User:Stilltim

Wikipedia:Babel

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My name is Tim Westbrook and I am IT manager for New Castle County Government in Delaware. In spite of that I am an amateur historian, arm chair traveler, and observer of the political scene. I also have a religious interest, particularly of the Anglican/Episcopal church community. Wikipedia has given me the opportunity to combine these interests with a long felt desire to write about them- for which I am grateful.

Laid out below are the components and the approach I am using as a standard in putting some articles together. There is nothing sacred about most of them and I am very interested in feedback from others so that I might improve their quality. My point in detailing all this is to provide a place for potential editors to at least try and understand my purpose.

Userboxes

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This user lives in Delaware.

Episcopal Church

Episcopal Church

Articles

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this is nice

I imagine getting at least a template or starter article written for every notable Delaware political figure. That list would certainly include all the Governors, U.S. Senators, and U.S. Representatives, and they are my priority. In the future it might also include certain members of the Delaware General Assembly, some Mayors of Wilmington, some members of certain politically active families, and some defeated major party candidates. This is clearly a project that will take me unassisted at least a couple of years. Anyone want to join in?

Standard layout

It is my intent to follow the biographical guidelines as I read and understand them. Hence a name, summary lead paragraph, paragraph(s) about family and early career, paragraph(s) about major point(s) of interest, and concluding paragraph on death and legacy. I like the way this organizes the article, both the visuals and content.

Included

• Infobox: I now use the greatly improved and very flexible Politician infobox. It a generic politician box and works better in general than boxes for a particular kind of politician. Many of these folks have held more than one office, so Governor or Senator specialized boxes often don't work. Even though the information in the boxes is completely redundant, they provide a nice quick view. Thanks to User:Netoholic who made this box as close to perfect as I can imagine, even though it cost me a weekend to move all the data into the new format.

• Succession Box: I would like to put full dates, but am showing years only, because I can't figure out how to stop unattractive and illogical wrapping when the date is longer than the title. Knowing where to draw the line on when to use a succesion box is an unresolved problem for me as well. In some cases they are obviously overused. Use for a "succession" of candidacies doesn't seem to make much sense, nor does the practice of including non-succession information, like who they served with. So, I've limited their use to positions or offices when there is continuous occupation and a clear and specific predecessor/successor. Oddly, the placement of this box has become a major issue for some editors.

• Public offices and election results: I've added two boxes to all elected officials detailing their offices held and the record of their elections. I'm also beginning to add boxes showing who they served with in Congress and in state government. That's challenging and a work in progress.

• References and external links: I add as many of these as I can come up with. At the very least we can provide a good bibilography. I am also trying to list places where people can find more information on the topic. These museums, libraries and whatever need all the help they can get to survive- and none of this information would be available if they didn't.

Problems

• Creativity: Being bold, even within the written Wikipedia policies is difficult in this environment of some over zealous editors. Experimenting with tame and harmless new ways of presenting information is almost impossible because of a very few editors who would seem to refuse to give the creative any room to create. If they don't undo the ideas, they subject them to endless mind numbing debate, among people who struggle to even understand the issue.

• Templates: These have become a major problem because of the arbitrary actions of a couple of editors seeking absolute uniformity without understanding all the issues involved. Regrettably, as these editors irresponsibly change these templates I am forced to stop using them, at a great cost in my productivity.

• Naming: The standard calls for the name to be the most commonly used name. I don't think this standard was ever intended to replace the most commonly used real names with "nicknames," although that has become the accepted practice among many writers. Indexes/redirects should, of course, accomodate all likely variants of the name, including nicknames. For instance, I think "Joe Biden" should be "Joseph R. Biden, Jr."

• Introductory paragraph dates: I think the only dates needed in the introduction are the birth date and year. Birth/death month and day seems unnecessary as do other dates. Presumably they are all in the body of the article, and an introduction is intended to be only a quick summary. However, to avoid endless editing I am entering the information redundantly as is the common practice.

• Disambiguation: In fact, the only thing that is essential for the name is that it is unique. Therefore, it would seem that when there is more than one instance of the same name, the best information to add to the name would be the birth and death year, since it could be done for everyone. Right now there is a preference for occupational qualifiers, but that won't work very long because as the number of articles grows there will be too many duplicate locations and careers. Perhaps I'm oversimplifying things, but there are only two ways to get to a bio, by a link or trying a direct hit. Links will never be a problem if the writer of the originating article links to it correctly. If he/she doesn't or if the direct hit approach is used it will almost always take you to the disamb page where the reader will hopefully find a useful enough summary to make a choice. Certainly that summary will include dates and what a person is best known for. Its only the order of the info that changes. One more click and they're there. I think the goal of creating a name with multiple intuitive qualifiers will be very hard/impossible to reach- there are always too many possibilites. And if the reader guesses wrong they miss the disambig page altogether and end up being asked to write a new article, the worst possible alternative. The published encyclopedias have all figured this out.

