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In focus

The Collective Consciousness of Admin Userpages

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By DiplomatTesterMan
I am the very model of a modern Wikipedian (thanks to Bucketsofg), as seen on the page of admin rogerd
"Many hands make light work" — proverb. On the userpage of sysop Ancheta Wis

Just like Wikipedia is a representation of the collective consciousness[a] of the world, admins here in a way represent the collective consciousness of Wikipedia. This article aims, in theory, to represent this collective here. To simplify the task, the scope has been narrowed down to merely the collective consciousness of "active admin userpages". Talking in plainer practical terms, this article picks up stuff (aka plagiarism[b]) from the userpages of some active admins on the English Wikipedia and tries to convey it in a humorous light-hearted or serious/neutral way, as per the content. Note that everything compiled here, the respective degree of humour or seriousness, is courtesy the admins.[c]

"Consensus has determined that this is the single greatest image hosted by Wikimedia". Sysop Amorymeltzer has this image and caption on their userpage.

A euphony of professions and interests

Admin Anne Delong is a bluegrass musician, 28bytes is a video game designer and Acroterion is an architect. J Milburn is a philosopher who still "takes part in horror-themed live action role-playing from time-to-time" while admin Antandrus is a professional pianist as well as a professional violinist, but JUST an "advanced" thereminist. Andrew Gray is a librarian working for a London university, Ausir is a freelance translator while Edgar181 is a medicinal chemist with a PhD in organic chemistry. Casliber is a psychiatrist, while Cburnett is an MS in biomedical engineering in striated muscle electrophysiology and Anachronist is a scientist who has worked mostly in the field of stealth technology. Ad Orientem has an infobox which states his occupation as "gentleman" and writes on their userpage "OK, we have the two world wars and the sinking of the Titanic covered. How much more do we really need?"

Custom made on the userpage of sysop Anna Frodesiak

Did you know... that Wikipedia DYKs are rhetoric in nature?

  • DYK... that admin BDD used to think the metaphor of the mop was a joke, and now they know it's not?
  • DYK... that admin Bumm13 was "King of IP Contributors", but now is merely a sysop?
  • DYK... that admin 78.26 has 78 in his name because he listens to 78 RPM records? (Wonder what the 26 stands for!)
  • DYKE[d]... that admin BD2412 has been a Wikipedian for 30.1% of their life, Ser Amantio di Nicolao has been a Wikipedian for 37.4% of their life, but K6ka, an admin who is 20 years, 7 months, and 27 days old, has been a Wikipedian for 42.8% of their life?!
  • DYK... that admin BU Rob13 doesn't know how he got into editing Canadian football biographies and is a known talk page stalker?[e]
  • DYK... that Choess uses the admin tools "very sparingly and mostly to aid in article writing/organization, so if you have a problem requiring an administrator, they are not necessarily your best choice?"
  • DYK... that Bagumba, Ianblair23 and Barek have The Signpost templates on their pages, and so should you?
  • DYK... that Awilley "is an inexperienced and extremely problematic editor and administrator" and that in 2014 there was a controversial rumor that Awilley is a sockpuppet of User:Jimbo?
  • DYK... that Nightstallion, the male equivalent of a nightmare, stole his username from the fantasy author Piers Anthony, well-known for his Xanth novels?
  • DYK... that admin Athaenara has created the Wikipedian Signature Art Gallery?
  • DYK... that Catfish Jim and the soapdish tried to change their name but this upset some people, so the soapdish remains?
  • DYK... that admin Graham87 has no idea what 1337 is and prefers to contribute using proper words?
  • DYK... that some active admins (David Levy, Dbachmann, Cryptic) do not have userpages to plagiarise off?
"I put a spell on you" as seen on the userpage of sysop BOZ
As seen on the userpage of Bishonen
Admin Titodutta, at a Train a Wikipedian event.
Admin Ynhockey, with another "admin", now I wonder who, hmm...? :)

Some admins show a certain sense of being disillusioned in general as well as concern with certain things on wiki

  • Adam Bishop has "general disillusionment with Wikipedia...", he doesn't think he "can co-exist on a Wikipedia that has articles about individual Heidi Montag songs".
  • Bkell lists out things they don't like about Wikipedia which include "Drama and endless debate", "Undetected hoaxes and vandalism" and "Image names include the format".
  • Admin Swarm has an infobox saying that they sometimes or always feel useless on wikipedia.
  • BigDom doesn't edit as much as they used to. BigDom writes on their userpage - "Editing Wikipedia used to be enjoyable but lately I've found it's become a real chore and I just can't find the motivation to write new articles. This place has gone to the dogs in my opinion; it's mostly full of kids and people who seem more interested in bickering than building an encyclopedia. There's still some excellent editors and writers left and they know who they are, but 90% of articles are absolute drivel and with the notability guidelines as they are it will only get worse."
  • Boing! said Zebedee is "getting a bit tired of acting purely as an admin and contributing nothing more than occasional minor edits to the actual encyclopedia".
  • Art LaPella lists two reasons why Wikipedia can die. "An influential faction, and close to a consensus, has decided that experienced Wikipedians don't need to be as civil as newcomers," and Wikipedia:Link rot.

