Wikipedia

Boldblazer

Joined 15 August 2012

Hello world! I am boldblazer. I also own the account boldblazer2 as I find it extremely annoying to keep having to login whenever a different browser is involved both on PC and mobile.

PSA: Terfs can fuck off.

Some of My Thoughts and Experiences

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User's Info

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One thing that bugs me a lot is when I encounter some user's user page and it lists so much personal information about that user. I wonder if they are aware of the dangers of what is basically doxing themselves. Sometimes it is a bit horrifying that their full name, place of birth and/or residence, birthday, blood type, height, weight, eye colour, family members, and other really personally identifying is just there for all to see. It is especially horrifying when the user has shown their birthday and it turns out the user is under 18. I get the eagerness to be a part of Wikipedia and to introduce oneself but please don't. I feel like the limit should be vague entries such as languages, personal beliefs, likes/dislikes, and places visited. It makes me wonder if any malicious person has ever scanned every user page and collected all that personal info.

Of course, this does not apply in all cases. Sometimes you have users who already are well-known enough to have an actual article about them, and those users are the exception since there's already a bunch of publicly available info about them, with one of the most prominent examples being Jimmy Wales.

Thanks

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I have used the "thanks" function in a sarcastic manner many times before and I wonder if there are others who do the same.

Reliable

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Why is it that tweets are considered not to be a reliable source, yet other sources that just take only the tweets to use in their article considered reliable? They just regurgitate the same info that was in the tweet, and that somehow makes it more reliable?

Good Faith

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I think that Assuming Good Faith is strongly lacking in Wikipedia even from users that have been active since the near start of Wikipedia. Obviously, this does not mean that that statement applies to every user. It's just that I encounter it too often. Perhaps it is just that the ones who don't accept that premise right away are also the more vocal ones. I feel like those users should at least look up "Hanlon's razor" and replace "stupidity" with "lack of Wikipedia knowledge" although I guess those users would then dispute what "adequately" means. No one is born with perfect knowledge, so if you see someone doing something deemed generally incorrect, then assume good faith and take it as chance to educate rather than berate, and fix the mistakes. This also means that if you decide to interact with someone then be prepared to become a teacher for a bit. There are also those that appear to make fun of other users for not knowing everything that they themselves do. Just because you have been editing on Wikipedia for a long time, it does not make you all high and mighty with superhuman intellect.

Be cautious everyone! There are already too many giant squids of anger on the Internet. Don't become one yourself.

Users vs IPs

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Whenever I scroll through an article's recent history, I end up looking through edits made by IPs more than users. Because those IPs can be shared and are more anonymous, I end up seeing them as a bit more sus than if they were users, and should those IPs add anything unsourced and unverifiable, the chance of removal becomes much higher. Lesson: if you don't want to seem sus then make an account. I don't ever see a reason not to be a user anyway. Why stay being an IP?

Deviate

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I think it is ultimately alright to deviate from the source material if the result still ends up being correct.

Article Creation

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I don't see what is so special about users that proudly show how many articles they have created or what specific articles they have created. It's not like those articles are owned by those users and it's not like it is extremely difficult to create an article. Perhaps it's a difference in what "created" means. Is the meaning limited to just the create article button or does it include contributions? If it includes contributions then why not just say contributions rather than articles creations? Sometimes I wonder if some of those users have just created an article with minimal information just to claim another article "created" and it ends up being that that initial creation was the only contribution with the rest being from other users.

Account Age

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Does it matter how old your user account is? I guess it is a bit cool to have an old user account, but it is irrelevant to how experienced you are in Wikipedia matters and editing.

Revert

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I think the use of the undo button to revert edits is one of the most pointless things. More often than not, there are too many intermediate edits, so you have to manually edit things anyway. So you may as well not even use the undo button and go straight away to manually edit the article in the first place. Another bad aspect of the undo button is that, because it sends a notification to the user whose edit was reverted and most users don't adequately explain the reason behind the revert, you end up getting super offended users raging at you because you had the audacity to even touch their edit. (This is also why I don't like using the "reply to" template in talk pages.) It's best to do these as discretely as possible.

Speaking of reverting, I think reverting genuine conversations (or any conversation for that matter) from one's talk page (not archiving them) is something that should be discouraged. At the very least, just comment them out if you don't want them to be visible.

Knowledge

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I don't like how some users tend to basically have an argument themed around "You are wrong because you didn't already know this information."

Paralympics

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I think it is unfortunate that articles on the Paralympics don't get as much love as the articles on the Olympics.

Preventing Vandalism

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I actually can't believe that using "security by obscurity" worked in preventing that long-term consistent vandalism caused by those Peruvian IP users on those FIFA U-17 and U-20 World Cup articles. I wish they would have just indefinitely protected those articles instead of me having to resort to using "security by obscurity" but you got to do what you got to do within what you are able to do. It sucks that only one article got an indefinite protection due to the persistent vandalism. Now, if only we could do something permanent to the Jakarta Goat Vandal.

Welcome?

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Despite whatever welcoming outward appearance users want to project to the outside world and newcomers about this place, ultimately, I don't think Wikipedia truly is that much of a welcoming place. I think it's not a flaw based on Wikipedia alone but it's just the inherent system on how this entire site works that causes it. It is unfortunate, but it is how it is. In the end, everything going on in this site is worth just as much as fake internet points, and if bullies want to get riled up over it, then let them be. I would rather not help contribute to Wikipedia in order to avoid those types of users. Again, the situation really is unfortunate.

Soccer/Football Thread

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  • On 2022 March 24, Costa Rica did not win honourably in the match against Canada.
  • It sucks that Canada were eliminated from further rounds of the 2022 World Cup earlier than the last group match

I told you so

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I created:

  • Template:2011 FIFA U-17 World Cup knockout stage bracket
  • Template:2013 FIFA U-17 World Cup knockout stage bracket
  • Template:2015 FIFA U-20 World Cup knockout stage bracket
  • Template:2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup knockout stage bracket
  • Template:2017 FIFA U-17 World Cup knockout stage bracket

because of persistent vandalism on the knockout stage brackets on those pages and when I had brought it up to RFPP the pages would not be protected. These templates did prevent the persistent vandalism. Now, ever since these templates were deleted, the persistent vandalism has returned. Temporary one month protections don't do anything. You need to do something more concrete and permanent because as demonstrated recently since, those Peruvian vandals will always be around. Either you need indefinite protections (which I doubt will ever be granted), or you put the entire knockout stage in a separate template so that inexperienced vandals can't reach it like what I did back then. smh Jonesey95... Why allow problems to come back? It's the opposite of progress.

List of Subpages

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User Templates

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 A userbox is a small rectangular box that looks like this.
 This user is a recent changes patroller.
 This user thinks that registration should be required to edit articles.
 This user has visited 3 of the 50 U.S. states.
 This user has visited 3 of the ten provinces but none of the three territories of Canada.
 This user is trans. 
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