User:Darkest tree: Difference between revisions

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This is a Wikipedia user 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 Be aware that the page may be outdated and that the user whom this page is about may have no personal affiliation with any site other than Wikipedia.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:Darkest_tree.

I am Darkest Tree. I work on a variety of articles, mostly dealing with aviation, physical science, weather and climate, geography, California- Arizona- and Nevada-related topics, and occasionally some history and fiction. I tend to be more of a WikiGnome. I also don't believe the WikiMedia Foundation servers are going to run out of space any time soon, so while I don't consider myself an Inclusionist per se, I have a philosophical difference with Deletionism, and believe that in most cases deletion is not cleanup. Other than that, this isn't a Facebook page and I don't feel the need to tell the world my life story here.

Those who will defend authority against rebellion must not themselves rebel.
— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion

...And as men abound in copiousness of language; so they become more wise, or more mad, than ordinary. Nor is it possible without letters for any man to become either excellently wise, or...excellently foolish. For words are wise men's counters; they do but reckon by them: but they are the money of fools, that value them by the authority of an Aristotle, a Cicero, or a Thomas, or any other doctor whatsoever, if but a man.
— Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

Pet Peeve

I think most editors have one or more particular pet peeves. My current pet peeve is the word "paucity." It is the most pretentious, grandiloquent, vainglorious substitution for the simple English word lack. So whenever I come across it in an article, I will change it.

UPDATE: Apparently I should have looked in the dictionary: the definition of lack is not close enough to the definition of paucity to be a suitable substitute as I found out at this diff: [1]. Nevertheless, I will forge ahead in eliminating the usage of the word paucity from Wikipedia articles.

Pending Changes

Pending changes backlog
(review log)

Low backlog

[view • purge • update]

5 pages according to DatBot 10:15, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

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+I am Darkest Tree. I work on a variety of articles, mostly dealing with aviation, physical science, weather and climate, geography, California- Arizona- and Nevada-related topics, and occasionally some history and fiction. I tend to be more of a [[Wikipedia:WikiGnome|WikiGnome]]. I also don't believe the WikiMedia Foundation servers are going to run out of space any time soon, so while I don't consider myself an [[meta:Inclusionism|Inclusionist]] [[wikt:per se|per se]], I have a philosophical difference with [[meta:Deletionism|Deletionism]], and believe that in most cases [[Wikipedia:deletion is not cleanup|deletion is not cleanup]]. Other than that, this isn't a Facebook page and I don't feel the need to tell the world my life story here.
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+{{Quote frame|Those who will defend authority against rebellion must not themselves rebel.|[[J.R.R. Tolkien]]|[[The Silmarillion]]}}
-I am Darkest Tree. This is my user page. I try to work on California- and Arizona-related articles and any physical science and aviation articles I come across that I can help out with. My user page is still pretty messy, so don't think too much of my abilities.
+{{Quote frame|...And as men abound in copiousness of language; so they become more wise, or more mad, than ordinary. Nor is it possible without [[Literacy|letters]] for any man to become either excellently wise, or...excellently foolish. For words are wise men's counters; they do but reckon by them: but they are the money of fools, that value them by the authority of an Aristotle, a Cicero, or a Thomas, or any other [[Doctor of Philosophy|doctor]] whatsoever, if but a man. |[[Thomas Hobbes]]|[[Leviathan (Hobbes book)|Leviathan]]}}
+==Pet Peeve==
+I think most editors have one or more particular pet peeves. My current pet peeve is the word '''"paucity."''' It is the most ''pretentious, grandiloquent, vainglorious'' substitution for the simple English word '''lack.''' So whenever I come across it in an article, I will change it.
-{{Quotation|Those who will defend authority against rebellion must not themselves rebel.|[[J.R.R. Tolkien]]|[[The Silmarillion]]}}
+''UPDATE:'' Apparently I should have looked in the dictionary: the definition of ''lack'' is not close enough to the definition of ''paucity'' to be a suitable substitute as I found out at this [[wp:diff|diff]]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Snowball_Earth&oldid=prev&diff=877477242]. Nevertheless, I will forge ahead in eliminating the usage of the word ''paucity'' from Wikipedia articles.
-{{Quotation|It would have helped if the Culture had used some sort of emblem or logo; but, pointlessly unhelpful and unrealistic to the last, the Culture refused to place its trust in symbols. It maintained that it was what it was and had no need for such outward representation. The Culture was every single individual human and machine in it, not one thing. Just as it could not imprison itself with laws, impoverish itself with money or misguide itself with leaders, so it would not misrepresent itself with signs.|[[Iain Banks]]|[[Consider Phlebas]]}}
-==Articles==
+==Pending Changes==
+{{Pending Changes backlog-defcon}}
-*[[/sandbox|Sandbox]]
-'''Draft articles:'''
-*[[/Deserts of Arizona|Deserts of Arizona]]
-'''Articles I'm focusing on:'''
-*[[Kingman, Arizona]]
-*[[Hualapai Mountains]]
-*[[June Gloom]]
-*[[Santa Ana winds]]
-*[[Sonoran Desert]]
-*[[Mojave Desert]]
-*[[Deserts of California]]
-*[[Upper-atmospheric lightning]]
-==My Pet Peeve: The CDP==
-I think a lot of editors have one particular thing on Wikipedia that really drives them nuts, and they start trying to eradicate it. For me, it's the use of the term "Census-Designated Place." I am a geographer by education (not that it counts for anything on Wikipedia), and feel informed enough on the subject to say that there's something wrong here. I see this term popping up everywhere in articles on places: small [[unincorporated area|unincorporated]] towns, villages, communities, and settlements getting referred to solely as "census-designated places."
-Now, like it says at the top of the [[census-designated place]] article, a census-designated place is  "a concentration of population identified by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes." For statistical purposes...'''''and nothing more!''''' Somehow, lots of people have gotten the idea that the CDP is a suitable placetype name. '''It is not!''' No one would ever say "I'm from the census-designated place of [[Mendocino, California]], or "Back in the ol' census-designated place where I grew up..."
-So while it's the Census Bureau's job to set a threshold for what Wikipedia would call ''notability'' of settlements in order to take the census, the Census Bureau has no actual authority in the United States over settlements, their naming, or designation of type or category of small towns and villages. It drives me nuts to come across a Wikipedia article that starts off "Place X is a census-designated place in Y County in the US state of Z." Really? Just call it a town, village, settlement, or unincorporated community, preferably per the local convention.
-The real, actual important distinction to make is whether a place is [[municipal corporation|incorporated]] or [[unincorporated]]. Then you're talking about a city with its own government versus a place that's governed by its parent county. To use the term "census-designated place" in this context is ridiculous—it should only come into play when discussing census data. So whenever I come across it, I change it.