Animals, Plants, Nature

Admin Black Falcon has a falcon on their page and admin ferret has a singing polecat on their page. IceKarma and GorillaWarfare have a picture of a cat, while Courcelles is owned by one or more dogs and Megalibrarygirl has dogs, baby sea lions and a desert dove on their userpage. Acdixon, Sadads, and Bilby are WikiDragons while Beeblebrox is a WikiGryphon.

Admin Mattinbgn has an image of an evocative row of Pepper trees in rural Australia on their userpage, Jehochman has a beautiful view of the Talcott Mountain, Grant65 has pictures of a bobtail (Tiliqua rugosa) and a Red Kangaroo Paws and Jo-Jo Eumerus has a picture of Miñiques lake.

Quotes on admin userpages

Wikipedia is the best thing ever. Anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject, so you know you are getting the best possible information.

Michael Scott

  • As seen on the userpage of sysop Fenix down (the quote is from another userpage dated 16 January 2001):

Nifty site you have here! It may be hard to get momentum going, but I like the general idea. I've bookmarked it for some time later when I have more free time. :-)

— ScottMoonen, Early user page

The key turning point was the increase in emphasis on WP:VERIFY. It unquestionably improved the quality of the encyclopedia, but it just as unquestionably changed us from a large community of online users sharing everything they know to a much smaller community of scholars willing to put in a significant amount of effort researching and documenting their use of reliable sources. That was a good thing for producing a more informative and trustworthy reference work, but it was effectively the end of "the encyclopedia everyone can edit", since most people simply can't or won't make the effort to do the kind of research required to make significant edits when every such edit requires an inline citation to a reliable published source. That combined with the exhaustion of many of the easiest topics has inevitably lead to the community shrinking. --Rusty Cashman (Source:The Signpost 2011, a comment)

  • BrownHairedGirl: "Some wikipedian user pages tell their life story or reveal all sorts of interesting details about themselves, whilst others define their interests and values. I want to do neither, because I do not want to tempt the reader to stereotype me — so a few boxes to the right is all you get." Two of the infoboxes -
saneThis user is relatively sane and will not usually stab you when you sleep
11.2This user has 11.2 centijimbos.



  • As seen on the userpage of Beeblebrox, quoting another admin...

Beware of users so in love with their own virtue, that they are incapable of recognizing when it has become vice; and so in love with their own eloquence, that they can not see when it has become hypocrisy. The former are those who never admit to any wrong, but yet demand apologies from others for the lapses of judgement to which all human beings are prone; and the latter are the blindest and most intractable of POV-pushers. Skill with words correlates neither with virtue nor wisdom. - Antandrus

The list of meaningful quotes related to Wikipedia on the userpages of admins is endless... check out the userpages of MastCell and Kaihsu.

Endnotes

  1. ^ The author severely messes up the usage of this term through this article. So to understand what collective consciousness really means, I suggest you go through the Wikipedia article to fix any grey cells that may have been damaged while reading ahead.
  2. ^ I use the word plagiarise, since when trying to represent the collective consciousness, it hits out as being similar to intellectual property rights violation and plagiarism in its purest form, just fancier language. And if you think Wikipedia is or is not a mess, then that mess will or will not, as per your choice, accordingly reflect or not reflect in this article.
  3. ^ Admin Lectonar writes on their userpage "Always assume good faith and even assume the assumption of good faith."
  4. ^ DYKE: Did you know exclamation
  5. ^ I should mention that Wikipedia:User page stalker sounds rather relevant to mention just now.
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  • Many thanks for the plug up there for my Wikipedia Signature Art Gallery.
I'd like to take this opportunity to exhibit the very first signature in the collection:
SonicChao talk contribs
The original was complete with links, of course, and was shared by an editor who retired several years ago.
I mentioned on a Wikipedia irc channel (circa November 2006) that I was impressed with some of the signatures I was seeing on various talk pages, and he told me about his, which he said other editors were telling him to stop using. I think that's tragic. – Athaenara ✉ 07:25, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Athaenara, thanks for the comment. Recently I came across an interesting case with User:Flooded with them hundreds signature and people having a problem with it. Can't remember where I saw the discussion going on but it was a long discussion. They had to change the signature or stop commenting on new users pages... something like that. :D DiplomatTesterMan (talk) 19:24, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@DiplomatTesterMan: I put some really egregious ones in User:Athaenara/Gallery/Beyond. – Athaenara ✉ 20:19, 4 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
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