User:Dpmuk
I've been very quiet on wikipedia of late as I consider my future editing this project. There were two main reasons for this and both are related to how wikipedia is run, largely out of control. Specifically these were arbcom and software development. One or the other I could probably cope with but taken together they created an environment is which I no longer felt able to regularly contribute, or indeed one is which I'm valued. I've since softened my view on software development as people did eventually seem to listen - I just hope they learnt for the next major deployment and so I now only list my ArbCom comments below. I didn't stop editing entirely and if anything I've edited a bit more recently but I also can't see my activity level returning to what it was unless things continue to change for the better, and change drastically. My old user page is below the explanation for this decision.
Arbcom
In my opinion Arbcom has long been broken but recently it seems to have got out of control and seems to have lost sight of the fact that it should be there to serve the community. I first started to notice this when arbcom decided to deal with incidents by motion. This and other fundamental decisions were made with little, if any, discussion with the wider community. It is my opinion that the community should decide the on the broad policy decisions on how arbcom should be run and arbcom should do the actual "judging" of cases in a manner similar to that in which may countries have separate legislatures and judiciary. Now I know wikipedia is far different from a country but the reason that separation occurs is to stop any one group becoming too powerful. On wikipedia there is effectively nothing to stop arbcom becoming too powerful (except perhaps Jimbo). A sign of this power is them recently decline cases, or to intervene in situations, where a clear majority of editors felt it was necessary. A recent comment on AN/I was that, in one case, there was no point in going to Arbcom yet as there hadn't been an RfC/U. This despite there also being widespread consensus that a RfC/U would be a waste of time. This to me stinks of Arbcom trying to avoid cases - any one else notice how ArbCom's case load has dropped drastically - and it seems to me that Arbcom think it's OK for editors to waste their time but Arbcom want as little work as possible. I admit I may well be wrong on this but the secret way Arbcom operates means we have no way of knowing. All in all that adds up to a top-level decision body I don't trust one bit - especially when arbitrators I do trust are resigning at how it's run.
You're reached the user page of Dpmuk. I value my privacy so I'm not going to post any personal information here but I will discuss what I do at wikipedia. I am always happy for discussion of any of my actions and welcome any contact on my talk page. If your query concerns an action I've taken in the area of copyright I do ask, however, that you read the section below first.
Copyright problems
My main area of work is in copyright problems. If I've removed your text for copyright reasons then I'm sorry to have done so but the potential harm to the project means I had no choice. The user page of User:Moonriddengirl is a great source of information about copyright at Wikipedia and largely covers my position as well so if you're wondering why I deleted your text I suggest you first go and read the copyright information there. If you're still wondering why and the page still exists then please read my edit summaries (found by clicking on the "history" link at the top of the page in question) and the article's talk page (found by clicking on "talk"). By reading these two pages you may well find out more about why I deleted your text. You may even find out that I removed some of the text for reasons other than copyright reasons. If so please feel free to restore that text while taking note of my reason for removing it. If on the other hand I removed it for copyright reasons, and you disagree with my removal, then please don't restore it but rather discuss it on my talk page instead. If I deleted the page then you should see a message describing why, and again, if you disagree please discuss it on my talk page. In either instance, if I'm taking a long time to reply, and by long I mean more than a day (we are all volunteers after all), then I suggest you post to here and someone should be able to help you.
Requested moves and speedy deletions
When I've had enough of copyright problems I'll quite often look at requested moves or deal with the speedy delete backlog. I've helped in both of these areas since before my adminship and would imagine I'll move into the admin tasks in these areas pretty slowly.
Bot
I have an alternate account User:DpmukBOT which will eventually be used as a bot account. At the moment it will be used for testing my very first bot (which does boring tasks at WP:CP) and all it's edits are being verified by me. I will update the information here when it comes fully online.
Adminship
The wikipedia community has recently decided that I am suitable to be an admin here at wikipedia. Again User:Moonriddengirl says things very well and the following quote from her page also applies to my adminship:
I am completely open to civil, good faith discussions about my admin actions. If I'm doing something wrong, I really want you to tell me, so that I can start doing it correctly. If I see you making a mistake, I'm going to point it out to you as diplomatically as I can and consider that I'm doing you a favor. So, please, do me the favor, too. Admins, if you see that I've made a mistake, please fix it. If you reverse my admin actions, I would be grateful if you'd leave me a nice note telling me what you've done and why and if you would be open to discussion with me should I disagree. (See "Grievances by users" for other steps & options for dealing with tool misuse.)
I think adminship is a job that needs to be taken seriously and used with responsibility. Admins are in a unique position to alienate other editors, if they misuse the tools. Certainly, I can't think of much that would have more discouraged me as a newcomer than being unjustly blocked or having an article unfairly deleted. This is one of the reasons why I support process. As experienced editors, we may be able to look at that article on that piece of software and just know that it cannot possibly survive AfD because it simply is not notable, but deleting it out of process can only undermine the creator's sense of trust in the community. We want them to follow procedure; we should be willing to demonstrate that we will, too.
Slightly random aside
It would appear I've both managed to point people at User:Moonriddengirl and quote from it. I suspect I spend too much time on her pages. This is, largely, due to the rather small number of editors working in copyright problems so if you wish to help out, as an admin or a user, please, please do. If you'd like to help but have questions please feel free to contact me.