User:AlMac

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Welcome to Wikipedia
the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit

Today is

Thursday

December 2006

[edit] Introduction

I"m Al Macintyre, currently residing and working in Evansville, SW corner of Indiana, USA. Traditionally, irrespective of individual communities, my interests include: Science Fiction; Simulation games; and topics from my profession, as a midrange systems computer programmer. I am also a news-junkie and book-a-holic.

:Disclaimer: any and all opinions expressed here are the opinions of AlMac (and any vandalism miscreants whose damage has not yet been repaired) and are not neccessarily endorsed nor held by the Wikipedia encyclopedia itself.

Plagarism warning: If I see an image I like anywhere on Wikipedia, and can figure out how to incorporate it on my user page, I will do so. But now I am holding off on this until the WP:AUM crisis is resolved sufficiently so that Image newbies like me have how-to instructions to fix what we've done with minimum of hassle.

I extend my sympathies to the people of the region of the latest terrorist attacks,

Miscellaneous

This user's future is so bright they have got to wear shades.

âˆš

This user enjoys Wikipedia.

In the News

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (pictured) opens a conference aiming to "review the Holocaust".
In his final speech in office, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan encourages the United States to provide global leadership whilst respecting multilateralism.
Incumbent Igor Smirnov wins presidential elections in the internationally unrecognized state of Transnistria.
Christer Fuglesang, the first Scandinavian in space, and six other astronauts on mission STS-116 arrive at the International Space Station.
Former Chilean head of state Augusto Pinochet (age 91) dies one week after suffering a heart attack.
Marc Ravalomanana is re-elected as President of Madagascar.

Wikinews – Recent deaths – More current events...

Volume 2, Issue 50 — 11 December 2006

Archives·Newsroom·Tip line·Single-page·Subscribe

[edit] My edit count:

Goals

This user tries to do the right thing. If they make a mistake, please let him or her know.

This user is happy to help new users. Leave a message here.

This user wants to be your friend.

This user loves ice cream and chocolate.

This user eats strawberries.

2006 January 29 = 3400 edits on 340 pages,
- 549 edits on articles, 1000 on project pages, 700 on User Talk pages, 470 on article talk pages
- 450 pages being watched
- most recent contributions to human extinction avoidance
2006 January 21 = 3050 edits on 310 pages & 400 pages watched
- 415 edits on articles, 435 on their talk pages, or approx 1/3 of my efforts here
- 920 edits on project pages, 220 on their talk pages, and a handful on category pages, also aggregate about 1/3 of my focus
- 385 edits on user pages, mainly mine, 675 on user talk pages ... lots of small byte do something, save so far
2006 January 7 = 2600 edits on 250 pages & 300 pages watched
- Last few days I helped out the Cyberlaw Project and posted some stuff at the Harvard Law School students wiki
2006 January 4 = 2500 edits on 215 pages & 250 pages watched
- 15% Articles
- 15% Article talk pages (seeking consensus)
- 30% Projects (much more than I realized ... I suspect Wiki codes some stuff as Projects that I not realize as such ... how are the Help desks coded?)
- 4% Project talk
- 8% User (too much)
- 25% User talk (too high ... I gotta spend higher proportion of my time here contributing to the encyclopaedia)
2005 December = 2000 edits Christmas Eve
- on 180 pages and recently only 100 pages watcched
  - (12 edits / page)
- with 60 edits been deleted.
2005 June 28 was wikiborn = Joined WP

This user has a ton of edits.

[edit] Season's Greetings

Happy new leap second.
Thank God its Friday, on steroids.

Picture of the day

A large bolt of lightning strikes west of downtown Denver, Colorado, with the Qwest Tower (center) in plain view. Denver, known as the "Mile-High City" because its official elevation is one mile (1.6 km), is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Colorado. In the spring and summer, Denver is subject to monsoon conditions with frequent thunderstorms.

Photo credit: Dag Peak
Archive - More featured pictures...

[edit] Featured Article of the Day

The Mormon handcart pioneers were participants in the migration of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to Salt Lake City, Utah who used handcarts to transport their belongings. The Mormon handcart movement began in 1856 and lasted until 1860. Motivated to join their fellow Church members but lacking funds for full ox or horse teams, nearly 3,000 Mormon pioneers from England, Wales, and Scandinavia made the journey to Utah in 10 handcart companies. Although fewer than ten percent of the 1847–68 Latter-day Saint emigrants made the journey west using handcarts, the handcart pioneers have become an important symbol in LDS culture, representing the faithfulness and sacrifice of the pioneer generation. The handcart pioneers continue to be recognized and honored in events such as Pioneer Day, Church pageants, and similar commemorations. The handcart treks were a familiar theme in 19th century Mormon folk music and have been a theme in LDS fiction, such as Gerald Lund's historical novel, Fire of the Covenant, and Orson Scott Card's science-fiction short story, "West." (more...)

