Non nobis solum nati sumus ortusque nostri partem patria vindicat, partem amici Not for us alone are we born; our country, our friends, have a share in us
你好! Hi there, I'm James. I've been an active editor since June 2010. I was the writer of the Arbitration report for the Signpost from May 2012 to early 2013.
Editing philosophy and "editor's creed"
My editing philosophy is varied, but I'm more of a deletionist than an inclusionist. I once left maintenance tags on articles for them to languish indefinitely until someone else could the problem, but I no longer see this as conducive to the overall purpose of the project. I believe users should always make a concerted effort to fix the problems they see insofar as they are able to do so.
I believe the spirit of policies and guidelines are more important than the letter and word. I believe that for the project to truly be the sum of all human knowledge we need to embrace diversity. I do not believe that consensus should ever trump common sense and reason. I believe in transparency and the stated goals of the open-source movement. I believe that the powers given to members of the Arbitration Committee and the intervention of the Foundation outside of matters legal actively undermines these goals.
I believe that Wikipedia has become a rigid, iron-fisted bureaucracy more concerned with upholding the status quo — one only needs to look at past discussions on Main Page redesign and the pagelong petty arguments over whether or not Main Page photo thumbnails ought to be larger or smaller and the constant moaning and whining over the fact that there are still users with CRT monitors and tiny screen resolutions and that redesigns would unfairly disadvantage them. What is different on the Main Page in-terms of design and layout? Not much. The Main Page in the month of January 2015 is nigh indistinguishable from the Main Page as it was 5 years ago.
The consensus-oriented mentality of the community is cancerous and flies in the face of common sense and reason. Wikipedia needs progress, it does not need to be held back because of the incontinence of a few luddites who cling to the status quo.
Contact
For complete transparency, I ask that you post messages on my talk page. However, for private or urgent matters please email me. A list of my alternate accounts can be found here.
Tom Taylor (1817–1880) was an English dramatist, public servant and writer. After a brief academic career in English literature and language at University College London in the 1840s, Taylor practised law and became a civil servant. At the same time he became a journalist, most prominently as a contributor to and eventually the editor of the magazine Punch. He also began a theatre career and is now best known as a playwright. With up to one hundred plays staged during his career, both original work and adaptations of French plays, Taylor's output covers a range of genres from farce to melodrama. Most fell into neglect after Taylor's death, but Our American Cousin (1858), which achieved great success in the 19th century, remains famous as the piece that was being performed in the presence of Abraham Lincoln when he was assassinated in 1865. This undated photograph by the studio of Samuel Robert Lock and George C. Whitfield is part of Men of Mark: A Gallery of Contemporary Portraits, a collection published in 1881.Photograph credit: Lock & Whitfield; restored by Adam Cuerden
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To add this auto-updating template to your user page, use {{tip of the day}}
Things you can help with...
You can help improve the articles listed below! This list updates frequently, so check back here for more tasks to try. (See Wikipedia:Maintenance or the Task Center for further information.)
Editors are advised that Featured Articles promoted before 2016 are in need of review, if you had an article promoted to Featured status on or before 2016 please check and update your article before they are listed at FAR/C.
Keep track of upcoming reviews. Just copy and paste {{WPMILHIST Review alerts}} to your user space
The Original Barnstar
As for supporting me at my Abuse response nomination and training me on how to use the abuse reports, I give you this barnstar. Plus, your contributions are perfect on articles and making them DYK's and GA, not only that, FA as well. Enjoy! Damirgraffiti|☺Say Yo to Me!☺ 22:00, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
The Featured Sound Barnstar
For keeping the FS process running and going above and beyond the call of duty I award you this barnstar. --Guerillero | My Talk 17:01, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
The MOTD Barnstar
I award the MOTD Barnstar to Ancient Apparition for helping to keep our project "alive" during this difficult time. Without you and your so precious help and contributions, we all probably would have seen the end of this project. A BIG THANK YOU!!! –pjoef (talk • contribs) 19:38, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
The Excellent User Page Award
Really cool, colourful user page. Well done! Oddbodz (talk) 09:37, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
A Small Graphic Designer's Barnstar
Your redesign of the adopt-a-user page is worthy of recognition. Great job! SwarmX 05:15, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
The Featured Sound Main Page Proposal Voter Barnstar
I was truly humbled by the overwhelming community support for the recent proposal to place featured sounds on the main page. The proposal closed on Tuesday with 57 people in support and only 2 in opposition.
