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Revision as of 13:44, 12 June 2005 editMel Etitis (talk | contribs)60,375 edits →My contributions← Previous edit Revision as of 17:05, 13 June 2005 edit undo38.112.194.37 (talk)No edit summaryNext edit →
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'''Warning''' This user is an Islamist who somehow got Admin powers.
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|style="font-size: 85%"|'''This is a Misplaced Pages user page.'''


He should be considered extremely opinionated, and "armed and dangerous" as far as POV-pushing is concerned.
If you find this page on any site other than Misplaced Pages, you are viewing a mirror site. Be aware that the page may be outdated, and that the user this page belongs to may have no personal affiliation with any site other than Misplaced Pages itself. The original page is located at http://en.wikipedia.org/{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAMEE}}.
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== Me ==
Now, there's not much point using a pseudonym if you then blurt out your mundane identity (where would that have got Batman?), but a couple of misunderstandings have occasionally arisen, which I ought to head off.

]First, despite my User name, I'm not Greek but English (half Irish, in fact, but born and brought up in England). I took the name ''Mel Etitis'' from some on-line dialogues on the philosophy of religion; the original Greek word has been distorted to make it look like a name, but it means something like "one who studies".

Secondly, the character in the dialogues is female; I'm male. Not important, but some people get needlessly embarrassed if they find that someone they've been referring to as "she" turns out to be a he.

Thirdly, despite my youthful appearance (both on the page and – you'll have to take my word for this – in real life) I'm not far off fifty; I'm a philosopher by profession, teaching in the University of Oxford, and spent many years teaching English as a Foreign Language, also in Oxford.

Aside from all that, my interests are wide and varied, my musical, literary, and other tastes are eclectic, and some of them are represented in my contributions (though some are not, and some of my contributions are utterly unrelated to my tastes or interests).

I'm an ], which means that I'm an ordinary editor who's been trusted with a few extra powers to help me do some largely tedious housekeeping jobs. Being an admin doesn't mean that I'm in any way above Misplaced Pages policy, and in fact brings with it extra responsbility — so if you think that I've behaved wrongly, let me know — but politely; it's most likely to be inadvertent, as is most wrongdoing here. (If I have a fault ("if"!), it's that I tend to respond badly to rudeness and agression.)

<br><div style="align: center; width: 40%; padding: 1em; border: solid 2px yellow; background-color: darkblue;">
''''''</div><br>

== My contributions ==
I spend quite a bit of time ] through the encyclop&aelig;dia, tidying English and style, adding ] and ], occasionally doing more extensive editing. It's not glamorous, but I think that it helps make the encyclop&aelig;dia better and more readable.

After a longish period of doing no more than this, both before and after I registered, I finally started making more substantial contributions to existing articles, and even adding new articles of my own. So far they are (or are planned to be):<br clear=all>

{| border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" align="center"
! style="background:#cdcdcd;" align=center width="50%"| New articles
! style="background:#cdcdcd;" align=center width="50%"| Existing articles
|-
| valign="top" style="background:#e6e8fa"|
*'''Music'''
**] (English jazz singer)
**] (Scottish jazz musician &amp; composer)
**] (jazz musician)
**] (jazz musician)
**]
**] (English jazz composer &amp; musician)
**] (lyricist &amp; poet)
**] (English jazz singer)
**] (English jazz musician)
**] (English jazz singer)
*'''Philosophy'''
**] (18th-century Ghanaian philosopher)
**]
**]
**]
**]
**] (17th-century English philosopher)
**] (Ghanaian philosopher)
**] (modern philosopher)
**]
**] (Belgian missionary, influential in ])
**] (1st-century C.E. Chinese philosopher)
**] (17th-century Chinese philosopher)
**] (Ghanaian philosopher)
*'''Miscellaneous'''
**]
**]
**]
**] (novelist)
**]
**]
**]
**] (] item)
**] (institute in Tehran)
**] (1873&ndash;1924)
**] (one of Noah's grandsons)
**]
**]
**]
**] (1956 film)
**] (English actress)
**]
**] (English actress)
**]

(I haven't included new Category pages here, of which I've created or revivified a few.) I've also created the following page, into which I plan to insert all the relevant free images from the Misplaced Pages archives:

*]

I started a page designed for those who are contributing, or who want to contribute, to Misplaced Pages in a language other than their first or native language:

*]

Finally, I've up-loaded ].

| valign="top" style="background:#e6e8fa"|
Articles on which I've done significant work, up to and including complete rewriting:
*'''Music'''
**] (Dutch jazz trombonist)
**] (Cuban singer)
**] (Portuguese jazz musician)

