User:Alarob

Alarob is Working

My photo of kittens Harry and Stella made it into the love gallery on Wikipedia Signpost (11 Feb 2015). It also illustrates the article Hug (in English and Croatian), among other uses. Did you know that sześciotygodniowy is Polish for "six weeks old"? [1]

Userboxes This user is currently working on a doctoral dissertation. It is approximately 9:31 AM where this user lives. This user has autopatrolled rights on the English Wikipedia. (verify) This user has pending changes reviewer rights on the English Wikipedia. (verify) This user account is secured with a unique committed identity. This user participates in Pages needing translation into English. Wikipedia Ich schreibe Beiträge für die deutschsprachige Wikipedia. I support German language Wikipedia with my contributions. This user has been on Wikipedia for 11 years and 27 days. wd-3 WikiDefcon Level is Elevated. 4.8CVS / 4.6RPM according to DefconBot

Hi, I am Rob C from Alabama. Drop a note on my talk page. (Or send email.)

About this user[edit]

I am a historian, computer tech, and Ph.D. candidate at Auburn University.

On Wikipedia these days I'm mostly copyediting or doing gnomish tasks. I don't have time for anything more ambitious.

My contributions[edit]

I recently revised:  Josceline de Bohon : : Dispilio Tablet : : West Branch, Michigan : : Alive Hospice : : Pace, Florida : : Triple Frontier : : Haboob

Articles I've started:  American Farmland Trust : : August Wenzinger : : Avinash Sachdev : : Bartram's Travels : : Bernard Gregory : : Buckdancer's Choice : : Burnt Corn, Alabama : : City of Basel Music Academy : : Contraguitar : : Cusseta, Alabama : : Elko, Georgia : : Farid Esack : : Flintridge Building : : Folkwang Academy : : Frederica (given name) : : Georg Schäfer : : Gesellschaft für das Gute und Gemeinnützige : : Hadron collider : : History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America : : Huntley Project : : J. Gordon Coogler : : James R. Osgood : : John Pope (travel writer) : : Lauren Newton : : Lukas Vischer (theologian) : : Mamma Haidara Commemorative Library : : Mathias Rüegg : : Montgomery Symphony Orchestra : : Museum Georg Schäfer : : Museum of Cultures Basel : : Poarch Creek Indian Reservation : : Ring shout : : Sankt Georgen Graduate School of Philosophy and Theology : : Schloss Ebenrain : : Schrammelmusik : : Suum cuique : : Vienna Art Orchestra : : Vischer Ferry, New York : : William and Mary Quarterly

Disambiguation pages ("dab pages" for short):  Arts and letters (disambiguation) : : Ballantine : : Benjamin Porter : : Frederika : : James Douglass : : Luke Field : : Northridge High School : : Lukas Vischer : : Romano-Germanic : : Standard Oil (disambiguation) : : VAO

These are still stub-class:  Al-Mu'tasim, Iraq : : Benjamin F. Porter : : Big Warrior : : Cappella Coloniensis : : Cherokee War of 1776 : : Cusseta tribal town : : Heutelia : : The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution : : Johann Spies : : John Harvard Library : : John Harvard Library (series) : : Lucerne School of Music : : Lukas Vischer (collector) : : Pompey's Pillar, Montana : : Spanish West Florida : : Tukabatchee : : William H. Miles : : WVSU-FM

Templates:  Unicode support notice for Canadian Aboriginal syllabics : : Ditto for Cherokee syllabics

Babel boxes:  Appalachian English : : Middle English (basic, intermediate, fluent, advanced)

Other pages in my userspace:  Userboxen : : Languages : : Travels : : 10 Random Pages : : References : : Workspace

Personal stats[edit]

(Updated infrequently.) As of June 2015 I had made over 10,730 edits to more than 3,300 pages.

• 3.2 average edits per page
• Most active months: August 2008, July 2007
• I've started 67 of Wikipedia's 5,224,106 articles.
• My latest contributions

Watchlist oddities[edit]

Some of the more unusual articles I keep an eye on:

Beer in Alabama : : Chang and Eng Bunker : : Dictionary of Received Ideas : : Frick and Frack : : Guadalcanal Diary (band) : : List of fatal alligator attacks in the United States by decade : : Mike the Headless Chicken : : Muslimgauze : : Pylon (band) : : St. Marx Cemetery : : The real McCoy : : Why did the chicken cross the road?

