User:ThadeusOfNazereth
— Wikipedian ♂ — | |
Name | ThadeusOfNazereth |
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Name in real life | Thadeus Smith |
Pronouns | he/him |
Nationality | American |
Height | 6'1" |
Personality type | INFJ |
Education and employment | |
Occupation | High school teacher |
Education | A.A. Olympic College (2019) B.A. Pacific Lutheran University (2021) M.A. University of Essex (2022) |
Hobbies, interests, and beliefs | |
Religion | Episcopalian |
Contact info | |
Website | https://thadeussmith.com/ |
Account statistics | |
Joined | August 8, 2016 |
Edit count | ~25,000 |
My username is ThadeusOfNazereth, but my real name is Thadeus Smith. I've been editing on Wikipedia as an IP and a registered user under different accounts since sometime in 2014. Having lost the password to my childhood account Football1607, I began editing at this account on August 8th of 2016 and have no plans to change that.
My interests on Wikipedia are pretty broad! At any given moment in time, I can be found:
- Adding short descriptions to articles
- Creating redirects
- Removing and replacing citations to OurCampaigns
- Fixing CS1 errors, fixing HARV errors, and adding missing page numbers to citations
- Reviewing articles at WP:DYK, WP:NPP, and Category:Articles without sources
- Writing biographies of niche historical figures
- Writing articles on recently released books
- Helping out at Draft:Missing Pieces
In addition to my Wikipedia editing, I am a Volunteer Advisor with the Wikimedia Foundation elections committee, which organizes and oversees elections to the Board of Trustees. I was elected as an administrator in the October 2024 Admin Elections and was "promoted" (so-to-speak) on November 4, 2024.
I have a conflict-of-interest in the following articles: John Hagan (sailor), Olympic College, Pacific Lutheran University, University of Essex, and American Heritage School (Florida). Any other potential COI's are so insignificant as to be irrelevant.
Recommended Reading
"But when I think of you, I want to be alone together. I want to strive against and for. I want to live in contact. I want to be a context for you, and you for me."
— Amar El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, This is How You Lose the Time War
Fiction
- This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone is my favorite book of all time. It's a lyrical, poignant love story that contains one of the most beautiful descriptions of love I've ever read.
- Piranesi by Susanna Clarke is a quick, fun read about a 'lil guy wandering a mysterious house, and I'm afraid I can't share more than that!
- Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman is an engaging work of climate fiction with more than a little bit of that classic British self-deprecation.
Non-fiction
- Why Fish Don't Exist by Lulu Miller is a book about the incredible life and disturbing contradictions of David Starr Jordan. I started reading this on my break at work and was so enthralled that I stayed three hours late to finish it.
- We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families by Philip Gourevitch is a narrative of the Rwandan genocide. This book was assigned reading in my first year of undergrad and it formed the foundation of my life's trajectory.
- Cross-X by Joe Miller follows the Central High School speech and debate team in their journey to the 2002 National Speech and Debate Tournament. As someone whose life was changed by participation in speech and debate, I found this book deeply moving.
Purely academic
- Two Dozen (or so) Arguments for God by Jerry Walls and Trent Dougherty is a long-form articulation of Alvin Plantinga's arguments for God's existence, with a team of contributors that includes Alexander Pruss, William Lane Craig, and Richard Swinburne.
- Washington's End by Jonathan Horn is an unusual biography that focuses almost entirely on George Washington's post-presidency years, providing insight into his personal struggle with slavery.
- Normal Life by Dean Spade is about the myriad of ways bureaucratic violence impacts the life of trans people in America and around the world.
Online reading
- Antilibraries is one of my favorite "hidden gem" websites—a collection of books that have yet to be read. It inspired me to create my own antilibrary, which quickly just became my actual library.
- The SCP Foundation is the single greatest work of collaborative fiction to have ever existed—Now pushing 10,000 articles!
- Eclectic Orthodoxy, Fr. Adrian Kimel's blog, is my favorite religion website and an invaluable resource for Christian Universalism.
My contributions
This is a list of my more notable contributions, namely pages I've created or substantially expanded/contributed to. They're arranged in alphabetical order under the respective columns, not chronological.
Awards, boxes, and the like
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On the WMF
So here's my take; do with it what you will. Fundraising needs to be regular to be effective. Annual pledge drives are necessary not because WMF (or any other organization that runs on donations) are broke; rather there needs to be a regular, dependable stream of income that allows the budgeting and planning process to work efficiently. It's a rather short-sighted (and stupid, IMHO) way to run an organization to only seek income when they are on the verge of bankruptcy; living "paycheck to paycheck" is a bad way for individuals to survive, and doubly so for complex organizations. It doesn't matter how much money the organization has in savings, or how much it spends, it matters that income is regular and predictable. Running savings down to near zero, and then asking for a handout is not the way any organization should run. Fundraising is not done because WMF needs money NOW, it is done because WMF needs money in a predictable manner so as to be able to plan and organize and budget and all of that. The specific wording of the banners aside, much of the anger and vitriol towards WMF seems to be that they are fundraising at all, most of it is centered on the notion that WMF is "swimming in cash" (irrelevant to the need for steady income as a good organizational practice) or that they aren't spending the money they have wisely (which may be a reason to not donate one's self, but seems like rather rude to extend that into blocking the organization from getting any income). It would be helpful to separate the discussions so that we can get the difference between "I don't like the wordings of these banners and think we need to change them" and "I don't think WMF should be seeking donations". The former is a reasonable discussion to have. The latter is unreasonable.
— User:Jayron32, Fundraising meta-question: a Groundhog Day feeling, WP:Help Desk
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