View source for User:GestaltG

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''I had a dream once many years ago about the [[Library of Alexandria]]...I don't think Wikipedia was mentioned anywhere in the dream.''

I am a civil litigation [[Paralegal]] employed in downtown [[Pittsburgh]], Pennsylvania, USA.  I have also studied in graduate and undergraduate [[liberal arts]] programs, attended business college, and have been a [[science fiction]] and [[military history]] fan since I was a teenager.  I have also served in two branches of the United States military, both in combat arms and military headquarters billets.  My hobby is [[wargaming]] and game design.

From all of this lifetime of work, I bring to Wikipedia formal education and life understanding of various subjects which I may apply to specific subject areas, for example, adding historical dates for certain events, or editing and updating pages related to law and the paralegal profession.

Edits made by '''64.190.36.240''' are edits I make from work during my lunchtime.  I cannot log in from work as myself.  I do not create new articles from work or write major sections, I only fix typos and Wikify articles, often my own.

{{Userbox|red|white|Dog|This user only bites [[fools]], [[idiots]], [[losers]], and [[vandals]], and can smell stupidity a mile away}}

== My Major Projects so far... (2005) ==

Not counting minor edits, my projects are as follows:

* Wrote the long [[Beastmaster]] Television Series section (Aug 2005), all of which remains intact and undisputed.

* Started [[Daniel Goddard]] actor article, wrote most of the text currently in the article (Aug 2005).

* Started page for [[Grahame Bond (actor)]], actor from The [[Beastmaster]] Television Series (Dec 2005).  This is really just a stub and needs more research and work by someone who knows better than I.

* Added small text to [[Keith Hamilton Cobb]], [[Grace Jones]], [[Marjean Holden]], [[Monika Schnarre]], and other related actor articles (Aug 2005)

* Extensively re-wrote and expanded the [[Paralegal]] article (Aug 2005), it's about 3x longer than when I started, and thanks to vandalism control, most of my text remains and is undisputed.

* Started articles for [[Lynn Montross]], [[Harry Summers]], and [[William Ledyard Rodgers]] (all Dec 2005), all military writers and historians; Wikipedia is light on military materials and stubs.  Suggested separate stub categories for Military Historians and Military Analysts.  Thanks [[User: Avalon|Avalon]], [[User: Caerwine|Caerwine]] and [[User: BL Lacertae|Bl Lacertae]] who wikkified the [[Harry Summers]] stub article for me.

* "Rescued" the [[E-mail Games]] entry from probable deletion, by expanding it from a mere advertizement for the EMG website, into a short informative article on the free PBEM hobby, with relevant links to some sample free PBEM sites (Dec 2005).  Rather than finding a collection of links to games run by EMG, the Wikiuser now comes away having learned a little about the free PBEM hobby and its commercial PBM predecessor.

* Expanded [[Color commentator]] article to include non-sports broadcasting color commentators (Dec 2005).  The existing article was far too narrow, in that color commentators work in all fields of broadcasting now, and not just sports.  I came to this article by way of a link placed in my Harry Summers article.

* Added Roman Catholocism reference to [[Lich]] article (Dec 2005) which vastly improved the article by giving it non Dungeons & Dragons references.  Reorganized article, others reorganized it more after me.

* Nominated [[Anime Unleashed]] page for deletion, participated in Afd discussions for fourteen other pages, learning what makes a bad article, criteria and process for deletion, and the guidelines for speedy deletion (Dec 2005).  Also learned a bit about Wiktionary guidelines.  While the Anime Unleashed page was ultimately not deleted, that still doesn't mean it has any value or that it's a worthy or good article; it is still just a stub with a long program guide list attached.  The "article" should be merged with something else.

== My Projects 2006 ==

*My current project is expanding and rewriting the [[Carl von Clausewitz]] article.  In the process, I have made grammatical, spelling and capitalization and Wikifying edits to the [[Karl von Grolman]] and [[Michel Ney]] articles, and tagged both articles for cleanup and copyedit, and tagged the Nay article for NPOV because of the "hero-worship" tone of the article and unbalanced treatment of the criticism of Marshal Ney's actions.  These articles need more attention than I can give them right now.

== Editorial Stand regarding video game modifications articles ==

Wikieditors do a reasonably good job in detecting and deleting fancruft related to music groups, television series, movies and books, but apparently, those who write the dozens or hundreds of articles on every modification of any popular video game have gone undetected as fancruft.  There are literally hundreds of video games released every year, and hundreds or thousands of upgrades, modifications, bug fixes, patches, and updates for those games released every year.  Does Wikipedia really need an article on every modifiction to the Half Life 2 or Half Life video games?  Even if the video game is a notable enough subject for an article, I strongly believe that articles about modifications of the video game are non-notable matter.  Further, such articles are nothing but advertizements stuck into Wikipedia, and are more suitable material for fan sites and game promotional pages.  Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and not a free webhost.  For that matter, articles about specific video games could possibly be challenged as non-notable and advertizements; very few video games are notable even within the subject of video games.  This is no different than writing a separate article on every dime romance novel that is published every year, or a separate article on every book in the Casca the Eternal Mercenary series.  Whenever I see an article on a video game modification, I will move to delete it until this is adopted as an editorial principle of Wikipedia.  If you want to discuss this, please post it to my talk page; please don't edit my user page. [[User:GestaltG|GestaltG]] 20:45, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

== Other Disclaimers ==

This User is associated with [[User:Jeffsu]] through no fault of his own.

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{{Userbox|yellow|white|Wargamer|This user is an old hardcore [[wargamer]] and [[game designer]], thank [[God]]}}