Recently featured: History of the board game Monopoly – Fundamental Rights, Directive Principles and Fundamental Duties of India – Green and Golden Bell Frog

Archive – By email – All 1,195 featured articles

[edit] New Year Resolutions

Take a break from giving lip service to losing weight, and just enjoy life.
- Here's a picture of me from a few years ago.

[edit] My activity

Heavily defined with the aid of userboxes. Where I give links to various WP articles about topics of interest to me, I have also been rather involved in editing many of those articles.

[edit] Archives

[edit] Userbox Concept

Hello

This user recently discovered userboxes.

This user prefers fix attempts over complaints of various sorts.

Userbox concept technique plagiarism from User:Ali K from User:Redvers with help from Wikipedia:Userboxes, assuming I can figure out how to work this concept (I not want wrap around vs. next sub-topic, nor do I want very wide pages, and I want the colors to be very readable to my aging eyes.).

	Interests
	WikiProject Userboxes
	Language
	Languages \| Non-ISO languages and dialects \| Writing systems \| Programming languages \| Grammar
	WikiProjects \| Comedy \| Computing \| Food \| Games \| History \| Mathematics \| Music \| Science \| Sports \| Miscellaneous Media: Books • Film • Television • Radio • Newsprint • Comics • Anime and manga
	Life
	Education \| Health \| Life \| Profession
	Location and time
	Location: Africa • Americas: Argentina · Brazil · Canada · U.S. • Asia • Europe: Germany · Spain · U.K. • Oceania Time: Seasonal • Time zone
	Other
	Emoticons \| Userboxes \| Wikipedia See also: Userbox migration • Userbox policy

[edit] Point of View

We all have a POV or bias on some topics, and need to be careful not to contaminate factual WP articles with our opinions.

This user is a mad scientist.

I identify with a collection of view points from different competing philosophies.

I share the libertarian view that we all need to be accountable for our actions.
I share the liberal view that we all have a responsibility to help our fellow humans with some kind of social safety net.
I share the conservative view that a nation ought to have a strong economy to pay for a strong military to protect itself.
I favor a variety of international efforts to make the world a better place for us all.

[edit] Geography

Geography

This user is from the planet Earth.

This user is a Citizen of the World (Terra, ⊕).

Time CDT

This user observes Daylight Saving Time.

Template:User expat Great Britain in US

This user is of Scottish ancestry

I reside and work in Evansville Indiana USA. United States which is on Central daylight savings time ... I guess no uesr box yet for CDT time.
I got my college education in Cincinnati Ohio and Sacramento California.
I was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, which is part of Great Britain, or United Kingdom. United Kingdom

[edit] Who Am I?

This is from before joining WP. Much about me is subject to change. If I could, I would boycott death.

Identity

This user is male.

zodiac

aquarius

My e-mail MacWheel is a play on my surname.
My full name is Alister William Macintyre.
I sign my name with William shortened as Wm.
In the work place I am generally known as Al Macintyre.
- Except for leg pullers who insist on using MacAlister, or some other variant.

[edit] Career

Skills: Incomplete list

prog

This user is a programmer.

sql

This user can program in SQL.

I work in the computer profession, currently programming ERP {version 405 CD of BPCS} on the IBM AS/400 operating system. At previous employers I have developed applications for: retail; wholesale; publishing; transportation. Sorry Y"all. I have been frenetically busy of late, so there has been a lapse in my contributions here.

[edit] Wiki WP Involvement

Community Projects

This user answers questions at the Help desk and Reference desk, occasionally asks some, and checks on New user needs, but is not yet good enough here for know-how competition.

HP	This user is a member of Wikipedia's Help Project.

This user is involved with the Usability Wiki Project

This user is a member of WikiProject Userboxes.

This user is a member of the
Stargate WikiProject

Note that I have joined some projects, and identified interests, but made significant contributions, in only a few areas, and I often manage to get over-committed.

I am interested in helping out with the Cyberlaw project. However, my cyberlaw know-how is that of spending many decades in the computer professional trenches, having had computer security responsibilities for about 40 years, and having no formal training in the law, and not a lot of academic credentials.

