article are kept and can be read by anyone by clicking 'history'). It may be that an article has one main author and mixed additions of links, templates categories and so on. Sometimes it is clearly visible from the style, but there must be understanding that it can't be directly visible. That's how you may visualize it (different result every click).

An error in Wikipedia = error in press ≠ error in a sci-book

In my understanding, generally Wikipedia is journalism (newspaper-type: compiling sources, gathering news, no original research — but with obvious unsourced conclusions).

I see one of the major problems with Wikipedia is that many people misinterpret the Spirit of the Project. The Spirit is in flexibility and actuality with possible presence of errors (due to continuous works). Wikipedia with Wikinews is the writing about life (as is journalism) performed by volunteer "civil journalists". Thus Wikipedia (in any language) can be seen as a mass media in an especial format.

It may contain information from any types of sources or comments with no sources. It may fail to contain what you may want to see. It may contain untruthful information (report it). Data in it may be altered at any time (many is altered regularly). Whoever still doesn't understand this should bear this in mind next time reading Wikipedia. If one want to treat Wikipedia as an authoritative source but find a "nonsense" instead (maybe also wanting to "punish someone" for this), stop using the project or change your approach.

Traditional encyclopedia format couldn't withstand permanent actualisation. We can see now this format can be merged with mass media format. It leads to weaker "scientific authoritativity" but stronger freedom of speech (right to have errors until they are corrected). Wikipedia is made for reading by public what is written by public for free and fair use — not "authoritatively" written for making "serious researches", academic and business reports, juridical definitions. Let scientists and accountants do their own work and find authoritative sources that are appropriate for their status (without rights to have errors). Wikipedia's "popularity" can't necessarily make some article a serious stuff.

If you happen to hate

If you happen to "hate Wikipedia", do not use it. If you hate when others use Wikipedia, you look funny. If you judge so "because you've seen a bad article", wait a minute and think thoroughly about how you judge the things you see.

Even unsourced statements with some original research may be interesting to read. There are things that are not subject to "seriously sourced" descriptions but are extremely interesting to know about. That doesn't mean any gibberish need to be included. Wikipedia:Consensus is a very good measure in these cases.

You may be a very good critic with great knowledge on how to do correctly. But please bear in mind that there are so many other people succeeding in criticism on what they see here and there. Some of them may poorly have knowledge on how it should be, but, however, they are convinced that what they see is totally bad. People generally interested in creation (besides consuming) are not so numerous, and many of them are poorly noticed by general public. Because criticism and curse are usually heard well, some creative work may not be so attractive (and loved).

Why I write this?

Due to journalistic work and blogging, I participated in many discussions on the subject for years (outside Wikipedia with non-Wikipedians) and accumulated an opinion so I unrestrictedly placed it here in written form.