Ckamaeleon is taking a short wikibreak and will be back on Wikipedia soon.
I've just moved from the U.S. to Japan, which is why I've been so scarce lately. While I've safely jumped continents, I am still settling in. It looks like I won't have Internet access at home until late Sept.- early Oct. See you then!
A green chameleon in Botswana.
This is my user page. It currently has these sub-pages:
I recently received my bachelor's degree in French as well as International Relations & Area Studies, specializing in East Asia. I have an interest in cultural and linguistic anthropology, which I've tried to satisfy with my area studies.
My current geography is: Conway, Arkansas, United States. You don't want to visit. I'm packing my things up this summer to begin a job teaching English in Japan with the JET Programme. I've previously lived in France and am pleased to be traveling internationally again. Kyuushu island, Japan. It's rural, and a lot like Arkansas..except I can't understand anything.
I typically edit English Wikipedia, but often read French Wikipedia when I am looking for more information on "French" subjects (historical figures, renowned French people, French institutions or technology). I may edit lightly in the future... but do I really have the command of French's nuances that I'd need to write authoritatively in it?
Like most editors, I started by creating stubs and adding to stubs.
These days, I've been using the talk pages more heavily and have started doing more wikifying. I'm also logging in more often now, since I use many computers and I've lost track of some of my past edits that way.
Philosophically, I'm an inclusionist. This goes back much further than Wikipedia, and applies to most aspects of my life. It's tied to my fear of not having any options, I think. I would rather give you lots and lots of information (and allow you to make an informed decision), than give you an easily-digested nugget that runs the risk of being biased or censored. This is flawed thinking, I know. Most people either can't handle or don't want to have too much information. Research supports it. But like Sisyphus rolling than damned rock up the hill time and time again, I continue to leave extra-detailed comments. If one person finds the information useful, it's worth all the people who criticize me for not getting to the point.
On a related note in Wiki-beliefs, I am opposed to the idea of preventing anonymous edits. Many fine editors and even sysops got their start as dabblers before creating accounts. If they had not had the chance to get to know Wikipedia, they might never have committed to the project. While I certainly think that user accounts are useful, I think that once one decides to edit substantially, one will eventually realize this and create an account. Not all anonymous posters are vandals. Assuming so is to assume bad faith. I recognize that some pages may need partial protection, but I urge admins. to apply those measures judiciously and with a light hand. One of my favorite aspects of Wikipedia is that it doesn't deny the very young or the very old, that people with histories and beliefs can all contribute something to the project. This is the logical extension of that. If you were to put a price on the volunteer hours that people spend here, what would it be? In light of this, I see no reason to compromise the foundations of this project--the idea that anyone can go to a page and correct a typo, add a new link, or discover that there's an article just waiting to be started.
I enjoy the social aspects of Wikipedia, so I suppose I'm slightly more metapedian than exopedian, at the end of the day, my work is for the encyclopedia. I typically like to discuss major changes, like moves, inconsistencies or conflicting thoughts on an article in an attempt to include everyone and to reach consensus. For developing projects, like Spoken Wikipedia, I am active in trying to shape policy, not so much because I want things my way, but so that we have some guides for consistency's sake--it's something that needs doing.
That said, I am not put off if the conversation strays to non-Wikipedia subjects (like troubleshooting your computer) because I feel that everything's connected. When you are feeling good (because of positive interaction with other Wikipedian) and not having to deal with other things (like a broken computer), then you're more likely to contribute productively to the project. Wikipedians can edit individually with out much interaction, but I think the process works much better when people are allowed to form social networks. When we reach out to other Wikipedians, we engender the same behaviour in them and show them that this is a place where they want to be. To borrow the Delta slogan, "Good goes around."
I'm a moderate-to-strong privacy advocate. A lot of Wikipedians toss all sorts of person info up on their user pages. That's well and good for them. But you won't find a lot here. I have no intention of sharing much (if anything) about my religious or political beliefs, my stance on controversial subjects (the abortion debate, for example), my race, my sexual practices or preferences, my thoughts on drug use/abuse or anything like that. It's not that I have unusual or extreme views, I just don't see the point announcing them to the wide, wide world. Most of these subjects are too complex to boil down into a userbox, but they DO have the potential to be prejudicial and divisive. Jimbo recently commented on this very thing with his statement on Userbox policy. Not that I'm saying Jimbo is god, but rather that we happen to feel the same way on this issue. The only real difference is that I simply elected not to throw up such userboxes in the first place, rather than trying to directly discourage other people from putting them up. As far as the debate goes in terms of WP-widepolicy, I can see both sides of it and I'm not sure how I'd vote.
Other strong opinions:
I'm in favor of putting the "-ed" on words from other parts of speech that have been "made into" adjectives: ice tea vs. iced tea -- it's not tea made of ice. It has been iced, that is, put on ice. Note how Sisyphus rolls the damned stone. The stone has been cursed. Calling it a damn stone doesn't make any sense. Does the stone damn people?
American English is a particular variant of English. It is not a separate language. If it were, we would have no BBC America, as nobody would be able to understand it without having taken "British English" in High School or college. I support Wikipedia's policy of editing articles in the variety of English that best pertains to the subject, with the understanding that people do forget and edit in their country's version--or simply didn't know that a "hood" is called a "bonnet" in Britain. Please assume good faith when calling people on "spelling correction" edits. Plus, admit it: it's kind of fun to spell things with a "u".
I'm a serial comma person. The only reason newspapers don't do it is because they have space contraints and it looks silly in text in columns. So apples, oranges, and pears. vs. apples, oranges and pears... unless the oranges and pears are supposed to be a group separate and distinct from the apples.
If there's a question of using a strong verb form or a weak one, I almost always choose the strong version. "Thus, the dragon was slayed" vs. "Thus, the dragon was slain." and "sawn-off shotgun" vs "sawed-off shotgun"
The International Phonetic Alphabet is a wonderful thing. Everyone should learn how to use it broadly, at least. I encourage using IPA notation to clarify the general pronunciation of article names in Wikipedia.
Whether it's correct or not, I will always refer to England as Britain, mentioning Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland if I mean specifically those regions, and the whole shebang as the U.K., since I rarely use the terms "England" (reminds me of muffins) and "Great Britain" (too confusing and England-centric).
The correct plural of euro is "euro," not "euros."
Texas is not a southern state (location), just as Florida isn't (culture). I support the concept of the "mid-South," since places like Arkansas aren't the same type of South as Georgia and South Carolina.
I have never said "nucular," except when I'm deliberately being facetious or recording the article for Spoken Wikipedia. Consequently, it took me a long long time to finish the recording, since I had to stop self-correcting mid-recording.
