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Misplaced Pages user Wikid77 is an American computer scientist, home repairman, and world traveller.
His interests include astronomy, search engines, programming, computer graphics, ergonomics, and electronic encyclopedias.
He has been editing Misplaced Pages since March 2006 (or earlier).
Contact by: leave him a message on his talk page.
Details
Userboxes
 | This user knew massive PNG-format images were often 8x to 21x slower than JPEG or GIF images in Wiki / Wikimedia in 2007. |
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This user can program in C++.
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This user can program in C.
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To do
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Here are some tasks awaiting attention:
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Wiki opinions
Wiki collaborations are often wide-open territory, ruled by groups. There is little protection of an individual, except in a Wikiproject or such. Diversity is not sought, since "concensus" ranks higher than "correctness" and power is controlled by groups. If you want civility, join or form a group: else, the law of the Old West applies, so don't get stabbed in the back.
Useful links
Friends
Useful Templates
Useful or Interesting Pages
Articles edited
Keeping revisions below 16,000 extensive edits, I have worked on over 5,900 WP articles, hundreds anonymously, including:
I would have made over 100,000 edits, but I learned (after months) to edit offline, then check an article's revision history to merge multiple edits using just one SAVE operation. Tips:
- Copying the edit buffer to a text editor allows search-and-replace.
- Collaboration is facilitated by having titled sub-sections for each person to edit.
- Edit-summary lines can be long: 4 or 5 different changes can be described (if abbreviated) as just 1 edit-summary save.
- Copy (ctrl-C) the edit buffer before Preview/Save in case a send error loses the edit data.
- Check revision-history to avoid when revisions are frequent, or make changes during slow periods of article activity.
- Avoid busy articles: anticipate changes being reverted depending on peer comprehension, and consider updates to other thousands of quiet, but significant articles, instead.
- Avoid one-word changes: when fixing a spelling error, also add text or source footnotes; make each revision more significant.
- An edit-page window can be updated between sessions by login via a 2nd window, then previewing differences to merge intermittent changes as just one save.
Double-checking of modifications can avoid creating another 20,000 edits, by waiting and combining updates as one save operation. Remember: Many planned changes can be postponed until other changes are ready; tolerance for vandalism has provided tolerance for "late" changes to be batched together.
Images edited
I have created and uploaded hundreds of images, many to Wikimedia Commons.
Comments
- The Misplaced Pages project has struggled for years, but, like the initial years of the Internet, the information is maturing. Rampant vandalism is being fought by protected articles & anti-vandal bots.
- I have added many articles, mostly on historic subjects.
- The search for knowledge is a fool's errand. The most valuable knowledge I have learned is to be polite and forgiving with other people (although WP can be an extreme test of patience!).
- (The name "Wikid77" is a contraction for "Wiki id77" as a user name.)
Wiki opinions continued
The Misplaced Pages collaboration is a vast organization that allows, not only writing in encyclopedia articles, but also copy-edit revisions of articles, writing reviews of articles, and judging deletion/cleanup of various articles and templates, etc.
There are many groups of cooperating users, some organized as Wikiprojects, and some acting as "inter-wikicity gangs" with limited civility (speaking euphemistically); however, the Misplaced Pages universe is vast enough to just ignore some groups and focus on wide-open areas of frontier articles. In 2007, there still remain thousands of articles that can be revised/expanded without clashing with groups of a particular mindset.
Writers needed: For people who are good at writing but strongly dislike the idea of their articles being hacked within 2 months, the process of review writing might be a better avenue, since reviews are based on personal written remarks, not subject to such rehashed writing. However, even in articles, original authors are usually free to correct added text for grammar errors and awkward word-flow, which often gets introduced within a few months of the original writing.
Freedon awry: Wiki efforts are hindered by the catch-22 problem of "freedom of editing" which allows anonymous truth to be revealed, but more often allows anonymous slanting or hacking of articles. A large amount of slanting is done by registered users, because there is little to "block" any registered user against psychological or commercial tainting of text (or images): if users were blocked for slanting, they could return as an IP address or sock-puppet name, so blocking is currently a waste of time, resulting in rampant slanting. In extreme cases, wiki-terrorism is facilitated when people become upset and generate widespread hacking of articles.
Screening needed: Despite complex anti-vandal, robotic bot edit programs, reliability of articles remains a major problem in Wiki efforts, which could use a verification process before release. Almost any article, after hours of polishing, could be hacked to add "not" or "was widely condemned for child abuse" (etc.). Most articles should have an honest top disclaimer stating, "Unverified: articles often contain errors or hidden jokes" as a warning to readers. Wiki credibility could be improved by a 2-step approach that would release screened articles to be tagged "Verified for facts and serious tone" while hacked articles continue the warning "Unverified" before screening. Screening actions could be widespread, similar to widespread editing, but disallow anonymous or same-ID self screening, making editing and screening as 2 separate steps, with screening accountable to user name.
Mob rule: Large areas of Wikis are run by mobocracy voting. Numerous edit wars and conflicts exist in some highly popular groups of articles, especially in recent events or news articles. In those conflicts, typically 99% of debates are decided by mob rule, not mediated reason. Some article cuts are extreme, such as the deletion of the statement that the Virginia Tech shooter was "suspected of prior bomb threats and had been under investigation" for months: that statement was immediately censored as "clever vandalism" (only to be justified days later by news that school officials had referred him to psychiatric counseling).
Avoid trouble: As in any psychological conflict, it is better to avoid conflicts involving people or groups with severe mindsets: it is difficult to know who is "gunnysacking" resentment against another person. Just walk away into another open frontier of the Wiki universe, until policies are developed to restrict such difficult people. Troubled people might seem to be living in an unreal world, but they could be discovering real residential or workplace addresses.
Future open: From what I've seen, the Wiki concept could be extended to greatly improve reliability, but allow anonymous editing of articles outside a screening phase, warning users to refer to the fact-checked revision as screened for accuracy. Perhaps users could select a setting to default to viewing screened articles (when available). Rampant hacking could be reverted by an "undo-all" tool to revert all unscreened changes by a given user. However, many people have quit using Wiki due to the demoralization of hacking and censorship that thwarted their efforts to improve the maturity of the Wiki information.
Categories:
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Louisiana Purchase 1804
Egyptian towns / oases
SCUBA
Mardi Gras mask
Hurricane Katrina at Bayou La Batre, AL
Peter Minuit (bought Manhattan for "$24") founded New Sweden
Siwa Oasis (one of 6 vast palm oases in Egypt)