It should take a few weeks for everything to get coded and tested, and once that is done the community will be presented with a mock up to assess on aesthetic appeal.
Finally, I invite all of you to participate in the featured sounds process itself. Whether you're a performer, an uploader, or just come across a sound file you find top quality, and that meets the featured sound criteria, you can nominate it at Wikipedia:Featured sound candidates. Featured sounds is also looking for people to help assess candidates (also at Wikipedia:Featured sound candidates.)
For your excellent work in the October 2010 Wikification Drive, you are awarded The Wikilink Barnstar! Thanks for your work! Ⓢock 03:57, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for all your help on my userpage and for being a friendly talk page stalker! :) HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:40, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
This user has signed Extra 999's guestbook, and deserves this star. If you have not signed yet, be sure to sign. extra999 (talk)
Other awards
Fridae'sDoom has been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian, so I've officially declared today as Fridae'sDoom's Day! For being a great person and awesome Wikipedian, enjoy being the star of the day, Fridae'sDoom!
Thi's user know's that not every word that end's with s need's an apostrophe and will remove misused apostrophe's from Wikipedia with extreme prejudice.
to too two
This user thinks that too many people have no idea how to use words that they should have learned in grade two.
you one
This user knows that one should not use "you" in encyclopedia articles or other formal works.
their there they're
This user thinks that there are too many people who don’t know that they're worse than their own children at spelling!
than then
This user understands the difference between using "than" and "then."
your you're
This user thinks that if your grammar is incorrect, then you're in need of help.
its it's
It's really not that hard to use each word in its proper manner.
whom
This user insists upon using whom wherever it is called for, and fixes the errors of whomever he sees.
This user was been stealing his neighbour's wi-fi, but now has his own router. This user now locks his connection to avoid paying big bills because of his neighbours.
The motto of the AIW is Conservata veritate, which translates to, "With the preserved truth".
This motto reflects the inclusionist desire to change Wikipedia only when no knowledge would be lost as a result.
The motto of the AWWDMBJAWGCAWAIFDSPBATDMTD is Est omnino difficile iudicare inclusionis meritum cuiusdam rei in encyclopædia cum ratio sciendi quid populi referat incerta sit, sed nihilominus aliquid encyclopædiam dedecet, which translates to, "it is generally difficult to judge the worthiness of a particular topic for inclusion in an encyclopedia considering that there is no certain way to know what interests people, but some topics nevertheless are not fit for an encyclopedia." This motto reflects the desire of these Wikipedians to be reluctant, but not entirely unwilling, to remove articles from Wikipedia.
On 25 July, 2010, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article DirectHit, which you recently nominated. If you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.
Committed identity: b962f95e4ae59cc505364bc3499033c27d055208565450fd1bcbc978cd3ad7f61e0a84284a0d4c99ab3c58382de2d10b3f62036daec9705088d1cb00247a614d is an SHA-512commitment to this user's real-life identity.
Committed identity: 35c4ee1d20639a87a4869458741bc605673786a3fa73f9ef7ea0bbebc4373d8a72e7988db1489195fb4214542a2dd432a47c53cec6fdfc637ced4c39c83fbbf3 is a WHIRLPOOLcommitment to this user's real-life identity.
If a key is signed by this one, it means that I have either met face-to-face or performed an encrypted challenge-response with the user. The fingerprint for this key is A7A8 217C 78B6 718B C208 639C F120 8F94 0A55 3464.