User:KieferSkunk: Difference between revisions

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Revision as of 21:23, 7 April 2010

sucks cock and plays tetris thats it

Valspeak — Reformatted and improved "Emphasizers", renamed section to "Common Words and Phrases".
Schizophasia — Some cleanup, explained why Homsar (from Homestarrunner.com) should not be referenced.
Third degree AV block — Added information on symptoms and treatment
C (musical note) — Helped rewrite the intro for better flow and WP:WEIGHT issues.

Fair Use Rationales on Images

Barnstars

I am proud of the contributions I've been making to Wikipedia. While I don't make a practice of calling a huge amount of attention to my contributions outside of my user page, several users have been kind enough to award me Barnstars. Thank you to everyone - it's really great to be working with you. :) (These have been copied over from my User Talk page.)

		The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
		Thanks for working so hard to forge consensus and encourage friendly editing at Integral. Both sides of the conflict appreciate your noble efforts and positive attitude.Cronholm¹⁴⁴ 23:12, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

		The Special Barnstar
		This barnstar is hereby presented to KieferSkunk in appreciation for his peacekeeping efforts. "Blessed be the peacemakers, for they make Wikipedia worth inheriting." -- Fyslee/talk 19:52, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

		The VG Barnstar
		Also, for creating that FU template and for your contribution to the WP:CVG project in general, here's a barnstar :) JACOPLANE • 2007-08-6 00:54

		The VG Barnstar
		Every time I open up WT:VG, I see an intelligent, well thought out, and very helpful comment with your signature next to it. Either you have great impersonators, or you're doing a great job (I think number 2), so I'm awarding you this barnstar. Use it well! Giggy ^Talk 07:13, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

		The Barnstar of Peace
		For working to research and listen to all sides and ultimately keep the peace over at Pac-Man Marty Goldberg 03:01, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

		The CVG Barnstar
		KieferSkunk has been award the CVG Star for his tireless contributions to the Lunar Lander article.

		Civility Award
		For daring to point out rules where others fear to tread. For being amenable to participate in something against the rules, but yet asking others to keep the rules in mind. Lastly, for remaining civil in a tense situation and taking consideration for others to move the situation to your own space to resolve. Jappalang (talk) 00:48, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

		The Socratic Barnstar
		I stumbled across your essay/discussion on Wikipedia talk:Age and Adminship. Well expressed, thought out and very, very logical :). Here's a little something as a token of appreciation. Ironho lds 19:01, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

		The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
		You always do kind things to me. Yiu always make sure that I keep my head on straight and tell me what I've done wrong even when I can't reconize. You help alot with my Editor Coaching, and to top it off, you remain my friend no matter how ignorant I get. Thanks. Gears Of War 11:08, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Administrator Notes

Open to Recall

On Sunday, October 28th, 2007, I was promoted to Administrator status (see the archive of my RfA). I have voluntarily added myself to Category:Wikipedia administrators open to recall, which means that I am willing to be held accountable for my actions. If you feel that I have misused or abused an administrator function, I respectfully ask that you let me know and give me an opportunity to discuss the matter with you, before taking the situation to a recall vote. As of this writing, I am new to admin tasks on Wikipedia (though not new to administration in general), and I may make a mistake or two (I will do my best not to, and will ensure that I am well-read on the policies and admin tools before I use them), so I ask for your patience and understanding.

Failing a resolution between us, I have no problem with being taken to a recall vote for any serious problems that may arise as a result of my actions. Thank you. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 23:46, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

The Big Mess

I have maintained for some time now that Wikipedia is an interesting social experiment, and certainly one done in good faith to better mankind with a central repository of human knowledge. But I have also maintained that, given the open nature of the project and its worldwide appeal to people of all ages, races and levels of knowledge, the project will ultimately fail by collapsing in on itself. WP's policies are in some cases self-contradictory; in many other cases they are vague and difficult to follow. Of particular concern is the rise of heated discussions and debates about exactly what kind of information should be included on Wikipedia, and in what form. (As a recent example, a discussion is currently going on about whether detailed character information on the Sonic the Hedgehog series should be included even if it does have third-party sources.) This is a growing problem that is exhausting the talents and patience of WP administrators and seasoned editors, and it is my belief that the Big Collapse will happen when admins such as myself simply leave Wikipedia for quieter waters.

