User:Rschmertz

About this luser

This user enjoys classical music.

/.

This user has a Slashdot account.

This user contributes using Firefox.

c++-3

This user is an advanced C++ programmer.

C-4

This user is an expert C programmer.

This user plays ultimate.

This user plays the trombone.

gk

This user is a geek.

This user has a fever. And the only prescription is more cowbell!

to¦go

This user chooses to sometimes use split infinitives.

…in.

Ending a sentence with a preposition is something that this user is okay with.

You and Me

This user thinks that if you believe it is incorrect to use "you and me" as the object of a sentence, a little talk needs to be had by you and me...

,

This user has no opinion about the serial comma.

its

This user understands the difference between its (of it) and it's (it is or it has).

US

This user uses American English.

ipa-2
ə

This user has an intermediate understanding of the International Phonetic Alphabet.

ko-
han-1

이 使用者는 簡單한 漢字의 理解가 可能합니다.

Hang-3
가

This user has an advanced understanding of the Hangul.

Grek-1
Ω

This user has a basic understanding of the Greek alphabet.

Cyrl-1
Д

This user has a basic understanding of the Cyrillic script.

Hrkt-2
あ

This user has an intermediate understanding of the Katakana or Hiragana.

Wikipedia:Babel

en

This user is a native speaker of the English language.

ko-2

이 사용자는 한국어를 어느 정도 말할 수 있습니다.

fr-3

Cet utilisateur peut contribuer avec un niveau avancé de français.

vi-0

Người này không hiểu tiếng Việt (hay trình độ rất thấp).

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Overview

First it started off small. The occasional tweak to the Hangul page. Then I started to edit related pages, like Korean language and Hanja. I mean, who would notice it? I was only doing it on weekends. And those occasional spelling/grammar fixes? No big deal, right? Fixing someone's grammar doesn't mean you have a problem, right? I mean, someone needs to do that!

But somewhere along the way, it started to consume me. I started to read policy pages, like WP:NPOV. I started talking to the people in the screen who called themselves "editors". And they talked back. They told me what a wonderful thing Wikipedia was, how it had changed their lives, how it was going to be -- already was -- a great tool that anybody could use. They invited me to become one of them. They told me that with great power came great responsibility. Soon I could no longer view Wikipedia the same way. Every article was flawed. Every article needed to be fixed. POV needed to be stripped. Extraneous info needed to be removed. Recategorized. The world needed to know about Assassin spiders, Gene C. McKinney, Heinrich Stölzel, and Chuck Daellenbach, and Wikipedia would be the medium through which they would learn. Before I knew what had hit me, I had September 11, 2001 attacks, Albania, Tuba, Tutsi, Opiliones, Homosexuality and Western Union on my watchlist alongside the original Korean-related articles, and a host of other equally random things.

Legend has it that once I finally get my user script page to a state where I can really do useful stuff with it, I will achieve Enlightenment and realize that editing Wikipedia is a complete waste of time. Until then, I'm having a lot of fun.

Tables

I had a hell of a time trying to create tables yesterday. I think this is because there are two possible ways to separate table cells: newline-plus-pipe and double-pipe. This isn't documented anywhere, however -- at least nowhere that I could find. And I failed to understand the distinction, so I was writing lines looking like:

|item1|item2|item3

and couldn't for the life of me figure out why they displayed exactly as I had typed them.

So, for my future reference, here's an example of a table:

Year	AGE	Team	LG	GP
1987	22	DET	NFL	9
1988	23	DET	NFL	16
1998	33	SEA	NFL	11
12	NFL	Season	Totals	177

And of course, after all my hard work, I finally figure out where to find the Table Help

Mentoring?

Chalk one up for engagement (as opposed to confrontation/edit wars)! Discerning a potentially valid contributor who's done something way below par, and pointing out how he could do it better can lead to good results.

Prehistoric Albania stuff

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Albania&diff=77280701&oldid=77276422 shows when all the stuff about prehistoric Albania got inserted into the Albania article. Appears to be ripped right from unitedalbania.com.