User:MrDemeanour

This user is a member of
the Guild of Copy Editors.

I have only just added the above tag; I realised some time ago that what I do here is mostly copy-editing nowadays. Basically, as I browse discursively through the 'pedia, I fix mistakes and brokenness as I find them.

I may start to address the list at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Guild_of_Copy_Editors/Requests, but so far the list has included only articles I'm not interested in. I had a go at Big_Three_(San_Antonio_Spurs), but really: I know nothing about professional basketball, and although this over-long article is obviously full of fan-inserted cruft, I'm not qualified to clean it up.

I have an email address; it is for Wikipedia communications that cannot be conducted using an article talk page or my user talk page. That means that there are almost no circumstances in which I think email is the right way for a wikipedian to contact me.

I have quite wide interests. My professional background is computers - mainly software development. I no longer program, though. I have run mail servers for many years, both for myself and for others, and email is a particular interest of mine.

I have some familiarity with the French and German languages. I was once quite good at them, but my facility with both has atrophied due to disuse (the grammar persists, but the knowledge of vocabulary and idiom have largely wasted away). As a child I lived in France for several years, attending a French school.

I enjoy cooking; I'm interested mainly in traditional stuff, not Haute Cuisine. For many years I was a vegetarian. I like to use stocks and sauces; my kitchen sometimes smells of boiling bones.

My native language is English. I have a tendency to prescriptivism in matters of vocabulary, which I try to contain. But I can't help it - I deplore some of the consequences of descriptivism. I think descriptivism supinely tolerates the destruction of language by ignorant journalists and celebrities, who misuse terms with very specific meanings, so that the meaning becomes more vague, and leaves a hole in the language. A recent example is the word Algorithm, which is rapidly degenerating into a synonym for 'software' under the influence of journalists who think they know what it means, but they just don't.

I seem to find an awful lot of articles that have acquired a thick coating of cruft - large chunks of uncited WP:OR and WP:SYNTH that simply need deleting. I try to be discriminating when editing such articles; I don't start deleting sections unless I think the article would be significantly better as a consequence. Many articles are so crap that only killing with fire can improve them. That is not one of the jobs I'm up for.

I'm no longer a young whippersnapper. I realise that some of my opinions are rather archaic. Some of what I thought was knowledge has been superceded without me noticing; and I find some contemporary customs very annoying (texting while walking in the street - and especially, texting while driving (GRRR)). I use the word 'texting' loosely.

I do not possess, and do not want, any special wikiprivileges such as adminship. I recognise that some tasks require these privileges; so I get by without doing those tasks. I'm just another editor. And I don't have time for admin noticeboards, elections, votes etc. Life is too short (did I mention that I'm no longer young?)

I'm not interested in wikifeuds. If you don't like my edits, just revert with a sensible summary. If you don't give a summary, or I think you're wrong, I'll ping you on the article's talk page. But if it turns into a feud or an edit war, I'll be gone. I do not have any allies. I would lose a war.

But I'm not OK with WP:INCIVILITY. Incivility and WP:NOTHERE are the main things that might provoke me into seeking sanctions.

I am not really anonymous - I am pseudonymous, as is the custom around here. If you are determined to find out who I am, where I live and so on, then I assume you will find out. But I think you should respect my preference for privacy, and not do that. I'm not a public figure or a notorious criminal, so please don't stalk me.

--MrDemeanour-