WP:RETENTION: This editor is willing to lend a helping hand. Just ask.
"We're not out to write a mediocre encyclopedia here. This is a resource the whole world employs, and it is not merely our duty, but our privilege to get it right ... We should all be "elitists" on Wikipedia, and we should be proud to use the appellation." -- User:Ravenswing
"Experience has unfortunately shown that most (but not all) people with experience in PR cannot be taught to write a proper article, because they are so completely oriented to writing advertisements or quasi-advertisements that they honestly cannot see the difference between that and a proper encyclopedia article." -- User:DGG
 | This user is one of the 1000 most active English Wikipedians of all time. |
I am Michael James Lowrey, called "Orange Mike" because I like the color a lot and tend to wear at least one or two items of that color on most days which are not Saint Patrick's Day.
I am a Wikipedia administrator, with a tendency to spend a fair amount of time on new-page patrol and general clean-up. I participated in the WikiProject Screencast Screen Sprint. I wrote one of the scripts, and my dulcet tones can be heard as the narrator on Script 3: "Assembling Your Materials," to be found at File:WP-Screencast-KO-Script3.ogv.
I have no tolerance for people who commit marketing (spamming, public relations, spin-doctoring, pimping, SEO, advertising, shilling, huckstering: call it what you will) within the confines of Wikipedia. You may practice your trade elsewhere, if it is lawful there; but do not attempt to do so in Wikipedia.
I am considered to be toward the "deletionist" end of the inclusionist-deletionist spectrum, because I believe that many articles here (including not only new ones but many existing ones) are violations of our standards: how-to guides and game manuals, fan trivia, in-universe fiction summaries, obscure porn actor biographies, politician self-aggrandisement, memorials, original essays masquerading as scholarship, etc. When I say I am a bit of a deletionist, I mean that I hold articles here to higher standards of notability, verifiability, etc. than some other editors. (And yes, our servers are overloaded, and the problem's not getting any better.) I'd rather see fewer articles, better researched and better written. I am really glad to help other editors in any way I can, though; and please don't hesitate to contact me.
I was born in 1953 in Jackson, Tennessee. In 1977, disgusted by the corruption and stupidity of Southern politics, I moved to Milwaukee (partly at the urging of Frank Zeidler).
I am a free-lance writer (book reviews, muckraking, and whatever suits me); I've been a member of the National Writers Union since 1985. I have worked part-time or full for Renaissance Books in Milwaukee, one of the largest used-book stores in North America (which doesn't have a website, alas!) since 1978. For most of the time since 1984, I have also worked for one agency or another of the State of Wisconsin, and been represented by (and active in) AFSCME Wisconsin Council 32. I am a graduate magna cum laude of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a B.A. in History. (I have also attended Jackson State Community College, Tennessee State University (a historically black university), the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, and the University of Chicago.)
Science fiction fandom, which I discovered in the 1970s, is my primary social outlet. I have been Fan Guest of Honor at a couple of science fiction conventions. For those who are actually interested, my Guest of Honor speech from Iowa's ICon 25 is to be found here. I am the 2020 North America-Europe delegate for the Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund, and was set for a Spring 2020 visit scheduled to include Sweden (the Swecon), Finland, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom (Eastercon). Due to COVID-19, that trip was postponed to a point indefinite, finally taking place in 2022! I appear in the feature-length film Finding the Future: A Science Fiction Conversation, and our child Kelly appears in the "Bonus" section of the DVD thereof. My belovéd wife Cicatrice and I were briefly interviewed on the BBC World Service programme Outlook; the broadcast may be found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p017cq6l with us nearer the end than the beginning, discussing our 1971 wedding at an SF convention.
For those of you interested in the Society for Creative Anachronism, in such circles I am y-clept Lord Inali of Tanasi, GDH. I was on an episode of the game show Win Ben Stein's Money. I won $2,000, and am told that I acquitted myself well enough. Ben accused me of resembling "Z.Z. Top on acid" but said I had a good singing voice! I was listed in one edition of Who's Who in America. Whoopee. I have managed a family of virtual mutual funds on the Marketocracy site, which had a pretty good record. Like all WBSM! contestants, my Bacon number is 2 through Ben; otherwise, it would be 3 (through Forrest J Ackerman).
I have occasionally been told that I "look Jewish". I will quote the words of J.R.R. Tolkien, "I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people."
