User:WereSpielChequers

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Chequers Tree

Chequers fruit - eat when well bletted

Gentle reader, WereSpielChequers is as you may have guessed a nom de plume. I have long wanted to have my own chequers tree, but they are not normally known for their communication skills, hence the lycanthropy. There are other potential interpretations of the name, some of which may from time to time be spotted on this page. Of course another name for the Chequers tree is the Wild Service Tree, apart from the obvious I have yet to work out the implications of this, but as an admin I am indeed here to serve the community. WereSpielChequers, the Lycanthropic loquacious fruit tree

Many old pubs are named after me, but due to modern ingredients current pub signs rarely reflect the true reason for the name

Communication

If you're here to leave me a message then please sign my guestbook or put a note on my talk page. If you're here to vandalise this page feel free to increment the vandalised counter by one (other vandalism is liable to be reverted).

wd-4WikiDefcon Level is Normal.
2.10 RPM according to EnterpriseyBot

65This user page has been vandalized 65 times.

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Admin statistics

Action	Count
Edits	314585
Edits+Deleted	352006
Pages deleted	6864
Revisions deleted	323
Pages restored	279
Pages protected	219
Pages unprotected	6
Protections modified	6
Users blocked	421
Users reblocked	4
Users unblocked	2
User rights modified	556
Users created	2

Useful stuff

• recently active
• poop patrol
• thumb|Your new garb! Hope this fits.
• general stats
• WP:Database reports/Editors eligible for Autopatrol privilege
• Wikipedia:Adopt-a-typo/I Just Found A Home
• Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Typos
• {{Annotated link|name of article you want to display the description of}}

Signpost writing

• WP:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-11-09/New pages experiment
• WP:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-07-26/News and notes - publicising the interwiki death anomalies report, follow up WP:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-09-13/Sister projects
• WP:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-08-09/Admin stats - Some RFA stats - then updated 13 years later at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-08-15/Special report
• WP:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-08-26/In focus - after several years of decline the number of editors making over 100 edits a month is rising again.
• Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-10-19/Book review I reviewed a book, as did two other people.

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Things I've worked on

• User:WereSpielChequers/Invisible_flagged_revisions a hybrid between the DE flagged revisions system and EN wikis way of working.
• User:WereSpielChequers/AI accounts a modest proposal re AI members of the community, first published at the beginning of April 2010
• User:WereSpielChequers/Newpage_proposal Some newpage ideas from 2011
• User:WereSpielChequers/Going off the boil? an attempt to list all the alleged reasons why this project is doomed, with my opinion as to whether each is a bug, feature, myth or problem
• User:WereSpielChequers/Private Space RFC July 2014
• User:WereSpielChequers/2010-2014 Editor retention test Editor retention
• meta:User:WereSpielChequers/spot_checking April 2015
• Wikipedia:Citation Archive
• meta:Grants:IdeaLab/Community prioritised IT developments August 2015
• User:WereSpielChequers/Edit Warring August 2015
• User:WereSpielChequers/auto_confirmed_before_and_after_visual_editor February 2016
• User:WereSpielChequers/Request For Comment - Service Awards proposal A proposal to rejig the service award medals that I hope to have ready for discussion about a quarter into 2027

rfa

At wp:rfa I assess many candidates who have between 45% and 85% support; and have tried to code up my User:WereSpielChequers/RFA criteria so that I can focus my thoughts on how to evaluate candidates and be fair and consistent in my voting. I also maintain some stats on the RFA process at User:WereSpielChequers/RFA stats and have drafted some ideas on RFA reform.

RfA candidate S O N S% Ending (UTC) Time left Dups? Report RfB candidate S O N S% Ending (UTC) Time left Dups? Report No RfXs since 19:36, 23 April 2025 (UTC).—cyberbot ITalk to my owner:Online

Nominations

candidate	date	Supports	Opposes	Neutral	Note	Today
Ceranthor	March 2009	52	24	8	Unsuccessful	passed 13 months later
Timmeh 2	March 2009	55	37	10	Withdrew
J04n 2	February 2010	63	0	1	Success
Jeffrey Mall 2	June 2010	27	19	6	Withdrew	Retired
Joe Decker	July 2010	78	7	1	Success
Redthoreau	November 2010	18	22	5	Withdrew
Panyd 2	November 2010	100	0	3	Success
Lear's Fool	January 2011	95	31	10	Success
Jezebel's Ponyo	February 2011	75	1	2	Success
Salvio giuliano	March 2011	112	3	2	Success
Tom Morris	December 2011	97	1	3	Success
Ceradon	July 2015	72	14	3	Success	Resigned mop
APerson	September 2015	61	33	8	Unsuccessful
Montanabw	September 2015	128	86	13	Unsuccessful
Biblioworm	November 2015	118	18	6	Successful
Samtar	December 2016	179	6	5	Successful
Hammersoft	December 2020	233	0	0	Successful

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Tools

My native tongue is English, and I have a fair understanding of American English. My PC has an English Wordprocessor and American English spellings tend to get highlighted along with typos, (though sometimes it's the English variant that the spellchecker doesn't like) so if you are here because I've changed the spelling of something that's correct in American English, and it's not in an article that you'd expect to be in English then please say so.

