User:AttemptToCallNil

I primarily edit Gamepedia wikis, which I was doing since about mid-2012 (on a wiki that wasn't yet part of Gamepedia until late 2013). Minecraft Wiki (English, Gamepedia) profile with more details


 * Admin on Minecraft Wiki (Russian, on Gamepedia): since Feb 2013
 * Bureaucrat on Minecraft Wiki (Russian, on Gamepedia): since Jul 2014
 * Admin on Minecraft Wiki (English, on Gamepedia): since May 2018

About me
I am me. I prefer to be identified not by any name or avatar, but instead by the total of my actions. That's why my names and avatars tend to be representations of nonexistence. I especially prefer not to be identified online by my real-life identity.

I edit wikis (sometimes, rarely now). I play single-player PC games. I do various stuff with computer technology that isn't necessarily just playing games.

(Spend two days compiling dependencies in just the right way to let kdenlive render an AV1 video? Why not. Convert a 35-minute video (1080p@30fps) to AV1 in 25 hours? Also why not. Write a procedural macro in Rust that derives a trait implementation not from the definition of a structure's members, but from its methods? Lots of "fun". Inject some assembly language code to make Age of Empires 2 villagers gather resources immediately without the need to carry them to a gather point, like in AoE 3? Sadly, it didn't remove the gather point logic when switching from a depleted source. Play with  due to a Wine regression? Yeah. Fix a bug in a wiki module that happened because of an incorrect assumption about how metavalues are accessed if the metatable itself has a metatable with   pointing elsewhere? ...)

I can talk a lot about games, technology, policy, wikis, philosophy, logic, and other things. Sadly, I don't have anyone to talk to.

Favorite animals: cats, tigers, and bears.

You can judge my personality by these random notes
Reasons to answer a question that's structurally a "yes/no" question in a way that isn't "yes" or "no":
 * 1) The answer to the question isn't known to the respondent, or is known with too much uncertainty ("Do extraterrestrial civilizations exist?"; note this is asking about an objective statement, not an opinion)
 * 2) The question is invalid because its validity depends on an assumption that isn't true ("Does your brother like cats?" if the respondent does not have a brother; "Does the largest prime end with 3?" given that there is no largest prime)
 * 3) The question is a hidden false dilemma where both "yes" and "no" correspond to extremes undesired by the respondent ("Are you an expert?" when communicating a detailed opinion on a specific subject without formal education on this matter; "yes" means "show me the document that certifies you as an expert, and yes, I know you do not have one", while "no" means "your lack of an expert certificate invalidates your opinion, and you had no moral right to communicate it")

A refutation of "if it doesn't exist, you don't need to think about it". Reasons to consider something that isn't "objectively existent and universally known to be such":
 * 1) The entity in question is generally known to exist, however, its nonexistence is a notable misconception
 * 2) The entity in question is generally known not to exist, however, its existence is a notable misconception
 * 3) The entity in question is proven not to exist, however, its nonexistence is notable in itself (e. g. the largest prime)
 * 4) The entity in question used to exist, does not exist any more, and one or more of the following are notable: 1) its previous existence; 2) its current nonexistence; 3) circumstances of its loss (e. g. extinction of a species; any sort of loss of material property or people; history in general)
 * 5) The entity in question exists, but didn't exist in the past, and one or more of the following are notable: 1) its previous nonexistence; 2) its current existence; 3) circumstances of its introduction (e. g. history of inventions; software regressions)
 * 6) The entity in question does not exist, but is anticipated to exist in the future, and one or more of the following are notable: 1) its anticipated existence; 2) its current nonexistence; 3) circumstances of its anticipated introduction (e. g. future disasters; any sort of circumstances where the entity is created with some intent)
 * 7) The entity in question exists, but is anticipated to be lost in the future, and one or more of the following are notable: 1) its anticipated nonexistence; 2) its current existence; 3) circumstances of its anticipated loss
 * 8) The existence or nonexistence of the entity in question is highly contested and a matter of debate (e. g. extraterrestrial life)
 * 9) The existence or nonexistence of the entity in question is a matter of faith

My opinions about Fandom that I think a lot of people would disagree with:
 * Wikis should make their purpose fundamental, and their policies should serve that purpose. In case the policy doesn't help in serving that purpose, it should be ignored per the "ignore all rules" principle.
 * Admins should not be allowed to set their wikis to only be editable by logged-in users without staff involvement and without a specific reason.
 * Wikis should generally allow logged-out editing.
 * Except in specific and unusual circumstances, wikis should not be allowed to carry over bans on any external resource to the wiki, including the wiki's Discord, or for game wikis, the associated game(s).
 * Wiki Discords should not be editor-only, and should provide non-editor channels where non-editors can discuss the wiki with editors. Better yet, they should be generally open and only have a small number of editor-only channels for focused discussions, and admin-only channels for private/sensitive discussions. And they definitely shouldn't have indiscriminate policies telling people not to share any information posted in limited channels outside these channels
 * Bureaucrats should be allowed and should have no more restrictions than: 1) not automatically granted to wiki founders, but available on request on established wikis with 3 or more currently active admins based on a community discussion; 2) only promoting admins or bureaucrats following community discussion.
 * Discussions should offer moderation information publicly like MediaWiki does, and should have comparable API client support.
 * No part of general admin tools, and definitely no part of non-admin editor tools, should require a legally binding NDA. Just about no currently available admin or editor tools should be taken away. (There might be one thing or two that involves private personal information, but that's about it.)
 * Rights holders / developers / publishers / writers / producers / etc. should have minimal to no editorial involvement with wikis, and should not be involved with wikis administratively, due to their conflict of interest.
 * "Vandalism" should mean only "actions specifically intended to harm the content quality of the wiki", and shouldn't be a catch-all term for "policy violation or other non-conventional behavior". "Spam" should only mean the commercial kind of spam, not just "unwanted content". "Disruptive behavior" for anything that's harmful in some specific demonstrable way, but isn't just limited to vandalism or spam, should be the fallback term used in policy.
 * FandomDesktop's full-width option is more generally useful for gaming wikis, or circumstances where large tables become just about the only meaningful presentation format. They aren't made to "appease Gamepedia editors", whose practices are implicitly declared unreasonable by such statements.