User:John

Wednesday 8 January 13:57 UTC Welcome to John's user page on Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit This page is best viewed in Mozilla Firefox. Don't forget to maximize!

Talla Railway map. Wise words We need admins that can make snap judgements, and then go back and gracefully change what they did if it turns out wrong (that is very important, this is a wiki and we are making it all up as we go along), and at the same time admins who can think long and hard about complicated things and make the right decision on the first try, and admins who can tell which approach is needed in which case.User:Lar, here Quote of the week All editors should always endeavor to treat each other with kindness, or else find another hobby. User:Jimbo Wales, here. Apologia I had been using Wikipedia and following the news stories about it for quite a while when I got into an argument with someone on a newsgroup about Wikipedia's reliability as a source. As I defended the Wiki principle of "anyone can edit", I realised that I could be editing instead of talking about it. That was in late 2005. I wouldn't spend as much time as I do on it if I didn't still think Wikipedia was a great project. It attracts predominantly the right sort of people, who want to write an on-line encyclopedia of human knowledge. How cool is that? I respect the goals of the project, and so I support Wikipedia philosophies and policies, particularly WP:AGF, WP:CIVIL, WP:3RR, WP:NPOV and WP:VAND, to the hilt. For my favourite policy, see WP:BEANS. This is amazing! It sums up how we can use conflicts to build our community instead of letting them tear us apart. I recommend that everyone read it. Main activities and areas of interest Copyediting Disambiguating links Uploading and editing images using the various copyright tags Fixing spelling erors using AWB. Great fun! I now do this under the account User:Spellmaster. I strive very hard for total accuracy, but if I make a mistake, please revert (if you wish), and drop me a message in my talk page so I know you consider it a mistake and can improve my edits. Weapons and war Aviation Southern Africa Scottish football Scottish literature and poetry Punk music Science, especially chemistry Copy editing Illustration Photography 'The itis': I have made 39,527 edits as of 31 October 2007. My stylistic hates (aka "Wikipedia shoot-on-sight") 'Botswanan': in two years living there, I never heard this variant. The preferred adjective is 'Botswana'. See this discussion. Chemical elements wrongly capitalised; it's "iron", "oxygen" and "boron", not "Iron", "Oxygen" and "Boron". Simple. Also Over-Capitalisation Of Section And Article Titles. "It should be noted that" and even the word "notable". If it isn't notable, it doesn't belong here. 'Ironically'; who found it ironic? 'Actually'; 'in fact'; these are the equivalent of saying 'honestly' and may make a statement less believable, not more. 'Used' is usually better than 'utilised' or 'utilized'. 'Would' wrongly used instead of the past tense, as in "1995 would be a difficult year for Yeltsin". 'Was' is fine. 'However' and other linking words deployed without thought as to their meaning. Overlinking in general. Incomplete dates wrongly linked (there's hardly ever any point in linking years, months or days of the week). Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) has changed to allow some ambiguity here, but I still generally go with Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context. See also the date linking debate. 'Easter-egg' links like [[1996 in stamp-collecting|1996]]. Disambig pages with extra and/or piped links. The proliferation of flag icons on pages where they add nothing, like biographies or band articles; see this essay for an interesting take on why we should resist this dumbing-down of our encyclopedia. Humourous. Honourary. Hypercorrection at its most extreme. See here for details. Seminal. Legendary. Iconic. Epochal. Unless it's sourced, no. See weasel words. Links RfA . Favourite quotations, etc . Favourite contributions . Awards . Highlights . Gallery . Gallery, part 2 . Tools . Accountability

About Me enThis user is a native speaker of the English language. fr-2Cet utilisateur peut contribuer avec un niveau intermédiaire en français. de-2Dieser Benutzer hat fortgeschrittene Deutschkenntnisse. This user is an administrator on the English Wikipedia. (verify) This user scored 3808 on the Wikipediholic test (revision 134544612). This user is a member of WikiProject Africa. This user participates in WikiProject Scotland. This user participates in WikiProject Novels. This user is a proud member of WikiProject Zimbabwe. tyop typo This user is a member of the Wikipedia Typo Team.