I love language and logic, and proofing English-language documents I read is something my brain does automatically. I've been an admiring user of Wikipedia since the early 2000s, and finally, after making a small donation, decided to "make it official" by henceforth conducting my occasional minor edits via a single identity.
That being said, I remain effectively an amateur Wikipedia editor, as the vast majority of modifications I make tend to be minor grammatical fixes and relatively small-scope copyediting. I would like to become more involved, but I presently lack knowledge of the mechanics and protocols sufficient to confidently tackle larger projects. I mention this here because I welcome any input, advice, or direction someone reading this might be willing to offer.
My "worldly" occupations involve information technology (computer hardware and programming) and law (paralegal work, e.g., document preparation and research, primarily in U.S. criminal defense and related fields of civil litigation). These engagements are, certainly, tangential to the interests and motivations stated above, but what I really want to do is to find a more immersive and engaging role; I'm frankly not satisfied with my current position.
Participating in the Wikipedia project, helping to maintain such a valuable public resource, gives me a sense of purpose. And the very active community of editors makes me feel I'm part of something intelligent, meaningful, and living. I have more than once been awed by the amount of energy and dedication some editors have applied to this project, and I wish I knew enough to be able to contribute in similar ways.
This editor is an Apprentice Editor and is entitled to display this Service Badge.
^Though hyphens are typically used in compound modifiers before a noun when the meaning might be unclear without them (e.g., "small-business owner" vs. "small business owner"), my hyper-analytical approach to language bucks at the almost subjective nature of that grammatical rule. Although context makes it unlikely that "longest" modifies "vandalism" directly, I prefer a stricter logic; and as it's not technically incorrect, as a stylistic choice, I feel that use of a hyphen in "longest-undetected vandalism" — undetected modifying vandalism, longest modifying undetected — simplifies the interpretation, removing a (small) step in the reader's subconscious evaluation process by acting as a kind of signpost to guide the parsing of the sentence. Similarly, I prefer commas for each element in a list ("this, that, and the other" as opposed to "this, that and the other"), explicit prepositions and conjunctions ("she thinks that he is strange" as opposed to "she thinks he is strange"), perfect enclosure of subordinate clauses, justified use of semicolons and colons, consistency and agreement of tense, etc., etc. I have, relatively recently, been persuaded to begin placing my commas, to the extent they are not part of the quotation per se, outside the quote marks ("like this", rather than, "for example," like that).
I consider myself a moderately "aware" person, and I feel that we, the people (i.e., all the people there are), must act energetically to guide our course. I'm a strongly moral individualist and I believe that liberty is hard-won territory that must be actively defended against erosion by encroaching armies (ordinarily not in the physical sense, but surely backed up by military power) led by Them.[note 1] Every "grassroots" movement through which people can express themselves freely, interact peaceably, and share information organically is a precious treasure, and, in this era, a triumph of nature over the great multitudinous artifice.[note 2]
Words! They mean something to me, but do they convey the same, losslessly, to you? This concept -- the mind's striving for efficient expression, communication, exchange of ideas -- is one of the primary senses driving my editorial efforts here.
^Not a conspiracist generally; I use the term as a placeholder in order to keep this sentiment brief (and for dramatic effect, to lend connotation in lieu of lengthier enumerative description); to be sure, virtually all of us contribute infinitesimal portions toward the progress by which the nature of this "Them" can be sussed out, and the far-and-away majority are each doing nothing that could be seen as significantly detrimental; but, to the extent that we live in a democracy by the levers of which we can guide our course on a grander scale than any one ant could conceive, we are asleep at the wheel, deluded by processed, repackaged consumables containing, in trace amounts, the interests of corporate conglomerates clad in the most dazzling and attention-grabbing many-colored coats Money can buy.
