The life and times of an Anon E. Mouse Wikipedia editor.
editOn October 6, 2011, I was contacted by Matthew (WMF), a Storyteller for the Wikimedia Foundation for an interview. I had been inactive for several years at the time, so had forgotten much of my history. I'm making this page to try to jot some notes down for the interview.
Like most editors, I first edited the Wikipedia without signing in. Then, when I realized it was fun, I edited under a different account, before deciding to make this one for ... umm ... one "highly controversial" topic. (No, I won't tell you what the other one was, though at least one former Arbcom member is aware; I make a special effort not to edit the same areas with both accounts. All perfectly within policy, see the links.)
Yes, this was originally my role account for editing topics connected with pornography. In a short time, it became my main account, and, roughly half my edits left the adult film area, especially after I became an administrator. But I kept trying to keep my paws in.
Strangely enough, my first edit, on January 11, 2006, was thanking User:Krashlandon for welcoming me. He had actually posted a welcome message on my talk page before I had edited anything with this account! I still don't know how he did that, but it was a wonderful warm welcome. Maybe it was a factor in my staying as long as I have. Thanks again, Krash.
My first article space edits were in Gang bang and related areas, the part that eventually became Gang bang pornography. I expanded the text, added some fair use images. I think my version looked better than the current, but that's a judgment call. It's also what comes of inactivity in a highly controversial area that is also prone to vandalism. Comes with the territory.
The ability to add images (fair use and free) to add "a thousand words" to articles spurred similar contributions in other topic areas. One fair use image I'm quite proud of adding is File:Donna_Rice_and_Gary_Hart.jpg, the photo that changed the course of the 1988 US presidential campaign. I've also gone out and gathered quite a few other images, many for pornography articles, but also others. The tendency for pornography articles to be nominated for deletion led to my expanding the Wikipedia:Notability (pornographic actors) (it was a separate page at the time) standards based on the results of the AfDs, but also participating in other Wikipedia:Articles for deletion discussions - slightly more on the "keep" side, I think, though I see I had quite a number of "delete" opinions.
One of the other AfD discussions, in May 2006, was Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alice Barnham. I don't know why, since it had nothing to do with the subject area I was working in (she was the wife of Francis Bacon) but that one struck me as an article that should and could be saved. So I rewrote it. I guess I must have done a good job. That changed the opinions of two editors in the discussion, including the nominator, and got me my first barnstar, from User:Lar, and some direct appreciation from User:Samuel Blanning, a Wikipedia:Administrator, the quote from whom, "God grant us more editors like AnonEMouse" I still keep on the top of my user page. It felt good. Really good. I started making a lot more edits.
I also went saving a few other articles from deletion by expanding them. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rex King-Clark, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Old Fashioned, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Monica Coghlan were saved because of my rewrite. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Suzen Johnson may have been. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Natalie maclean - wasn't. So it goes. One that I did save was Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Annette M. Böckler. There, I met User:Crzrussian, who nominated that article for deletion. I did my classic rewrite and defend bit, and, I guess, impressed him, even though we were on different sides of the argument. He impressed me, mainly by his politeness, and eventual ability to change his mind. I gave him an interesting support in his June Wikipedia:Request for adminship. It passed (not mostly due to me, but my comment did change at least one other user's opinion); more on him later. Another deletion discussion that made me "meet" a future administrator was Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Elonka Dunin (2nd nomination). There, the future admin was the subject of the article! I didn't know much about her, but the nomination really came off as meanspirited revenge for a personal disagreement on the Wikipedia, which I didn't like. It later turned out Elonka and I have very different editing (and later administering) styles, she's very much the iron fist to my mouse-fur glove, but we've kept in touch. Another admin I "met" during this time was Phædriel, clearly the gentlest, nicest admin ever to grace these pages. We didn't share any subject matter, but I do my best to emulate her kindness. It was horrible when she was driven off by an Encyclopedia Dramatica article, it made me very sad.
