Most of my contributions occur at the Vietnamese Wikipedia and Wiktionary, where I serve as a bureaucrat, kind of like a forum’s “super-administrator”, but less dictatorial. I made many of the first contributions to the Vietnamese Wikipedia in late 2003 and started the Vietnamese Wiktionary not long after. In high school, my marathon editing sessions would offer an effective form of procrastination, as well as an outlet to learn Vietnamese. These days, I’m no longer quite as active on these wikis but continue to play a supporting role.
Being an administrator at a Wikimedia wiki is tons of work, but it allows you to actively collaborate with countless people and visibly shape an important project. Participating in smaller projects, like the Vietnamese-language wikis, is like working for a startup: you work day and night, handling numerous poorly-defined roles, and recognize just about everyone you encounter. You make real, lasting decisions that aren’t so much influenced by written policies or guidelines as by common sense and intuition. On the other hand, if you tell your
meatspace friends you’re working on the Vietnamese Wiktionary, you get a blank stare.
So working for the English Wikipedia is like working for a huge conglomerate whose logos appear on the sides of buses: even if you get a lot done, your contributions aren’t going to stand out too much. Nevertheless, you’re part of something big. I turned down an
offer to run for administrator here in 2007. Most of my contributions here come in the form of typo corrections and
interwiki links (see
Wikipedia:WikiGnome). But I’ve also contributed some original content here, too. My first
Good Article was "
Flag of Ohio".
The accented lowercase I traditionally retains its
tittle in Vietnamese, but poor
computer support for Vietnamese has virtually eliminated this detail.
Whereas
barn advertisements were once banned as eyesores, folks really didn't know what to think of Open End.
After Cincinnati rid itself of Open End, it welcomed in hundreds of fiberglass pigs for the
Big Pig Gig. (As public art goes, it was a bit more successful – and safe.)
After much thought and consideration on the topic – about three seconds’ worth – I’ve decided to be generous with my pittance of contributions here, especially to
free the Rambot articles:
Licensing
Minor edits multi-licensed into the public domain
I agree to multi-license my eligible text contributions marked as minor edits, unless otherwise stated, under
Wikipedia's copyright terms and into the public domain. Please be aware that other contributors might not do the same, so if you want to use my minor edit contributions in the public domain, please check the
multi-licensing guide.
Multi-licensed with any Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License
I agree to multi-license my text contributions, unless otherwise stated, under
Wikipedia's copyright terms and the
Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike
license version
1.0 and
2.0, and the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike license version
2.0. Please be aware that other contributors might not do the same, so if you want to use my contributions under the Creative Commons terms, please check the
CC dual-license and
Multi-licensing guides.
With respect to the permission granted below, I specifically add
Anthony DiPierro in addition to the Wikimedia Foundation for any contributions automatically generated and added by the rambot from the public domain census bureau statistics. The above exclusions still apply.
Licensing rights granted to Wikimedia Foundation
I grant non-exclusive permission for the
Wikimedia Foundation Inc. to relicense my text contributions under any
copyleft license that it chooses, provided it maintains the free and open spirit of the
GFDL. This permission acknowledges that future licensing needs of the Wikimedia projects may need adapting in unforeseen fashions to facilitate other uses, formats, and locations. It is given for as long as this banner remains.
(I typically license my original work under the
Attribution license anyhow.)
This is a Wikipediauser page. This is not an encyclopedia article or the talk page for an encyclopedia article. If you find this page on any site other than Wikipedia, you are viewing a
mirror site. Be aware that the page may be outdated and that the user whom this page is about may have no personal affiliation with any site other than Wikipedia. The original page is located at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mxn.