Recall

As an admin and also a crat I am subject to recall, either of course via Arbcom. or voluntarily via my recall criteria.

Accounts

This is my main account, it's a unified account, I've also edited a number of other Wikimedia projects including strategy, commons and meta. I'm also WereSpellCheckers when travelling or using insecure PCs, and was Dahsun for a now defunct project. I originally edited as Jonathan Cardy, when my account was renamed it had a few edits left in it as a result of the rename process; I later used it for some editing on places near me, and for edits involving photos that I'd loaded in my own name.

From April 2013 to May 2015 I was Wikimedia UK's GLAM organiser and for my WMUK edits used the account Jonathan Cardy (WMUK)

Things I've got involved in

Initially I came here because of my hobby of archaeology, (I've been a volunteer on a couple of digs and I have a small library about Easter Island). I enjoy wandering round the Wiki following links and occasionally fixing things and making connections.

Nowadays I do a variety of things from patrolling new pages & changes and either reverting vandalism, tidying up other people's edits or welcoming newbies (often two or three of these in combination). Reviewing articles at WP:FAC, and fixing redlinks. I also have a very diverse watchlist that includes a number of frequently vandalised articles - if it gets past the hugglers I may still pick it up!

We're Spell Checkers

Then I moved on to fixing typos, (ablum, ablity, avalaible, bieng, becuase, sucess, thrity and webiste have been particular hunting grounds of mine) and fixing links to chance articles as I come across them. However most of these have now been botted.

Ware Spell Checkers

I also look at easily confused words like Doe snot/Does not that cause errors that spellcheckers cannot pick up. Cavalry/Calvary was a good hunting ground, as was Thier/Their, Anther/Another, Crowed/(Crowded, Crowned, Crowd), Mowed/Moved Planed/Planned, Posses/Possess/Poses, Panter/Panther/Painter and Formally/Formerly. In moving Wikipedia to a solider base I can claim personal responsibility for eradicating the Olympic sport of synchronised ventriloquism from Wikipedia, cancelling the Sumer Olympics and reducing the number of medals awarded to three by abolishing the sliver medal. Radically reducing the amount of preforming and staring in the entertainment industry. As well as lowering many places from seal level to sea level.

We're Spiel Checkers - thoughts on deletion

Though I've done over five thousand deletions I now realise that I'm a bit of an m:Inclusionist as I decline dozens of speedy deletion tags.

Speedy deletion is for the truly uncontentious deletions, sometimes I decline a speedy deletion whilst believing that it probably should be deleted. If I've declined your suggestion that I delete something, and my edit summary was "decline deletion notability is asserted" then I doubt the article would survive wp:AFD. If it was "decline deletion notability is established" then I think it probably would survive wp:AFD. But if the article was about sport, music, MilHist or Manga then I'm unlikely to participate in the AFD discussion as I know less about the subject than most chequers trees.

If your boss or client wants to know why I deleted your article, please read Wikipedia:NOTADVERTISING and wp:COI.

If I deleted your article about your ex, the school geek or your political or romantic rival, and you want to know why Wikipedia won't help you get even; Feel free to add your User name here.

This administrator will consider reasonable requests to provide copies of deleted articles.

If I deleted your article and you want a copy of it; Email me and as long as it wasn't attacking someone or a copyright violation I should be able to Email it to you. In five thousand deletions that offer has only been taken up a couple of times, including once by someone who'd posted a love letter up as a Wikipedia article, but yes if you thought it worthwhile writing it and you didn't keep a copy I can email it to you, or if it was really about you I can turn it into your own wikipedia userpage so that you can introduce yourself to your fellow wikipedians.

Further reading for new page patrollers:

• wp:Criteria for speedy deletion
• WP:Field guide to proper speedy deletion
• User:I'm Spartacus!/Why I hate Speedy Deleters
• User:SoWhy/Ten Commandments for Speedy Deletion
• User:SoWhy/Common A7 mistakes
• User:I'm Spartacus!/CSD Survey
• Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Overturned speedy deletions
• User:Filll/Encouraging Newbies

Further reading re deletion:

• Wikipedia:Deletion policy
• Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron
• Google result counts are a meaningless metric
• User:Uncle G/Wikipedia triage
• User:WereSpielChequers/Newbie treatment A test I started (and later ended) to see how we treat the authors of new articles.
• User:Mike Cline/Archimedes was deleted
• Gwern's excellent report on Deletionism and the damage it does to the Project

Some deletions I've declined: a drummer, More are archived here.

My editing philosophy.

