User talk:Heimstern/ACE2012

Arbitration time-keeping seems to suffer from a bias of perspective, so you may be interested to know that arbitration cases have tended to close nearer to (or on) scheduole more often in 2012 than in previous years. I started to collect some data on this subject, but got bored.[1] I pride myself on drafting GoodDay, which closed in two weeks. Rather than to glorify myself, I tell you this to point out that, proud as I am for getting that case off our docket in record time, deciding cases in less time is getting harder and harder: unlike GoodDay, arbitration cases are getting more and more complex. I submit to you that you do not give enough thought to the increasingly difficult nature of the cases that come before us (no more absurdly obvious Plautus satires for us).

The Arbitration Committee is also more divided in opinion this year than it's ever been (in my experience, at least), with several votes stale-mating and most being very close. If I were to hazard a guess at your opinion, I think you'd agree with me that a committee composed of people who can think for themselves (rather than a panel of useless yes-men, like in certain previous committees) is better for the project. The only question is whether you are happy to exchange the making of sound decisions through frank debate for speedier cases. As always, I've enjoyed your guide. AGK [•] 15:36, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi there. Finally getting back to you on this.

Perhaps really what I object to is not the length of time the cases take to finish as it is the length of time it takes for us to actually hear anything about it. It takes ages for the arbs to analyze the evidence and post anything in the way of the decision, after which the votes just roll in. I'm not entirely sure what's happening; perhaps long discussions on the mailing list? Hard to tell from my point of view. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 12:54, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

On article edits

The thing is, I pretty much am teh suk at writing articles; Bobino (TV series) is arguably one of my best efforts and it's passable at best. I was drawn to Wikipedia in the olden days where I could just drive by stubs written in my field of expertise and fill 'em out from personal knowledge ("ooh, ooh I know this!"), but writing for Wikipedia nowadays requires much more skill at writing and, more importantly, researching than I am comfortable with. So what I do is I play my strengths instead, and help with the infrastructure side.

It's kinda funny, actually, if you draw a parallel to my career. I'm an okay coder, and this is how I started. But while I still code when I need to whip up something that does the job without it being very elegant, I've been a system administrator for over 20 years now, almost always in places that do development. So I end up working behind the scenes making sure the stuff runs well so that the good devs can do their jobs.  :-) — Coren ^(talk) 15:04, 19 November 2012 (UTC)