[WikiEN-l] Hi there, everybody!

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

Fred Bauder wrote:
>> Hey! I'm new here! Just joined today!
>>
>> I'm known as "I dream of horses" on Wikipedia. My real name is Emily,
>> but a lot of people call me Em for short. I am 19 years old. I like
>> music, particularly rock, and instrumental music. I also like to
>> exercise, and to fidget. I am a lacto-ovo vegetarian.
>>
>> I am in the uncategorized and stub sorting wikiproject. i have also
>> recent changes and new pages patrolled. However, I am becoming more
>> interested in the "social" aspect of wikipedia, which is why I joined
>> the list!
>>
>> Would anyone like to introduce themselves? Is there any kind of
>> "mailing list etiquette" I should be aware of?
>>
>> Emily
>>
>>     
>
> Emily,
>
> You sound like a wonderful addition to our community. One of the problems
> we might have (others may disagree) is that the social side of Wikipedia
> is somewhat underdeveloped. That is certainly a legitimate topic of
> discussion on this list: how we might make Wikipedia a friendlier, more
> welcoming place.
>
> I first found Wikipedia in 2002, back in the days when articles like
> "Colorado" had not even been started. There was this guy, Larry Sanger,
> who while not in charge, had a lot of clout. And Jimmy Wales, was very
> hands on, following developments closely.
>
> I've posted on the mailing lists quite a lot, nasty habit, takes up way
> too much time. I still edit a little bit, although most of my Wikipedia
> work these days is on a list unblock-en-l which tries to handle requests
> to bypass blocks.
>
> It sounds like you are off to a good start.
>
> Fred
>
>
>   

I agree.

Emily,

I first found wikipedia in April of 2003, at a point when a cadre
of old hands had already developed, and for a very long time kept
being very deferential and apologetic and even when I thought
somebody was being very rude, usually went to other people to
ask if it was okay for them to be that way.

The first time I really got more seriously involved with wikipedia
was when Tim Starling did an analysis of peoples editing patterns
and found that I and 19 other people on the wiki had edits pretty
much around the clock, in each hour of the day. (For me the reason
was that I had just been layed off, and my previous job was one that
kept me at odd hours, so I had developed a completely mixed up
daily routine of sleep cycles), so Tim asked if we 20 could be sort
of paladins of making sure the Single Server (yes there was a time
when wikipedia ran on a single computer , Virginia - even a time it
didn't even have a computer of its own), was always up and running.

It was my exciting task to in fact be the first person of us to make
the alert that it had fallen - and later an embarrassing task to
infact make a transcontinental phone call to inform the same to
Jimbo himself, only to realize later that I had woken him up in bed
6 AM in the morning (timezones, ouch).

Since then, I have tried to be a lubricant where I can, and grit where
that is needed. Currently I have been most active in doing translations
and localisation work for the finnish language MediaWiki messages.


Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen