User:Jkelly

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I am a Wikipedia (and Commons) administrator. If you would like to communicate with me, please feel free to use my talk page. I have access to m:OTRS tickets, and will respond to requests to check permissions.

1 Edits
- 1.1 Trivia
2 Thoughts on Wikipedia
- 2.1 Meta Wikiphilosophy
- 2.2 Expertise

[edit] Edits

I have chosen not to list articles that I have created or contributed to. I am concerned that, for me, it would encourage feelings of ownership (although I did mention a few at my RfA). If you'd like, however, you can see my edit count, or my recent contributions.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

User:Jkelly

I award this Barnstar (the first I ever awarded) to Jkelly for his heroic work fighting trolls. ←Humus sapiens ←ну? 06:18, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

		The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
		"My hero, superhero won't you come and save my day..." Extraordinary Machine 22:32, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

		The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
		I award this barnstar to Jkelly for his conscientious approach to image copyright issues here on Wikipedia, and for taking on the very unpleasant and thankless job of trying to enforce our policy, but without resorting to bullying or to trampling on other editors. AnnH ♫ 19:58, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

		The Barnstar of Diligence
		for excellent work in research and provision of original sources in a significant number of articles. Excellent work! - Alison^✍ 17:25, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Trivia

One of my administrative actions received coverage in the New York Times.

[edit] Thoughts on Wikipedia

I suppose that I have a couple.

[edit] Meta Wikiphilosophy

I'd identify as an eventualist, with the caveat that I would prefer an aggresive merging of stubs with the understanding that articles will eventually spawn children when enough information on a tangent is accumulated, which I suppose is some kind of mergist "Darwikinism".

[edit] Expertise

Wikipedia is an unwelcoming place for the expert. There are a number of reasons for this:

As with the internet as a whole, there is no convincing way to exert expertise, other than by making sound arguments. As with the entire internet, sound arguments have less impact than persistence, belligerance and popularity.
Experts rely upon original research and sources that cannot always be verified by the public. Neither of these belong on Wikipedia.
Experts expect, quite reasonably, to be rewarded for the effort put into acquiring their expertise. There is no reward system in Wikipedia.

So Wikipedia is, and will remain, a great place for hobbyists. One might say that this has little impact on Wikipedia's quality as the treatment of subjects in thirty-two kilobytes rarely demands an understanding of any subject beyond the hobbyist level. There is a loss is in those places in which the popular view of a subject is misleading. Furthermore, an expert has immediate access to reliable sources which may take a hobbyist a great deal of time to find, or elude them completely. I don't see any way to reconcile Wikipedia's mission with supporting expert editors, however. Experts can, of course, contribute to articles on subjects on which they are themselves hobbyists. The side-effect is that hobby subjects get enthusiastic coverage, while drier topics languish, and will continue to do so until fashion touches upon them.

Taking a proactive approach, I hope to solve part of this by marketing a French novelist vs. German literary figures collectible card game.

Licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, and nothing else
I am content with licensing my contributions only under the GFDL. I have chosen to avoid further complicating the legal situation of Wikipedia by introducing other licenses, either more or less restrictive.