Userboxes This user account is secured with a unique committed identity. This user is male. This user loves to write. This user is an Anglophile. This user is a Pirate. Arrr! This user is a Songwriter This user is a participant in WikiProject Florida. This user is a participant in WikiProject American football. MIA This user is a Miami Hurricanes fan This user is a member of the Guild of Copy Editors. ΔΤΧ This user is a member of Delta Tau Chi Fraternity. This user appreciates progressive rock. This user is a classical liberal. , This user fixes comma-splices; they are annoying. AIM-Able This user understands AIM talk perfectly well, but does not seriously use it. Ever. … This user is addicted to ellipses and has been known to use them indiscriminately... ’s Thi's user know's that not every word that end's with s need's an apostrophe and will remove misused apostrophe's from Wikipedia with extreme prejudice. This user likes to spin pens. This user believes in God. This user really enjoys dark and stormy nights. Cass This user knows that you gotta make your own kind of music. This user believes that a tomato is biologically a fruit, but socially a vegetable. This user bows down before the awesome might of Vodka. This user clicks on Random article way too often.

about me[edit]

I am fairly new to wikipedia... sort of:

• Dated a girl about 5 years ago who was an administrator, so I know a little about wikiculture.
• Briefly had an account when I dated her, probably 100 or so edits. I don't even remember my old username.
• Have sporadically edited from IP's for the past few years- perhaps 100 or so edits.
• Have had a little bit of "downtime" IRL so decided to register and contribute a little more.

my wiki-activity[edit]

Right now, my focus is on articles related to Polk County, Florida and the Florida Heartland. I am a member of Wikipedia:WikiProject Florida and have noticed there are lots of people working on articles relating to the big cities (Miami, Tampa, Orlando, etc.) but not very many who focus on some of the less populous interior counties. So my plan is to work on Polk County/Florida Heartland topics and see how far I can go. Here are my immediate goals:

• Create a Polk County Florida Portal
• Try to interest some folks in helping me to create Wikipedia:WikiProject Polk County/Florida Heartland.
• Work on a few city articles and bring them up to GA status and ultimately to featured status. Bartow and Lakeland would be the most obvious choices as they are already B articles.
• Work on bringing Polk County, Florida to GA and ultimately to featured status.
• Bring the Florida Heartland article up to GA.
• Merge the messy list of people from (Polk County) list into one tight list for the entire county.

Other areas I'll work on when I need a break from the above:

• (American) football articles- many of the crucial articles need major work.
• When the mood strikes me, I go on copy-edit binges. In one night, I accumulated 100+ edits fixing playoff births, its/it's, pasttime, their/they're/there, and (surprisingly) mispell.
• The random article button is a fun way to browse wikipedia. By reading random articles you can: (1) Learn about something or someplace you never even knew existed. (2) Copyedit pages which needed serious attention- I find when I do "random duty", I make an edit to at least half the articles. (3) Occasionally find some great ideas on how to approach an article you are working on. (4) Fix vandalism which somehow fell through the cracks. The "Johnny is stupid" type of vandalism n almost always gets fixed right away. Some vandals are far slicker than that. I've fixed vandalism/deliberate untruths which were two years old while on random duty. That's the stuff which really damages wikipedia. So go for it...
• Occasionally, I go on recent change patrol, but if I see that I am consistently being "beat" in reverting vandals, I work on something else. No need to patrol at times when so many others are already on patrol. If I see vandalism is high and there aren't many fighting though, then I stay on patrol, though.
• I create wiki-books 'cause it's fun.

my wiki-goals:[edit]

• Bring Bartow, Florida up to FA status.
• Get a county article up to FA status. I've heard so many people say there aren't any really good county articles. Well, someone just needs to write one really, really good one and then there will be a model for other county article editors to follow...
• Get every Polk County, Florida city article up to B status.
• Try to resurrect the moribund WikiProject American football.
• Do 200 Editor Reviews. Because it's important to let editors who ask for feedback know how they are doing. There should be no backlog...

my wiki-philosophy:[edit]

• Stay away from wikidrama Yes, it's out there. No, I don't want any part of it...
• No Edit Wars: I haven't really been involved in any disputes (yet), but have already decided that if there is a content dispute where someone reverts my edit and I disagree strongly, I won't revert back... I'll try to discuss and reach a compromise with the user, or failing that try to reach consensus among others in the community. If things don't go my way, then so be it... Of course my personal no revert rule has exceptions: (1) I have no problem reverting obvious vandalism multiple times whether or not I am involved with the article. (2) A BLP issue - because it is that important. (3) If I find a source which clearly shows their edit was wrong (but really, I should have included the "cite" the first time I edited). Even so, I probably would discuss first to avoid being provocative.
• Encyclopedia building is job #1: Using as an example my ex-girlfriend (who was a sysop- who I would never "out", especially since she seems to have exercised her right to disappear) at first, she was a great editor which is why she became an admin with little opposition. Then she started getting away from article space and spent all her time on user talk pages and wikipedia name space. One day she showed me her edit count using some tool (this was before the neat little pie graph page on the toolserver was around). She was proud of her "stats", but all I could see was someone whose contributions to actual wikipedia articles was less than 10% of all edits. Wikipedia had become her myspace... so I've decided to make my main activity article building- which doesn't mean I won't make edits to other namespaces or vote in Afd or whatever, but I have made a decision to make at least 60% of my edits (ideally 70%+) be edits to articles. I'd like to challenge everyone to try and keep that percentage as high as you can. Go to the Things to do or Open tasks sections of the community Portal and help with some of the backlogs. Or just hit the Random page button... you'd be surprised how much you can help.
• No personal attacks: Ever.

my wiki-essays and other wiki-stuff[edit]

• Editor reviews are a good way to help encourage editors who may be feeling unappreciated or give guidance to those who seem lost...
• My thoughts on the mop...
• My collection of Wikipedia books
• My monthly suggestions from SuggestBot.

And I guess that's all... for now.

Be bold + Ignore all rules ≠ Be reckless + Acting unilaterally without regard for community consensus