Back in the pornography field (it was like I had a split personality with this account!), also in May 2006, I created the article Richard Pacheco, about a 70s-80s pornographic actor. That wasn't the only adult film actor article I created, but I remember it because the man himself showed up to edit it! We had a nice email discussion, and he ended up sending me a chapter from his unpublished autobiography. Now that's fun! It was also my first WP:DYK. Since then I've had interesting conversations with other article subjects, Humphry Knipe, Katja Kassin. Another DYK article I wrote was The Stewardesses, at the time the highest grossing 3-D movie, even outside pornography. I also expanded what at the time was Wikipedia:WikiProject Porn stars, creating the WP:P* abbreviation (hey, I think it's cool!), and created stubs for Adult Film Association of America and X-Rated Critics Organization to describe why awards given by them to actors were important, and hopefully save their articles from deletion. The only administrator working mainly in the area at the time was User:Joe Beaudoin Jr.. He impressed me with his calmness, and his organization. It wasn't a very organized project, but Joe Beaudoin Jr. had a goal. He wanted to get Jenna Jameson to Wikipedia:Featured article status. He had a list! At the time, I didn't even know who Jenna Jameson was...
In July 2006, I made a mistake. One of the (many!) issues with pornographic performer articles is that they mostly perform under stage names. Some don't mind revealing their actual names, others mind a lot; so when real names are added to articles, they need high quality Wikipedia:Reliable sources. One actress seemed to mind, but then I found an Amazon.com user page, linked to a credit card with her real last name and first initial, saying she was this actress and listing presents she wouldn't mind getting from her fans. I thought she had changed her mind, and used that as a source for adding that name to her page. It wasn't her. It was an impersonator, who happened to have the same last name and first initial. She complained, and no one less than User:Jimbo Wales reverted. (Actually he reverted after I had already reverted after her complaint, so he ended up actually putting the link I had removed back ... it was a bit of a mess... :-)). I've been much more careful since.
In August 2006, I decided to follow Joe Beaudoin's proposal, and began work on Jenna Jameson for Wikipedia:Featured Articles. Here's what it looked like at the time I started. The work, off and on, took 6 months. The peer review was in November, at time of submission. Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Jenna Jameson was eventually proposed and passed in February 2007. As I wrote in the FAC, I owe a great debt not only to the various editors who helped actually improve the article, but also just to those who reverted the regular vandalism. This will no doubt come as a shock to some people, but articles on prominent porn stars do get vandalized. Regularly. The FAC itself was, as expected, contentious. Not in the way I expected, though; I expected straight forward anti-porn activists shouting that no pornography should be allowed anywhere within the hallowed pages of Wikipedia. Instead, I got User:Worldtraveller, a much more prolific FA writer, objecting that it was too long for a porn star. So it wasn't that he objected to us writing about porn stars as such, as long as we didn't write too much about them. Fortunately the FA reviewer didn't buy that argument. A bit later, worldtraveller wrote the Wikipedia:Wikipedia is failing essay, using as evidence the fact that former featured articles were being unfeatured, and left the project. I don't know if the Jenna FAC contributed to his leaving, I hope not.
Back to the non-pornography side - adminship! Also in August 2006, the above mentioned Crzrussian made a mistake, and became the first administrator, ever, to actually carry through with his promise to step down per Category:Administrators open to recall. That was very impressive, especially as a number before and since have attempted to weasel out of their promise. So when in October 2006, he stood for re-confirmatory RFA, when he could have just asked for the bit back, I was eager to support. And as it closed, Crz asked me if I'd want to do it. I demurred, hemmed, hawed, twiddled my paws, then eventually in November agreed; strangely enough, User:Nishkid64, whom I hadn't "known" for more than a few days, served as a co-nominator. Apparently I impressed him with my politeness at an ordinary request. Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/AnonEMouse made my whiskers turn white. The main objection was from User:Hullaballoo Wolfowitz, with whom we had interacted minimally before as part of WP:P*; he took note of the above mentioned July 2006 issue, which I had honestly forgotten about. I explained the situation as best I could, and convinced enough people to support me regardless, though not Hullaballoo himself. How things change - three years later, Hullaballoo was writing on my talk page how it was great to see me back!
--AnonEMouse (squeak) 11:42, 14 October 2011 (UTC)