This is a clean start account. To the best of my knowledge, my previous account was not and never had been under any bans, blocks, or sanctions, and was last used in 2009.
I have health issues that occasionally keep me away from Wikipedia. If we are in the middle of a conversation and I go silent, then this is likely what happened. Thank you for remaining patient.
I am still learning how best to Wikipedia. I do not have everything figured out (and nor does anyone else). The opinions that I have now are probably not going to be the same as the opinions I hold in twleve months, which are probably not going to be the same as the opinions I hold in five years. And this is right and proper. The day that I think I have eveything figured out is the day I should pack everything in.
I don't really see the point to featured content (Featured Articles, Good Articles and the likes). Obviously, having high quality content is desirable, but I don't particularly see the benefits to the specific criteria and formal peer review process involved in raising an article to Good or Featured status. Or rather, I do see marginal benefits, but I consider them to be completely out of proportion with the time and energy that go into turning an article that is good into a Good Article.
When I access Wikipedia as a reader, rather than an editor, I certainly don't pay any heed to the Good and Featured article markers. If an article is good then I know it's good, by virtue of it being well written, thorough, and well sourced. I don't need a plus or a star to tell me. Conversely, I know that I cannot take a plus or a star as a guarantor of quality, because articles continue to be edited after reaching Featured status. And while it is possible to see the exact version of an article at the time it was promoted, there's a high chance that it's going to contain broken templates, deleted images, or outdated information, which makes it an unattractive prospect. (I also suspect that most readers wouldn't know how to find the version of the page that was featured.)
If anyone feels like explaining to me what the point of featured content is, or what problem it's designed to solve, then I would be genuinely interested to hear it.
Edit summaries are great. Or at least, they can and should be great. But they frequently are not. And I know I am as guilty of that as anyone. What I keep reminding myself is that writing a quick edit summary might save my time, but writing a good edit summary will save the time of everyone else who reads it, be that on their watchlist, recent changes, the page history, or anywhere else. I do not believe that my time is inherently more valuable than anyone else's, so I should take the time needed to write good edit summaries. I don't always do so, but I always should.
I believe that it is much more important for an individual to abide by consensus than to agree with it. I know there are Wikipedia policies that I personally disagree with, but I am willing to accept them, because that's an integral part of working on any project of this size. It would be frankly miraculous were everyone on Wikipedia to agree with all policies.
This means that people should be free to express disagreement with consensus without negative consequence (provided it is done at the appropriate time and place, and with appropriate civility, of course). This includes everything from talk page discussions to deletion discussions to core policies. For instance, it should be fine to disagree with consensus and voice the opinion that we should allow original research on Wikipedia; it should not be fine to ignore consensus and add original research anyway.
Too often, I see agreement with consensus being seen as a virtue and disagreement with consensus as a vice. This can come in the form of badgering, the tracking of AFD stats, or sometimes just outright breaches of civility policy. If a person has any reason to be wary of offering an opinion that disagrees with consensus, then they are less likely to give that opinion. This leads to pluralistic ignorance which makes true consensus impossible.
My favourite chess opening is the Old Benoni, my favourite number is 98, my favourite medieval ruler is Razia Sultana, my favourite Pokémon is Mareep, my favourite oceanic ridge is the Gakkel Ridge, my favourite gender-neutral third-person singular pronouns are the Spivak pronouns, and my favourite Muppet is Rowlf.
