User: Jerzy

From open-encyclopedia.com - the free encyclopedia.

All New: 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 Orphaned: 500 1001 1501
(I am likely to miss messages you leave for me on this page, for as long a month or more. Messages belong on User talk:Jerzy, generally at the bottom of the page, and never at the top of the page.)

note to Non-Native Speakers of English

I got stuck in my brain, years ago, the idea that there's something wrong about modern English singling out the first-person singular pronoun to be spelled with a capital letter. So i spell it without the capital (except at the beginning of a sentence, or when i'm not the sole author). If you follow my example, native speakers will just figure you're ignorant of the basics, or flagrantly casual.

By the way, your English is just fine. Americans raised speaking English may not realize that, because we almost inevitably figure out that English is understood everywhere in the world, as long as it's SPOKEN LOUDLY ENOUGH. Unfortunately, that makes the really difficult task of speaking another language (at all, let alone well) a hard one to get adequately motivated about, for someone who finds it effortless to speak English. Not to mention its being hard for us to grasp how difficult the task is. Because of those cultural "blinders", we are (surprisingly) not usually as stupid as our treatment of your English might suggest.

And thanks for being so neighborly as to gain whatever facility you have with this brash, typically American, and endlessly frustrating language.

One of Your Friendly Local Neighborhood Admins

Even if you're fairly new here, you've probably noticed the generous set of powers available to all editors:

• immediately effective editing,
• creation of articles,
• renaming articles (by using the "move" tab at the top of most articles),
• viewing material deleted from an article, and using it in edits, and
• probably others i now take so much for granted as not to recall them.

In addition, some 200 of the editors on Wikipedia also have several other permissions (that at other sites would probably be very closely held). These particular editors are called administrators (formally), admins, or sysops (short for system operators), according to the speaker's taste. (Admins are not called "moderators", IMO because every editor is expected to help provide moderation.)

Without trying to enumerate the details, i'll mention two kinds of problems admins can resolve:

• In some cases where you can't talk someone out of spoiling a good article (among other requirements, normally one that conforms to our Wikipedia:NPOV policy), an admin can often help.
• Sometimes the "Move this page" link does not do the job of changing the title on a page. Two important things need to be said about this:
  • If you "fix" the situation by cutting and pasting from one page to another, all you've done is cause damage (loss of editing history) that others will have to undo, before accomplishing in an acceptable way what you were trying to do.
  • When "Move this page" doesn't work, the problem is what is usually described as "trying to move a page to an existing page other than a redirect with no history". I won't say that description is wrong, but it occasionally is frustratingly unhelpful, and you don't need to waste time worrying about the details.

I have a notion (whatever the truth may be) that i've been an annoying burden on admins, before becoming one myself, and in effect begged for "more than my share" of assistance in doing page moves. So i especially welcome opportunities to repay my debt to previous admins by assisting future admins (you) with problem page moves. (And also with other needs.) Please ask.

The most likely times to catch me are from 16:00 (UTC), on a Monday through Thursday, until maybe 06:00 the next day. But you can also try later, earlier, and on weekends without it being completely futile. And of course there are literally hundreds of other sysops that you can try.

I also have some thoughts about how to be prepared in advance to find an admin quickly when you need one. Copy this markup of link a link to the next heading on this page onto your own talk page, and occasionally follow the link and cursor back to here to check whether i've put a link here to a discussion of those ideas:

[[User:Jerzy#Settling In|Near where Jerzy's link on finding admins will be]]

Settling In

Yes, i like it here. I'm doing a lot of random editing, and editing that diffuses out from something regardless of the fact that the post-diffusion subject matter doesn't interest me.

I may make a project out of the Interstate Highway System, especially if I-91 starts to feel like it's becoming useful as a result of finding a fruitful format. Or not.

I'm almost done Someone with a bot finished cleaning up the links that need attention due to my disambiguation of Battery; maybe i should learn how to do "robot-assisted disambiguation" -- though i suspect it is not the mechanics but the random substantive editing of those articles that is taking me the time it has.

It looks like i'm making a project out of the very mundane task of cleaning up and enhancing accessibility to List of people by name (the list, not so much the article: the list consists of several hundred similarly named pages linked, treewise, by the article. And who knows what will come of List of people known as war heroes; it looks as if i may be burned at the stake for starting it [smile].

Some Comments on Myself

I haven't felt much need to talk about myself on WP, but occasion arose 2004 May 20 when Jiang was kind enough to nominate me for adminship. The following has, fairly, been described as a (nomination) "acceptance speech". It is probably more than you want to know about me, but that subject is not likely to be important enough here to justify creating a more efficient account. On the other hand, i've dressed up the links, mostly for their instructional value to newcomers to WP.

(I got there about 15 hours after the nomination, and found a dozen votes already cast.)

Re Adminship Nomination

Awaiting acceptance from Jerzy of nomination.

My goodness.

• In favor, i will point out that it would save effort by the ever-generous Angela, since i could do my own deletes when they are required for moves.
• Potentially on the negative side:
  • I've got a fairly odd brain, perhaps most relevantly when it comes to making subjective judgements; some might want to think hard enough about this proposal as to consider how well i understand and compensate for those oddities.
  • I am a confirmedly pseudonymous user, and some may decide that makes me in some senses less accountable than typical hard-core editors who, if i perceive correctly, are almost always more fully public.
  • I have a few internally imbedded insects, and i might nag the community about them, a little more often as an admin than i presently do (and if i do, then you were warned [smile]). Two policies come to mind in this regard; altho i think they need to be complied with (and altho i correct others' deviations from them), i consider them both bone-headed and look forward to the time when others agree with me:
    • Day, month, and year of birth and death in the first sentence of a bio.
    • Applying the casing rules for article titles to titles of sections.
  • I do not consistently monitor WP:VP, WP:CU, or WP:VfD, tho i regard doing so a "civic responsibility". I'd like to do a lot better at that, but hope only to do a little better, and may do no better.
  • My understanding of an admin's mandatory responsibilities is "do no harm, or back off when you realize you did". I consider that a shockingly low standard, but that's the extent of the commitment i'd see myself as taking on.
  • I'm the sort of person who would get this far, without having hired a campaign manager. Hey, there's no WP:Campaign manager page; where do i recruit one?
  • My sense of humor is nowhere near as clever as i usually imagine it is.

That's what i've got; i accept the nomination; you decide.

Outcome

(It didn't work [wink]: they voted for me anyway.)

I am likely to miss messages you leave for me on this page, for as long a month or more. Messages belong on User talk:Jerzy, generally at the bottom of the page.