When I've finished my changes to an article I try to make myself unwatch it, otherwise I'm continually looking at other people's changes and having to stop myself from breaching wp:own. So if you are here because you've proposed a change to an article where I have been a major contributor in the past and you think I'm now ignoring the article talk page, yes I've probably unwatched it, so feel free to improve anything I've done. If however you want my opinion, would like me to provide a citation for information that I've added or would like to point out one of my mistakes, then please leave a note on my talk page. But you don't need to point out my big error in defaulting to minor edits and even making entire articles out of a series of them, as that emerged in September 2008 during my first RFA.

Articles I Started

Related to Rapa Nui (Easter Island)

Ahu Akivi, Anakena, Puna Pau, Rano Kau, Ahu Tongariki, Easter hotspot, Moai (seamount), Pukao (seamount), Terevaka

Miscellaneous

Eunomia (goddess), List of fictional demons (current work in progress - very incomplete), Mountain Pass, California, Muirhead (disambiguation), Pritchardia pacifica, Mammillaria spinosissima, Tagg, Warham Camp, Cathedral of the Nativity of Our Lord, Upper Clapton Full list

Some Articles I've contributed to

Pukao, Rano Raraku, Dearth, Marilyn Manson, Payroll giving, LHC, List of theological demons, Hopping

Reviewing candidates for Featured Article status

FACs needing feedback view •
Vince Gill	Review it now
Mother Solomon	Review it now

I really enjoy reading FA candidate articles, often make minor tweaks and where I don't understand something query things. Whether they pass FA or not, to me these discussions are usually the most pleasurable and civilised place on Wikipedia. This is a good guide to FAC, to the right are some that need attention and below are a few that I've reviewed:

• Kaiser class battleship
• George Koval - the one they didn't catch
• Maiden Castle
• Brazilian battleship Minas Geraes 1 & 2
• Nico Ditch
• Pallid Sturgeon
• Byron Brown
• Murray Maxwell
• Heinrich Bär (the guy who cheeked Goering)
• Malawi
• Economy of Ohio
• Nevado del Ruiz a mountain prone to going bang
• Joking Apart my favourite story from Oz
• James Russell Lowell (one of my very first FAC reviews)
• Chilean battleship Almirante Latorre

More of my reviews can be found here

Disambiguation projects

Atlas (disambiguation), Queen (dozens of [[Queen]]s replaced by [[Queen (band)|Queen]]), Water Buffalo, Ajax, Prince (mainly to Prince (musician)), TNT (most of these were explosive, but there seems to be a rapper who needs an article about him/her), Heer, & Yuan

Were

In June 2010 I initiated the Death anomalies project. This table and set of lists enables any project that has a category equivalent to deceased people to feed in data, and request a report out.

The EN wiki report is at Wikipedia:Database reports/Living people on EN wiki who are dead on other wikis.

Most of the time, as one would expect, the report merely informs you of a biography here that can be updated because the person has died. But sometimes it gets more complicated - in one case I had to remove interwiki links in 6 articles because we had two similar people linked together. I've now made edits in about ten times as many languages as I can speak.

My travels

I have edited at least 49 different Wikimedia projects, but the relationship between where I have travelled in real life and where I have travelled in my wiki life is at best tenuous. But somewhere I have loads of photos to scan and upload to commons one day. ϢereSpielChequers 11:27, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Where I'm from:
Where I've dug:
I've spent a week or more in:
Just a few days:
Less than a day:
Never escaped from the airport:
Flew over:
Some sunny day/In my dreams:	and many more...
	Idea and layout filched from StuffOfInterest, who lifted it fromHarro5, who took it from Salsb, who stole it from Guettarda who borrowed it from White Cat, as seen on Calton's page.

	Ticking them off
This user is a Citizen of the World (Terra, ⊕).	44This user has visited 44 of the 205 countries in the world.	This user has visited 18 of the 27 EU Member States. 18
This user has visited 0 of the states and territories of Australia.0	This user has visited 0 of the 10 provinces and 3 territories of Canada.0	This user has visited 13 of the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.13

My Library

This editor is a Burba and is entitled to display this First Book of Wikipedia.	This editor is a Novato and is entitled to display this Wikipedia Picture Story Book.	This editor is a Grognard and is entitled to display this Wikipedia Little Red Book.
This editor is a Grognard Extraordinaire and is entitled to display this Wikipedia Vest Pocket Edition.	This editor is a Grognard Mirabilaire and is entitled to display this 1937 Wikipedia First Edition.	This editor is a Labutnum of the Encyclopedia and is entitled to display this Book of Knowledge with Coffee Cup Stain, Cigarette Burn, Chewed Broken Pencil, Sticky Note, Bookmark, and Note from Jimbo.
This editor is a Looshpah Laureate of the Encyclopedia and is entitled to display this Book of All Knowledge with Secret Appendix, Errata Sheet, and Author's Signature.	This editor is a Grand High Togneme Laureate and is entitled to display the Book of All Knowledge: 3rd Edition and attach the library barcode.	This editor is Supreme Gom, the Most Exalted Togneme of the Encyclopedia and is entitled to keep the floor plan of The Great Library of Alecyclopedias, including its cardboard carrying tube.