From 2008-2015, I was an avid editor of Wikipedia, generating just under 40,000 page edits. Wikipedia was a major part of my life for most of this period (with a couple periods where I took a couple months off mixed in). I touched nearly every corner of the encyclopedia, ranging from consensus building to anti-vandalism to improving semi-automated typo correction tools, to name a few of my earlier efforts. Eventually, I got heavily involved in "saving" poor articles, usually written by new users, that were clearly notable subjects but flagged for deletion. In addition to improving the articles I often attempted to encourage the creator to stick around and learn Wikipedia editing despite their (presumably) unpleasant introduction to the encyclopedia. Lastly, I got heavily involved with the in the news section of the mainpage, and with article creation in general. This is were I found the greatest joy and I became the creator, or otherwise significantly contributed to between 400 and 500 articles, earning more than 100 DYK credits. Along the way, I was nominated for and became an administrator. Then it all stopped. Since 2016, I've only made occasional edits as I was reading an article for other reasons. Why did this happen? In truth there were a variety of reasons - my son was growing up, my career became more involved, I became more interested in advocacy in my writing (which was not appropriate for Wikipedia of course) - but a major one was I got burned out on dealing with nasty people. While most Wikipedia "super editors" were perfectly nice people, I had multiple encounters with people who thought they were "above the law" so to speak and treated others with contempt when making even routine copy edits to "their" articles. And frankly, they were right - certain people who contributed a lot of content were allowed to be combative, rude, and downright nasty on talk pages without any real consequence. Sure, they would never be made admins, but they still had implicit permission to trample on new (and even experienced) users who got in their way. Over time this wore on me, and slowly I backed away until finally I just stopped edited suddenlt, but for no particular reason (i.e. there was no specific last straw). So there you have it - the reason I stopped making Wikipedia article. I leave this here in case anyone was still watching my user page and wondering what happened years later. (Although most the names I remembered interacting with regularly seem to also have gone inactive.) The rest of the page is my former description from when I was active.
My name is Thaddeus and I live in Columbus, Ohio with my wife and son. My father, George Billman, is a noted physiology professor. (After years of experience on Wikipedia, I wrote his biography.) I, however, chose to take a different path in life. I initially went to college to study computer science, before dropping out after a year to concentrate on day trading and my business ambitions. After ten years or so of supporting myself primarily by running an online bookstore, I returned to school to pursue a dual degree in actuarial science and business. After graduating, I worked for an insurance company for several years before switching to a non-profit addressing homelessness. My interests are diverse, spanning from linguistics and statistics to college basketball and The Olympics. I am a huge fan of Butler basketball, although I did not attend the university for my schooling. I enjoy history and science, and regularly write computer code for fun. I have spent several years devoted to chess and then poker, but rarely play either anymore. My current gaming obsession is Dominion. Above and beyond all these things, I am a devout Christian and try to live my life accordingly. I very much believe in 1 Peter 3:15-16 (NRSV):
As such, I have extensive knowledge in Christian apologetics. I am always happy to discuss my faith with anyone, and answer any questions in public or private. That said, evangelical outreach is certainly not my purpose for being here. I have very rarely edited articles related to Christianity. I have not refrained from such editing because I'm afraid of bias; I'm confident that I could write balanced, encyclopedic articles on Christian subjects. However, when I write about Christian subjects, I prefer to write persuasive pieces.
I have been editing Wikipedia since 2008, although I took a two year break from early 2010 to early 2012 (with a couple false restarts mixed in). Despite my diverse interests, only a small percentage of total editing falls under any subject previously mentioned. I have dabbled in nearly every major area of Wikipedia. My earliest efforts focused largely on correcting spelling & grammar errors and reversion of vandalism. From there, I got into writing bots to automate tedious tasks and patrolling proposed deletions (PRODs) to find articles worth saving. An (outdated) log of my proposed deletion activity can be found at User:ThaddeusB/PROD Log. My early content work was mostly saving articles from deletion - either via PROD or via AfD. Eventually, I got heavily involved In the news section of the main page and the current events portal. The majority of my content work relates to current events in some way. A partial log of content work can be found at User:ThaddeusB/Content log. Along the way, I have done at least some work in almost every area of Wikipedia. If you can think of it, I've probably dabbled in it at some point. The motto that ties all my efforts together is: "do it right, or don't do it at all." I try to treat every edit as if it was the utmost importance. Incremental article improvements are great, but I personally feel compelled to improve an article as much as I can once I start on it. I used to spend a good amount of time on the bureaucratic areas of Wikipedia, but have found that usually it is more efficient just to fix things rather than debate about problems. Don't get me wrong, work in places such as ANI serves a valuable purpose, it just doesn't interest me that much anymore. However, I have recently become more involved with Article for Creation, and remain active in In The News, both of which necessitate some political interaction from time-to-time. My first official (logged-in) edit was to Asafa Powell on August 18, 2008. On September 4, 2009, I received my first good article credit on an article (Household Hacker, since demoted) for which I was the primary contributor. I now have written 9 good articles. I have more than 110 DYKs and more than 160 ITNs to my credit. I have created two barnstars: the Swine Flu Barnstar and the Zoroastrianism Barnstar. I have made over 200 improvements to RegExTypoFix and have written four approved bots:
On July 29, 2009, I was promoted to administrator by a 117-2-7 vote. Some people find the process stressful, but for me it was one of my proudest moments on Wikipedia. The outpouring of support from the community was surprising and overwhelming. I only hope I have lived up to expectations in the years since. View my edit count and other stats
One of the greatest strengths of Wikipedia is its collaborative nature. Each editor is free to work on what they are best at/like the most, and leave the tasks they don't like to someone else. Maybe I can help by doing a task you don't want to do, but would like to see completed. I like to think I do most things well, whether it be writing, organizing, copy editing, etc. I also like to just give advice (when its desired). One of my greatest strengths is writing "intelligent" bots. It is a major misconception that computer programs can't make good decisions. This misconception leads to 1) people only requesting bots to do very simple tasks and 2) fear of bots that propose to do more. I wish to fight this misconception and bring semi-intelligent bots to Wikipedia whenever I can. For me, it is far more interesting to create a bot that can (for example) determine what category an uncategorized article should be added to than to create a bot that simply adds {{uncategorized}}. So, if you have a large-scale task you want done feel free to ask me even if you think it may be difficult for a bot to do. I am not a professional graphic designer or anything, but I do like to dabble occasionally. If there is a barnstar or other simple graphic you'd like to see made, feel free to ask. I have access to several hundred premium content databases, and most mainstream scientific journals on a wide variety of subjects. I also have access to full text news articles via Factiva, LexisNexis, and NewsBank. As such, if there is an article or specific subject matter you are looking for, let me know. In many cases, I can email you a copy of text you might otherwise not have access to. Feel free to contact me via email with anything you don't want on wiki for whatever reason. |
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