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General
editHello, my name is Max. I'm finishing law school in Berlin, Germany this year. I have far fewer edits under my belt than I would like to, but I've been around a bit (January 2004), which is partly due to the fact that I don't bother to log in for a good 90% of the things I edit, seeing as they're usually trivial and uncontroversial clerical work.
As for adding actual content, I'm not a very assertive editor, so I don't mind if you change what I write. I often remove bias that supports my (centre-left) political-leaning (because I'm especially ashamed of that), whatever I do to that end has nothing to do with what I personally believe in. Mostly however, I deal with style and grammar.
The main fields in which I sometimes add contents are Germany and German politics; I'm also interested in political and most especially electoral geography, legal theory and civil aviation, but don't feel competent to say much there.
I'm a fairly strong inclusionist but have given up my resistance to long articles, so merging is not the devil any more.
Couple of ideas:
1. Due process matters.
Wikipedia, while being, unlike a country, a body based on voluntary membership, still needs to be predictable in its handling of people. They need to know how to do things right and what behavior will have what outcome. A corollary is that WP:IAR is something that should never be invoked except as a final plug.
2. Do not use "Citation needed" tags for war.
Many requests for citations are simply shouts of "filthy liar!" or obstructionist in other ways. That's not their purpose. In an ideal world, I'd advocate some relaxation of the strict citation policy for things that are verifiable by one's own eyes or simple observation, but this isn't an ideal world.
3. Easy on conflict-of-interest issues
Either an article reads like an advertising/contains false figures or it doesn't. COI alone doesn't make a point invalid.
4. Give some India-themed articles a little love.
It's a strange thing with Indian articles. Few articles are as good as the many great articles on Indian subjects, but surprisingly many of them suffer from formatting and language problems despite their relative length. I believe care in creation should be as welcome as love in improving them.
5. Do not ever use "you" in Wikipedia, and other problems.
Just don't. Exclamation marks are also not that great. And "alleged" is not a neutral word.