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Each thing I do, I rush through so I can do something else. In such a way do the days pass
---a blend of stock car racing and the never ending building of a gothic cathedral.
Through the windows of my speeding car I see all that I love falling away: books unread, jokes untold, landscapes unvisited...
-Stephen Dobyns, Cemetery Nights
There ain't no such thing as a free lunch
-Various, popularized by Milton Friedman
Greetings/About Me
editHello, and welcome to my user page! I am Jip Orlando, and thanks for stopping by! This is not my real name. It was a nickname bestowed upon me by an uncle when I was young and based on my real-life initials. I work in higher-education administration, and I have a BA in communications and an MBA with a certificate in finance.
I have been using Wikipedia as my primary reference for virtually any and every topic since 2004 or so when the website shot to the top of results pages from search engines (Dogpile, Ask Jeeves, anyone?). It's been interesting to see the evolution of content over the past decade-and-a-half. So, after years of using Wikipedia as a reader, I jumped in to become an editor.
I got started here the way many do: by fixing an error. I saw vandalism on the catharsis article (someone added 'flatulence' and 'gas,' to be exact), registered an account, and fixed it. I added minor fixes here and there and really started getting more involved in early 2017. I'm not a software engineer or programmer, but I'm learning as I go along about HTML code and MediaWiki markup.
One of the main tenets I edit by comes from a slight background in journalism, of which I took a year worth in college. The ABC's of journalism are:
- Accuracy
- Brevity
- Clarity
These translate well into editing Wikipedia. No POV, be concise, and say what you mean. Like you, I have opinions on politics, world events, the price of tea in China, etc. But I check my opinions at the door and aim to provide factual, neutral, and informative content to our readers. I also aim to be able to explain every edit I have made, whether it be a revert, an addition, or the removal of unsourced content.
Activities
editI enjoy reverting unhelpful changes to articles. I don't really do vandal-fighting anymore, but I jump in sometimes. I mainly stick to the maintenance side of the encyclopedia, but I have some ideas for new articles someday. I also enjoy looking for copyright violations. I occasionally use CSD for articles that can't be salvaged. Feel free to check my PROD log. I'm not embarrassed about the bluelinks there- the encyclopedia is built on consensus and collaboration, and sometimes people disagree. It's part of life.
Drop my a line on my talk page if you'd like, and thanks for reading!
Cheers!
Jip
Articles Created
editHouston Wells and the Marksmen
Martin Luther King Jr. College Preparatory High School
Don Dannemann
Infoboxes
editI have chimed into enough discussions on Wikipedia regarding infoboxes that I feel that I should explain why they are both good and bad. I understand that these are incredibly contentious. Here are some arguments I have heard regarding them.
Pros: They take facts from the article and present them to the reader in an organized and simple format (where they were born, awards, spouses, where they are buried). They make the article look complete (opinion, but sure).
Cons: They are unnecessary for short articles where all of the information in the infobox is right there without a need to search. They are inappropriate for arts biographies because they oversimplify what is better expressed in prose. See WP:DISINFOBOX. One-size-does-not-fit-all.
My thoughts: Infoboxes are great for politicians, sports figures, pop culture figures, cities, countries, and many other places where a list format is appropriate (awards, offices held, competitions, etc). Indeed, there are thousands of non-contentious infoboxes populating Wikipedia for these articles. However, infoboxes are not good for arts biographies. They oversimplify the subject's life into factoids that are better presented as prose. They do a reader a disservice by compiling things that may not be important to the subject's work. It comes down to the presentation of lists versus prose when describing a subject. The current accord is that local consensus dictates whether or not an article should have an infobox, which is were we should be.
