I joined Wikipedia on October 23, 2005, after reading (over a period of several months) probably hundreds of articles and then eventually editing a bunch without creating an account. Someone suggested I create an account, so I did.

News Flash: I have some.

However, if you find bias in anything I have written, then I have failed in that particular piece of writing. If you to me politely, I will respond politely, and we can work together to improve the article.

I am not going to list all (or any) of my possible areas of bias here. Everybody is biased on some subject to one extent or another, and it's usually on subjects that interest them -- and many, many things interest me. Speaking for myself, the topics that interest me the most are the topics where you will find me doing something more than just correcting the occasional spelling or formatting error, but I think that probably goes for most people.

Although I was using Wikipedia as a reference source for months, and tweaked a couple of articles here and there (usually nothing more than correcting a spelling mistake) before a flurry of activity prompted someone to suggest I actually join, now that I have joined and have to take some measure of responsibility for what I do, I am more likely to stop and ask myself, "Is what I am about to do the best course of action?" Sometimes it is, and sometimes, believe it or not, I learn something. Here are some things I am learning:

• Although it appears to be the norm in many articles, it is not good practice to link every single occurrence of a year (e.g., 1967) in an article to that year's page. While this obviously makes sense generally anyway, I often see articles that link to the page for a particular year even when there is no information on the year's page relevant to the article that links to it. See the Wikipedia guidelines "Make only links relevant to the context", "Manual of Style (links): Internal links" and "Manual of Style (dates and numbers): Date formatting" for more information.

• Using footnotes and citing sources isn't as simple as you might think!

• Some editors have an agenda.

• Who'd have thought there could be so many guidelines to create those small and simple-looking disambiguation pages?!

• If you go to a page on Wikipedia such as ETA and then you click on the link there to go to the Eta page (note the same spelling but different capitalisation), and then you click your browser's back button, you will go back two pages instead of one, and then you'll go forward two pages instead of one if you click your forward button. The intervening page just kinda disappears. Happens to me with the latest versions of both Firefox and MSIE on Windows XP, but it doesn't happen on a Mac. (Apparently this browser bug has been fixed in the upcoming version 1.5 release of Firefox.)

• Link spammers will also delete legitimate external links in an effort to hide the addition of their commercial links.

• After avoiding figuring out how to deal with vandals beyond simply reverting their edits over and over, this is what I've figured out so far:

1. Revert: First, do revert their edits.
2. Warn: Then post a note on the user's talk page. What do you post though, especially if you're not an administrator and so you can't authoritatively threaten blocking? Well, you use an existing warning template. You don't need to think up anything or let your annoyance show in wording you choose; just pick the appropriate template, add it to the user's talk page and sign it. Signing it is important, I believe, so that others who come along later (possibly to add more warnings) can see that a real user has taken the time to warn the vandal. And, of course, the warning itself is important too; besides the fact that the vandal might not actually realise he/she is a vandal (usually unlikely, but possible) and so might modify his/her behaviour as a result of the warning, it's important because the various policies state that a user must be warned before eventually being blocked by an administrator. Your posting warnings allows an administrator to realise that this requirement has been fulfilled and so he/she can go ahead and block the user if that is the appropriate course of action.
   • So, for example, to post the "test3" warning ("Please stop. If you continue to vandalize pages, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. -->") on a user's talk page and sign it, all you enter into the editing box is: Please stop. If you continue to [[Wikipedia:Vandalism template link|vandalize]] pages, you will be [[Wikipedia:Blocking policy|blocked]] from editing Wikipedia. <!-- Please stop. If you continue to [[Wikipedia:Vandalism template link|vandalize]] pages, you will be [[Wikipedia:Blocking policy|blocked]] from editing Wikipedia. <!-- {{test3}} --> --> --~~~~. That's it! No agonising over how to word the warning to be firm but fair, as it's already done for you.
3. Report: Eventually vandals should be reported if they persist. There seem to be at least two places to report vandals, so I'm not that clear on which one you should use. I do note that the warning templates on each page are different, with the templates on the second page discussed below referring to a particular page that the vandal has vandalised. Here's my best guess:
   • The "Vandalism in Progress" page has a lot of information, such as the steps you should take, the warning templates you can use, when not to report someone as a vandal (important too), and how you should categorise the level of vandalism (also quite important). I have used this page with success.
   • The "Administrator Intervention Against Vandalism" page seems to be a place you'd go for quicker action, but I'm not sure. I have not used this page.
   • If someone can between the two pages for me (or point me to a page that distinguishes the two) I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

• How to do nested and mixed ordered and unordered lists using wiki mark-up! (See above.)

• More to be added as I learn it.

If you feel that any of the conclusions I have drawn above are incorrect, please feel free to . Thanks.

Anything on this page that looks remotely cool I have brazenly stolen from other cool user pages on Wikipedia:

• The design of the information column on the right is from Hall Monitor.
• The date and time in the "calendar page" in the top, right-hand corner are from Serhiodudnic, with modifications by me to make it work in MSIE.
• And I occasionally use templates I find to inflate the stuff in my Babel box. As you can see, I like to collect them!

Thanks everyone!

Hey, it took only four days for the first vandal to hit my user page:

1. 2005:10:27:14:10 UTC :: 209.250.165.122 :: Talk :: Contributions :: IP owner :: IP location :: Reverted by: Deanos
2. 2005:10:27:14:12 UTC :: 209.250.165.122 :: Talk :: Contributions :: IP owner :: IP location :: Reverted by: Deanos

Thanks to those of you who have reverted vandalism on my pages.

Picture of the day

The Reduced Gravity Walking Simulator was a facility developed by NASA in the early 1960s to study human movement under simulated lunar gravity conditions. It was located at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia and was designed to prepare astronauts for the Moon landings during the Apollo program. The simulator was tilted at a 9.5-degree angle from the vertical and test subjects were suspended on their side by cables at the same angle. This set-up allowed the trainees to walk along the surface while experiencing only one-sixth of Earth's gravity. It was also used to study the physiological effects on the astronaut's body during movement. In total, 24 astronauts used the simulator to train for lunar missions, including all three astronauts of the Apollo 1 mission. This photograph, taken in 1963, shows a test subject being suited up by two technicians on the Reduced Gravity Walking Simulator.Photograph credit: NASA

Archive – More featured pictures...