*'''Philosophy''' (or related)
**] (a continuing project)
**] (medi&aelig;val Arab philosopher)
**] (hetaira, mistress of Pericles, inspiration of Plato)
**]
**]
**]
**]
**] (modern Chinese philosopher)
**] (modern African philosopher)
**]
**]
**] (Spanish scholastic philosopher)
**] (19th-century English philosopher)
*'''Miscellaneous'''
**]
**] (of the Heimlich manoeuver)
**] (Russian politician)
**] (Tennyson poem)
**] (German writer)
**] (gladiator)
**]
**] (discussion group including Einstein)
**]
**] (Australian writer)
**]
**] (1961 film)

Plans for significant work on existing articles:

*]
*]
*]
|}

I score, incredibly, only 142 on the . This labels me an addict, but only just. On the other hand, it'll definitely have gone up since the last time I dared to take it.

I've made edits since I registered on 29th December 2004. Good grief, that's over 2,500 edits a month; that addiction test isn't doing its job. (: 25th April 2005. : 12th June 2005.)

==Thanks==
], hereby award ] this ] for having an amazing 5-digit edit count, and an unbelievable average of 85.09 edits '''per day'''! Keep up the amazing work! Misplaced Pages will benefit for as long as you are ignorant of ] :-) Please don't lose yourself along the way- I hope that you will always remain as great a contributor as you are now.]]]<small>Thanks for the assistance. Also can you help me out in... wait you already did. I dont know how to classify this but I think this would be sufficcent for the random act of kindness barnstar. Congratulations. --] ] 01:34, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)</small>

]
]
]
] --] ] 04:14, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
<br clear=left>

==My attitudes to Misplaced Pages (an excuse for some moans)==
My main attitude, of course, is the desire to help build this into an ever more useful reference work and information centre. I've some more specific thoughts, however:

#'''Votes for deletion'''. There's a tendency on the part of some editors to see this as their most important task. Well, it ''is'' important, of course; removing what's inaccurate, misleading, or biased is as important as adding what's accurate, helpful, and neutral. On the other hand, an overzealous attitude can lead to the removal of genuinely useful material that's of minority interest.
#*One frustratingly annoying habit is the appeal to Google &mdash; the unargued (and largely unchallenged) assumptions being, first, that any topic worth mentioning appears on the Web (and with a frequency that reflects its importance), and secondly, that Google is wholly accurate. The latter is relatively insignificant, but the former is breathtakingly and demonstrably false.
#*The most significant area is people, though: whilst the smallest village in the U.S. has its own page, with full and tedious census details, let someone add an article about an academic, actor, writer, etc., who isn't widely known and acknowledged, and a pack of editors appear, yapping that the person isn't &lsquo;notable&rsquo;. Leave aside the inconsistency for a moment; many of those who are claimed to be non-notable by this Vfd-pack are known to and have affected more people than all the nay-sayers put together (one sometimes wonders if that isn't the problem).
#*My approach, therefore, unless there's some genuine reason to delete, such as a prank article, is either not to get involved in such votes on people, or (if I can see a good argument against deletion) to vote to keep.
#'''Voting in general'''. There's a disturbing tendency on the part of many editors to jump into a discussion, vote without reading any of the comments, and then leave. The main symptom is a terse comment that clearly ignores what's gone before, and even seems to have been made in ignorance of the object of the discussion (see, for example, , or the full, depressing debate ). It can make the business of voting a farce. Some admins take comments into account, and presumably make allowances for this sort of blind (and therefore pretty irrelevant) voting, but some just mechanically tot up the numbers.
#'''Admins'''. The vast majority of admins with whom I've had contact have been helpful, considerate, and professional in their approach. They're human, though, and occasionally one will develop a blind spot with regard to some issue, or a far from disinterested approach, and act against Misplaced Pages rules. What seems to happen then is that either their behavior is ignored by other admins, or (especially when the clamour of ordinary users is loud) they're subjected to a mild finger-wagging. If non-admins had behaved in the same way, they'd likely have been blocked from editing for a while &mdash; either generally or on a specific article or topic. Simple fairness demands the same treatment for the same behaviour &mdash; but given that admins are in fact expected to behave better than ordinary editors, it would seem right that they should be treated more strictly when they fall well short.<br>Now that I am an admin, I hold the same view, incidentally.

==Licence==
I agree to ] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

{{MultiLicensePD}}

Revision as of 17:05, 13 June 2005

Warning This user is an Islamist who somehow got Admin powers.

He should be considered extremely opinionated, and "armed and dangerous" as far as POV-pushing is concerned.