User:Robert Brockway

Stop vandalising pages punk

Or I'll have you banned. Bradwalsh54 (talk) 12:54, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Inane comments by this vandal loser

This is the closest I've come to a home page in 10 years. Professionally I'm a system architect with a strong commitment to the ideals of open source software. My preferred OS is Linux and has been for some 15 years. Having said this I dream of the day when many of today's theoretical concepts in OS design can be rolled out into production. The OSes we have available today are good, but we can do better. In 1995 I founded the Home Unix Machine Brisbane User Group.

For a little while I left IT and joined the Queensland Police Service as a sworn officer. This was interesting and fun but when the novelty wore off I resigned and returned to IT. My time in the police has left me with an interest in, and appreciation of, common law based legal systems and their subtleties.

I hold Australian and Canadian citizenship.

For fun I love playing board games, in particular german games. I used to do quite a bit of role-playing and play quite a few war games but not so much these days. I do enjoy a good LARP on occasion.

I have a smart and beautiful daughter, Amelie.

Largely as a result of finding it frustrating dealing with Wikipedians who can't see any view point but their own I've drastically scaled back my involvement in the project. This is really a shame as there is a lot I could have contributed but the frustration wasn't worth it.

Unfulfilled Life Goals

I'm happy to say I've actually achieved most of the life goals I've set myself. Fortunately I keep adding to the list which keeps life interesting. Life goals that I am yet to fulfill include:

• Learning Arabic
• Actually understanding the work of Burkhard Heim

Problems with Wikipedia

I think Wikipedia is great. I caught the open source bug a long time go so as soon as I saw it I realised the value. Having said this I do feel there are problems:

1. Anonymous edits

Anonymous edits cause far more harm than good as far as I'm concerned. People who care about Wikipedia will create accounts so they can edit articles. Just like crime most vandalism on WP is opportunistic. A minimal physical barrier will prevent most crime and similarly a minimal barrier to editing (creating an account) will prevent most vandalism. From now on I will comment on the problems with anonymous editing in the edit summary whenever I revert anonymous vandalism.

Some liken anonymous editing to the open source philosophy of allowing anyone to modify source code but this turns out to be a false analogy. All but the smallest open source projects restrict "commit" privileges on the source tree to trusted coders - open source is very much a meritocracy. The ability for anyone to edit the source tree comes from the ability to create a code fork. Those that do not agree with the privileged coders for the project may make their own project. To maintain the same level of openness WP does not need to allow everyone to edit the encyclopedia but rather it need only allow others to create a fork of the encyclopedia if they wish.

This very page was anonymously vandalised recently. The vandal made a series of anti-semitic and hateful statements against me (see the page history for details). I'm not actually Jewish so the anti-semitic statements were a bit odd, while still being offensive.

2. Lack of Consensus

I fear there is a rise of some who do not seek consensus. I have recently seen a concerning instance of this:

A memorial to Steve Irwin (http://www.ripsteve.com) was repeatedly removed from the page despite a consensus that it should stay from among those discussing the matter on the talk page. As each argument to remove the page was shot down another would take its place. So much for consensus.

3. Votes for Deletion

It is far too easy to nominate an article for VfD IMHO. Too many articles are being nominated. My position is that deletion should only be used in extreme circumstances.

Maui Cluster Scheduler was actually nominated for deletion and the result was "no consensus". Many of the comments claimed the article was spam (for an open source project?) or made comments that since the software was not used on a home PC it did not warrant inclusion in WP. At the very least this is parochialism.

Maui is a specialised piece of software. It has as much right to an article as any specialised subject. Much of the encyclopedia is taken up by specialised articles.

Donkey vote was once nominated for Speedy deletion. People need to stop nominating articles for Speedy deletion just because they don't know anything about the topic.

Articles

I tend to edit all over the place. I have a wide range of interests. Outside of computing I'm not a specialist in any area although I am well read in many areas of science and the arts. I have a strong interest in the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Articles I Started

• Archibald Fenner Brockway
• Buffalo Castle
• Canada-Australia Consular Services Sharing Agreement
• Coso artifact
• Document of Identity (Australia)
• E3 Visa (merged into E-3 visa)
• Iced coffee (Australia) (merged into Iced coffee)
• Ipswich North State School (Subsequently deleted)
• Innocent passage (02:59, 16 April 2006)
• Julian Moti (20:53, 5 October 2006)
• Kfar Blum (06:01, 17 May 2005)
• LedgerSMB
• Merchant of Venus
• Oera Linda (09:35, 25 October 2004)
• Redback spider
• Schapelle Corby
• Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement

Other Articles I've largely rewritten

• B'nei Noah
• List of islands of Australia
• Maelstrom (role playing game)

Articles Saved from Speedy Deletion

• Delaware Capitol Police - Rewritten
• Weatherfield Arms - Some info added, eventually merged

Places I've been

Nations I've visited, in order of first arrival:

Boxes

DadThis user is a father and proud of it!

This user is an Australian.
G'day, mate!

This user is a Canadian citizen.

This user is a Wikipedian in Canada.

enThis user is a native speaker of the English language.

en-auThis user is a native speaker of Australian English.

...This user would like to be able to speak more languages.

This user contributes using Firefox.

This user contributes using Linux.

SAGE-AUthis user is a member of SAGE-AU.

BScThis user has a Bachelor of Science degree.

This user thinks that registration should be required to edit articles.

This user is a recent changes patroller.

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theyThis user considers singular they standard English usage.

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inclThis user is an inclusionist.

This user rescues articles for the Article Rescue Squadron.

This user has rescued 2 articles by improving them in the face of pending deletion.

This user is a WikiOgre.