This user has been on Wikipedia for 20 years, 1 month and 19 days.

I'm currently giavinge a go at organizing an IBM Task Force to work on cleaning up, standardizing, and expanding articles about IBM and its products. Please feel free to lend a hand.

Spins

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This is likely the best DJ set I've ever heard.

15 minutes

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Apparently newsbusters has quoted me extensively, although they use strawman arguments to bypass or misrepresent my points.

Research Initiative (inactive)

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Do you need help doing some research? I have access to excellent databases of reliable sources (EBSCOhost, JSTOR, Lexis Nexis, etc.) -- take a look at my research requests user project. Comments welcome!

Personal Wikipiphanies

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You'd no doubt agree that editors exist who are editting purely from a desire to push a particular POV? These people have to be marginalized for the sake of wikipedia's NPOV and effecient editting. While I'd say it's admirable to try to include all viewpoints and reach mass consensus, [one who] blindly seeks this end lets a vocal minority bog down reasonable POVs through technicality.

— NickCT[1]

...it occured to me that in order to preserve the value and absolute functionality of the wiki system, somebody has to stop those who would abuse the project for those editors who make good faith efforts to improve it.

— blaxthos[2]

Other Quotes

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Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

Men [who] look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the arc of the covenant, too sacred to be touched; who ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. Let us follow no such examples, nor weakly believe that one generation is not as capable as another of taking care of itself, and of ordering its own affairs. Each generation is as independent as the one preceding, as that was of all which had gone before.

Wikitruth

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If you tell Wikipedians to trim some fingernails, the nature of the Wikipedia environment is that someone will start chopping off hands. And after you go "Hey, slow down, Tex, that's gone too far", they'll switch to just chopping off fingers and everyone's happy at the compromise.

— Wikitruth[5]

Humor

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On becoming the Kingdom

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There were the Scots
Who kept the Sabbath
And everything else they could lay their hands on.
Then there were the Welsh
Who prayed on their knees and their neighbors.
Thirdly there were the Irish
Who never knew what they wanted
But were willing to fight for it anyway.
Lastly there were the English
Who considered themselves a self-made nation
Thus relieving the Almighty of a dreadful responsibility.

— /usr/local/bin/fortune

On communications[6]

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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.

Disclaimer

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Please add any I've missed!

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Stuff I've done

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Articles I've Worked On (very noninclusive list)

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Article Author Rewrite GA / FA Nom Copyedit Cite Fmt NPOV OR / RS Featured
Angler:TCVP X
Ask Foy X X X X
Atari 8-bit family X X X
Azalea Trail Maids X DYK 28 March 2010
Chappaquiddick incident X X X X
Curry X X X
dBase X
Domus Transitoria X
Fox Business Network X X X X
Fox News Channel X X X X
Fox News Channel controversies X X X X
Fox News Channel programming X X X X
Gold to Go X DYK 22 May 2010
IBM X X X X X
IBM OS/2 X X X
K-factor (Cisco) X
Mr. President (TV series) X X
Mark Foley X
Microsoft Courier X
Natalee Holloway X
NAVGC 1983 X X
NTSC X
Squirrel Systems X X X DYK 5 April 2007
syslog X X
Trade Wars 2002 X
Ted Kennedy X X X X X X GA 30 October 2006
What Happened X X X

Other miscellany

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References

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  1. ^ "NickCT (paraphrased)".
  2. ^ "My Wikipiphany".
  3. ^ Letter to Morris Raphael Cohen, professor emeritus of philosophy at the College of the City of New York, defending the controversial appointment of Bertrand Russell to a teaching position, 19 March 1940. See: "Memorable Einstein Quotes".
  4. ^ Romano, Andrew (2010-10-17). "America's Holy Writ". Newsweek.
  5. ^ "The Killing Fields".
  6. ^ This is not really humor!
  7. ^ During one of McCloskey's daily press briefings during the Vietnam War, as attributed by Marvin Kalb in TV Guide on 31 March 1984
  8. ^ Bertrand Russell, The Triumph of Stupidity (1933-05-10) in Mortals and Others: Bertrand Russell's American Essays, 1931-1935 (Routledge, 1998, ISBN 0-415-17866-5), p. 28