User:A Stop at Willoughby

Not around much anymore: WP:OWB#70.

"If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the owner, if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted on only a few persons or many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race, posterity as well as the existing generation—those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth produced by its collision with error." —John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

"Officeholders are the agents of the people, not their masters. Not only is their time and labor due to the Government, but they should scrupulously avoid in their political action, as well as in the discharge of their official duty, offending by a display of obtrusive partisanship their neighbors who have relations with them as public officials." —Grover Cleveland

Info

I'm a college student from New Jersey. My account is named for my favorite episode of The Twilight Zone.

I've included a quote from Mill above because I think it's applicable to discussions held on Wikipedia. In my experience, Wikipedia editors have a tendency to try to stifle opinions with which the majority disagree; and a tendency to close discussions early before both sides of the debate have had a chance to adequately make their case. Both of these tendencies are serious problems in the way Wikipedia conducts its internal business. I think Wikipedia would benefit from having more free and open discussions, and less ideological entrenchment. Editors should enter discussions open to changing their mind.

As for the Grover Cleveland quote above, that sort of reflects my view of administrators' proper role on Wikipedia. While administrators generally use their discretion when deciding, say, to delete a page, their principle role in making such decisions should be the enactment of consensus. They should be agents of the whole community; after all, they never would have gained adminship without community consensus. And they should not be partisan (i.e. involved in the underlying issues) when taking administrative action. Taking administrative action while involved is, in my mind, a graver breach of trust than most other misuses of the tools.

This user helped promote List of Governors of New Jersey to featured list status.

This user helped promote Honest services fraud to good article status.

This user has created 48 articles on Wikipedia.

This user has written or expanded 5 articles featured in the Did You Know section on the Main Page.

	The Barnstar of Diligence
	I thought that was an outstanding bit of Wiki-geek homework you did in researching the history of G7 and deriving clear conclusions from that history, and I think inspired Wiki-geekery should be applauded! (Particularly when I find the conclusions to be agreeable :D) Cheers. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡbomb 20:11, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

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U.S. Supreme Court cases.

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