With this posting I have retired from Wikipedia. I regret that my contributions had unintentionally caused more work for other editors. The reasons -

• Content – the handful of articles which I authored did not meet the criteria to qualify for a rating above Start or C class. Wikipedia needs Good Articles, not half-baked attempts that must be fixed up by other editors.
• Credibility – early on I drafted an article in order to promote a young designer’s efforts and, since it failed basic WP:GNG, got (rightly) deleted. Knowing what I know now I never would have written it. Things like this are forgiven of new editors but the subject was stupid enough to cost me credibility from the start. First impressions are lasting.
• User name revealing my gender – I have an amateur interest in ships. Never having served in the Navy or having any professional maritime credentials it was risky to edit a subject area where many members did. I didn’t count on the Ships Project aggressive patrolling of new articles. Did some of the project members ever let me know where I stood with their “nag tagging”. The proper attitude would have been to take it as a learning experience. But in the last incident the {{Increation}} tag was up as a new page was in active edit. The tag bomber couldn’t wait to drop {{Orphan}}. When asked on his talk page to please wait until the active edit was done wait his answer was that any editor had the right to edit at any time.
• Paraphrasing – After an admin hoped to offer encouragement he nominated one of my newly authored articles for a DIY. But the intended good dead led to a copyvio investigation. (Those who enjoy drama can find the long story here.) I was completely blindsided and didn’t know what I had done wrong and why one fix escalated to even more problems. (“…please identify other articles were you introduced copyrighted material.” Translation: “Tell us where you buried the bodies!”) The short version of the story: while I cleaned up the affected edits the episode rightly or wrongly puts all my contributions under a cloud of suspicion.
• Acting like an Admin when one is not – after finding an article just reeking with an overly promotional tone I made a good faith effort to “be bold” and give it some neutrality and inline citations. I contacted the past editors on their talk pages. Unintentionally I introduced copyvio of my own. Not good to “call the kettle black”. My actions in that article inspired an editor to go on a WP:Witchunt (or, depending on the viewpoint, diligent and proper investigation) and would prompt the long story cited above.

“When someone doesn’t do their job, we have to let them go.” - Clint Eastwood speaking at the 2012 Republican National Convention

Mariepr (talk) 13:13, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:48, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. —holly {chat} 19:34, 9 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]