Hi, I'm John Reid (talk · contribs). If you want to know who I am, I think the best way is for you to see what I've done -- not all of it, just the stuff I like.
Article work
editI don't know much more than you do about anything important so I've not contributed substantially to very many articles. Mostly, I copyedit, fix grammar and style, check links, and look for other opportunities. There are a lot of other editors doing this, too, so I don't make many mainspace edits.
- Mille Bornes: This was in a sad state. The article had no images at all; much of the description was self-contradictory or redundant. I researched, created a workpage, spun Touring off (it's now its own stub), and so expanded the Strategy section that there's now a call for it to be transwikied.
- Compass and straightedge: My big contribution was to move this page from Ruler and compass: a misleading term. There was opposition but consensus emerged to support.
Social work
editI'm excessively proud of my work in social fields -- in editing policy, in speaking clearly into the wordsmog generated by warring factions. Generally, both sides hate me equally by the time I'm done, so I figure I'm doing right.
- Wikipedia:Wheel war: I got into this when it was a general definition and guideline and, on another page, a distinct policy proposal, forked 3 times. It went to 7 forks before I took a bold step and merged them all. Surprisingly, this went over very well. Recently, I merged the entire policy proposal back into the guideline from whence it came. So far, no lynching!
- Wikipedia:Centralized discussion: I saw this as a good idea, fallen somewhat into disuse. The only active part of the process was the {{cent}} discussion billboard. I reactivated other pages, refreshed the template, created a template log and nagged editors to use it. All usable output from centralized discussions is now recorded at /Conclusions. I'm still around, maintaining.
- Wikipedia:Userbox policy: While half the project was fighting in the streets and a half-dozen partisan proposals had been soundly rejected, I quietly wrote a proposal that threw all factions at least one bone -- and wrote it without an overarching philosophy, in such a way that differing factions could express their concerns directly. This was pretty much ignored by the GUSers but I've not been shy to drag all parties to the table. Too early to call this but at least I've got most factions represented now, even if half of them complain they shouldn't be there. Key to success: I haven't edited the page (much) since I wrote it; I've encouraged all parties to edit this page directly rather than defend arbitrary points; I've discussed my rationale on talk but I haven't tried to own the policy. Nobody is thanking me for this, which I interpret to mean that I've steered right down the middle again and annoyed everyone equally.
- Wikipedia:How many legs does a horse have? Wrote this essay from scratch -- really, a total steal from my crabby, conservative, and cynical uncle. It's picking up citations slowly but steadily.
- Wikipedia:Metastasis and Wikipedia:Dig are too new to have been picked up much but I'm very proud of one of them -- I just can't be sure which.
- The Carnildo affair: I just missed a week's vacation from ArbCom as a reward for getting into the middle of this sprawling disaster and not letting go. In short, Bureaucrats ignored a failed RfA and promoted Carnildo anyway. The actor has so far escaped recall from bureaucratship but they have all gotten the message.
- Removing warnings: Support for this initiative has failed 4 times to be pushed into policy but a series of templates, {{wr}} & company, have been hotly defended and widely used to abuse editors, innocent and guilty alike. I did my best to rewrite them to moderate their confrontational tone, place responsibility for their use firmly in the hands of those who use them, and generally make them more honest. I was not only reverted, but blocked for my trouble. Now the templates have been deleted under CSD T1 and although they've been restored pending discussion at DRV, it seems likely they'll go the way of all flesh.
Image gallery
editNo brag page is complete without a gallery. Being among other things a graphic designer, I tend to see things visually and often create images even when there's no obvious reason to do so. Here's a few of my favorites:
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I created this to illustrate Billion; non-English speakers and/or friends have forced this article to move to 1000000000 (number), just so we know. My care in selecting a nice extra bold font to label the big cubes was overlooked by the fellow who did a shoddy SVG imitation. | |
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| Created this for the {{Builder Award}}, "to Wikipedians who have contributed heavily toward the construction or reconstruction of our political infrastructure." The photo is of the United States Capitol building, during reconstruction by the United States Army Corps of Engineers in 1861. |
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A requested picture for (what else?) Cartesian materialism. The subjects are a portrait of Albert Einstein, a Coati, and my conception of the Holy Grail. | |
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| I have been working on a series of Chicago, Illinois maps. This is the most recent. It's a ridiculously difficult project to gather sufficient source materials, overlay them to proper scale, and draw new, libre content on top. The intent is to provide high-resolution sources for derivative maps of specific city features. |
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| I did not create this old map but merely salvaged it from the mists of time. The file is perfectly valid but seems simply to be too huge for the engine to resize properly. I haven't the heart to upload a small one. | ||
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| An editor suggested that any editor could do the work of a Clerk "but without the fez and the tiny car". I agree that the tiny car is unnecessary.
I have an entire line of editor headgear at User:John Reid/Fez. One size fits all! |
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Another Requested picture. These are the dramatic masks of Thalia and Melpomene, the Muses of Comedy and Tragedy. | |
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| File:Five-legged-horse.jpg | No matter how often you call a horse's tail a leg, the statement is still horseshit. | |
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| The game Alpha Centauri includes real and fabricated quotes from a future version (?) of Wikipedia. I have always been taken by this one: "Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice; the dice are loaded." | 
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| The classic statement of graphic design on Wikipedia: a stenciled W -- with, of course, full alpha-channel transparency. |
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No illustration for Mille Bornes?? Of course, the deck -- all the decks -- are copyright. I created a full set of iconic cards as well as this tableau. | |
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| This, the 6th version designed by me and the 7th uploaded to the project by all editors, finally made Featured Picture with an amazing, near-unanimous level of support. |
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Another Requested picture, this one to demonstrate geometric similarity. | |
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| A slightly more cautious warning. |
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| [[Image:NonFreeImageRemoved.svg<|300px]]
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This excellent novel by literary acrobat Ira Levin demands illustration -- but its complex and unfilmable plot means it has never been made into a movie, hence there are few easy grabs for pictures. This is the best I could do: a bookshelf. | |
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| For Category:Workpages. |
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