User talk:Mercurywoodrose

Please remember that i am a human being, before commenting here. I have archived past talk pages at User talk:Mercurywoodrose/ArchiveX, with X=1-13

Six million

I don't know if you remember it, but it looks like you are about to win Wikipedia:Six-million pool. ☆ Bri (talk) 20:58, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

• There's still a chance he might not, if Wikipedia hasn't reached six million before 26 March 2020. JIP | Talk 22:30, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Ok, Bri suggested a brief interview for The Signpost. I don't know exactly where we'll put it, but at least part of it will make it into the next issue.
• Q1: What are you going to do with the $6,000,000 prize? (just kidding!)

I don't know, but if i get in a catastrophic test plane accident and have my legs, one arm, and one eye destroyed, I know what I am doing with $6,000,000. Gentlepersons, they can rebuild me. They have the technology. They have the capability to build the world's first bionic Wikipedian. Mercurywoodrose will be that editor. Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster, with more reliable sources.

• Q2: Do you remember why you made the December 2019 prediction 6 years ago?

I figured I knew just enough about mathematics to make a somewhat accurate back of the napkin estimate for the date, factoring in a bit of the slowdown in new article creation, and believing that this downward trend in new articles would continue. I'm sure I must have done an actual calculation, but the methods I used would probably give an actual statistician apoplexy. It was a miseducated guess.

• Q3: What's the biggest change you've seen in Wikipedia you've seen in that time (other than a couple of million articles)

A team of editors with way too much time on their hands created an automation system for creating new Portals. What's a Portal, you ask? exactly... On a side note, the biggest change that did NOT occur is that the Deletionists and the Inclusionists are still engaged in a Manichean struggle, with neither side winning. The proof of this is that the number of articles has not gone to zero, decreased by a factor of Thanos, or expanded to infinity and beyond.

• Q4: How many articles have you created?

310. using created by me, and adding up the total articles by HAND. Computers! Ha! Who needs them! I did get into the top 400 editors by edit count, which of course is a meaningless measure, but it was fun while it lasted.

• Q5: What's your prediction for the 8,000,000th article? (the 7,000,000 pool is closed)

I cannot predict that, its beyond my processing capacity as a quasi-quantum computer, but I know what i would LIKE it to be. An article about ME, of course. Hopefully for something worthwhile, not notorious. First Wikipedian to be shot into the Sun for being too sarcastic? Well, that's sort of both...

• Q6: Is all the effort going into creating all these articles worth it? Shouldn't we be concentrating on quality over quantity by now? (Sorry, if that one is too serious)

I will answer with an entirely unrelated story: Paul Krassner, in his autobiography Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut, wrote about Stewart Brand, Whole Earth Catalog confabulator, "He could be more of a minimalist than Bob Dylan. I told Brand about the time I went to hear Ram Dass speak, and in the audience a heckler shouted out his capsule critique, "Words!" I told Brand I later learned that the heckler had once ***** a goat. Brand scoffed, "Deeds!""

• Q7: What's your favorite article out of the last million created (since November 1, 2015)?

Aside from my own articles created during this time, of which my favorite subject is Jen Bartel (she rocks), I don't know. How about new articles on things i like? My first thought, I really loved Joker. That article was created, oh, wow, on my birthday! I didn't expect that!.

• Q8: Anything else you want to add? Feel free to be serious, philosophical, sentimental, humorous, thank your mother, etc.

I'm a little sad that new editors will be facing an ever more complete work, with fewer areas to expand without being an expert. Perhaps we should consider erasing Wikipedia every few decades, and recreating it from scratch, to give new editors that initial experience of joy and wonder that they can be part of this, not just an observer, by clicking that innocent little "edit" tab. But maybe there is hope, maybe that sense of wonder will persist into the future. I know I fell in love with Wikipedia, and while I'm no longer obsessed with editing, I may fall in love all over again.

Thanks,

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 05:08, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Congratulations!

Congratulations for winning the Wikipedia:Six-million pool! JIP | Talk 19:52, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

woooooohoooooo!!!! Congrats to you!!!!!! How are you celebrating? --User101010 (talk) 20:02, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

What a shame it had to be an insane TDSer... Alex Devens (talk) 21:21, 23 January 2020 (UTC)