I've been a bit heavy with suggestions on many WP talk pages, while rather timid in actual article editing, other than where I tried to start new articles.

[edit] Computer Security

This is a major professional interest area, a great degree due to my career.

Security breaches
- I failed to find the time to rewrite to Wiki standards ... i may try again some time in the future ... see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Security breaches
Computer security audit and Talk:Computer security audit
- I began to rewrite this, my spare time has evaporated ... hopefully it won't go the same way.

[edit] Book a holic

user book-a-holic

Books disorganized

This user reads between the lines.

This user uses Wikipedia as his or her primary point of reference.

I have enjoyed reading Science Fiction since I was a pre-teenager, then branched out into other genres. My apartment has grown cluttered with many things, including looking like a section of a library. I started the Time travel in fiction article, which has exploded with numerous other contributors, and now there is a Category:Time travel in fiction.

[edit] Gamer

Games

This user passed GO !
(…so where is my $200?)

This user plays with a full deck.

This user enjoys playing chess.

user GO

This user is a BoardGameGeek.

I enjoy many traditional games like Go (board game) and not so traditional, although it has been a while since I played some of them.

[edit] Time Travel Game Designer

I have designed a few Science Fiction Games, such as Time travel in fiction "Simulation". In my later life, I hope to put this stuff in the public domain, so that people can play my designs over the Internet. I have worked on the Time travel article and Time travel in fiction, in fact I started that secondary article, to split the growing content between the main article which presents Time travel as being factually plausible, and the Science Fiction perspective.

[edit] Remainder in re-write

This is how

This user contributes using
Internet Explorer.

This user is a member of
Wikipedia.

This user scored 411,64 on the Wikipediholic test.

tna

This user almost tried to edit this nonexistent article.

[edit] Userbox enhancement needs

There are several boxes I need to figure out how to revise, that are not precise mesh with my interests, just in the neighborhood.
Locate the template. For example, color combinations are hostile to my eyesight through the browser I have used. I have heard that some of my solutions are hostile to other eyes as seen by other eyes through other browsers.

Copy it to your page. Then revise it.

rpg

This user is an aficionado of role-playing games.

My interest in RPG is both Role Playing Games and the computer language Report Program Generator.

This user is addicted to the computer game, "Civilization".

[edit] Other Wiki Interests

Wiki places I been intermittently pretty active so far (this list is far from exhaustive), excluding those already mentioned elsewhere in this collection.

[edit] New ideas

{{| width="30%" align="center" style="border: 1px solid #6688AA; background-color:#efefef; padding:1em;" valign="top"| Portal of the Week}}

AlMac/Growing Expertise

[edit] Why I love this place

Wikimood
[purge]	[edit]

Let me count the ways.

[edit] High Ratio of Signal to Noise

Attitude

This user finds edit/revert wars disruptive.

This user does not feed trolls.

There are some problems, but proportionally small compared to some other Internet sites.

By Signal, I mean information that interests me.
By Noise, I mean people saying or writing stuff that gets in the way of me getting at the information I want to see.

Many discussion groups have a high ratio of noise to signal.

People misconstrue what we said (some deliberately), then attack what they say we said, which is not what we said.
There can be a lot of Deja Vu (didn't we have this conversation already?)

[edit] Massive Value

User:AlMac/Wiki Start Map explodes this so the individual details are readable, and here's the context from which I plagarized the diagram.
Lots of people have contributed information and links of great value, but there's lots more work to be done. We all can contribute to making a great service even greater.

Al not yet figured out how to rename this as self, without copying the image.

[edit] Watch out for Correct Speech

Be bold!

Wiki Correct Speech takes a bit of getting used to.

Not just be nice
- Be Very Nice
Be Bold
- But also be neutral
- and find ways to do emphasis on steroids without resorting to 4 letter words

This user assumes good faith.

[edit] High Focus on Truth

High Focus on Truth, without having to cite every assertiun in rigorous academic sense. Systems for resolving disputes when different volunteers cannot reach a peaceable settlement in this community. However, there is the risk that the concensus committee approach will occasionally design a camel in place of a race horse.

[edit] Useful External Links

Tutorial on Wiki Commands

[edit] Sig

en	This user is a native speaker of English.

(see how to do this) Al Mac repaired User:AlMac|^(talk) 09:44, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Since you can read this page, thank a teacher.
Since it is in English, and you have the freedom to get to it, thank a soldier.
But keep an eye on politicians trying to regulate the Internet.
and where some info seems to be gobbly gook, thank a spammer.

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