In short, the sound-to-noise ratio on Wikipedia is and has been falling dramatically for some time, and it leaves people like me feeling powerless to stop it. Many of us have full-time jobs and are unable to keep up with the rising tide of vandalism, unhelpful edits, trivia, inclusionist/deletionist debates, uncivil behavior, administrator noticeboard reports, issues requiring arbitration, etc. As the user base continues to grow and more of us become fatigued by the problems we're facing, the quality of the project is likely to nosedive much more quickly than it already has been, and the hundreds, thousands or even millions of hours we've collectively put into improving this project will be for naught.

At that point, I can see one of three things happening:

Wikipedia will go through a massive reorganization in which it no longer becomes a public project, or in which the editors must gain approval of some sort before they can edit. In other words, it would become a dictatorial system in which there actually ARE people assuming control of the project - right now, this form of control is extremely limited in the spirit of an open and collaborative environment.
Wikipedia will become completely unmanaged and anarchistic in its structure, with nobody left to enforce policies. My guess is that Jimbo Wales would not allow this to happen, however.
Wikipedia will shut down completely, either due to lack of management or lack of funding. At best, it would remain in some read-only state as of the time it was shut down, to serve as a point of history.

In any event, people like me are rapidly hitting the burnout stage on this project, and I for one am considering calling it quits. It's getting to the point where it just isn't worth my time anymore.

If you have any comments on these thoughts, please feel free to leave a comment in my talk page. Thanks. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 20:44, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Simple English Wikipedia

I just became aware of the Simple English Wikipedia this morning, and I'd like to encourage people to check it out and help out there. I read through a few of the articles up there, and it's obvious that this project is still just in its infancy. I don't think I can really help all that much, though - I understand the reasoning behind such a project, but it goes to show that I have a hard time thinking in simple enough terms to really be useful in translating from "professional English" to "Simple English".

I found myself looking at an article on the Metroid series (SE link), and all I could think to do was to try to make it read more like the main article on the series. Hard to keep myself from "professionalizing" it, since all of my training and skill on this Wikipedia has gone into that. So if you decide to contribute at the SE WP, keep in mind a few things:

It's Simple English, not mental-retard English. Explain a subject like you would to a child of around 7-8 years, or to someone who only understands a small amount of English. Don't talk down to your reader.
As they say in their "How-to" page, the language should be simple, but the ideas certainly don't have to be. Try to find ways to express complex ideas in a simple format.
In the spirit of not talking down to your reader, try to find ways to write concisely, so that you get to the point with simple language without needing to put extra explanations in parentheses, unless they're absolutely necessary.

Here are some hypothetical examples of what I'm talking about above:

Pro English: "Middle C resonates at a frequency of 261.626 Hertz and is designated C4 in scientific pitch notation."
SE English: "The note Middle C makes a sound at 261.626 Hertz (vibrations in a second). Most scientists officially call this note C4."
Bad SE: "The note Middle C makes a sound at 261.626 Hertz. (That's how many times it vibrates in a second, which makes noise.) Most people who study science, called scientists, call this note C4 because that's how it's named in music." (Not only does this example talk down to the reader, it also has redundancies and circular definitions.)

Just some thoughts. I think the SE WP is a good-faith effort to reach out to people who would find the regular WP intimidating or too difficult to follow, but it's going to be a very tricky project, methinks - right now, most of the stuff I read sounds more like the bad example than what I'd think to be a good example.

Also, SE WP has potential to teach us some lessons here, too - if it gains wide adoption, SE WP will force its contributors to think about how they can phrase things simply. That's sometimes a big problem here in regular WP as well - we get edit wars sometimes over just what a certain word or phrase means, and I think we could sometimes avoid those if we just thought about the subject at a different level.

What do you think? Reply at my Talk page if you're interested. :) — KieferSkunk (talk) — 15:56, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Funny Vandalism Log

This section serves as a diff archive of vandalism that made me laugh when I saw it in my Watchlist. I don't condone vandalism, but you have to admit that sometimes it can be pretty funny. :)

List of Kirby characters/King Dedede
"Penis" Aran (somebody put a lot of work into this one).
Venting against Windows Vista (yeah, good luck with that, dude)
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (patent nonsense that made me laugh)

Not Vandalism, but still funny

Oh, the irony! (taken from User talk:Iridescent)
One user's unsuccessful attempt to fool an administrator (archived from original page)

You can also find me...

On other wikis

The Red Green Wiki - I started this project and am looking for volunteers to help!
The Homestar Runner Wiki
WikiFur
Wiktionary
WikiQuote

Other websites

My main website
My LiveJournal

Enjoy!