Archive for August, 2006
Administrators’ reading list
For the past few days I’ve been quietly consuming the administrators’ reading list, some required reading for being an administrator on the English Wikipedia, something which I am currently nominated for. Some of the policies are rather dull to read straight through when I’m not actually doing anything with them, but this is necessary and I can see when they could be used and don’t dispute that. Take a look yourself, see how much you can eat in one sitting without your head exploding.
My RfA is otherwise going reasonably well and I’m pleased with the amount of support and very positive criticism: I currently have fourty supports, five opposes and one neutral. As with most aspects of Wikipedia, we are building consensus and as such it is definately not just a straight ‘first past the post’ system at all with a 75% support level required for consideration. So far, I don’t think it’s overly optamistic to say that it’ll succeed with closure occuring on the second of September. I’m pleased with what people have said on both sides, as I say – there will be things from me to learn from, which is always a good thing. My nominator has been very helpful and I thank him for what he has done.
An interesting incident occured with Annie vandalising my page in some peculiar ways. A large ‘dONT VOTE FOR COLIN’ was added, obviously with caps lock, but it was done under my Grandfather’s account as she is currently staying there, which caused a lot of problems. I got her to hit logout and give up her IP address so that I could get her safely blocked, and I made a note stating the mistake underneath a warning someone had posted on my Grandfather’s talkpage. It was a shame that she had to cause all that trouble. Anyway, I’ll keep this blog posted with my progress, and my work experience diary *is coming soon*.
Back from holiday, adminship request up
We had an enjoyable time in France and arrived back on Tuesday but I’ve been reasonable busy (*cough*SpellForce) and so have had little time to write this blog. I will be writing up my work experience entries soon, I have the diary on this desk waiting! While we were there we saw Gran & Grandad (obviously, since we were staying with them) and Aunty Barbara was working across the road on a holiday home she part owns. She claims that to plumb all one needs to know is how to weld a pipe and thus all plumbers are ripping the world off; I’m doubtful myself. The weather was no where near as good as it usually is but it wasn’t unpleasant for most of the time and so we played lots of croquet on the lawn. Since the grass had recently been dug up for some repairs to the septic tank stones were found all over the place as we played and complaints became vicious as the game went on. As usual I teamed up with Gran (although at the end of one game I switched to Grandad as Gran had something to do). Annie worked with either Grandad or Father and it was highly competitive. There is some dispute over the final result but I’m sure that Gran and I won by winning one more game than Annie and her team. Because of the weather the village lake never really had time to warm up and so we couldn’t swim in it properly although we did make several valiant attempts on various days. This lowered our chips and ice cream consumption considerably as in previous years we went almost every afternoon of the trip. We also went to ‘Arbre d’arbre’ and traversed the trees using ropes and aerial runways, but I only did two out of the five levels, unsurprisingly. Unfortunately, I was unable to return Kvetch’s postcard but since he did the same to me the previous year I’m not too concerned. I was surprised to find SilentFlame still alive when I got back but found an e-mail (amoungst a measely forty-one) saying that it was being migrated to a new box a few days before I got back and so it will have had a chance for a reboot then; I can’t therefore tell what happened. The SilentFlame IRC channel totally emptyed after my shell went a few days in, even of ChanServ!
My request for adminship is finally up and accepting !votes, and so far it’s doing okay – I’ll keep you posted.
Goings on & nice new game
After spending time at my Grandparents’ (something which was partially described in my last entry), I went over to Liam’s house for one night and then we returned to mine for a few nights. It was really fun. However, Father and Sister wanted to go to Scotland, which I desperately wanted to avoid. Then they decided they didn’t, and decided to go camping instead. My problem with this was that it is so dreadfully boring: you can walk, eat and sleep and aside from talking that’s about it. So, we planned me escaping back to Liam’s again (which would have been good for him because he had lots of little toddlers he doesn’t like that much to stay), but then the camping moved forward a few days. Then, I was going to go for one night and then return to my Mother’s after a doctor’s appointment while Father and Sister stayed on for another night. The trip then got demoted further – we went for a walk.
Liam introduced me to a game that he’d bought a few days before and I got totally into it, ordering it on the Monday to receive on the Wednesday. Now I’m at my father’s and since I only had a few hours to play on it, I’m really looking forward to getting back to it on Monday when we spend a day with Mother before we leave for France for a week with our other Grandparents the next day. The game is called SpellForce, and it’s pretty impressive. I don’t know the story/science fully because I skipped the (apparently overly long) tutorial with Liam teaching me instead, but the gameplay is a great mix between strategy and roleplaying. You start controlling your army and building a base, then you zoom in on your avatar and take control in first person view – absolutely brilliant when you can name him Xyrael and give him a sword and staff and then summon further heroes and troops… it’s quality.
Pathetic purchasing & careers
I’m currently at my grandparents’ house for a few days and we went to the bookshop this afternoon in an attempt to spend my book tokens from work experience. Unfortunately, I failed miserably. After about one and a half hours spread between Waterstones and Ottakars, I managed to pick up The Light Fantastic from the Discworld series for £7, and got a penny plus a load of extra book tokens as change. So, I have ~£43 left – what shall I spend it on? I don’t generally like buying books because I am much happier borrowing them from the library as I know that I’m not a person to reread books, so it is a bit of a waste. We then went to have a go on the driving range and I have almost got back to the level (albeit a low one) that I was last year, in preperation for our game tomorrow near Lake Windemere. *LINKY*
We went to the University library again this morning and I arranged to meet with cds, a Wikipedian who recently left after being attacked by another user who I won’t name here. She deliberately got herself blocked in order to stop herself from continuing to edit, and from our conversation it seems like she was in a pretty bad situation, and had good reason for leaving us. It’s sad because she was a worthwhile contributor. It was interesting to meet someone from the Internet for the first time though.
I’ve been discussing my future career choices with my grandfather again and have basically gone for the Bar at this present time. This is because pure programming probably won’t exist in a few years (at least, not in this part of the world) and this is all I would want to do. The whole area is business-orientated and dominated by making as much money as possible and I feel that with law I could do something to help people more readily as I’m not sure I want to work for other people’s personal profit.