Welcome to the next exciting installment of our Featured Wikian Interviews. Today we're speaking with Mainphramephreak.
Wikia: Tell us a little bit about yourself.
- Mainphramephreak: I'm a husband and father of two wonderful kids. I love reading, camping, four-wheel riding, and watching movies. I'm a fan of Star Trek, The Wheel of Time, Brandon Sanderson and a whole lot more. I'm from the U.S. I've been a part of Wikia since 2006.
- My username is interesting as well. You may have seen me around, but under a different name. My signature says "Willie." This is because, a long time ago, a friend of mine told me that I look like Gene Wilder. The nickname stuck and I've used it as my signature since joining. My username is something from my high school days that was kind of given to me by my best friend.
Wikia: How did you first discover Wikia?
- Mainphramephreak: It was a complete accident. I was surfing about on the internet and came across Memory Alpha. It took me longer than I care to admit to notice the links to thinks like the talk pages and so forth. I started helping out there and eventually found my way to the Wheel of Time Wiki.
Wikia: Which wikis do you spend the most time on?
- Mainphramephreak: Mostly, I'm on my main wiki, the Wheel of Time Wiki. I'm a bureaucrat there. I also pop over to the Community Wiki a couple of times a day to see what's going on. I poke around the Dev Wiki to see if they've come up with any great additions to Java or CSS.
Wikia: What do you think is great about Wikia?
- Mainphramephreak: I love the community aspect of Wikia. I love being able to ask for help, or even better, help others with my knowledge. I also love being able to create and expand a site dedicated to a really great book series.
Wikia: How has Wikia inspired you or supported your passion?
- Mainphramephreak: Wikia gives me the opportunity to give back to the Wheel of Time fans. It helps me contribute to the fan base and WoT community.
Wikia: What would your top 5 tips for new folks on a wiki be?
- Mainphramephreak:
- Ask questions! Never be afraid to ask questions or ask for help. I've been a part of Wikia for eight years and I still ask questions.
- Keep an eye on the Recent Changes page. My "lightbulb" moment came when I checked the RC and found the history of a page I changed. Someone had come behind me and corrected some code that wasn't right. I learned that day that the RC is a Wikian's best friend. You can learn a lot about wiki code from looking at the RC and history pages.
- Look under the hood. Look at the background pages in the MediaWiki, Help and wiki-specific namesapces as well as the policy pages. These pages are great for learning your way around.
- Be bold. Anything can be reverted or fixed. Mistakes happen and we're only human. We learn by doing. I would rather someone edit and make mistakes and not edit at all.
- Have fun. This is supposed to be an enjoyable experience. Editing and interacting shouldn't be work or a chore.
Wikia: What would you like to see that isn't on Wikia already?
- Mainphramephreak: I would like to see some additional customization. I love what they've done at the dev.wiki. Various java scripts and additions really make editing and viewing a wiki easy. It would be great to see some of those turned into easily activated features on the dashboard. I would also like to see some more customization in other areas as well. Something that was brought up here at the Community Wiki recently was the ability to change the Achievement system even more than what is currently available. Tailoring the wiki experience to each community is what, in my opinion, makes it a community.
Thank you to Mainphramephreak for taking the time to answer our questions! If you or someone you know would make a great Featured Wikian, please let us know by leaving a comment here with their username and a sentence on why they should be featured.
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