• Categories: This whole concept seems fundamentally flawed as the information really needs to go into a database that can be queried. In the meantime I'm just trying to follow established norms and stay out of Wikiwars on an issue where there can be no right answer. I would like to categorize people 3 ways, 1) by location, 2) by time lived, and 3) by activity. For Americans, location seems to work best by state, but a local category may be needed in addition, not instead of. Birth and death dates are adequate for time, but I'm feeling the need to group people of a certain age together, but don't just yet know how. Activities could be, and are, endless and inevitably get mixed up with location and time as qualifiers. Then the whole thing becomes circular. Until this information gets put in a database that can be queried, it seems like two or three categories each for location, time and activity is appropriate, plus any major personal accomplishments.

• Footnotes and/or References: Since "no original work" is permitted, and since I have no particular qualification to write original work, it is critical that the source of all this information be pretty obvious. Listing them all as references is a good start, but I'm still not clear on how often to place footnotes. Perhaps this is freshman Composition 101 that I have forgotten and need to relearn. Right now I am meaning to reference every work, published or web-based, that contributes to the articles, footnoting direct quotes, and showing bibliographical web information as external links.

• Icons: I would like to dress up the article with symbols representing some of the core points in the paragraph, but have given up using them. Because this is not common practice some zealous editors have found them "distracting." Regretably, I have found the whole discussion exhausting and a major distraction myself from the main undertaking of writing.

• Images: Understanding the legal copyright status of images is the single most difficult problem I have encountered. The next most difficult is dealing with the "editors" who may know even less than I do. The rules are exactly right, I think, but constructive help in applying them would be useful. I still can't imagine what form that would take in this environment.

• Spelling: I've become lazy in my old age and an easy to use spell checker would sure be nice.

Wikipedia contribution tree. [1]
Wikipedia user edit counter. [2]

I enjoy continuing to "noodle" with most of these articles, adding to them as I pick up new information or understanding. I will "watch" and edit the changes made to them, though, to try and keep them consistent with the standard. Many changes have been helpful, although an increasing number are disruptive. The good ones correct my poor grammar, spelling and other stupid mistakes. Thank-you. Oddly, the addition of meaningful content to any of these articles has been very unusual.

Quick links

• Template talk:Cite book
• Template talk:Cite journal
• Template:Cite web
• Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)
• Wikipedia:Image copyright tags
• Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography
• Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. counties
• Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. states
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Politics
• Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Congress

Some fun

States and Provinces visited
New York	New Jersey	Pennsylvania	Delaware	Maryland	DC	Virginia
2009	2009	2009	2008	2008	2008	2008
2008	2008	2008	2007	2007	2006	2006
2005	2005	2005	2005	2004	2002	2000
1994	1993	1992	1991	1990	1989	1988
1986	1984	1983	1983	1982	1982	1977
1977	1977	1977	1977	1977	1977	1974
1974	1974	1974	1974	1970	1969

Countries visited
2007	2005	2003	2000	1990	1977

DELAWARE

US SENATORS

US REPRESENTATIVES

GOVERNORS

LIEUTENANT GOVERNORS

CONTINENTAL CONGRESSMAN

Delaware state officials: 2001-2009
	Governor: Ruth Ann Minner (2001- ) Attorney General: M. Jane Brady (1994-05), Carl C. Danberg (2005- ) Auditor: R. Thomas Wagner Jr. (1989- ) Agriculture: Michael T. Scuse (2001- ) Budget: Peter M. Ross (2001-02), Jennifer Wagner Davis (2002- ) Children, Youth & Families: Cari DeSantis (2001- ) Corrections: Stanley W. Taylor, Jr. (1996- ) Economic Development: John D. Wik (2001-02), Judy McKinney-Cherry (2002- ) Education: Valerie A. Woodruff (1999- ) Elections: Frank Calio (2002- ) Finance: David W. Singleton (2001-05), Richard S. Cordrey (2005- )		Lieutenant Governor: John C. Carney, Jr. (2001- ) Insurance: Donna Lee Williams (1992-05), Matthew P. Denn (2005- ) Treasurer: Jack A. Markell (1999- ) Health & Human Services: Vincent P. Meconi (2001- ) Labor: Harold E. Stafford (2001-05), Thomas B. Sharp (2005- ) Natural Resources: Nicholas A. DiPasquale (2001-02), John A. Hughes (2002- ) Safety: James L. Ford, Jr. (2001-04), David B. Mitchell (2004- ) State: Harriet Smith Windsor (2001- ) Technology & Information: Thomas M. Jarrett (2001- ) Transportation: Nathan Hayward, III (2001-06), Carolann D. Wicks (2006- )

Cities and Towns in Delaware

Unincorporated communities in Delaware

Hundreds in Delaware

New Castle County

Kent County