ColorOfSuffering

This page is about Wikipedia user ColorOfSuffering. For the Capital of Minnesota, see Saint Paul, Minnesota.

ColorOfSuffering
Sea lions have large flippers and visible ear flaps. Seals have small flippers and no visible ear flaps.
Born	Probably at Some Point Last Century
Died	Hopefully at Some Point Next Century
Nationality	Wendigo-ish
Education	School of Life. Also; Princeton (not really)
Occupation	Wikipedia Editor
Title	Mister
Spouse	Mrs. ColorOfSuffering
Children	ColorOfSuffering III, Patty, Pattycakes, Pâté
Parent(s)	ColorOfSuffering Sr., Mom
Website	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ColorOfSuffering

Color of Suffering (/kʌlʊr ʌf sʌfɜrɪŋ/; born September 22, 2006), also known as User:ColorOfSuffering, or CoS, is a random Wikipedia editor who is not notable enough to warrant an article of his own. This is his user page. ColorOfSuffering is not his real name, but he doesn't know you well enough to give you his real name. Please, don't take offense to that. He's sure you're a very nice person, but we both know that you'd only use his real name for evil.

Early Life

Before he was known as ColorOfSuffering, and long before the nickname had even occurred to him, ColorOfSuffering was a young boy with a thirst for knowledge, a 1200 baud connection, and a monochrome Apple IIe. Fortunately, he had intelligent and patient parents, as well as a full volume World Book Encyclopedia that he used to read for fun.

Slowly, and boringly, his knowledge grew and grew and grew and grew (and grew), until Wikipedia was invented 2001 -- not early enough to help him with any of his schooling. He remarked in a 2010 interview that I just made up: "Kids today, with their computers and their easy access to knowledge...boy...I tell ya'..."

Wikipedia Life

In September of 2006, the user name ColorOfSuffering was spawned, through an unholy alliance of "wanting to correct spelling errors" and "not having anything better to do." His first edit was a thing of beauty. He deleted a passage about video game magazine that he read. Six minutes later, he reverted his own edit after he realized that his edit was factually incorrect. He spent the rest of that night exhaustively correcting the article on Anton Chekhov's play The Seagull, because he really needed a win after that embarrassment that literally no one saw.

It was this kind of diligence, and a tireless pursuit of perfection that some people claim kept ColorOfSuffering from making another edit for a full five days after his first edit. This edit was made to an article about a light tank that was used by the Imperial Japanese Army in World War II. Yes...apparently the Japanese Army used tanks in World War II -- this was news to him as well.

Eventually, slowly, , painfully, and slowly ColorOfSuffering began correcting grammar mistakes and spelling with of a good regulartiy .

Reference Hound

As he was vainly reviewing his user contributions log for changes, he noticed that a notability template he'd removed had been restored by another user, in spite of the fact that it now contained six references, exhaustively researched by ColorOfSuffering. Upon seeing this, ColorOfSuffering was enraged changed personae from a "smart-alecky nibbler" to "an editor with a purpose." He also uttered the famous phrase:

References, INCOMING!!!

— ColorOfSuffering

Armed with the Google search engine, an ever-expanding knowledge of Wikipedia policy, and the Wikipedia Reference generator, ColorOfSuffering started getting bolder with his edits, and declared open war on notability and reference tags.

This informal war eventually abated with the Treaty of Digaff, signed in early 2008. The treaty came about after a months-long content dispute with a fellow editor, and wanting to make a positive, lasting impression on Wikipedia, ColorOfSuffering changed his persona again, and decided to start writing articles.

Article Builder

ColorOfSuffering was no stranger to writing new articles. In fact, fairly early in his editing career, he composed a stub for the smash hit Discovery Health Channel show Mystery ER; a show that has an estimated "dozens" of viewers. He also created an article for the legendary failed Mariner's #1 draft pick Ryan Anderson.

But, in early 2008, the Broadway show Next to Normal was becoming very popular. ColorOfSuffering decided that he needed to write an article about one of the writers of the show, who had yet to appear in Wikipedia; Brian Yorkey. He constructed a stub, added a few references, and went on his merry way.

A little over a month later, after Mr. Yorkey had won his Tony, another user edited the Yorkey article, removing parts of ColorOfSuffering's carefully-added references, and adding additional material that was rife with spelling errors and questionable grammar. ColorOfSuffering re-added the full references, which were promptly reverted by the other editor. This was ColorOfSuffering's first edit war, and he was determined to win. So, in an attempt to resolve the dispute, ColorOfSuffering wrote to the editor in question and cited the citation policy. A few days later, he received this response:

My personal policy is never to create an article and leave it in this state [1], or to bring it only as far as this [2].

— LiteraryMaven

While "personal policy" is irrelevant when resolving a content dispute, and the article was eventually restored to the version with the "full citations," this comment left an indelible mark on ColorOfSuffering. He was tired of laying the foundation, or painting the walls -- he wanted to build an entire house from scratch.

He got his chance, when he discovered that the Civil War regiment, in which his great-great grandfather served, did not have a Wikipedia article. So, he created the article on the 1st New York Volunteer Engineer Regiment.

1st New York Volunteer Engineer Regiment

He wrote this article. Want to see it? Here it is: 1st New York Volunteer Engineer Regiment. He will fill this section out a little better, if you were interested. But for right now, he's busy with other crap going on in his life.

Isn't it a little ironic that he left the section incomplete? We certainly think so.

Editing controversial articles

After becoming tired of building articles, and discovering that he was actually pretty bad at it, ColorOfSuffering decided to weigh in on several articles considered controversial. Controversial articles that have received the scrutiny of ColorOfSuffering include Historicity of Jesus, Murder of Meredith Kercher, Gamergate controversy, and Canasta. It has been alleged by commentators that ColorOfSuffering edits in controversial spaces in an effort to end disputes, but inevitably he ends up posting shitloads of words on talk pages that take too long to compose, and generally accomplish very little. For example: [3][4][5][6]

ColorOfSuffing has stated that he truly wishes to help resolve editing conflicts, while others have argued that he edits controversial topics when he gets bored. A vanished (vanquished?) user once recommended "If boredom was the reason for your 'lengthy missive' here, please seek other remedies for said boredom."

There has been rampant speculation as to why, exactly, ColorOfSuffering edits any article, and whether he harbors some hidden agenda or inherent bias. He is on record as stating that his motivations, opinions, political affiliations, religion, and sexual orientation are none of your fucking business, and if you came here looking for a way to easily categorize him so you can infer some kind of nefarious context to his contributions, then you can fuck right off.

Ultimately, it can be agreed that he generally lacks the intestinal fortitude or the willpower to affect meaningful change. When he holds a minority opinion, no matter how right he thinks he is, he will inevitably lose interest and stop trying. What do you expect? He does this shit for free.

Death and Legacy

ColorOfSuffering is not dead, and will live on digitally for as long as the Wikipedia website survives. However, there is a good chance that the editor behind the username will die. Some people might argue that when he dies he will piss himself and also shit his pants, but only if he happens to be wearing pants.