^I had a friend who told me that AI is the only way this world will be saved. I believe that AI, and related surveillance-type technologies, are going to put us into severe dystopia mode. But this is because We (at large) didn't wake up in time (because we refused to put on the sunglasses). I believe that this is going to come down to a bit and a Bonhoeffer; and I suspect that each observer, each facet of Sentience, lays her own yellow brick road before him, such that there be a Heaven and a Hell and every point in between created by each of us for all of us every dawn, into which we actively thrust and are passively thrust. Right now someone is torturing a cat. You don't know it because you don't hear their yowls, but what does it feel like to be on the receiving end of that pain? It truly is happening, and this cat, this I, cannot comprehend why someone, anyone but especially someone who was seen as a protector and carer, would do this and how they could continue to do it even following the yowling. As to the cat, also to the abused child, and to all of us. How can I (I don't know about you) live the way I'm expected to while I'm aware of that fact (and the billions of facts like it, all equally true)? Through human history many creatures, including people like you and me, have been made to endure unimaginable suffering -- a classic example being the Holocaust -- and yet, who among us is standing up to passionately shout "Stop! I want to go home, take off this uniform and leave the show. And I'm waiting in this cell because I have to know: Have I been guilty all this time?" We choose unawareness, and that is why we are here.
When I found these userboxes, I thought it would be fun to sift through and see how many I could feel comfortable collecting here. And then, like most things Wikipedia, I kept going.
prog
This user has been programming for 90% of their life.
I am an O.G. in computing -- while to me in the past this term would have conjured a set including the increasingly elusive "COBOL dinosaur", in today's drastically evolved landscape, I am one of the quintessential elders. Rotary phones, 300-1200-2400 baud, AT commands, Procomm Plus host mode, BBSing, CompuServe, MS-DOS v2.11, Edlin, (GW-)BASIC(A), Computer Shopper, 8088-286-386SX/DX, etc., ISA slots and IRQ channels for SB16 (with Dr. Sbaitso), 640KB, eight-dot-three bad command or file name autoexec.bat and config.sys $P$G, DS/DD five-and-a-quarters sold at shareware outlets in the flea market stall and on a rotating "tree" (xtree, LHA/LZH, Phil Katz and Cott Lang) at the corner computer store, with those sleeves and that write-protect notch, Stacker, 20mb half-height form factor SCSI ribbon BIOS CMOS dot-matrix Okidata accordion-feed paper, antennas on TVs with two round knobs/dials cable box Jerrold descrambler and static on channel 3, bicycles in the streets and that smell distinct to newsstands that all stock the same collection of items where a nickel can get you a small flat rectangular recently-sated farmer, secret hideouts in the woods and the vibrantly scented nighttime freedom to stumblingly discover the self and its place in this local version of the world, and a sense of, even a connection with, magic (which could only have been greater, more fulsome [if taken for granted, because it was granted] the further back one takes the flux capacitor) that has been all but usurped by commonplace yet readily apparent magicians resting subtly, innocuously, in the palms of babes.
We know how things work and why things are,[note 1] though our issue be largely incapable of comprehending this evolution from the modern retrospective. When we are gone, brothers and sisters, who will remember? Who will know how to wonder, if the why is embedded so deeply beneath the UI as to be deliberately undetectable?
I know our forebears said much the same thing; in that sense I know this perspective is not unique. However, I would respectfully submit that, there being a handful of broadly effective turning points in history (1492 being a classic bookmark), this one right here is quite the contender. "Forward," he cried. This march of time, friends -- and all of you, from the keepers of the Auryn to those Skeksis actively (if compartmentalizedly plausibly deniably) siphoning Gelfling essence and constructing an exorbitant narrow path (for themselves and theirs and those they imagine encompassed by their cloak, to the exclusion of the perpetually shifting [currently identifiable, for the vague but certainly democratic and (it should go without saying) patriotic purposes of statutory interpretation, by their definitive poverty] shifty-eyed Other) through the needless needle's eye while the rest, chasing the mirages that rise from the dark hot pavement, boil in the worldwide shirtwaist factory in conditions blessedly imbued with the steaminess once jealously retained only by the mythical jungle, arbeiting while clasping the ideal of freidom to their hearts of hearts: all of us are Friends -- this march of the civilized tribes into the tightening chute, toward the waiting train labeled, in that harsh tongue incomprehensible to the masses, simply "Fünf," is made to seem ever darker the further down the trail we slog.
^I mean this to apply more broadly than to just electronics.