About Wikipedia[edit]

18 August 2016
News and notes: Focus on India—WikiConference produces new apps; state government adopts free licenses Special report: Engaging diverse communities to profile women of Antarctica In the media: The ugly, the bad, the playful, and the promising Featured content: Simply the best ... from the last two weeks Traffic report: Olympic views Technology report: User script report (January–July 2016, part 2) Arbitration report: The Michael Hardy case
Single page Book Front page About Subscribe Suggestions Archives

Wikipedia does not contain the truth. Articles in Wikipedia, at their best, reflect the general state of human knowledge, or in other words, what most qualified people these days believe to be true. I reserve the right to believe that most people are wrong about some things. But I do not have the right to make my opinion prevail in Wikipedia. (See: Wikipedia: Verifiability.)

On writing for Wikipedia[edit]

From "observations on Wikipedia behavior" by Antandrus:

• Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. The primary job of Wikipedians is to write it. Everything else is secondary.
• The very existence of Wikipedia is a massive proof that there are more people in the world wanting to build than to tear down. Were that not true, vandals would have overwhelmed and destroyed us years ago.
• The best way to continue as a writing Wikipedian for many years is to be, as the Buddha recommends, "indifferent to both praise and blame." Indifference to praise is a hard task for mere humans, but millions of potential anonymous readers demand it of you…. And remember this: you are allowed to take your work seriously here, and think highly of your own efforts; but be advised, don't talk about it.
• A common insult hurled at dedicated Wikipedia editors is that they "have no life." If you write extensively in an out-of-the-way area, you may well become the most widely read writer in the world on your topic. There are worse ways of "having no life", such as abusing the few actually useful people on the internet, but those who deliver such insults are invariably tone-deaf to irony.

Systemic bias[edit]

The typical Wikipedian is a relatively privileged white male "knowledge worker," student, or professional from the so-called First World who has easy access to the Internet and a high comfort level with geekery. This imposes a systemic bias on the encyclopedia's coverage of topics, a bias that militates against the ideal of a universal repository of human knowledge. Overcoming that bias is an interesting challenge.

To date, most of my articles have been located in the American South (where I'm from) or in Europe, and most of my editing of biographies has been about men. I'm trying to branch out more.

WikiProject Countering systemic bias open tasks This project creates new articles and improves neglected ones.

Review and Improve: Eastern Europe · Central Europe · Medical assistant · Hoda Barakat · Women's rights movement in Iran · Roch Marc Christian Kaboré · Cultural practice · Covance · History of East Asia · White pride · Ryke Geerd Hamer · Western painting · American exceptionalism · American (word) · BRIC · Origin of AIDS · Moon-eyed people · Australia national soccer team · Leopard Society Requests:  · Marcel Météore  · Oscar Pill · Sorbian literature  · Resistance to colonial rule in Africa  · Man-leopard murders  · American-led intervention in Iraq (2014–present) Expand: Henrique Abranches · Ti-Grace Atkinson · List of Muslim educational institutions · Muntaqim v. Coombe · Turbi massacre · International labor standards · National Unity Party · Álvaro Mutis · African Progress Union · Surojana Sethabutra · Rachel Foster Avery · MediaSmarts Update: First Ivorian Civil War · Cotonou · Banjul · War in Darfur · Stay-at-home dad · Ituri conflict other tasks | edit

Some articles that need help[edit]

Benjamin Hawkins (mere storytelling) : : Cherokee-American wars (mistitled, but no clear alternative) : : History of Alabama (needs rewrite, begun here) : : Islam in the United States (a bias magnet) : : William McIntosh (needs rewrite, begun here) : : Zheng He (sprawling, confused)

Other wiki projects[edit]

Besides the other Wikimedia projects shown here, I'm a contributor to:
ArchivesWiki : : BhamWiki : : Papers of the War Department, 1784-1800 : : Wikivoyage

Interwiki Userpages Wiktionary User: Alarob (talk) Wikisource User: Alarob (talk) Wikimedia Commons User: Alarob (talk) Wikimedia Incubator User: Alarob (talk) Wikimedia Meta-Wiki User: Alarob (talk)

I've made minor contributions to the German, Spanish, French, Italian, and Bengali Wikipedias.